“The First Thanksgiving at Plymouth” (1914)
by Jennie A. Brownscombe
This Thursday is Thanksgiving Day in the United States. Although it was observed at various times and by various presidents during the early part of American history, it wasn’t until 1863 that the last Thursday in November was proclaimed a national “day of Thanksgiving and Praise” by President Abraham Lincoln. Since then, it has been an annual holiday, which in 1941 was amended slightly to be celebrated the fourth Thursday in November rather than the last Thursday of the month.
The origins of this American celebration date back to the Pilgrims at Plymouth Colony, who played a crucial role in the early history of this nation. In the late fall of 1621 the Pilgrims held a feast of thanksgiving for a good harvest. Of the 102 colonists that had left on the ship Mayflower to start a new life in the New World, only 53 had survived. The Pilgrims had arrived the previous year, landing at Plymouth Rock in December 1620. But since it was in winter, conditions were very hard, and nearly half the original passengers died from the disease and harsh conditions of that first winter. The Indians in the area were a tremendous help to the Pilgrims during their early struggles, teaching them how to catch eel and grow corn, and even giving them food. As a result, the surviving Pilgrims were grateful for a good harvest and the help they had received from the natives, so they held a harvest feast with the Indians. The following are a couple of first-hand accounts of that celebration of thanksgiving:
They began now to gather in the small harvest they had, and to fit up their houses and dwellings against winter, being all well recovered in health and strength and had all things in good plenty. For as some were thus employed in affairs abroad, others were exercised in fishing, about cod and bass and other fish, of which they took good store, of which every family had their portion. All the summer there was no want; and now began to come in store of fowl, as winter approached, of which this place did abound when they came first (but afterward decreased by degrees). And besides waterfowl there was great store of wild turkeys, of which they took many, besides venison, etc. Besides, they had about a peck a meal a week to a person, or now since harvest, Indian corn to the proportion. Which made many afterwards write so largely of their plenty here to their friends in England, which were not feigned but true reports. (William Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation)
Our harvest being gotten in, our governor sent four men on fowling, that so we might after a special manner rejoice together after we had gathered the fruits of our labor. They four in one day killed as much fowl as, with a little help beside, served the company almost a week. At which time, amongst other recreations, we exercised our arms, many of the Indians coming amongst us, and among the rest their greatest king Massasoit, with some ninety men, whom for three days we entertained and feasted, and they went out and killed five deer, which we brought to the plantation and bestowed on our governor, and upon the captain and others. And although it be not always so plentiful as it was at this time with us, yet by the goodness of God, we are so far from want that we often wish you partakers of our plenty. (Edward Winslow, Mourt’s Relation)
So, every year Americans continue this nearly four-hundred-year-old tradition of setting aside a day in the autumn to give thanks for all their blessings. May we all take a moment and be truly thankful for all the good things in life that we enjoy.