Was there anything that surprised you, made you uncomfortable, or reaffirmed your general understanding of the first Thanksgiving as an event in U.S. history?
After reading Mayflower, it was surprising to discover the differences between the modern American perception of Thanksgiving Day, which is filled with misconceptions, and the event as it occurred in history. Today Americans celebrate the holiday on the fourth Thursday of November because it is commonly believed that the Pilgrims invited the Wampanoags to feast together to celebrate the autumn harvest. However, According to Mayflower, “We do not know the exact date of the celebration we now call the First Thanksgiving, but it was probably in late September or early October, soon after their crop of corn, squash, beans, barley, and peas had been harvested” (117). Nathaniel Philbrick describes the First Thanksgiving as being more like a festival “in which villagers ate, drank, and played games” (117), rather than a single feast. It was surprising to find out that the celebration was actually predominantly composed of Native Americans. Massasoit and one hundred other Pokanokets arrived to the First Thanksgiving with five deer. This group of Native Americans were more than double that of the English that attended. Additionally, some of the foods that Americans eat during Thanksgiving today were not eaten by the Pilgrims and Native Americans at the First Thanksgiving, including pumpkin pie and cranberry sauce. The Pilgrims also did not eat turkey, a trademark of Thanksgiving today. Instead, they feasted on duck, other birds, and deer. The First Thanksgiving occurred shortly after the Pilgrims, headed by Miles Standish, led a violent raid on Nemasket, demanding to see Corbitant, who they believed had killed Squanto. They eventually ended up at Corbitant’s wigwam and barged in, shouting, and shooting their muskets, only to realize that Corbitant was not there, and that Squanto was alive. During this raid, the Pilgrims harmed several innocent Native Americans. During the First Thanksgiving, "Bradford declared it time to ‘rejoice together . . . after a more special manner’” (117). It is troubling to consider the possibility that the First Thanksgiving might have also been a celebration of the Pilgrims’ “show of force” (116) at Nemasket. Today, Thanksgiving is a very celebratory event, and it is interesting to think that it originally was held after such a brutal encounter with the Native Americans.
Today in America, a fair portion of our population is either misinformed or oblivious to the true creation of Thanksgiving as a national holiday. Many of us can generally describe its importance and founding, but not all can go into detail about its background and the events leading up to it. It is no wonder the meal is so substantial; the Pilgrims had been starved to the point where if they “should stay any longer, [they] should not be able to recover home for want of strength”(109). Prior to the holiday, the Pilgrims were eager “to show the Indians consequences of challenging the English—either directly or indirectly through one of their emissaries”(114). Violence in the form of a midnight raid “had won the Pilgrims some new respect”(116) and proven their loyalty to Massasoit, leading to “a much firmer peace”(116) throughout the region. This loyalty was signified through a treaty signed by nine sachems on September 13th, 1621 in Plymouth. Thanksgiving itself was first brought about between late September and early October, unlike today’s celebration on the fourth Thursday of September. Although the Pilgrims were unfamiliar with the term “Thanksgiving”, the gathering “was similar to a traditional English harvest festival—a secular celebration that dated back to the Middle Ages in which villagers ate, drank, and played games”(117). Another common misconception is that “turkeys were by no means a novelty to the Pilgrims”(118); they were spotted frequently and imported to other countries like Spain and England. Because Turkeys were not lavish to the Pilgrims, the meal also included ducks, deer, fish, and locally brewed beer. Items like pie, cranberry sauce and forks were not brought into the picture until the end of the seventeenth century. Therefore the Pilgrims dined “with their fingers and their knives”(118). For the Pilgrims, the first Thanksgiving symbolized an end to a productive year as they finally had “taken charge of their own destiny in the region”(119).
Although I was not generally surprised about many elements of the first Thanksgiving, I believe there are many pieces that the majority of the population of the United States simply does not know about or understand. Firstly, there are many misconceptions about the amount of Colonist-Native interactions prior to the first Thanksgiving. Although many (including myself prior to reading Mayflower) believe the First Thanksgiving was the first peaceful gathering of the Natives and Colonists, for months prior to the feast “the Pilgrims had been beset by a continual stream of Indian visitors” (105). Hence, Native-Colonist gatherings and shared meals were not uncommon, and an element of the First Thanksgiving was actually an attempt to subdue the large number of Natives visiting the Colonists and using their resources. Secondly, many do not know the application of the term “Thanksgiving” did not come about until the nineteenth century.The First Thanksgiving was similar to a traditional Puritan thanksgiving in that religion was interlaced into the feast; however, the First Thanksgiving better reflected an English harvest festival in the celebratory activities and indulgence in food that took place. Thirdly, I believe people are misinformed about the strength and number of the Pilgrims versus that of the Natives during the First Thanksgiving. Many believe the First Thanksgiving to have been a predominantly Colonist event; however, according to Philbrick “the First Thanksgiving soon became an overwhelmingly Native celebration when Massasoit and a hundred Pokanokets (more than twice the entire English population of Plymouth) arrived at the settlement…”(117). This proves that at this point in history, the strength, size, and cooperation of the Natives was unmatched by that of the Pilgrims, making the Natives feel less threatened by, and more welcome to, the band of colonists. Finally I found it surprising and humorous that the First Thanksgiving marked many of the Pilgrims’ first exposure to the brilliant colors of the autumn leaves in the northeast of present day United States. Although this fun fact is often left out of tales of the first Thanksgiving, it is a reminder that, at this point, the Pilgrims’ were still foreigners in an unknown land and had a long ways to go until they had established themselves in North America.
After reading Mayflower, I admit that I was unsurprised that the Thanksgiving we know and celebrate today is a fabrication of pleasantries, and was truly nothing alike the first Thanksgiving. As Paris mentioned in her response, the first Thanksgiving was lack of the images we associate with it today; the white tablecloth and stuffed turkeys, the long tables of Indians and Englishmen side by side, the pumpkin pies being shared by amicable women in little white bonnets. Philbrick notes that “the Pilgrims were without pumpkin pies or cranberry sauce…The Pilgrims ate with their fingers and their knives” (118). The first Thanksgiving resembled “a traditional English harvest festival - a secular celebration that dated back to the Middle Ages in which villagers ate, drank, and played games” (117). This is in contrast to the modern American belief that Thanksgiving should be a peaceful, prayerful family day. Philbrick also describes that “most of the celebrants stood, squatted, or sat on the ground as they clustered around outdoor fires” (117). Surprising to me was the fact that the festival guests were predominantly Native, with “Massasoit and a hundred Pokanokets” (117) joining the Pilgrims. With the Native people in mind, I was made uncomfortable as well by the fact that the first Thanksgiving was held quickly after the brutish display of “dominance” by the Pilgrims at Nemasket. In the aftermath of this assertion of power, to feast and celebrate seems especially crude, considering the values of love and peace that Thanksgiving day has come to represent now.
My knowledge of the first Thanksgiving varies slightly from the historical facts. Albeit my perception was skewed, I did understand that the Pilgrims “were without pumpkin pies or cranberry sauce” (118), and that it was not a white table cloth affair. However, I never understood the complexity and uniqueness of having a joint celebration with the Natives, especially after the grueling year the Pilgrims had just survived in the New World. Since I was previously unaware of the events before that September or October day in the fall, my knowledge of the first Thanksgiving was limited. The Pilgrims had a difficult journey crossing the Atlantic Ocean, and many died. Once reaching the New World, I had assumed that the Europeans were foreign to the Plymouth Natives who welcomed the Pilgrims onto their land, unaware of the destruction that would result if the Pilgrims stayed. I understood Squanto helped the English plant corn and that they had a feast or Thanksgiving celebration together but did not realize that the majority of the members at the feast were Native American. I was also oblivious to the fact that these Natives had been in contact with multiple Europeans, prior to the Pilgrims, often resulting in chaos. For example, in 1614 when John Smith came to the New World another commander was with him named Thomas Hunt. Hunt gathered as many Natives as he could and sold them as slaves. Because of Hunt’s errant decisions his “actions grievously damaged Indian-English relations in New England for years to come” (52). Even with these unfortunate events, surprisingly, Massasoit still cautiously befriended the European settlers. Surprisingly, the Pilgrims realized they must treat the Natives as equals in the beginning in order to survive in the New World. Even on the first Thanksgiving Edward Winslow remarks that the Natives were not barbarians but “very trustworthy” (119). The Pilgrims further proved their allegiance when they attacked Corbitant’s tribe. Corbitant disliked Massasoit’s affiliation with the Pilgrims and was rumored to have killed Squanto. After the Pilgrims attacked the dangerous tribe and realized Squanto was still alive, they mended their alliance with Corbitant. As a result, Massasoit felt he could trust the Pilgrims. Paris explains how it is strange that this act of violence occurs right before Thanksgiving, an event most Americans think of as peaceful. However the Pilgrims demonstration of force gave Massasoit a strong reason to trust the Europeans. So although the Pilgrims small act of violence was dangerous, it ultimately allowed the Native American Tribes to align and trust the Pilgrims resulting in the first Thanksgiving. The ability of the Pilgrims and Natives to unite after the destruction that previously occurred, proves that this first Thanksgiving was an unbelievably rare accomplishment of forgiveness and trust.
Upon reading Mayflower, I found that I had many gaps in my understanding of the First Thanksgiving. For example, I had always believed that the First Thanksgiving took place during a sort of ‘Golden Age’ of the Pilgrims. In the months leading up to November, they had labored to stay alive. For me, Thanksgiving marked the end of the life-and-death way of living, and from then on, the colonists at Plymouth were comfortable and safe. In reality, the Pilgrims struggled with the threats of “[in]fertile soil,” “disease,” and “war,” during and after this celebration (119). I believe that this illusion of mine came from the traditional image of Thanksgiving, where the Pilgrims and their Indian guests enjoyed an abundance of food. It is true that those attending the celebration could choose from freshly harvested crops, ducks, geese, deer, and various types of fish. However, the plentifulness of food was the temporary result of the end of the harvest season, not a more permanent solution like I had once believed. In the months following the First Thanksgiving, the Pilgrims were forced to ration what little sustenance they had - especially once the Fortune arrived in late November and brought to Plymouth “thirty-seven more mouths to feed.” (124) The First Thanksgiving was indeed a celebration of the success of the Pilgrims, however, it did not mark the end of their struggle to survive in New England.
Another aspect of the First Thanksgiving that I did not expect was that the celebration was a symbol of the effective diplomacy between the Pilgrims and the Indians, and also the beginning of the end of such a relationship. Once the colonists made contact with the natives of the region, they put a lot of effort into “becoming an active part of the diplomatic process in southern New England.” (119) One example of when the Pilgrims reconciled themselves with their Native neighbors was when they “compensated the Nausets for the corn” that they had stolen when they first arrived, starving, in the New World (119). The time of the First Thanksgiving was the peak of Pilgrim-Native relations; this was a time when the Natives were regarded as “human beings,” as “trust[worth]y,” and “just,” as is reflected by the fact that the Indians were welcome at the First Thanksgiving (119). In the decades following, through the spreading of false rumors and conflict, the image of the Natives in the eyes of the English would decline to the point where (especially during King Philip’s War) the Natives became “merciless heathen,” where “the only good Indian [was] a dead Indian;” never again would the English come to respect them as much as they had during that first year in the New World (289, 261, respectively). I was surprised to find that the First Thanksgiving was one of the last times that the English and the Indians were together in peace, and that they managed to (generally) coexist amicably for only about a year.
After reading Mayflower, I realized I had some misconceptions about the First Thanksgiving similar to Sam Livermore. When we were younger, we learned that Thanksgiving was one day of sharing and peace between the first settlers and the local Indians, after trust and loyalty were established. After I read Mayflower, I realized this past information was mostly spurious. The First Thanksgiving actually took place after months of fighting between the settlers and Indians, disease, and starvation throughout the colonies; inevitably leading to more years of mistrust and disdain with the Native Americans. I believed Thanksgiving was a one night celebration where a surplus of food was harvested and shared with the “new neighbors.” Philbrick states, “Instead, of an English affair, the First Thanksgiving soon became an overwhelming Native celebration when Massasoit and a hundred Pokanokets arrived at the settlement and… provided five freshly killed deer” (117). Philbrick used Winslow’s description where the event was “similar to a traditional English harvest festival ...in which villagers ate, drank, and played games” (117). I did not know that the First Thanksgiving was a time of “spiritual devotion” (117), and “The Pilgrims ate with their fingers and their knives” (118). Philbrick describes this event as it “marked the conclusion of a remarkable year” (119). I came to the conclusion that the First Thanksgiving was a type of celebration that acknowledged the Pilgrims’ survival and their diligent work over the past eleven months. If not for the Pilgrims’ courage upon arriving at Cape Cod, this celebration would not have taken place. Despite the differences between the Pilgrims and Pokanokets “especially when it came to technology, culture, and spiritual beliefs” (119), an alliance formed. The Pilgrims enjoyed “eating and drinking with the Indians (who) were not a pack of barbarians…(but) human beings”(119). Although Americans celebrate this beloved holiday with pumpkin pies and cranberry sauce, many do not know the origin of this holiday, especially in terms of a “celebration” of surviving a difficult year. I found it interesting to learn more about this event, because prior to reading Mayflower, I believed it was a simple feast with the local Indians.
While reading the Thanksgiving chapter in Mayflower i was uncomfortable with the information that I learned. My whole life I had been taught that Thanksgiving was this huge accomplishment of the pilgrims, worthy of our pride and celebration to this day. They showed generosity and a sense of community by hosting this great feast and inviting “ a few curious Indians.”(117) They expressed their desire for friendship with the Native Americans while rejoicing in the fact they survived the harsh winter. They feasted on turkey and cranberries while sitting around a table where they “clasp[ed] each other’s hands in prayer.” (117) However after reading this chapter I found this all to be myths. In reality the First Thanksgiving was a secular and “overwhelmingly Native celebration”(117) where they feasted on deer and birds. The celebration of Thanksgiving today is completely different to how it begun. The tradition of Thanksgiving that is told by families and taught in schools is a false representation of what actually occurred. We have spent our whole lives learning and believing a lie. We have now evolved into what the Puritans were trying to escape. Every practice of Church of England in the 1620s was based on tradition, not on what actually occurred in the bible. People absentmindedly followed the traditions of the church because it was they way they had always done things, even with access to the bible, which had no mention of their traditions. The Puritans left England because they wanted to “purge [the Church of England] of its many excesses and abuses” (4) and only practice strictly what was in the bible. Today the truth about the First Thanksgiving is known by historians as well as many authors and teachers. However children in school are still taught this misconception about the First Thanksgiving. We have access to the truth but we look past it and continue to celebrate the lie because it is what we’ve always done. This made me uncomfortable that our nation has become exactly what the pilgrims were trying to escape.
The nature of the celebrations and the circumstances surrounding the first Thanksgiving greatly surprised me. I had always assumed that the paintings of a calm, religious celebration were correct while, in fact the celebration was a mixture of a traditional English harvest celebration and a Native American celebration. Rather than spending the day “sitting around a long table draped with a white linen cloth, clasping each other’s hands in prayer(109),” they ate, drank, and played games alongside the Native Americans. Both the inclusion and number of Native Americans at the first Thanksgiving also surprised me. I thought that there were only a few present and that they merely played along with the English proceedings. On the contrary, there were more than twice as many Native Americans as pilgrims and the celebrations were heavily influenced by the Natives, to the point where the first Thanksgiving was more a Native American celebration than an English one. The events immediately preceding the first Thanksgiving were very surprising. The feast occurred shortly after Standish’s assault on Nemasket to find Corbitant. It is somewhat stunning that such a peaceful celebration happened after such a violent show of force. The description of the first Thanksgiving in Mayflower also reaffirmed and built upon some of my previous knowledge. I was already aware that the feast took place after a year of hardship and near starvation for the Pilgrims. From the Pilgrims’ arrival at Plymouth, they had little food and in the first year of their settlement, over half of the population died. The first Thanksgiving was a celebration of the fact that the Pilgrims made it through their first year and were now thriving with a relatively good relationship with the Pokanokets. I was also aware that the foods that we traditionally eat for Thanksgiving are very different from the foods eaten at the first Thanksgiving. Rather than turkeys, stuffing, and cranberry sauce, the Pilgrims and Native Americans ate the birds that were in surplus at the time, fish, and deer brought by the Native Americans. I was very surprised how much the Thanksgiving Americans celebrate today differs from the first Thanksgiving that the Pilgrims and Native Americans celebrated as well as how many details surrounding the event have been covered up.
I was aware of most the relationships that existed between the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag people. In particular, how the Pilgrims learned about survival in New England and in exchange the Wampanoag’s alliance with the Pilgrims enabled them to reassert themselves as a regional power amongst the New England tribes, with Massasoit personally benefiting as the leader of the tribe.
However I found it fascinating how we seemed to have “revisionist memory” and glorified view of the original conflict between the Pilgrim’s and the Wampanoag people. Philbrick describes the First Thanksgiving as more like a festival where Villagers ate, drank and played games rather than our contemporary feast. It is amusing to contrast today’s “Turkey Day” with the notion that the original Thanksgiving which involved Massasoit and one hundred Pokanokets to arriving with five deer, not our view of the Pilgrims eating Turkey, pumpkin pie or cranberry. I struggle to rationalize how we have commercialized the original event which was a celebration post- the Pilgrim’s battle at Nemasket, and a bloody one at that.
After reading the Thanksgiving chapter in Mayflower, I found myself surprised when I discovered that the way we chose to celebrate Thanksgiving is completely different than the way the Pilgrims celebrated it. From my previous understanding, I thought the Pilgrims were celebrating their successful harvest with a small amount of Native Americans who helped them survive and find food. I thought they all sat along a long table peacefully praying and eating turkey. After reading Mayflower, I realized some of my understanding of the Pilgrims’ First Thanksgiving was correct, but most was inaccurate. According to Philbrick, “the First Thanksgiving soon became an overwhelmingly Native celebration when Massasoit and a hundred Pokanokets (more than twice the entire population of Plymouth) arrived at the settlement and soon provided five freshly killed deer” (117). Since the amount of Native Americans who joined the Pilgrims’ Thanksgiving were so large, many did not sit at a long table among the Pilgrims as I previously thought; most “stood, squatted, or sat on the ground” (117). Today, food such as duck, geese, fish, and deer are not considered traditional Thanksgiving food, even though that is what the Pilgrims and Pokanokets actually ate. I am curious to know why teachers have not changed their lessons of the Pilgrims’ First Thanksgiving. Why have we not changed our incorrect perception of Thanksgiving when we have access to the truth?
I was uncomfortable with the transition from raiding the Nemasket village to celebrating a successful harvest with the Pokanokets. The Pilgrims believed the sachem of Mattapoisett village, Corbitant, had one of his warriors kill Squanto. If this was true, “Standish was to cut off his head and bring it back to Plymouth for public display” (114). While searching for Corbitant, Standish and his men harmed many innocent Native Americans. This display of force “had won the Pilgrims some new respect… Epenow, the Martha’s Vineyard sachem made overtures of friendship. Even Corbitant let it be known that he wanted to make peace” (116). It is shocking to think that the Pilgrims, who fled England to peacefully practice their own religion, were compelled to commit such inhuman acts of harming innocent Native Americans. I was uncomfortable by the difference between how the Pilgrims treated the Natives of Nemasket versus the celebration of their friendship with the Pokanokets at their Thanksgiving feast.
The contrast between today’s accepted perceptions of the first Thanksgiving and the actual events as described in Mayflower can be shocking to some people; however, given the multitude of other historical events that have been romanticized for the sake of posterity, it is not altogether surprising that today’s version of Thanksgiving is largely inaccurate. As so often happens with history, subsequent generations of Americans wished to remember their nation’s early years with nostalgia and wistfulness, not regret and embarrassment; thus, many of the less acceptable components of the event have been ignored and forgotten in the years since. The participants of the first Thanksgiving may have truly been sincere in their appreciation for, and acceptance of, their native friends; yet their actions before and afterwards bely a greater purpose in the relations with the Native Americans, which drove the cruelty and ambition of the following years of conflict. I was also uncomfortable with this fact, as you were, and I think this unwillingness to believe the indecency of America’s first people is what keeps teachers and history books from changing their stories. In my opinion, Thanksgiving is a glorification of the Pilgrims’ initial and short-lived attempts at harmony with the Native peoples, created and idealized by Americans who wished to preserve the dignity of our nation’s creation.
It is true; our modern day portrayal of what historically happened on the day of Thanksgiving is inaccurate. However, I believe that if you strip away all the additives that have grown Thanksgiving into what could be referred to as a "Hallmark Holiday" the meaning of the day in 1621 still remains strong in 2015. In 1621, that first Thanksgiving “marked the conclusion of a remarkable year” (119). A group of people who went against all odds to start a new life for themselves began to see a glimmer of hope that the risk they took traveling across the ocean now was starting to pay off. After solidifying themselves as a force to be reckoned with in the New World through Standish’s midnight raid the Pilgrims had reason to be cheerful. In addition to that their relationship with Massasoit was greatly enhanced with their loyalty. Given these reasons, I hope one can assume that there was much to celebrate. On this historical day, the Pilgrims met up with their allies the Pokanokets and took time to reflect and be thankful for their own victories that led them to that day. If you flash forward to today the same meaning stands. Once every year a family of any kind can join together and celebrate the victories that brought them to that table. Whether it means celebrating a new job or gaining a promotion, the victories that are being celebrated are relative to the people who are standing around the table. To the Pilgrims, it did not matter what bad events happened along the way to get them to the place they presently were in, all that mattered was that they are there now, and celebration should follow such a feat. By reading about the historically correct version of Thanksgiving, I was too surprised by the discrepancy in what I was taught at a young age to what I know now. However, I believe that the motive for changing the perception of Thanksgiving is actually just to make it seem more appealing for people to spend a day to be thankful. If children knew that the coming events of the day involved gunfire and bloodshed then the idea of the holiday would seem wrong to celebrate. As a result, facts have been changed/left out to keep the message of the holiday strong i.e. to be thankful.
It is true; our modern day portrayal of what historically happened on the day of Thanksgiving is inaccurate. However, I believe that if you strip away all the additives that have grown Thanksgiving into what could be referred to as a "Hallmark Holiday" the meaning of the day in 1621 still remains strong in 2015. In 1621, that first Thanksgiving “marked the conclusion of a remarkable year” (119). A group of people who went against all odds to start a new life for themselves began to see a glimmer of hope that the risk they took traveling across the ocean now was starting to pay off. After solidifying themselves as a force to be reckoned with in the New World through Standish’s midnight raid the Pilgrims had reason to be cheerful. In addition to that their relationship with Massasoit was greatly enhanced with their loyalty. Given these reasons, I hope one can assume that there was much to celebrate. On this historical day, the Pilgrims met up with their allies the Pokanokets and took time to reflect and be thankful for their own victories that led them to that day. If you flash forward to today the same meaning stands. Once every year a family of any kind can join together and celebrate the victories that brought them to that table. Whether it means celebrating a new job or gaining a promotion, the victories that are being celebrated are relative to the people who are standing around the table. To the Pilgrims, it did not matter what bad events happened along the way to get them to the place they presently were in, all that mattered was that they are there now, and celebration should follow such a feat. By reading about the historically correct version of Thanksgiving, I was too surprised by the discrepancy in what I was taught at a young age to what I know now. However, I believe that the motive for changing the perception of Thanksgiving is actually just to make it seem more appealing for people to spend a day to be thankful. If children knew that the coming events of the day involved gunfire and bloodshed then the idea of the holiday would seem wrong to celebrate. As a result, facts have been changed/left out to keep the message of the holiday strong i.e. to be thankful.
When picturing the first Thanksgiving, the costumes and plays of elementary school are immediately conjured to my mind. Of course, I am well aware of the fact that the kindergarten version of the event is highly romanticized, and that the Pilgrims did not actually sit “around a long table draped with a white linen cloth… as a few curious Indians looked on”(117). However Philbrick’s account of the celebration did shed light on a few details I had never heard before. For instance, this now-famous event was an imprecise cross between an actual Puritan thanksgiving, or a “time of spiritual devotion”(117), and a traditional English harvest festival dating back to the Middle Ages. I was unaware that this was something the Pilgrims often did, and that one of the only differences was the inclusion of the natives in the festivities. This was interesting, but not shocking. The fact that Thanksgiving was established during the Civil War because there was a need “for a restorative myth of national origins”(354) and not because American’s felt thankful for everything and everyone that suffered through the building of our nation did shock me. Along these same lines, Philbrick points out that the modern and commercialized version of the holiday would have “probably appalled the godly Pilgrims.”(354). Despite these few facts about the event that I was not previously aware of, most of Philbrick’s description of the first Thanksgiving, a celebration of friendship and survival, was as I previously thought it to be.
During November of our years in preschool and kindergarten, it was inevitable that one of the crisp fall days you hurried into school, you would be greeted with a day full of learning about the very first Thanksgiving. This usually entailed cutting out paper feathers and establishing them as an Indian headdress; as well as observing drawings of the table where the Indians and Pilgrims had sat. Undeniably the table was covered in a white cloth. As almost all my peers have clearly pointed out, the fact that all of the information delivered to us during those adolescent years is false, is not an phenomenal revelation. The essence and purpose of Thanksgiving is not only misunderstood but we do not even, “know the exact date of the celebration we now call the first Thanksgiving, but it was probably in late September or early October…” (117). From dates to details the first Thanksgiving has been misinterpreted by an alarmingly large number of educated people, including myself. Originally, “For the Pilgrims a thanksgiving was a time of spiritual devotion” (117). The fact that a Thanksgiving was not primarily about the food for Pilgrims, is the only fact reaffirmed to my knowledge after reading Mayflower. The rest of the information comes not as a surprise, but is certainly not what was learned as a young student. Foremost, the first Thanksgiving represented “... a traditional English harvest festival…” (117), more than anything else. The actual celebration was less focused on religion and more on the peace of coming together with the Indians and having an opportunity to eat, drink, and enjoy the company. Without doubt, during the celebration “the Pilgrims did not spend the day sitting around a long table draped with a white linen cloth, clasping each other’s hands in prayer as a few curious Indians looked on” (117). The festival was actually heavily populated with Natives and the celebration was quite crowded. Philbrick points out, “Even if all the Pilgrims’ furniture was brought out into the sunshine, most of the celebrants stood, squatted, or sat on the ground…” (117). As far as the actual food goes, the pilgrims didn't enjoy the delicious pumpkin pies or cranberry sauce. They also may have eaten fish, which is not a common sight at a modern American Thanksgiving. In conclusion, it is clear that the first Thanksgiving is not at all what many of us think it is. Little knowledge of mine was affirmed; however, it was no surprise that the first Thanksgiving contradicts what many people conceptualize it to be.
During November of our years in preschool and kindergarten, it was inevitable that one of the crisp fall days you hurried into school, you would be greeted with a day full of learning about the very first Thanksgiving. This usually entailed cutting out paper feathers and establishing them as an Indian headdress; as well as observing drawings of the table where the Indians and Pilgrims had sat. Undeniably the table was covered in a white cloth. As almost all my peers have clearly pointed out, the fact that all of the information delivered to us during those adolescent years is false, is not an phenomenal revelation. The essence and purpose of Thanksgiving is not only misunderstood but we do not even, “know the exact date of the celebration we now call the first Thanksgiving, but it was probably in late September or early October…” (117). From dates to details the first Thanksgiving has been misinterpreted by an alarmingly large number of educated people, including myself. Originally, “For the Pilgrims a thanksgiving was a time of spiritual devotion” (117). The fact that a Thanksgiving was not primarily about the food for Pilgrims, is the only fact reaffirmed to my knowledge after reading Mayflower. The rest of the information comes not as a surprise, but is certainly not what was learned as a young student. Foremost, the first Thanksgiving represented “... a traditional English harvest festival…” (117), more than anything else. The actual celebration was less focused on religion and more on the peace of coming together with the Indians and having an opportunity to eat, drink, and enjoy the company. Without doubt, during the celebration “the Pilgrims did not spend the day sitting around a long table draped with a white linen cloth, clasping each other’s hands in prayer as a few curious Indians looked on” (117). The festival was actually heavily populated with Natives and the celebration was quite crowded. Philbrick points out, “Even if all the Pilgrims’ furniture was brought out into the sunshine, most of the celebrants stood, squatted, or sat on the ground…” (117). As far as the actual food goes, the pilgrims didn't enjoy the delicious pumpkin pies or cranberry sauce. They also may have eaten fish, which is not a common sight at a modern American Thanksgiving. In conclusion, it is clear that the first Thanksgiving is not at all what many of us think it is. Little knowledge of mine was affirmed; however, it was no surprise that the first Thanksgiving contradicts what many people conceptualize it to be.
After reading Mayflower I found it amazing how the first Thanksgiving has developed into the modern day version. It is appalling to think of how many people in America are so enthusiastic and passionate about Thanksgiving and its festivities (myself included), but don’t really know the true origins and history behind the holiday. Today in America we celebrate Thanksgiving by watching the parade in the morning and Dallas Cowboys at night, with a large meal thrown in somewhere in the middle. Contrary to the trademark of modern Thanksgiving, the Pilgrims did not eat turkey. They feasted upon duck, dear, and birds “with their fingers and their knives” (118). Unlike the First Thanksgiving which was celebrated sometime between September and October and is described as a “a traditional English harvest festival...in which villagers ate, drank, and played games” (117). Today, Thanksgiving is a celebration of peace, love, and gratitude. However, most people do not know that prior to the First Thanksgiving, the Pilgrims had raided Nemesket in hopes of killing a sachem named Corbitant. Their assertion of power paid off as Corbitant signed a peace treaty following the incident. This military invasion lead by Myles Standish made me most uncomfortable and schocked. Most people don’t know the ugly details of the Pilgrims and the First Thanksgiving; however, most know and agree that the First Thanksgiving “marked the conclusion of a remarkable year” (119) in America for the Pilgrims.
As I continue to read Mayflower, certain aspects of the story are surprising in comparison to how the Pilgrims and their story are perceived today. For the first third of the book, I was shocked at how little war there really was. I was expecting this to be a large factor considering our country's past involvement with the genocide on Native Americans. However, it seems to be that at first, all the two groups shared together was a common fear for other. This obviously changed over time from their arrival, to their first Native encounter with the bold Samoset, and then to Thanksgiving. During this time of changing leaves and the transition into fall, the Pilgrims true colors also begin to show as we see them develop a sense of entitlement to the land and it’s inhabitants. With their intention to kill the sachem Corbitant and the raid of Nemesket, the Pilgrims are hardly the wholesome turkey loving people we know and associate with Thanksgiving today. Thanksgiving stood for a larger picture for the future of America: the Pilgrims were here to stay, and no morals were going to stop them.
Although I knew that there were certain aspects of the first Thanksgiving that we don’t celebrate today, I was surprised to learn much of the truth that still eluded me. Some things I already knew were that the food was different than what we eat today, including “corn, squash, beans, barley, and peas...ducks and geese” (117) among other dishes, and that the First Thanksgiving “marked the conclusion of a remarkable year” (119) filled with confusion, fear and perseverance in this unknown World. What I did not know though was that over the past year, the Pilgrims and the Indians had been regularly in contact with one another. What I was taught before was that the Indians had mysteriously kept to themselves as the Pilgrims struggled to adjust to their new land, and through the act of kindness of inviting Massasoit and his men to a bountiful feast, all possible feelings of resentment were immediately mended. In fact, the Pilgrims had already created a treaty with the Pokanoket tribe and were now using the fear caused by their midnight raid of Corbitant’s camp in Nemasket to “w[i]n the Pilgrims some new respect” (116) among other sachems in the area. Not only did the Natives and Colonists admire one another, but shared meals and resources among the groups was common at the time, to the extent that it was often difficult for the Pilgrims to compensate for the food they lost in these meetings. Before reading this chapter, my perception of Thanksgiving had been based on a painting made by Jennie Augusta Brownscombe known as The First Thanksgiving at Plymouth, which portrays the Pilgrims (and a few Indian chiefs) sitting around a neatly made table as a minority of Natives looked on. In contrast to the images depicted in this scene, “the First Thanksgiving soon became an overwhelmingly Native celebration” (117) due mainly to the mortality rate of the Pilgrims over the past winter. Instead of the Pilgrims crowding around a table, “most of the celebrants stood, squatted, or sat on the ground” (117) around the fires cooking the meal. Lastly, rather than being only a religious celebration, this “time of spiritual devotion” (117) had more in common with “a traditional English harvest festival” (117), which was more secular. I think the most important factor of the First Thanksgiving that I learned from this chapter is that by being so engaged in the lives of the Pokanokets, the Pilgrims were able to realize that the Indians “were not a despicable pack of barbarians” (119), but like them, were just “human beings” (119).
The first Thanksgiving stood as a milestone for the Pilgrims, yet it was different from the Thanksgiving we know today. While there are many differences from that first celebration, none of them surprised me. If you look back to the core of almost any holiday or tradition, the meaning is the core of it and the celebration and tradition evolve over time. For example, the first Thanksgiving was a three day celebration in September or early October, which was the time of the harvest. Now it is one day in late November followed by excessive shopping and football games. Also, the “traditional” Thanksgiving meal is turkey, stuffing and cranberry sauce with pumpkin pie for dessert. However, at the first Thanksgiving they had a variety of meats like dear, ducks, and other birds because the Pilgrims would eat anything that was available to them. The Pilgrims ate all of this food “with their fingers and their knives…” (118) because forks were not available. In 1621, Thanksgiving was a harvest festival that celebrated life and the Pilgrim’s accomplishments in the New World. Now in 2015, it represents being thankful for family, friends, and the history made before us.
While reading the Mayflower, it became clear to me that as a child I was raised with misconceptions of what the first Thanksgiving was really like. Whereas Philbrick states that “the Pilgrims did not spend the day sitting around a long table draped with a white linen cloth, clasping each other’s hands in prayer as a few curious Indians looked on” (117), I, among others, was raised to believe the myth that this was a day when the Pilgrims and Natives shared a magnificent feast, with pumpkins, turkey, and harvests speckling a long table. In reality, I was not shocked that this was not the case, as I previously knew that the first Thanksgiving was falsified in order for Americans to have a day dedicated to peace, prayer, and being thankful. The Pilgrims also did not eat the food associated with the holiday in modern time. In contrast to Americans nowadays treating roasted turkey as a once-a-year pleasure, Philbrick makes it clear that “turkeys were by no means a novelty” (118) and instead they had ducks, deer, and birds. I believe that many are misinformed about the truths and falsifications of Thanksgiving. For example, many Americans may have the misconception that the first Thanksgiving was the new settlers having a welcoming feast with the Natives. In reality, they may not know that the Natives had previous experiences with new settlers that resulted in conflicts with them, and this was unusual for Natives to befriend this new group of Englishmen. Many may also be surprised that a majority of the people at the first Thanksgiving were Native Americans, almost double the amount of Pilgrims. One thing many are misinformed about was the inability to pinpoint a date of this celebration. Americans today all know that it is to be celebrated on fourth thursday each November, so it was made clear to me that this was not an unusual feast or anything of significant importance, as that would be recorded.
Before reading the novel Mayflower by Nathaniel Philbrick, I believed that the Thanksgiving holiday stood to be a nationwide celebration for families to honor the Pilgrims who landed in America and for personal appreciations. After finishing Mayflower, and learning about the true history of Thanksgiving, I have found that most of my surprise regarding the holiday was not about big picture concepts, but about specific facts. For example, I never would have guessed that something as simple as the leaves changing colors could have been a “new and startling phenomenon” (118) for the Pilgrims, due to the fact that autumn colors in Britain are muted. This fascination of the Pilgrims contributed to their fall festivities. The first Thanksgiving honored the Pilgrims’ first full year in New England. It is unpleasant to know that “none of the Pilgrims should have emerged from the first winter alive” (119), due to the fact that the Pilgrims agitated the Native Americans who originally inhabited New England. Despite their unfortunate odds at survival, I found it amazing that the Pilgrims where able to “take charge of their own destiny” (119) and live on to inspire the start of the Thanksgiving holiday. Overall, I believe that the Pilgrims’ experience of the first Thanksgiving is roughly similar to my original opinions about Thanksgiving. Equivalent to my own traditions, the Pilgrims celebrated Thanksgiving by appreciating their experiences of the past year.
Philbrick's factual description of the Pilgrims first Thanksgiving proves to be very different from the traditional Thanksgiving holiday today. As a child, it was a common perception that the Pilgrims feasted with several Indians over a nice white table cloth. However, I was surprised to discover the Pilgrims did not spend the day sitting around a long table draped with a white linen cloth. In fact, most Pilgrims and Indians "stood, squatted, or sat on the ground as they clustered around outdoor fires" (117). Though, it does make sense that Thanksgiving was not as elegant as I had imagined, since the Pilgrims were dealing with limited resources and luxuries in their new and youthful settlement. Regarding the people who attended this famous feast, I was appalled to discover how many Indians celebrated with the Pilgrims. Originally I was under the assumption that Pilgrims made up the majority of the celebrants. Contrastly, the first Thanksgiving became an "overwhelmingly native celebration when Massasoit and a hundred Pokanokets" (117) arrived at the settlement with deer. Despite the majority of Indians, the first Thanksgiving still proves to be a famous gathering confirming peace and gratuity between the Pilgrims and Indians. Additionally, the traditional Thanksgiving foods of modern day differ from the feast described by Philbrick. Turkey, gravy, cranberry sauce, and stuffing are typical foods linked with Thanksgiving. Braford had actually sent men out to go fowling for "ducks and geese" (117), not strictly turkey of modern day Thanksgiving. Philbrick's description in "The Mayflower" of the first Thanksgiving opened my eyes to new details of the feast, but upheld the common concept of celebrating gratuity of the past year.
From musicals we performed for parents in elementary school, hand crafted turkey projects, and Indian head pieces made out of yarn and beads, a skewed perception of the first Thanksgiving has emerged in youth and adults throughout our whole nation. Thanksgiving to many Americans is about the best stuffing recipe, what store can attract the most customers by having the lowest prices, and what football team will rise victorious above all others. But that is not how the first Thanksgiving really happened. Thanksgiving always takes place on the last Thursday in November. However, the first Thanksgiving took place, “...probably in late September or early October” (117). Not only is it surprising, “the exact date of the celebration we call the first Thanksgiving” (117) is unknown, it is also surprising it is celebrated almost two months later. Another misinterpretation about the first Thanksgiving that has come to light is the seating arrangements. When children are asked to draw their interpretation of the first thanksgiving many will draw the Pilgrims, “...sitting around a long table draped with a white linen cloth, clasping each other's hands in prayers as a few Indians looked on” (117), but in reality, “...most of the celebrates stood, squatted, or sat on the ground” (117). As Nathaniel Philbrick clarifies in Mayflower, the first Thanksgiving was much different than what we know it as today. Yes, it is surprising to see the differences between the past and present, but more so it is interesting to see how the first Thanksgiving has evolved into today’s Thanksgiving. I think it is very important to learn the correct facts about one of our country’s most important events.
The real First Thanksgiving in U.S. History differs greatly from the modern perception of it, today thanksgiving is celebrated by feasting with family and friends, and a nice kindergarten play in which the Pilgrims invite the Native Americans to a big feast, to celebrate their friendship and the wonderful new land they have found. It is a common contemporary belief that the First Thanksgiving was a feast of turkey that occurred in late November, when in reality it was more of a festival where "villagers ate, drank, and played games"(117). I was surprised to read that the first Thanksgiving occurred most likely "in late September or early October" (117) after important crops such as "corn, squash, beans, barley, and peas had been harvested"(117) contrary to popular belief. Despite the similarities to a traditional English harvest festival, most modern day Americans celebrate with a feast. I always imagined the First Thanksgiving as an English event that consisted of a majority of pilgrims with some Natives, but to my surprise it was predominantly Native, yet the Natives along with the Pilgrims still wanted to “rejoice together… after a more special manner”(117). Another aspect of the first Thanksgiving I was surprised to read about was that there were games, and in modern America most people spend their thanksgiving watching their favorite football team square up for some good competition, much like the englishman enjoyed doing on a day of celebration. While the first Thanksgiving definitely had “marked the conclusion of a remarkable year” (119) as most people know, but I was shocked to find out that the first year had been so brutal, and the first Thanksgiving had been so different than I had previously believed.
It is inevitable that when one starts to think of the First Thanksgiving, he remembers the Pilgrim and Native American plays that were put on in elementary school with homemade costumes and fake feathers. I know that for myself and many others the idea of the First Thanksgiving is something along the lines of there being an equal amount of Native Americans and Pilgrims all joining hands while seated at a table. Philbrick proves to us that while there were both Pilgrims and Native Americans present, “the First Thanksgiving soon became an overwhelmingly Native celebration when Massasoit and a hundred Pokanokets...arrived at the settlement…” (117). It surprised me that there really was a much greater amount of Native Americans than Pilgrims in the settlement and there weren’t just a few small tribes of natives on the land. I also thought this feast was a very out of the ordinary event but the author states that the First Thanksgiving was “similar to a traditional English harvest festival” (117) that has been done for a long period of time. The First Thanksgiving also displayed the trust that the natives had now truly put in the Pilgrims. Prior to the autumn gathering, the Europeans attacked Nemasket and ordered to see Corbitant because they believed that Corbitant had killed Squanto. This loyalty to the natives shined through and Massasoit plus others saw this and realized that the Pilgrims were dependable.
The First Thanksgiving described in the Mayflower is very different than the modern perception. I thought that the First Thanksgiving was for the majority Pilgrims with a few native American tribes but Philbrick describes how it "soon became an overwhelmingly Native Celebration" (117). What also surprised me was the time that the First Thanksgiving occurred. Contrary to the modern belief of it being in late November, the First Thanksgiving was thought to have occurred in "late September or early October" after crucial crops were harvested (117). What surprised me the most was that the First Thanksgiving was an event in which the people "ate, drank, and played games" (117). I always thought of the First Thanksgiving as more like a huge family dinner, but Philbrick describes it as more of a party like gathering. The modern perception of the First Thanksgiving varies, and the way Philbrick describes it is much different than I ever thought it was.
In the US, people define Thanksgiving as the forth Thursday in November. It is an annual holiday for giving thanks for what you have. Not many know that our current perception of Thanksgiving varies immensely from the first Thanksgiving. In 1621 Thanksgiving marked an end of suffering for the Pilgrims and Native Americans. We all think of Thanksgiving as a time to draw colorful turkeys with our hands and indulge in all sorts of food. The name Thanksgiving wasn’t even introduced until “the nineteenth century, [it] was not used by the Pilgrims themselves” (117). The actuality and importance of Thanksgiving are not only misunderstood but “We do not know the exact date of the celebration we now call the First Thanksgiving, but it was probably in late September or early October” (117). This was very surprising since it had been fixed into my mind that Thanksgiving had always been celebrated in November. Most people probably have a similar picture of what they think the first Thanksgiving looked like, “around a long table draped with a white linen cloth, clasping each others hands in prayer as a few curious Indians looked on” (117). While in reality it was a time “in which villagers ate, drank, and played games” (117). Also to my surprise the first Thanksgiving was mostly composed of Native Americans, almost more than double the Pilgrims population. The biggest symbol of Thanksgiving is none other than the turkey. To my disappointment I found that “Turkeys were by no means a novelty to the Pilgrims” (118). In its place they dined on birds like duck, and deer. Over long periods of time, the meaning and actuality of events change; Thanksgiving was once known as “a time for spiritual devotion” (117) but is now simply an occasion for excessive eating.
When I think of Thanksgiving, I imagine families gathering around large tables celebrating their gratitude for one another and eating enough turkey, stuffing, and cranberry sauce to feel full for weeks. Elementary school kids usually put on costumes and tell the story of how the English and Indians (led by Squanto) came together to celebrate their love and friendship for one another. I find it very interesting that our idea of Thanksgiving is so completely skewed from what actually happened. The fact that a rather short time before the First Thanksgiving occurred, The Pilgrims were actually planning on seizing and killing sachem Corbitant because of a simple rumor they had heard. The Pilgrims were not "happy go-lucky" with the Indians, like what is presumed today. To make sure the Indians had the English's interests best in their hearts, the English bullied "nine sachems-including Corbitant, Epenow, Massasoit's brother Quadequina, and Canacum, the sachem who had sent John Billington to the Nausets-journeyed to Plymouth to sign a treaty professing their loyalty to King James" (116). To celebrate this new found political loyalty, the Pilgrims created a more "English harvest festival-a secular celebration that dated back to the Middle Ages in which villagers ate, drank, and played games" (117). Today most people proclaim what they are thankful for and pray at the Thanksgiving table, because that is what has been engraved in our minds as what the Pilgrims did; but actually most of the Pilgrims just drank and ate. Also the first Thanksgiving is seen as a predominately English-hosted celebration, when really it "became an overwhelmingly Native celebration when Massasoit and a hundred Pokanokets (more than twice the entire English population of Plymouth) arrived" (117). I think people today should be more informed as to what really happened at the First Thanksgiving.
Prior to reading Philbrick’s description of the First Thanksgiving, I had a rudimentary understanding of the monumental event. I figured that Squanto, along with his singular tribe, was invited to the event in celebration of the first harvest. This conception was proven invalid when Philbrick mentioned the presence of “nine sachems”(117), as well as “Massasoit and a hundred Pokanokets”(117). My misconceptions regarding the reason behind the festivities was replaced with another, more vicious explanation. This revelation was the most shocking to me, as it revealed the cruelty of the grounds of the First Thanksgiving. Instead of the celebration being mainly based off of the newfound peace between the settlers and the Natives, it was in reality quite the opposite. Rather, the attendees celebrated the English success against Corbitant, the sachem of Mattapoisett. Upon hearing the news that one of Corbitant’s men had murdered Squanto, which was later falsified, the English immediately sent a band of troops led by Miles Standish, to seize Corbitant. This retaliation was unsuccessful because Corbitant fled from Nemasket. However, his absence did not prevent the English from terrorizing those he left behind. Philbrick describes the horror as a “chaotic exercise in futility”(115). The response to the terror was especially troubling to me. It is noted that the attack “had won the Pilgrims some new respect”(116), even from Corbitant, who now wished to make peace with the settlers. The nine sachems who attended the celebration, celebrated the Pilgrim’s ferocity against their own civilians. The notion that bloodshed was honorable was concerning to me. When I first started reading Mayflower, my perception of the First Thanksgiving was that it was an amicable mark in our nation’s history; however, I quickly came to the realization it was nothing more than a disillusioned, heinous scar on our past.
Though the relationship between the Natives and English “was far from being a paradise of abundance and peace” (119), it was much stronger than I had imagined. I had no idea that by the First Thanksgiving, a treaty between the Pilgrims and Native Americans already existed. The treaty, although created for political reasons, affirmed a sense of friendship between the Pilgrims and Pokanokets. The Pilgrims were lucky to quickly establish a friendship with Massasoit and the Pokanokets, with whom they owe their success and survival to. The impact of this treaty can be clearly seen at the celebration of the First Thanksgiving. My assumptions of the First Thanksgiving being a primarily English affair, with Pilgrims sitting down at a table to give thanks and pray, was incorrect. The celebration was “an overwhelmingly Native celebration” (117), with almost no one sitting down at a table to give thanks. The First Thanksgiving was not a small, formal get-together, intended to celebrate personal victories, but rather massive gathering where everyone “ate, drank, and played games” (117). It surprises me that, especially after the treaty, the Pilgrims didn’t show much gratitude and express their thanks for the Natives. Without help from the Native Americans, the likelihood that the Pilgrims would be alive and celebrating is very slim. However, I still admire the early friendship between the two groups, who just a few months before had feared the other.
The First Thanksgiving is shown to be an event marking a relative peace and acceptance between the Pokanokets and the invading white Europeans. Two points make this an incredibly uncomfortable, in terms of understanding, event. Firstly, as it turns out, the first thanksgiving was “instead of an English affair… an overwhelmingly Native celebration” (117). This exposes the force-fed whitewashed history that has been part of our education since our youngest years. We were taught in school that the first thanksgiving was a dominantly white English affair, with Pilgrims “sitting around a long table draped with white-linen cloth, clasping each other’s hands in prayer as a few curious Indians looked on.”(117). In this lie, the white people are shown to be the strong gifted people, where the indigenous onlookers are shown to be infantile and small in number. This, as we have read, and of course, is utterly false. The natives were the ones who came in large strong numbers; “Massasoit and a hundred Pokanokets (more than twice the entire English population of Plymouth)” (117); and the natives were the ones who, out of the kindness of their hearts, brought food and permitted the whites to live and eat with them in peace. The whites were the ones with small numbers and the whites were the ones who needed the support and help. Reading this chapter on Thanksgiving, gave me a feeling of uneasiness as it exposed the white-washed white-induced lie that is fed to us about how Thanksgiving actually took place. Secondly, as I read, in much admiration, about the openness and kindness of Massasoit and his people, and how he brought one hundred of his people, in a peaceful manner, to feast with the white invaders, another feeling of distress came over me. This First Thanksgiving, again, marked some form of peace between these two peoples, but in the end, it meant nothing. For, now we know, the initial invasion of the white man unto this new continent, would eventually lead to the near full decimation of the indigenous population; as he spread westward like a plague. A modern Thanksgiving does not mean anything of positive value. It is a sad excuse for white people and the American first world to soak in and consume excessive amounts of food. In fact, the original event, may have meant something when it actually happened (as symbolized a minute of peace and unity), but because of the next passing centuries in American history and the current status of the indigenous people of America, it’s meaning has been nullified.
Before reading Mayflower, I had some understanding of the first Thanksgiving. I understood that our commercialized version of Thanksgiving is nowhere near the events of the first Thanksgiving. I knew that it consisted of a meal between pilgrims and Indians where turkey was not on the menu, but my knowledge of the event stopped right about there. I didn't expect that the first Thanksgiving was on the fourth Thursday of November as it is now, but I did expect the celebration to be in November. However, I was wrong as "it was probably in late September or early October"(117). I also expected that this celebration was attended by the pilgrims and multiple Indian tribes. As it turns out there was only one tribe that attended and that was the Pokanokets. I thought that within their first year, the pilgrims would have made more Indian allies. I was also surprised that the Indians outnumbered the Pilgrims by such a great margin, “Massasoit and a hundred Pokanokets (more than twice the entire English population) arrived at the settlement” (117). I expected that this was a predominantly English affair with a few representative from Indian tribes. This is one of my many misconceptions about one of our nation's biggest holidays. It is startling how our celebration of Thanksgiving is vastly different from the first Thanksgiving.
Prior to reading Mayflower, I admit I did know that the modern-day celebration of Thanksgiving had been significantly altered from the original celebration. Particularly in terms of the contents of the meal, but I didn’t know exactly how different the modern-day celebration and the original celebration were. Especially the abundance of fish eaten at the First Thanksgiving surprised me, such as “striped bass, bluefish, and cod,” (118). I was also surprised to read that, to the Pilgrims, the celebration of Thanksgiving had spiritual connotations, “For the Pilgrims a thanksgiving was a time of spiritual devotion. Since just about everything the Pilgrims did had religious overtones, there was certainly much about the gathering in the fall of 1621 that would have made it a proper Puritan thanksgiving,” (117). As Philbrick mentioned, it was unusual thanksgiving to the pilgrims was a religious event, as almost everything to them had “religious overtones”, so I wasn’t entirely surprised to read that. Another feature of the First Thanksgiving I was shocked to read was the overwhelming Native American influence on the celebration. Before reading Mayflower, I thought the ratio between Pilgrims and Native Americans would be equal and therefore both of their cultures would have equal influence on the celebration, but surprisingly “the First Thanksgiving soon became an overwhelmingly Native celebration when Massasoit and a hundred Pokanokets (more than twice the English population of Plymouth) arrived at the settlement with five freshly killed deer,” (117). The final part of the First Thanksgiving that I hadn’t thought about prior to reading Mayflower, was the importance of the turning season to the holiday itself. Every autumn the Pilgrims had experienced “autumn colors to be muted and lackluster,” (118) in England, but now they had, for the first time, witnessed the beauty of New England autumn and “the turning of green leaves of summer to the incandescent yellows, reds, and purples of a New England autumn,” (118). I hadn’t ever considered that one of the reasons for Thanksgiving being a holiday was because of the turning of summer into fall, but knowing that helps me better understand the importance of Thanksgiving to the Pilgrims.
For nearly seventeen years I have been living by the Thanksgiving lessons taught to us in early grade school. These lessons were understandably simplified as a seven or eight year old does not have the mental capacity or attention span to process the factual events that occurred on and before the first Thanksgiving celebration. We were taught that the Natives and the Pilgrims joined together in a feast to celebrate peace and unity among the two peoples. This statement is vastly oversimplified to the point where it is almost untrue... While the pilgrims did in fact find an ally in the Pokanoket tribe, the Pilgrims and the Pokanokets were, at this time, at war or at odds with nearly every other Native tribe because no other tribe sought friendship between them and the invasive pilgrims. The first Thanksgiving celebration was a celebration of unity among the Pokanokets and the pilgrims where both groups had recognized and come to terms with their dependence on one another and the settling of differences in order to come together to help one another survive. "There were profound differences between the Pilgrims and Pokanokets to be sure... but in these early years, when alliance appeared to be in their best interests, the two peoples had more in common than is generally appreciated today." (119) Pilgrims found that the Indians were not savages, but were humans. These Indians also helped guide the Pilgrims through their first eleven months in the New World. At the same time, Massasoit found that an English alliance protects his diminished tribe from threats from the Narragansetts. So, the first Thanksgiving celebration was not so much a general unity of Pilgrims and Indians, but rather the celebration of a newly found alliance between two small groups.
After reading about the true events of the First Thanksgiving, I find that my general understanding of the celebration has been reaffirmed. However, I was also surprised by certain aspects of Thanksgiving, like the spontaneous aspect of the celebration. All along I knew that Thanksgiving had involved some sort of conflict and that the English had a tense relationship with the Natives, but now that I have read about it I understand that they had just agreed to remain at peace. This was the peace that they had been waiting and pushing for since they came across one another. I did originally believe that the feast was made for everyone and that they had planned the celebration in advance, but now I know that was not the case. As the day went on the Natives arrived and ended up joining the English for dinner. Luckily, they “arrived at the settlement and soon provided five freshly killed deer” assisting the Puritans (Philbrick 117). The meaning of Thanksgiving is very similar to how the Englishmen and Natives used this day for, which is another thing that surprised me. We give thanks and cherish what we have in November once a year. The Puritans and the Natives had so little compared to us but they still were celebrating “the conclusion of a remarkable year” (Philbrick 119). I guess in some ways both types of ‘Thanksgiving’s’ celebrate a year that has been successful and worthwhile. The First Thanksgiving marked the time in which the Puritans and the Natives bonded, just as our families and friends do on Thanksgiving. But Philbrick wrote about the atmosphere that I believed the First Thanksgiving had, reaffirming my original beliefs.
The first Thanksgiving was a celebration of unity and friendship between the Pokanoket tribe and the pilgrims. At this time, other Indian tribes disliked the pilgrims because of their invasions within Indian territory and the Pokanoket's were at war with many other Indian tribes. The pokanokets realized they needed to build a friendship with the pilgrims in order to survive. The pilgrims had been starving and also needed an ally to depend on. As time progressed, the pilgrims realized the usefulness of forging the friendship with the Pokanoket tribe. The Indians began helping the pilgrims adapt to the New World with building their community and teaching them how to obtain a significant amount of food. The Pokanoket tribe began having fewer enemies among other Indian tribes and was now protected from attack by the Narragansett tribe. Thanksgiving was the celebration of the start to the alliance and friendship between the pilgrims and Indians. In the United States, most people celebrate Thanksgiving as a holiday for recognizing and appreciating the important people in their life. Unlike how the pilgrims and Indians celebrated their thanksgiving, which was based on forming an alliance between two people, the modern version of this holiday depends on giving thanks. The first Thanksgiving occurred in September or October and now Thanksgiving is always the last Thursday in November. The meaning of the first Thanksgiving and the modern Thanksgiving differs immensely.
The First Thanksgiving, as described in Nathaniel Philbrick’s Mayflower, was both familiar and surprising. I was aware that Thanksgiving took place in the fall, was a celebration of the harvest, and featured a menu of turkey and harvested food. I was surprised to learn, however, that the First Thanksgiving “. . . was probably in late September or early October” (117), rather than the fourth Thursday in November, and that they dined on fish and deer as well as beer made from harvested barley. While I knew there were natives present at the First Thanksgiving, I was unaware that the event was, “. . . an overwhelmingly Native celebration . . .” with the Natives numbering, “. . . more than twice the entire English population of Plymouth” (117). The presence of so many Natives is surprising, as I would have expected the Pilgrims to be isolationist due to their strict religious tendencies. However, upon reflection, it is fitting that they would celebrate together because the Pilgrims could not have survived the first year without assistance from the Natives. Discovering that the Pilgrims and Indians ate their food outdoors using only knives and their hands, bearing more resemblance to a picnic than the formal meal we have at our celebrations today, was also surprising to me. After reading about the First Thanksgiving, I was pleasantly surprised to find that while I understood the basic framework of the celebration, the original event had many more unique qualities than I realized.
For my entire life I have been taught the traditional story of the First Thanksgiving. From the beginning of school we have learned that Thanksgiving happens once in a year in November and is a time to spend with your family and give thanks. However the First Thanksgiving was not like the one we celebrate today. The Pilgrims and the Native Americans did sit together and feast however it was used as a tool to prevent future wars and create a truce. Prior to the First Thanksgiving the Native Americans had a goal to wipe out the Pilgrims and protect their land. The Pilgrims had a goal to create peace and live prosperously among the Native Americans. The feast was intended to share both of their crops and the ideals of creating peace among the colony. The Pilgrims were in a desperate need to stop living in fear of the Natives attacking. This made me really uncomfortable, a day we are supposed to look highly on and celebrate with our families, was the Pilgrims plea for mercy. Another thing I was uncomfortable to find out was that the date of Thanksgiving isn’t even definite, “We do not know the exact date of the celebration we now call the First Thanksgiving, but it was probably in late September or early October..” (pg 117) A holiday that is considered so highly valued in America is on a day that isn’t even in the month assumed to be the First Thanksgiving. Along side the date we celebrate being incorrect, the food we consume isn’t the traditional food eaten at the First Thanksgiving, “the Pilgrims were without pumpkin pies or cranberry sauce.” (pg 118) I was shocked to find out that one of the most important days in American history, the bonding between the Natives of our land and the Pilgrims isn’t being told to Americans as the true story, “Instead of an English affair, the First Thanksgiving soon became an overwhelming Native Celebration.” (pg 117) Reading Mayflower has definitely changed my view on the real meaning of Thanksgiving, the Pilgrims ability to have a feast in order to protect the land and encourage their coinciding in Plymouth was a sign of bravery, along with a strong desire to end future conflict. The First Thanksgiving gave the Pilgrims a chance to reflect on the previous year and the major choices they had made to make Plymouth succeed.
For my entire life I have been taught the traditional story of the First Thanksgiving. From the beginning of school we have learned that Thanksgiving happens once in a year in November and is a time to spend with your family and give thanks. However the First Thanksgiving was not like the one we celebrate today. The Pilgrims and the Native Americans did sit together and feast however it was used as a tool to prevent future wars and create a truce. Prior to the First Thanksgiving the Native Americans had a goal to wipe out the Pilgrims and protect their land. The Pilgrims had a goal to create peace and live prosperously among the Native Americans. The feast was intended to share both of their crops and the ideals of creating peace among the colony. The Pilgrims were in a desperate need to stop living in fear of the Natives attacking. This made me really uncomfortable, a day we are supposed to look highly on and celebrate with our families, was the Pilgrims plea for mercy. Another thing I was uncomfortable to find out was that the date of Thanksgiving isn’t even definite, “We do not know the exact date of the celebration we now call the First Thanksgiving, but it was probably in late September or early October..” (pg 117) A holiday that is considered so highly valued in America is on a day that isn’t even in the month assumed to be the First Thanksgiving. Along side the date we celebrate being incorrect, the food we consume isn’t the traditional food eaten at the First Thanksgiving, “the Pilgrims were without pumpkin pies or cranberry sauce.” (pg 118) I was shocked to find out that one of the most important days in American history, the bonding between the Natives of our land and the Pilgrims isn’t being told to Americans as the true story, “Instead of an English affair, the First Thanksgiving soon became an overwhelming Native Celebration.” (pg 117) Reading Mayflower has definitely changed my view on the real meaning of Thanksgiving, the Pilgrims ability to have a feast in order to protect the land and encourage their coinciding in Plymouth was a sign of bravery, along with a strong desire to end future conflict. The First Thanksgiving gave the Pilgrims a chance to reflect on the previous year and the major choices they had made to make Plymouth succeed.
As I began reading The Mayflower I expected to relearn what I have already heard of the first Thanksgiving many times, however Philbrick brought up many points that had not been brought to my attention. I have never seen Thanksgiving as a religious Holiday, for the Pilgrims however Thanksgiving appears to be a day where the gifts God has given to them are enjoyed. As Philbrick says “A Thanksgiving was a time of spiritual devotion, and everything the Pilgrims did had religious overtones.” (117) A modern Thanksgiving takes just a trip to the grocery store and nothing else. Having the food they did on the first Thanksgiving now seems to me some kind of miracle, for the Pilgrims this feast must have been something they believe God wanted them to have. The next surprise to me was the Native influence. I always had believed the Pilgrims hosted Thanksgiving as a sign of welcoming to all the peoples surrounding them. Yet when Philbrick says “The first Thanksgiving became an overwhelmingly Native celebration when Massasoit and a hundred Pokanokets arrived at the settlement with five freshly killed deer” the Pilgrims seem to be the invited ones. This is true not just at the feast but in the new world. The first Thanksgiving shows how necessary the bond between the Natives and Pilgrims was for the Pilgrims survival. Along with the protection provided from Massasoit, the knowledge of how to gather food, hunt and fish were all key parts to the Pilgrims survival during the first eleven months. Philbrick's quote “During the winter of 1621 the survival of the English settlement had been in the balance and Massasoit's decision to offer assistance had saved the Pilgrims lives.” (119) Proves that without Native help the Pilgrims would have nothing to be thankful for. Philbrick now brings to light how the Pilgrims faith in God was somewhat arrogant as it was clearly the natives they should be thanking.
Every year at Thanksgiving as a child I would always notice the depictions of Native Americans and the Pilgrims sitting together eating a large cornucopia of food along with a large turkey, with happy-go-lucky smiles on. However, after reading The Mayflower, I realize my childhood renditions had been misguided. The information we received since childhood was mostly based on coloring book diagrams of a few on looking native americans and white pilgrims with full cheeks of insinuated food did not turn out as true as my coloring hands had thought, “the pilgrims did not spend the day sitting around a long table draped with a while linen cloth, clasping each other’s hands in prayer as a few curious Indians looked on.”(117) Rather than a gathering of thankfulness this was “for the Pilgrims a thanksgiving was a time of spiritual devotion.” (117). As I was reading I figured out that my previous notion of the pilgrim initiating this celebration, rather it was an “overwhelmingly Native celebration” (117). There is little evidence about this celebration where Natives and Pilgrims alike gathered to enjoy the harvest of “their crop of corn, squash, beans, barley, and peas” (117). Even the classic Thanksgiving day novelty of a turkey was not the main focus. According to Philbrick there was a small amount of turkey but mainly there were deer and other wild game. Before i read The Mayflower my perception of Thanksgiving was distorted, given our national historical curriculum that romanticizes the even. However now I appreciate that Philbrick corrected my general understanding of the First Thanksgiving.
After reading the Mayflower by Nathaniel Philbrick, it’s hard to believe that the modern day Thanksgiving has roots back to the first Thanksgiving with the Pilgrims, seeing how they are vastly different. Most people today have a skewed view of what the first Thanksgiving was actually like in the New World. There is a classic stereotype of Pilgrims wearing buckled shoes and tall black hats sitting at a long table, side by side with the Native Americans who were feasting on plenty of turkey, corn and squash. The Pilgrims were happily celebrating the fruits of their fall harvest with the Indians, their new friends and adversaries that seemed to last for days. During the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln made this fall harvest celebration a national holiday known as Thanksgiving because it gave Americans a sense of hope and promise that we as a nation could put our differences aside and unite as one country, just as the pilgrim and Indians seemed to do. In reality, it appears that Thanksgiving was more than likely a simple get together where the wary and apprehensive participants sat on the ground around a fire outside and ate rations of corn and duck or deer. Neither party (the Pilgrims or the Indians) really trusted the other but they knew they needed to co-exist in order to survive. In order to make that possible, the two groups needed to be cordial and helpful to one and other, even though there was distrust between them. Another misconception of the first Thanksgiving was that it happened sometime in late November, which is why we have the holiday on the fourth Thursday in November to this day. However, the first thanksgiving “was probably in late September or early October” (117) due to the fall harvest.
I was somewhat surprised by the timeline of the events leading up to the first Thanksgiving. Originally I had some vague notion that the first Thanksgiving occurred shortly after the arrival of the Pilgrims. In actuality, they arrived at Cape Cod a full eleven months prior to the first Thanksgiving, and spent the first month in America “alienating and angering every Native American they happened to come across” (119). I was surprised that the first Thanksgiving occurred after so much initial hostility, such as the signing of the Pokanoket-Pilgrim agreement, which was violated by the Pilgrims almost instantly (the agreement promised that weapons would be left behind, and the Pilgrims forced the Pokanokets to abide by this rule, while the Pilgrims themselves maintained their muskets).
Prior to reading Mayflower, I visualized the First Thanksgiving as a celebration of peace among the Pilgrims and Natives, abundance of food and a thriving settlement. I envisioned many Pilgrims sitting around a large table, with a few Indians among them. Upon reading Mayflower, it was interesting to see how some parts of my understanding of the First Thanksgiving were accurate, while others were completely wrong. To my surprise, what I thought had been a celebration of peace and success in the New World, was actually full of many hardships such as disease, starvation, and war. Barely making it out of their first year in the New World alive, the First Thanksgiving was, in part, a celebration of survival: “By all rights, none of the Pilgrims should have emerged from the first winter alive.” (119). Another thing that I was previously unaware of was the timing of the First Thanksgiving. My initial perception was that the First Thanksgiving took place upon the arrival of the first settlers, and that it took place in November. Contrary to my belief, the First Thanksgiving actually took place in “late September or early October”, 11 months after the Pilgrims arrived in Cape Cod (117). The most shocking part about the First Thanksgiving I learned while reading Mayflower was the amount of Native Americans present: “Instead of an English affair, the First Thanksgiving soon became an overwhelmingly Native celebration when Massasoit and a hundred Pokanokets (more than twice the entire English population of Plymouth) arrived at the settlement and soon provided five freshly killed deer.” (117). Despite my many misconceptions, it was pleasing to see that some of my perceptions of the First Thanksgiving were accurate. Drinking, playing games, eating corn, squash and other various crops were all things that affirmed parts of my general understanding of the First Thanksgiving. It is interesting to see how Philbrick, while describing the First Thanksgiving, writes in a sarcastic way at times, addressing general misconceptions before correcting them: “Alas, the Pilgrims were without pumpkin pies or cranberry sauce.” (118). It is because of this that one cannot help but wonder how all of these misconceptions and new traditions came about.
My understanding of the first Thanksgiving prior to reading Mayflower was extremely misguided. I imagined a bunch of Pilgrims in top hats (with buckles of course) and Native Americans all sitting together on one long wooden table eating turkey and potatoes. I also assumed it was in late November, when we celebrate it today. Unfortunately, besides the turkey eating, I was incorrect in assuming all of these things It took place in late December or early October, like the book states on page 117. They ate stews, deer, turkey, and fish; a very unusual Thanksgiving Day meal in today's world. The Pilgrims ate with only their fingers and knives, and in today's world, only top tier table manners are acceptable on Thanksgiving Day. I was also surprised to read that "Even if all the Pilgrims' furniture was brought out into the sunshine, most of the celebrants stood, squatted, or sat on the ground as they clustered around outdoor fires" (117). They didn't all sit at a long table, they were all around different fires, eating and watching the deer and turkey cook.
Prior to reading The Mayflower, I had a very vague understanding of the first Thanksgiving. I was aware that our society had altered the holiday to a more formal and light-hearted event including feasting and spending time with family, however I never took the time to learn about how the first Thanksgiving really came to be. My imagination of the first Thanksgiving was very stereotypical; I pictured the Pilgrims and Indians surrounding a large table enjoying a meal similar to what we eat today. However what we think is a delightful holiday full of feasting, were mainly solemn days of religious prayer and “a time of spiritual devotion” (117) to the Pilgrims. Of course I was very naive to assume that the Pilgrims and Native Americans enjoyed their meals with a somewhat sense of etiquette, but instead I learned the pilgrims ate with their fingers and had no forks “until the last decades of the seventeenth century” (118). I was also intrigued to find out that the first Thanksgiving meal was several months after the Pilgrim’s arrival to the “New World”. As Amber mentioned, my misguided knowledge was that they ate their Thanksgiving meal with the Native Americans shortly after their arrival upon the Mayflower. Another misinterpretation that took me by surprise was the first Thanksgiving did not take place in late November, “but it was probably in late September or early October” (117). After reading a novel with so many fundamental details about the first Thanksgiving, I am now knowledgeable about where our national holiday stems from.
Prior to reading The Mayflower, I had a very vague understanding of the first Thanksgiving. I was aware that our society had altered the holiday to a more formal and light-hearted event including feasting and spending time with family, however I never took the time to learn about how the first Thanksgiving really came to be. My imagination of the first Thanksgiving was very stereotypical; I pictured the Pilgrims and Indians surrounding a large table enjoying a meal similar to what we eat today. However what we think is a delightful holiday full of feasting, were mainly solemn days of religious prayer and “a time of spiritual devotion” (117) to the Pilgrims. Of course I was very naive to assume that the Pilgrims and Native Americans enjoyed their meals with a somewhat sense of etiquette, but instead I learned the pilgrims ate with their fingers and had no forks “until the last decades of the seventeenth century” (118). I was also intrigued to find out that the first Thanksgiving meal was several months after the Pilgrim’s arrival to the “New World”. As Amber mentioned, my misguided knowledge was that they ate their Thanksgiving meal with the Native Americans shortly after their arrival upon the Mayflower. Another misinterpretation that took me by surprise was the first Thanksgiving did not take place in late November, “but it was probably in late September or early October” (117). After reading a novel with so many fundamental details about the first Thanksgiving, I am now knowledgeable about where our national holiday stems from.
Although knowing a few basics about the First Thanksgiving, as a teenager having grown up in a rural town in the early twenty-first century I naively celebrate Thanksgiving as a day of enjoying football games and feasting around a table with my family. Thanksgiving has become a trademark holiday accompanied by many misconceptions. Some of these include that it is currently celebrated on the fourth Thursday of November and how it is designated to spending time with primarily one's family, when, as Nathaniel Philbrick wrote in Mayflower, the First Thanksgiving "was probably in late September or early October" (117) and "became an overwhelmingly Native celebration when Massasoit and a hundred Pokanokets (more than twice the entire English population of Plymouth) arrived at the settlement (117). I believe my perception of the First Thanksgiving is similar to that of other Americans: a meal taken place soon after the arrival of the Mayflower where a plethora of Pilgrims sat around a table abundant with turkey, practicing etiquette while hosting a small group of Indians. What surprised me most was that the event did not occur soon after the arrival of the Pilgrims, but almost a full year after. Furthermore, although the natives were hosted by the Pilgrims, they somewhat dominated the event as they greatly outnumbered the Pilgrims and "provided five freshly killed deer" (117). Lastly, the atmosphere did not radiate manners and seriousness, but rather celebration and fun as the two peoples ate, drank, and danced while "they clustered around outdoor fires" (117).
After reading Mayflower I was surprised by how irrelevant the First Thanksgiving was to the book as a whole. In society today we are taught that the history of the Pilgrims leads up to the first Thanksgiving as the happy conclusion of the native and Pilgrim relationship. We celebrate Thanksgiving as a major national holiday, getting the day off from work and school. Although the First Thanksgiving was significant, as it “marked the conclusion of a remarkable year” (Philbrick 119), the event was not mentioned in the rest of the account. Mayflower focuses on the relationship between the Pilgrims and natives, yet our big national holiday occupies a mere four pages of a three hundred and fifty eight page book.
As a person who was born and has spent the majority of her life knowing about the celebration of Thanksgiving as much as was shown in American TV shows, and who has had experience celebrating it three times in total, I was incredibly interested in the origins of this national holiday. I, as Jemma did, too, was surprised to see that it wasn't such a great part of the book, and that now, so many years later, it is one of the most celebrated events in this country. To me as a newcomer, it seemed like Thanksgiving was made to appear as the greatest thing the Pilgrims had ever done. It it obvious that the cooperation and community was an important lesson to take away from the Pilgrims' relations with the Native peoples, but much of those relationships are erased if one is taught that, on the greater scale, the European settlers went straight from sharing meals with the Native Americans to interracial genocide. I, for one, did not know that the First Thanksgiving happened in September/October if here we celebrate it in late November - what is curious to me, since the book did not specify on why exactly that is the case.
My narrow minded idea of Thanksgiving is a football game, family, the fourth Thursday in November, and lots of food. Like most of my peers my understanding of the first Thanksgiving is formed from what I was taught in third grade. A stereotypical image of Pilgrims with buckled top hats and Native Americans wearing feathered headdresses sitting side by side at a long wooden table enjoying turkey and mashed potatoes is how the first Thanksgiving is thought of. Before reading Mayflower by Nathaniel Philbrick this is all I thought Thanksgiving to be, but while reading the novel I learned a totally different story of how the holiday began.
I always assumed that the Thanksgiving meal was the first thing the Pilgrims did when they arrived in the New World. Assuming it was in November like the twenty-first century holiday, I learned the first Thanksgiving actually took place in late September or early October. I was also surprised to learn that the meal didn't take place until after about a year of living in the New World and that it was marked as a celebration that they had officially made it. Thinking that Thanksgiving was the first thing the Pilgrims did, I was also surprised to learn about the fighting with the Native Americans that was most of the first year. I naively assumed that the Native Americans just let the Pilgrims right into their life. It was also unexpected to learn about the food that was enjoyed at the first meal. I learned the meal was more heavily dominated with deer, duck, and fish rather than turkey. In fact, “turkeys were by no means a novelty to the Pilgrims” (118). Another thing I found interesting about the holiday was the pilgrims original meaning of the word “thanksgiving”. The pilgrims were very religious so to them “a thanksgiving was a time of spiritual devotion” (117). In elementary school we are also taught to understand that Thanksgiving was such a monumental step in the Pilgrims coming to the New World. While knowing this I was amazed at the lack of importance it seems to have in the novel. After reading Mayflower I learned that what was originally taught to us by our elementary school teachers about the first Thanksgiving is far from what actually happened during that first meal.
After reading Mayflower by Nathaniel Phibrick I was amazed how different the modern day view of Thanksgiving is in comparison to the first Thanksgiving that the Pilgrims had with the Native Americans. Today most people imagine Pilgrims and Native Americans sitting peacefully around a large table filled with many foods such as turkey and potatoes. In reality it was much different than that. Instead of the a casual social gathering the first Thanksgiving was most likely more of a Native celebration. In my mind when I picture the first Thanksgiving I see a long table loaded with turkey, potatoes, squash and many other foods. It surprised me that they actually most likely sat on the ground around fire and didn't eat turkey. They ate duck and deer instead. I was also shocked that the first Thanksgiving wasn't on the 4th Thursday in November like it is today. It was actually most likely in September or October. It made me wonder what altered the modern day perception of the first Thanksgiving.
Upon reading Philbrick’s descriptive narrative of the first Thanksgiving, I, like Paris, was astonished to discover the dramatic differences between the celebration of today and that of the early settlers of Plymouth. I have been raised in a household where every holiday is an extravagant and long-anticipated event. I can most definitely say that I annually celebrate Thanksgiving much differently than the Pilgrims and the Indians initially did in the early 1600s. For one thing, my family and I memorialize this significant jubilee dressed in formalwear around a long dining room table with bounties of what Americans call “traditional” Thanksgiving food. I am amazed that the settlers of Plymouth “were without pumpkin pies or cranberry sauce” (118), which are threats that our family crave. Our celebration is probably closer in tone to that depicted in those described as “Countless Victorian-era engravings...sitting around a long table draped with a white linen cloth, clasping each other’s hands in prayer” (117). Understanding that the original Thanksgiving was actually very understated and minimal, came at a shock to me. I was aware that this affair was religious, but I was surprised to hear that it was “similar to a traditional English harvest festival - a secular celebration that dated back to the Middle Ages in which villagers ate, drank, and played games” (117). The First Thanksgiving also was an “overwhelmingly Native celebration when Massasoit and a hundred Pokanokets arrived at the settlement” (117). Instead of sitting around the comfortable and exquisitely decorated table I find myself present at every November, “most of the celebrants stood, squatted, or sat on the ground” (117). Even more astonishing, “Turkeys were by no means a novelty to the Pilgrims” (118). How could this be? Although turkeys were in fact served at this function, this fowl did not revolve around the whole meal as it does today. These dissimilarities made me come to the realization that Americans have greatly reinterpreted the initial message and nature of Thanksgiving. Not only have we shaped it into a stressful event, but we have also made it extraordinarily superficial. While the simplistic habitants were satisfied with eating “with their fingers and knives,” (118) we are concerned about how to wow our relatives with our food displays and well-mannered offspring. The Settlers’ and Natives’ motives of celebration of the season of bounty and gratitude of survival have become muddled with ours of overindulgence and football. All of us should be reminded to reflect upon the true meaning of giving thanks and fellowship, as did the heros of the first simple, yet meaningful, Day of Thanks.
After reading the novel Mayflower, by Nathaniel Philbrick, I couldn’t help but laugh at the way I thought the first Thanksgiving was like. In my mind I pictured the Pilgrims on one side of the table and the Natives on the other. I envisioned a peaceful feast, with foods like the traditional turkey, mashed potatoes, and gravy laid out along the long table. I was surprised to learn the first Thanksgiving was nothing like I thought. I assumed it would have taken place in late November, but I learned “it was probably in late September or early October” (117). It also surprised me that the holiday “became an overwhelmingly native celebration” (117) because I thought there would only be “a few curious Indians” (117) looking on. The biggest surprise was the fact that no turkey was actually eaten. I learned “Turkeys were by no means a novelty to the Pilgrims” (118) and instead they feasted on deer, duck, fish, and birds. Not until I read the Mayflower, did I know what the true first Thanksgiving was like.
Prior to reading Mayflower, I had a decent knowledge of the First Thanksgiving; I knew the pilgrims did not have the pleasure of feasting on an abnormally large ovenroasted turkey, mashed potatoes drenched in gravy, cranberry sauce, butternut squash, endless bowls of stuffing, and multiple flavored pies, all on a diningroom table covered in draped white table cloth, shiny silverware, crystal glassware, colorful napkins, and festive center pieces, but as Sam Livermore mentioned earlier, I too had always believed the First Thanksgiving took place during a somewhat "Golden Age" of the Pilgrims. I believed the event took place in a time in which the Pilgrims had finally begun to develop surplus food, goods, and a sturdy, powerful society; however, they were still struggling immensely with disease and hunger, and the natives versus Europeans power struggle was killing people off daily. In addition, I also thought the event marked a true turning point in the relationship between the Native Americans and the pilgrims; I believed the First Thanksgiving was led up to and followed by a period of safety and serene peace amongst the English and the various native tribes, but in reality, there was basically always consistent conflict amongst the two. I was also was unaware that prior to the event, the pilgrims had hoped to kill sachem Corbitant in Nemesket, which resulted in "nine sachems ... journey[ing] to Plymouth to sign a treaty professing their loyalty to King James" on September 13th (161). Nevertheless, “the First Thanksgiving marked the conclusion of a remarkable year” and "was a testament not only to the Pilgrims’ grit, resolve, and faith, but to their ability to take advantage of an extraordinary opportunity" (165). In addition, “by making clear their loyalty to Massasoit at the “hurly-burly” in Nemasket—they had taken charge of their own destiny in the region" (166). Aside from these two main concepts-- struggle to survive and native conflict-- there are a few specific details that I did not have knowledge on. Firstly, I did not know that the event “was probably in late September or early October” (163). Secondly, I did not know that the term Thanksgiving, [was] first applied in the nineteenth century, [and] was not used by the Pilgrims themselves," I assumed it was applied by the English sometime within the 1600s or 1700s (163). Thirdly, I was unaware that so many natives had attended the feast. Lastly, it was interesting to think about how the fall foliage of New England was such a perplexing phonomenon to the Europeans, since it never really crosses my mind that, although we are so used to it, not many people have the delicacy of getting to see its beauty every year. All in all, most of the First Thanksgiving facts did not come as a surprise to me, but after reading Mayflower I have developed a more accurate understanding of the celebratory event that marked the end of a great year for the pilgrims and a step towards developing a stable civilization.
As many others, I was surprised in learning about what had really happened during the First Thanksgiving. I had always thought of the First Thanksgiving as how we had learned in kindergarten and elementary school, as Philbrick had described, the Pilgrims “sitting around a long table draped with a white table cloth, clasping each other’s hands in prayer as a few curious Indians looked on” (117). I was surprised to find out that it was a mostly Native celebration as there were a hundred Pokanokets. Rather than everyone in attendance sitting around a long table, “most of the celebrants stood, squatted, or sat on the ground as they clustered around outdoor fires”(117). Another misconception that I had believed was that the First Thanksgiving was the beginning of long standing peace between the Natives and the Pilgrims. I thought that once the Indians and Pilgrims had gathered around a table for this large meal, they had established a friendship and would continue to carry on this unity. I was startled by the fact that this celebration had taken place so soon after Standish’s terrifying ambush in Nemasket in an attempt to initiate fear in the Indians of what the English were capable of. Soon after the First Thanksgiving, the English would violate this peace even after nine sachems had signed a treaty stating their loyalty to King James. However, I was reassured of my belief of the two group's unity after reading that in the upcoming winter “Massasoit’s decision to offer them assistance had saved the Pilgrims’ lives in the short term” (119). Now, I am able to fully understand the roots of our national holiday and will have a new view on the festivities that will take place this year.
Contrary to the modern day celebration of Thanksgiving, the accurate depiction of the first Thanksgiving described in Mayflower would have surprised me as child because of what I learned in school, however now that I am older realize that what we learned is a romanticized fictional story. Philbrick emphasizes “the Pilgrims did not spend the day sitting around a long table draped with a white table cloth, clasping each other’s hands in prayer as a few curious Indians looked on.” (117) As much as I would love to believe that that happened, I know it is unrealistic to say that everyone had a chair, a fork, and a big piece of Turkey in front of them. In reality, they ate deer, duck, fish, and wild turkey, and most people “stood, squatted, or sat on the ground” (117) It also did not surprise me that the first Thanksgiving was not first time the English and the Indians collaborated to make peace. It would not make sense if it were the first time because the Pilgrims would not have made it through the first winter in 1620 without the assistance of the Indians. However, it did surprise me that “the First Thanksgiving…was probably in late September or early October,” (117) because today we celebrate on the fourth Thursday in November. I am glad that I know the factual story of what happened during the first Thanksgiving, and will keep that in mind during Thanksgiving this year.
After reading Mayflower, I was surprised to learn that the general perception of the modern holiday Thanksgiving, barely has any correlation to the first Thanksgiving that occurred. When the first Thanksgiving comes to mind for most people, they think of an elaborate meal with Pilgrims and some Indians joined together in harmony for a feast after the harvest in late November. However, the actual date of the first Thanksgiving was “probably in late September or early October, soon after their crop of corn, squash, beans, barley, and pea had been harvested” (117). For some people today, but certainly not the majority, similar to the Pilgrims celebrated as “a time of spiritual devotion” (117). Although the holiday has evolved into one centered around eating, the traditions for the first Thanksgiving date back to English harvest festivals where “villagers ate, drank, and played games” (117). Contrary to popular belief, the Pilgrims “did not spend the day sitting around a long table draped with a white linen cloth” (117). Of course they “were without pumpkin pies or cranberry sauce” (118), but something more surprising was that “there were also no forks” (118). Instead, “the Pilgrims ate with their fingers and their knives” (118). I was surprised to discover that the Civil War triggered Abraham Lincoln to establish the holiday because of a “need for a restorative myth of national origins” (354). However I found it surprising that not until the “1960s a new sense of Native identity emerged that challenged the nation’s veneration of Thanksgiving” (355). Overall, I was somewhat surprised that the general knowledge of the first Thanksgiving of most people is somewhat inaccurate.
When reading about the first Thanksgiving, I was surprised to learn that it was exactly as the term “thanksgiving” represents. Instead of a modernized holiday created off of the basis of the Pilgrims and Indians, the Thanksgiving we celebrate today is based off of the same ideas as was celebrated 400 years ago. While the modern Thanksgiving is more of a social affair filled with pumpkin pie and family drama, the principle that we are giving thanks for all of the good things that happened in the previous year is the same as that of the first Thanksgiving. In the fall of 1621, the Pilgrims had been in the New World for almost a year, against all odds. There were so many things that could have killed them all or caused them to turn around and go back to Europe. When they first arrived, the Pilgrims stole corn, took land, and overall angered the Natives. They didn’t have houses, food, or protection. Half of them died the first winter. The Indians easily could have killed the entire group. The Pilgrims had so many reasons not to make it through that first year in the New World, and Thanksgiving marked the time when they feasted and played games to give thanks for all of the factors that helped bring them through those hardships. Just like the Pilgrims so many years ago, today we get together with our friends and families as the leaves change color to give thanks for all of the things that went right in the past year.
While reading some of my classmate's blogs, I have seen that many have been taken back and upset that the first Thanksgiving was different than how it is today. It is true that the first Thanksgiving did not come with a white tablecloth, a turkey, lots of gravy, and a family specialty dessert at the end, but that is not what Thanksgiving is about. The fundamental part of thanksgiving is the "giving of thanks", it's right in the word! When the Pilgrims sat down with the overwhelming number of Native Americans at the first Thanksgiving, it was to "mark the conclusion of a remarkable year"(119). These people had survived a task that most would consider impossible. As they sat down, they were able to be thankful for what they have accomplished and be thankful to have another year to make the most out of. When a family sits down at the Thanksgiving table, the same fundamental principle is there. Sometimes the way something is done isn't important as long as that fundamental principle is there.
After reading Mayflower I have realized that my interpretation of Thanksgiving has been completely skewed. Before reading this novel I believed that it was a meeting of peace and giving back between the two groups (Pilgrims and Indians) where turkey, potatoes and other vegetables were being served at a large table at the Plymouth Plantation. Also, the date of the first Thanksgiving celebration is still unknown, but is believed to have been in “late September or early October soon after their crop of corn, squash, beans, barley and peas had been harvested”(117). This shocked me because today we celebrate the holiday at the end of November. Also the meal that was part of the first Thanksgiving is different than the stereotypical meal we serve today which is turkey and mashed potatoes; the Pilgrims and Indians were sitting around individual camp fires eating duck, deer, turkey, and a assortment of fish. “In addition to duck and deer according to Bradford, a ‘good store of turkeys’ in the fall of 1621… The Pilgrims may have also added fish to their meal of birds and deer. In fall, striped bass, bluefish, and cod were abundant”(118). I find it extremely interesting reading about how the first Thanksgiving was celebrated and comparing it to the modern day version of Thanksgiving. There are a lot of differences and I am shocked at how we came to the modern tradition that we know and love today.
Prior to reading Mayflower, I was under the assumption that the first Thanksgiving was generally pretty similar to how us Americans celebrate it nowadays; a single feast consisting of turkey, potatoes, corn, and other classics, a group of well acquainted individuals sitting around a table sharing what they are thankful for. Philbrick's analysis of the first Thanksgiving, however, assured me that it was somewhat different from how I and presumably many people envisioned it. It is mentioned in the book that, while our Thanksgiving celebrations typically only last a single day, the first Thanksgiving in 1621 lasted several days. I was shocked by this statement, because it seemed as though the Pilgrims struggled to acquire an ample amount of food for all of the settlers, let alone enough food for several days of feasting. Also, nowadays, the first Thanksgiving is celebrated on the last Thursday of the month of November. In 1621, "it was probably in late September or early October, soon after their crop of corn, squash, beans, barley, and peas had been harvested" (117). I never really gave much thought to this, but upon reading this section of the book, I wondered why the date was changed to the last Thursday of the eleventh month. Prior to reading Mayflower, I was also under the assumption that the first Thanksgiving was actually referred to as Thanksgiving, though Philbrick makes it clear that is not the case. The description of the first Thanksgiving makes it seem as though their celebration was much less orderly and methodical than it is today. Given that it wasn't one set feast, and instead more of a somewhat disorderly gathering of both natives and Pilgrims, who ate with their hands and their knives. Admittedly, I was a little disturbed by the thought of eating a meal with one's bare hands, but then again, the English settlers also had a reputation for not bathing regularly, so the lack of proper utensils would've been the least of my worries. What really was not shocking to me about the first Thanksgiving, was that the celebration centered around the a giant, celebratory feast with a myriad of food options readily available for everyone. This notion was true then, and it still rings true today
Prior to reading The Mayflower by Nathaniel Philbrick, I knew there were differences between the First Thanksgiving and the holiday we celebrate today. What surprised me was how different the meaning behind the holiday is from the meaning of the original feast. The Pilgrims were celebrating the fact that they had survived a year in the New World, and had food to eat. Of course they had to thank God for their good fortune, but they were also celebrating their new relationship with Massasoit and the Pokanokets. Their mutually beneficial rapport was, for the time being, peaceful, and was crucial to the pilgrims' survival. According to the "Conscience" epilogue, the modern holiday is a more nationalistic event, romanticizing the Pilgrim-Native relationship, and reminding Americans of their origins. Most people (especially children) associate Thanksgiving with this image of the brave Pilgrims arriving in the New World, and coexisting with the Natives. I was surprised to learn that the holiday is actually more about "romantic nostalgia" (355) than thankfulness.
Before reading Philbrick’s description of the First Thanksgiving, I had a very vague understanding of the First Thanksgiving. As we know today, Thanksgiving is an annual holiday celebrated to express thanks for one another and all that we have. Today, Thanksgiving is celebrated at the end of November. Although, the First Thanksgiving actually most likely occurred in “late September or early October” (117). This surprised me and triggered the question of why today, we celebrate it in late November? “The First Thanksgiving soon became an overwhelmingly Native celebration…” (117) To my surprise, there were more than twice as many Native Americans as there were Indians. I had always pictured the First Thanksgiving as primarily an English celebration with very few Native Americans. But, in fact, this event marked the end of conflict between the Pilgrims and the Natives. Newly found allies, the Natives and Pilgrims celebrated together. “The Pilgrims were without pumpkin pies or cranberry sauce.” (118) The food aspect of the First Thanksgiving surprised me as well. The Pilgrims celebrated with duck, geese, deer, turkey, and sometimes fish. Today, Turkey is the most important aspect of the traditional Thanksgiving meal, but to my surprise, “Turkeys were by no means a novelty to the Pilgrims” (118). Although I had a basic idea of the First Thanksgiving, Philbrick’s description made me realize how much the modern perception of Thanksgiving differs today.
The American holiday of Thanksgiving conjures up memories of time with family and white-tablecloth feasts, which is not at all synonymous with Philbrick’s description of the first occurrence of the holiday. I was surprised to learn about the informality of the Pilgrims’ feast; “celebrants stood, squatted, or sat on the ground as they clustered around outdoor fires”(117), and “ate with their fingers and their knives”(118), an image that is completely contradictory to the contemporary concept of Thanksgiving. Another surprising element of the First Thanksgiving was the natives’ involvement in the holiday. Massasoit and the Pokanokets greatly outnumbered the Pilgrims, and the celebration was a largely secular festival, with both groups contributing equally to the festivities. I had previously harbored the misconception that the First Thanksgiving’s celebration entailed the Pilgrims teaching the curious Pokanokets their “civilized” manner of celebrating, a notion that was far from the reality. Neither group expressed any trepidation towards the idea of a joint celebration, and they were friendly enough to pool their harvests and game to prepare a feast, which included pottage, fish, ducks, geese, deer, and turkeys. Despite their strong relationship with the Pokanokets, the Pilgrims were far from being secure in the New World. Plymouth was still largely under the threat of a native attack, due to the various enemy tribes in the region. This was a deeply unsettling realization, because while the Pilgrims celebrated surviving a year in the New World, potential peril was still hanging over their heads.
Before reading Mayflower by Nathaniel Philbrick, I had some knowledge that there were differences between the first Thanksgiving and the modern day celebration of Thanksgiving. However I was surprised to discover just how different the two celebrations are and how they differ in a variety of ways. On the first Thanksgiving, the Pilgrims were celebrating their survival in the New World for the year they had been there and that they had food to eat. They were also celebrating their new relationship with Massasoit and the Pokanokets. Their joining together was mutually beneficial and was instrumental to the Pilgrims' survival. On the other hand, the modern holiday is less of a celebration of survival, but more of a reminder to Americans about where they came from and how America would be different if the Pilgrims hadn’t survived. I used to (And I bet a lot of people still) associate Thanksgiving with this mental picture of, “brave Pilgrims arriving in the New World and coexisting with the Natives in perfect harmony.” I was surprised to learn the several differences between the first Thanksgiving and the modern day Thanksgiving.
There were several facts I didn’t realize about the first Thanksgiving. First, I didn't know that it “was similar to a traditional English harvest festival- a secular celebration that dated back to the Middle Ages in which villagers ate, drank, and played games” (Philbrick 117) Had assumed it was rooted more religiously than a secular holiday. Another thing that surprised me was that the Indians at the party out numbered the pilgrims. “Massasoit and a hundred Pokanokets (more than twice the entire English population of Plymouth) arrived at the settlement” (Philbrick 117). I had often assumed that the populations at the party would be even. Next, I knew that the traditional Thanksgiving dinner that we know and love wasn't what they really ate, but I was shocked to see that the pilgrims “also added fish to their meal of birds and deer.”(Philbrick 118) Finally, I am always interested to see the use of silverware throughout the ages and I made note that “The Pilgrims ate with their fingers and their knives.”(Philbrick 118). I would have thought good Englishmen of the 1620s would have a similar set of manners if not a more strict one when considering eating utensils.
There were several facts I didn’t realize about the first Thanksgiving. First, I didn't know that it “was similar to a traditional English harvest festival- a secular celebration that dated back to the Middle Ages in which villagers ate, drank, and played games” (Philbrick 117) Had assumed it was rooted more religiously than a secular holiday. Another thing that surprised me was that the Indians at the party out numbered the pilgrims. “Massasoit and a hundred Pokanokets (more than twice the entire English population of Plymouth) arrived at the settlement” (Philbrick 117). I had often assumed that the populations at the party would be even. Next, I knew that the traditional Thanksgiving dinner that we know and love wasn't what they really ate, but I was shocked to see that the pilgrims “also added fish to their meal of birds and deer.”(Philbrick 118) Finally, I am always interested to see the use of silverware throughout the ages and I made note that “The Pilgrims ate with their fingers and their knives.”(Philbrick 118). I would have thought good Englishmen of the 1620s would have a similar set of manners if not a more strict one when considering eating utensils.
After reading the Mayflower account of the first Thanksgiving, I am surprised by the few similarities between past and present Thanksgiving. In the process of reading, I noticed that today these positive elements transfer over to modern day Thanksgiving. I was previously unaware that the Pilgrims did not refer to Thanksgiving as such. However, I found that the religious undertones in the celebration of a good harvest rang more true to my modern day description of Thanksgiving than I expected. I also found it beautiful that the celebration coincided with the changing of the leaves in New England, despite that the date is truly unknown. Lastly, I was pleasantly surprised that the first Thanksgiving "became an overwhelmingly Native celebration" (117). Typically, that is not shown in the modern day depictions of Thanksgiving. According to Edward Winslow, these natives were "very trust[worth]y, quick of apprehension, ripe witted, [and] just," (119), adding to the all-American image of a harmonious Thanksgiving. Despite the threat of native attack that constantly lingered over the heads of the Pilgrims, the first Thanksgiving's happier elements are pulled out from the original account today, making it widely celebrated across the United States.
Once I read about the First Thanksgiving in Philbrick’s “Mayflower”, I immediately recognized numerous differences between what was traditionally supposed to have happened that day and what really happened. When I think of the First Thanksgiving, I think of Pilgrims, being fully clothed and wearing big black hats with buckles, and Indians, wearing nothing but an animal skin and feathers in their hair, sitting together around a very long table and enjoying a huge feast. According to the book, it was a gathering of too many people to sit around a single table; there were hundreds of Natives and about 50 Pilgrims, “even if all the Pilgrims’ furniture was brought out into the sunshine, most of the celebrants stood, squatted, or sat on the ground as they clustered around outdoor fires” (117). I have always assumed that this event took place on the fourth thursday in November, November 26 is actually the exact day I thought it was on, but realistically, “We do not know the exact date of the celebration we now call the First Thanksgiving, but it was probably in late September or early October” (117). As for me personally, I found this information rather alarming. If this holiday is as misconcepted as it is today, what’s to say that others are not as well? Maybe other big events in history happened differently than what we believe today, and that idea is slightly unsettling for me.
Through reading Mayflower I knew their were differences between our modern traditional thanksgiving and the first, but I was very surprised at how much they differed. Thanksgiving as I perceived it was a peaceful small dinner between the native Americans and the Pilgrims that was very proper and consisted of silver wear and nice clothing. It was disconcerting to read that the Pilgrims were greatly outnumbered at this feast and not a small group of natives as I grew up understanding. I was quiet concerned when I read that the true date of thanksgiving is unknown, I always thought it happened in November and couldn't comprehend that it may not even had happened that month " We do not know the exact day of celebration that we now call the First Thanksgiving, but it was probably in late September or early October"(117) I always thought the one thing that they knew for sure was the date. Some differences from modern thanksgiving I knew and found comforting. I understood that they did not have warm pies with icecream, heaping plates of mashed potatoes and stuffing. They had to utilize what they had at the time such as beans, corn, deer, and fish. "Turkeys were by no means a novelty to the pilgrims" (118) this I found most shocking of all. Whenever I think of thanksgiving I always think of a big cooked turkey at the table center and everything laid out in symmetry around it. Philbrick's Mayflower really taught me just how much the differences between the First Thanksgiving and today, which makes me wonder where some of these modern traditions origninated from.
In general, the description of the first Thanksgiving given by Philbrick was not altogether surprising to me in any way. As with most of my classmates, the notion of a formal, Victorian-era civilized celebration has been laughable at best for a time. The specifics of how Indian-dominated the celebration was are not surprising, but definitely new to me; at the very least I had thought that the event was primarily English. Additionally, the existence of an existing event known as a thanksgiving was new to me, though it being an obscure Puritan gathering made it seem less pertinent. The main disillusionment most seem to hold or expect, however, should not be as surprising or as troubling as most make it out to be. Certainly, the popular depiction of Thanksgiving as a quiet, Puritan affair “as a few curious Indians looked on”(117) is apocryphal at best and facetious at worst, but nonetheless it is a holiday, not a textbook. As such, it is fully expected that little aside from the general intent (that of Pilgrim-native cooperation) has survived; few holidays survive intact for centuries.
It's almost common knowledge that the historically-accurate first Thanksgiving is very far from a small crowd eating a single turkey on a picnic table, but until reading Mayflower I was unaware of what a historically accurate depiction would be. I was most surprised with how skewed the numbers had become; twice the number of Europeans is far from "a few curious Indians"(117). I also found it amusing that there was a lack of silverware and hence the Puritans and Natives alike used their hands. This is far from the typical civilized single-turkey meal one typically sees. Its interesting to see how far the holiday has come, yet not entirely unexpected when considering that an egg-laying rabbit is the mascot of another holiday.
Before reading Mayflower by Nathaniel Philbrick, I knew the basics of the First Thanksgiving, such as it was a peaceful meeting between the Pilgrims and the local Native American tribes. What surprised me about the First Thanksgiving is that a “thanksgiving” was a Puritan event for a time of spiritual devotion. Also, the First Thanksgiving was “similar to a traditional English harvest festival,” (117) but it included Native American tribes from New England. Another thing that surprised me is that the Pilgrims did not have turkey on the table for the First Thanksgiving. Instead, they ate ducks, geese, and deer that was brought by Massasoit and a hundred of the Pokanoket tribe. It surprised me that the Pilgrims did not use forks at the First Thanksgiving, but only until “the last decades of the seventeenth century” did they use forks, and instead only used “their fingers and their knives” (118). It seems odd that forks were used but not knives, because the two are used hand-in-hand today. The First Thanksgiving surprised me with different, more specific facts than what I had known before reading Mayflower by Nathaniel Philbrick.
Before reading Mayflower by Nathaniel Philbrick, I knew the basics of the First Thanksgiving, such as it was a peaceful meeting between the Pilgrims and the local Native American tribes. What surprised me about the First Thanksgiving is that a “thanksgiving” was a Puritan event for a time of spiritual devotion. Also, the First Thanksgiving was “similar to a traditional English harvest festival,” (117) but it included Native American tribes from New England. Another thing that surprised me is that the Pilgrims did not have turkey on the table for the First Thanksgiving. Instead, they ate ducks, geese, and deer that was brought by Massasoit and a hundred of the Pokanoket tribe. It surprised me that the Pilgrims did not use forks at the First Thanksgiving, but only until “the last decades of the seventeenth century” did they use forks, and instead only used “their fingers and their knives” (118). It seems odd that forks were used but not knives, because the two are used hand-in-hand today. The First Thanksgiving surprised me with different, more specific facts than what I had known before reading Mayflower by Nathaniel Philbrick.
I was extremely surprised by how the first Thanksgiving was celebrated, even though I knew that it was a coming together of the Natives and Pilgrims there were many parts of it that I was unaware of. I knew that the holiday most of us celebrate now, is very different from the one celebrated originally, but I was unaware that some of the foods that we view as traditional such as, pumpkin pie, and cranberry sauce were not present during the original Thanksgiving. I knew that they did not have a white tablecloth; however, I expected the pilgrims to have forks, but instead they “ate with their fingers and their knives” (118). This fact helped put into perspective just how much more primitive the technology of the settlers was than the technology we have today. While these minor differences are surprising, I think that what shocked me the most is that there were more natives attending the first Thanksgiving than there were pilgrims. I always assumed that the settlers had more people attending since they were the ones who hosted it. I was aware that the pilgrims had celebrations similar to Thanksgiving, and the large native presence helps explain why there were so many native traditions mixed in with the English ones. Even though I may not have known all of the specifics of the first Thanksgiving, I did understand the significance of it, that it blended the two cultures, symbolically showing the blending of the two groups of people, and to thank the natives for helping the pilgrims survive the cold hard winter, something no other settlers had done before.
After reading “Mayflower,” I discovered that there are many misconceptions of what occurred during the first Thanksgiving. When learning about the first Thanksgiving when I was younger, the first thing teachers taught was that Thanksgiving was about peace and being thankful for, and imaged Pilgrims and some Native Americans eating peacefully with utensils around a long table with a white table cloth, but in reality, both groups ate, drank, and played games together. Also, rather than few Native Americans, there were twice as many Native Americans than Puritans at the Plymouth colony. In addition, even though today we eat turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, and cranberry sauce on Thanksgiving, the meal on the first Thanksgiving included fish and deer that was hunted by the Native Americans. Before reading “Mayflower” I believed I knew what truly happened on the first Thanksgiving compared to today’s version of Thanksgiving, but I learned certain things that didn’t occur on the first Thanksgiving contrary to common belief.
I had already been surprised by the minuscule amount of settlers in the early days of Plymouth - I’ve been on field trips to the plantation with more kids than there were Pilgrims at the original settlement - but the book describes a little-known disparity between the amount of Pilgrims and Native Americans at the first Thanksgiving, something that would have been more unexpected if I hadn’t just read about the deadly winter preceding it. Furthermore, the idea of Thanksgiving plants in our minds the idea of a planned event - but the book describes the Pilgrims sitting down to finally enjoy a surplus food, and then Native Americans dropping by and “providing five freshly killed deer” (117). Not that they weren’t welcome, but the feast wasn’t so much the official celebration of Native-English relations that we’ve turned it into, and more of a commemoration of the Puritan’s one-year survival.
Given the emphasis on the first Thanksgiving nowadays, and given the fact that we have a guiding question on the topic, I was expecting more than four pages dedicated to the subject. What was initially just a chance to “rejoice together… after a more special manner” (117), has become more of an exaggerated symbol of the two communities uniting. What we were taught in elementary school is, unsurprisingly, a more flowery version of what actually happened, with the commercialized holiday only building on that distortion. But what the book demonstrates more than those tiny inaccuracies, is that the event wasn’t as focal or emblematic to those attending as it is to those reading about it in 2015.
While it is fairly common knowledge that modern celebrations of Thanksgiving bear little resemblance to the first celebration of the Holiday, several aspects about the first Thanksgiving were surprising as well as disturbing to me. Philbrick describes the first Thanksgiving as "an overwhelmingly Native celebration" (Philbrick 117). Besides the surprising aspect of this fact, it is also quite disturbing when thought about in depth. At this point in the Plymouth Colony's history, the Natives had shown the Pilgrims the proper way to plant and harvest crops, and they also introduced them to numerous game around the area and goods that were used in trade. The Pilgrims were greatly indebted to the Natives, and without them it is almost certain that the Plymouth Colony would've quickly ended in disaster. With this taken into account, it is quite shocking to realize what Thanksgiving has come to symbolize as an American holiday today. Instead of the Pilgrims honoring all that the Natives had given them, they decimated the Natives of New England in the years that followed. While a fragile peace was kept between the Natives and the colonists for a few years after the first Thanksgiving, the Pilgrims ended up killing Natives by the thousands in King Phillip's War. This is a very tragic fact, and it is very upsetting and disturbing to realize that what was once "an overwhelmingly Native celebration" (Philbrick 117) is now mainly recognized as only a triumph of the Pilgrims, without giving any credit to the Native Americans who showed the Pilgrims how to survive in the New World.
After reading Nathaniel Philbrick’s, Mayflower my entire view on the First Thanksgiving changed. I had previously learned that the First Thanksgiving was not an extremely important or influential event in the Pilgrims first year here in America. I did not, however; realize how insignificant the entire event was. It was a huge gathering between the Native Americans and the Pilgrims in which they feasted and celebrated alongside each other. This however was not when the two groups came together to make peace. Peace had been established months before and the peace between these two groups was already strong at this point. It was also not even the first time that the Pilgrims had entertained the Indians, they had hosted many from the Pokanoket tribe in the previous months, so many that they had to created a system in which the amount of visiting Indians decreased since the Indians were eating though their already depleting food sources. The First Thanksgiving was nothing more than the Pilgrims celebrating their unlikely survival, and a way to thank Massasoit and his tribe for the aid that they provided them during their first year. Nothing political or instrumental to the Pilgrims survival in America occurred at this event, it was nothing more than a festivity.
After reading "Mayflower" by Nathaniel Philbrick there were several aspects of the first thanksgiving that surprised me. For instance, I did not know that the First Thanksgiving was in celebration of survival and had no religious undertone. I always assumed the First Thanksgiving was a celebration thanking god for allowing the Pilgrims to be able to set up a fairly successful settlement in the New World even though many Europeans before them failed miserably. However, the feast was more of an “English harvest festival—a secular celebration” (117)—to commemorate how much food the pilgrims were able to gather, and to honor their peaceful relationship with the Natives. I was also surprised at how the “First Thanksgiving…became an overwhelmingly Native celebration” (117). I always thought it was a pilgrim celebration that the Puritans invited a few Natives too, like Squanto and Massasoit—who helped them adapt to their new environment—in order give them thanks for helping them survive their first. In actuality, the Natives had a lot to celebrate too, and Massasoit brought “a hundred Pokanokets” (117) to the feast to celebrate how he now has the Pilgrims on his side in his fight against the Narragansettes.
Since seventh grade it has been taught that “history is vulnerable”, and the first Thanksgiving is a perfect example of how this vulnerability can lead people into believing incorrect information. In preschool and in early years of elementary school, a time when children's brains are eager to soak up knowledge, we are briefly taught about the first Thanksgiving. I cannot recall ever reading an actual history book to gather facts about this momentous day, but we did read fictional accounts of how the first Thanksgiving was spent, giving everyone a rather skewed perception of the events of the first Thanksgiving. Thus, when reading a true account of this greatly twisted day, there was some information that surprised me and some facts that I was able to reaffirm to be true. The idea of the Pilgrims “sitting around a long table draped with white linen cloth” (117) has always been preposterous and hard to believe. At this point in history, the Pilgrims had only been members of the New World for less than a year, therefore, it is difficult to believe that this first Thanksgiving was the rather fancy event that countless pictures portray. The Pilgrims did not yet have the time or the resources to build a house large enough to fit this large amount of people around a table dressed with a white linen cloth and silverware. At this point, the Pilgrims didn’t even have forks to eat with. Though I was aware that the first Thanksgiving wasn’t exactly how we have learned it to be, there were still various facts that shocked me. To start, I did not know that the first Thanksgiving was “an overwhelmingly Native celebration” (117). I always assumed that this celebration was about the Pilgrims spending time with one another, as most families do to celebrate nowadays, but the fact that it was mostly Native shows that this celebration was about whole areas coming together and having a good time rather than just families. Since the Pilgrims were very religious people and images of the first Thanksgiving portray the Pilgrims “clasping each others hands in prayer” (117), I always assumed that this first Thanksgiving was a religious affair. I thought that Thanksgiving gradually became a secular holiday from a very religious one, thus, I was shocked that the first Thanksgiving was similar to a secular English harvest festival. Though the Thanksgiving celebrations that happen today are drastically different from the first celebration 394 years ago, the reason for celebrating has remained the same. Thanksgiving is a time where you can reflect and be thankful for all of the good things that have happened, whether it be something as little as getting an “A” or something as big as surviving a year in a foreign place with foreign people. Though most of what is taught about the first Thanksgiving is drastically warped, it has been able to keep its true meaning of coming together and being thankful.
After reading "Mayflower" by Nathaniel Philbrick, my knowledge of Thanksgiving was severely jolted. Today, as we are taught, many people including myself believed that everyone was sitting together feasting on a long, big table filled with food. Instead of stuffed Turkey, there were ducks, and fresh deers! Mayflower also brought me to question the exact date of Thanksgiving. As we know it, it is usually in the end of November. However, in the story, it states that it occurred sometime between October, and September. I also discovered that it was not all the Indian tribes that participated in the event. At this time, natives were barbaric, and mostly spent their times raiding one another. I was completely unaware of this situation, and thought that everyone lived happily ever after, after Thanksgiving. At the time period however, it celebrated the unity and new alliance between the Pokanokets, and the pilgrims. Mayflower definitely changed my view of Thanksgiving. It showed how brave the two people were in their hopes of preventing future clashes. This event was necessary to build up a stronger bond between pilgrims and natives so that they may co-exist, and began a new era of peaceful times.
Thanksgiving is one of the most celebrated traditions in America. However, most of what I personally thought about the meaning of Thanksgiving was entirely misconstrued. First of all the date of the first Thanksgiving was most likely in September or October not in November which is when we celebrate the holiday today. Also and more importantly Thanksgiving was not nearly the first time the Native Americans and the Pilgrims had come in contact with each other. I was under the impression that the Pilgrims had just settled within weeks of the First Thanksgiving and hadn’t contacted the Natives at all, but this was not the case. The Pilgrims already had a solid relationship with the Native Americans and this harvest wasn’t the Natives saving the Pilgrims from starvation, but more the Pilgrims introducing their traditional religious harvest to the Natives. This was probably the most astonishing to me because I was always under the impression that during Thanksgiving the Native Americans were the ones who were taking care of and hosting the Pilgrims but this was not the case. Lastly and most importantly, they didn't even eat turkey.
The First Thanksgiving described by Nathaniel Philbrick in his novel The Mayflower differed from my image of the First Thanksgiving. I imagined Pilgrims and Native Americans to be sitting together eating turkey as one big family. But I was surprised when I read that the food that they had was completely different. For me, turkey was one of the symbols of the Thanksgiving. Today, no one can imagine Thanksgiving with deer or ducks instead of turkey. Although the Pilgrims ate ducks and deer for Thanksgiving. Another thing that took me by surprise was that the First Thanksgiving was “in late September or October” instead of November (117). I did not expect that future generations would change the time of celebration, especially if it was “a time of spiritual devotion” (117). Also, the fact that modern Thanksgiving is about family and being thankful for the people around you distorted my image of the First Thanksgiving. Back then it was about religion and the celebration was meant to be a distraction from everyday labor. It was time when people could connect with God. When I realized that that modern visualization of Thanksgiving is counterfeit to the First Thanksgiving, I started to wonder what other American traditions have changed with time.
Like many people have talked about before me, my imagination of what the first Thanksgiving was differs entirely from the reality of it. I imagined the pilgrims and the indians sitting along a large table embellished with various pumpkins and freshly fallen leaves, not a group of people spread out among a large space standing and sitting on the dirt ground whilst eating. I also imagined, as redundant as it sounds, that the pilgrims and the indians were having nice little conversations about the weather and the previous harvest .However, it is just now coming to my realization that many of them couldn’t communicate because of the language barrier. This makes me feel a bit uncomfortable because if they weren’t talking, what were they doing. Did they just spend the day playing games and drinking together? I also imagined that Thanksgiving was the starting point of peace between the indians and the pilgrims when in reality, the most brutal of their fighting was yet to come. I had always pictured the day as a first meal between the indians and pilgrims to kick off the start to a new life together. Though the day did draw the two closer together, i was unaware that the day of Thanksgiving did not mark the end of their fighting. I was also unclear that the day of Thanksgiving really wasn’t all too significant. The two groups had signed a peace treaty a few months prior to the first thanksgiving, declaring their peace. They had also gathered in other sorts of manners not as formal. For instance, after Massasoit delivered his speech about the other villages trading with the pilgrims, they all had a smoke together and even slept in the sachem’s wigwam. All in all, my lack of understanding of what the first Thanksgiving really was made me feel a bit uncomfortable and uncertain. The amount of questions i have is unimaginable and i wish i had been there to see what truly occurred.
After reading the Mayflower’s narrative of the First Thanksgiving, I was shocked and surprised at how different the commonly told story of the uniting meal shared between the Pilgrims and the Wampanoags is from the actual event. We celebrate Thanksgiving on the fourth Thursday of November every year with an early dinner of turkey sitting alongside family and friends, recounting all that we are thankful for. On the contrary, it is stated in Mayflower that we are uncertain the exact date the First Thanksgiving was on, only that it was “soon after their crops of corn, squash, beans, barley, and peas had been harvested” (117). Apparently the Pilgrims were less than thankful for the Native Americans, because as soon as Squanto, the helpful “tongue” (113) of the English, was pronounced dead, “they decided to hit Corbitant quickly and to hit him hard (114). The Pilgrims believed “this was their chance to show the Indians the consequences of challenging the English…” (114). The fact that this statement is written in the chapter titled Thanksgiving is laughable. Yes, Corbitant traveled to Plymouth to sign his loyalty to King James in the end, but the Pilgrims had acted too fast in wanting to crush Corbitant based on a rumor they had heard. The First Thanksgiving was a result of the signed treaty, and with my previous knowledge of the happy, rejoicing, and overwhelmingly grateful atmosphere of Thanksgiving, it occurring after the Pilgrims almost attacked the group of people sharing the meal with them taints my idea of the celebration. In addition, contradicting my prior image of a vastly English attendance with significantly fewer Native Americans scattered throughout the feast, “the First Thanksgiving soon became an overwhelmingly Native celebration” (117). The Native Americans were also the ones to provide meat for everyone to eat. In my original perception, I thought the Pilgrims had provided food for the Native Americans as an act of thankfulness for all that they had helped the Pilgrims with. Tying in the theme of courage to this response, the Native Americans showed great courage in even coming to the celebration after the Pilgrims had invaded their homeland. On a lighter note, hearing that religion was largely incorporated into the feast was satisfying and symbolic, as the whole reason the Pilgrims had moved to the New World was to achieve religious freedom. Another point I was interested in hearing was how significant the changing of the seasons was to the Pilgrims. It was beautiful to read that the colors of the leaves sparked enthusiasm in the settlers and overall, it was relieving to read, “The First Thanksgiving marked the conclusion of a remarkable year” (119).
After reading the Mayflower’s narrative of the First Thanksgiving, I was shocked and surprised at how different the commonly told story of the uniting meal shared between the Pilgrims and the Wampanoags is from the actual event. We celebrate Thanksgiving on the fourth Thursday of November every year with an early dinner of turkey sitting alongside family and friends, recounting all that we are thankful for. On the contrary, it is stated in Mayflower that we are uncertain the exact date the First Thanksgiving was on, only that it was “soon after their crops of corn, squash, beans, barley, and peas had been harvested” (117). Apparently the Pilgrims were less than thankful for the Native Americans, because as soon as Squanto, the helpful “tongue” (113) of the English, was pronounced dead, “they decided to hit Corbitant quickly and to hit him hard (114). The Pilgrims believed “this was their chance to show the Indians the consequences of challenging the English…” (114). The fact that this statement is written in the chapter titled Thanksgiving is laughable. Yes, Corbitant traveled to Plymouth to sign his loyalty to King James in the end, but the Pilgrims had acted too fast in wanting to crush Corbitant based on a rumor they had heard. The First Thanksgiving was a result of the signed treaty, and with my previous knowledge of the happy, rejoicing, and overwhelmingly grateful atmosphere of Thanksgiving, it occurring after the Pilgrims almost attacked the group of people sharing the meal with them taints my idea of the celebration. In addition, contradicting my prior image of a vastly English attendance with significantly fewer Native Americans scattered throughout the feast, “the First Thanksgiving soon became an overwhelmingly Native celebration” (117). The Native Americans were also the ones to provide meat for everyone to eat. In my original perception, I thought the Pilgrims had provided food for the Native Americans as an act of thankfulness for all that they had helped the Pilgrims with. Tying in the theme of courage to this response, the Native Americans showed great courage in even coming to the celebration after the Pilgrims had invaded their homeland. On a lighter note, hearing that religion was largely incorporated into the feast was satisfying and symbolic, as the whole reason the Pilgrims had moved to the New World was to achieve religious freedom. Another point I was interested in hearing was how significant the changing of the seasons was to the Pilgrims. It was beautiful to read that the colors of the leaves sparked enthusiasm in the settlers and overall, it was relieving to read, “The First Thanksgiving marked the conclusion of a remarkable year” (119).
Thanksgiving is made out to be a big celebration and the settlers and "Indians" brought food and had a big feast together. I learned that the date was more likely in September or October. It was a celebration of harvest and the hunter of migrating birds for food. All pictures portray the first thanksgiving as a big feast at a long table and as a English meal. It surprised me that the whole affair was a very Native celebration. People were sitting on the ground next to outdoor fires cooking stews and the freshly caught animals. The pilgrims ate with their hands and knives. The first thanksgiving was the year after the settlers had arrived at Plymouth. It reaffirmed my understanding of the relationship between the two groups during this time. The settlers had come to respect these different people as human beings like themselves and celebrate a good harvest with them. It is portrayed as one of the first American feasts and is celebrated that way today. My main reaction was a little bit of shock. Modern day society gives us such a clear view of how Thanksgiving is supposed to be celebrated. It’s portrayed as a great American feast and a celebration of what people are thankful for. The true thanksgiving is not very close to the way we celebrate and cherish it now in America.
As Emma touched upon, the first Thanksgiving memory I have is my kindergarten class singing This Land is Your Land dressed in feather headbands and big buckle hats. Like many other Americans I have grown up with the understanding that this event signified a friendship between the Pilgrims and the local Indians in which they could peacefully trade and share land. Along with the idea of peace with the natives, before reading Mayflower I had perceived the Thanksgiving feast to mark a point in the Pilgrim’s settlement where they felt they had safely established a new home. But, as I began reading I surprisingly found this was an unrealistic idea due to the numerous obstacles they faced before settling. For example, the decision to no longer settle near the Hudson River resulted in the late blooming of a permeant settlement. Meanwhile it was the start of a bitter winter where poor weather and disease were potent. “December 21 … the terrible weather persisted throughout the day, making it impossible to work on the houses. In the meanwhile, the wind lashed Mayflower had become a grim hospital ship” (81) for the passengers tormented by “colds, coughs, and fevers” (81). The build up of several challenges and set backs like these surprised me more than the first Thanksgiving itself. By the time Philbrick mentioned the first Thanksgiving my expectation of the event had already been changed by the defeats leading up to it. Reading about the consecutive failures before the first Thanksgiving left no surprise that the feast wasn’t a celebration of their comfort at Plymouth or that they would endure more challenges like disease and war after it.
The Thanksgiving that we know today is filled with turkey, clean linen, and loads of extended family. However, besides the fact that they did eat an abundance of turkey, surprisingly almost all aspects of thanksgiving we know today as classic have very little to do with the first Thanksgiving. First off, it was mainly a “Native a celebration” (117), Massasoit had brought close to a hundred Pokanokets to feast with the Pilgrims along with five newly killed deer. The large number of Native Americans as well as the fact that most of the pilgrim’s relatives were still in Europe lead to the first thanksgiving being more carnival-like than a day to spend celebrating with family. Secondly, as well as the five deer that were brought by the Native Americans, the guests ate mainly meat centered meals. Along with ducks, deer, and turkey, the celebration might have included fish because of their abundance during the fall. No pumpkin pie or stuffing, two dishes that are considered staple Thanksgiving items, were served. As well as not eating the “traditional” Thanksgiving food we know and love today, the iconic paintings of pilgrims and Natives sitting around a long banquet style table covered in crisp white linen table clothes is almost completely false. Even with all furniture that the Pilgrims could muster outside, they were not even close to being able to seat everybody. While reading Mayflower, I was surprised to learn the true origin of Thanksgiving. The Pilgrim’s Thanksgiving wasn’t an excuse to have a long weekend or to eats a lot of fattening food, but instead a celebration that they had survived almost a year in a foreign environment. The first Thanksgiving was a conclusion to one of the hardest years the pilgrims had faced and allowed them to reflect upon their survival and success.
Since I was young, I had always thought of Thanksgiving as Pilgrims and Native Americans sitting amongst each other at large grand tables, passing food around and celebrating their friendship. I was not poorly mistaken in some aspects, but just now have I gained knowledge of how much more complex the day that first marked one of the most celebrated and popular holidays that we observe now in the Mayflower by Nathaniel Philbrick. What surprised me the most are the small differences; what we learned in elementary school versus the true historical facts. This includes the fact that the first Thanksgiving is considered as more of a festival whereas my general knowledge was that it was a single meal. Also it is shocking to consider that the first holiday served as a purpose to show the Pilgrims’ dominant force, and that it began shortly after the colonists raided and harmed multiple Native Americans; this discovery is quite uncomfortable and unnerving. We consider Thanksgiving as a celebration of gratitude and a gathering to appreciate loved ones. One more aspect to this story is that there were large meals were a reason; the Pilgrims were suffering of starvation. It is no wonder why this specific time and meal became to be so important. Based on this information, THanksgiving marked the first assertion of Pilgrim dominance and served as a reminder that there was much needed room for improvement if they wanted to grow and expand their colonization.
Since I was young, I had always thought of Thanksgiving as Pilgrims and Native Americans sitting amongst each other at large grand tables, passing food around and celebrating their friendship. I was not poorly mistaken in some aspects, but just now have I gained knowledge of how much more complex the day that first marked one of the most celebrated and popular holidays that we observe now in the Mayflower by Nathaniel Philbrick. What surprised me the most are the small differences; what we learned in elementary school versus the true historical facts. This includes the fact that the first Thanksgiving is considered as more of a festival whereas my general knowledge was that it was a single meal. Also it is shocking to consider that the first holiday served as a purpose to show the Pilgrims’ dominant force, and that it began shortly after the colonists raided and harmed multiple Native Americans; this discovery is quite uncomfortable and unnerving. We consider Thanksgiving as a celebration of gratitude and a gathering to appreciate loved ones. One more aspect to this story is that there were large meals were a reason; the Pilgrims were suffering of starvation. It is no wonder why this specific time and meal became to be so important. Based on this information, THanksgiving marked the first assertion of Pilgrim dominance and served as a reminder that there was much needed room for improvement if they wanted to grow and expand their colonization.
Thanksgiving in 2015 is the commercialized holiday about turkey, giving thanks, and football that marks the last Thursday on everyone’s November calendar. The real reason why Thanksgiving began is lost among the present day traditions, and the actual event is often misperceived. I did not know that “for the Pilgrims a thanksgiving was a time of spiritual devotion” (117). I assumed that their Thanksgiving, like most other things, would be religious. I thought their Thanksgiving was a day where they were thankful for God for helping them survive a full year in the new world. Although the First Thanksgiving did have religious overtones, it was also “similar to a traditional English harvest festival-- a secular celebration”. I also thought the Pilgrims were totally in charge on the First Thanksgiving, by organizing the event, and greatly outnumbering the Indians. To my surprise the Pilgrims did not control all aspects of the event, rather it was “an overwhelmingly Native celebration” (117). The Indians contributed with five killed deer, and outnumbered the Pilgrims 2:1. I believed it to be an event with “a few curious Indians looking on” (117). I also believed the First Thanksgiving to be a time where the Pilgrims taught the Indians their more civilized manner. However, this is not true for “The Pilgrims ate with their fingers” and “most celebrants stood, squatted, or sat on the ground clustered around fires (117,118). My original understanding of The First Thanksgiving was one of which the Pilgrims were fully in control, and taught the Indians their way of life. However, both the Pilgrims and Indians influenced the course of the event.
Before reading The Mayflower my perception of the first Thanksgiving was much different from what was described by Nathaniel Philbrick. I had thought that it was a day where the pilgrims brought out their best cutlery and their nicest furniture to celebrate a successful summer. “Instead of an English affair, the first Thanksgiving soon became an overwhelmingly Native celebration” was the complete opposite of what I thought (117). My perception was that the term Thanksgiving was something it had been called by the pilgrims when the event first occurred, however it was “first applied in the nineteenth century”(117). The stereotype that the pilgrims all sat at a ornate table was false since “most of the celebrants stood, squatted, or sat on the ground”(117). I was surprised to learn that much of what I thought of first Thanksgiving was wrong.
As I read about the First Thanksgiving in Mayflower, I was not all that surprised to learn about the many historical inaccuracies that I, as well as many American citizens, are subject to while learning about and celebrating the holiday. Many holidays celebrated in America today vary significantly from their origins; therefore, I was not surprised to find out that the First Thanksgiving was actually very different from the romanticized version we are taught about at a young age. One of the most drastic differences between the version we are taught in elementary school and the actual events of the First Thanksgiving, are that the First Thanksgiving followed a “show of force-no matter how confused- [that] had won the Pilgrims some new respect” (116). I was rather unsettled, yet not surprised by the Pilgrims’ acts of violence prior to the celebration. Although the Pilgrims’ actions at Nemasket are relatively disturbing, they were necessary in gaining Massasoit’s trust, which ultimately led to the Plymouth-Pokanoket alliance; an important alliance for each of the involved parties. Additionally, I was under the impression that the Pilgrims and Natives had gotten along well prior to their Thanksgiving feast, and that the Native American they had primarily dealt with had been Squanto. Contrary to what I had previously been taught, the Pilgrims “were now being controlled… by a Native American named Squanto” (120). Elementary school teachers had painted a pristine picture of Squanto in my mind. I had been taught he was an intelligent Native American who spoke English and assisted the Pilgrims in planting corn and communicating with other Native Americans. I was completely unaware of his schemes to seize power for himself; therefore, I was both surprised and unsettled by my fallacies regarding this important man. In addition to my misconceptions about Squanto’s involvement in the holiday, I assumed that the celebration consisted of the settlers and a small group of Natives who had helped them survive the first winter; therefore, I was surprised to find out that the First Thanksgiving “became an overwhelmingly Native celebration” (117). After reading about the many differences between the First Thanksgiving and the way Thanksgiving is celebrated today, I was elated to find out that one thing remains the same; Thanksgiving has, and hopefully always will be about being appreciative for what you have, and recognizing the challenges you faced to get you there.
Throughout elementary school, the week before Thanksgiving was an opportunity to review the story of the Pilgrims, talk about what we were thankful for, and make some turkey-themed arts and crafts. Each year, the history piece was the same: the Pilgrims sailed on the Mayflower to the New World in search of religious freedom, and were welcomed by the Native Americans (the teachers were careful not to call them “Indians”) with free farming lessons and a big turkey feast. I began Mayflower with only this flimsy and hardly accurate background knowledge, and because of this, every page held a piece of surprising information. On page 209, Philbrick describes how the First Thanksgiving truly happened, and I was happy and not uncomfortable at all with what I read. First off, I was surprised to hear that the event was secular; Philbrick wrote that the meal was more similar to “a traditional English harvest festival” rather than “a time of spiritual devotion”. Having read so much about the intense religious beliefs of the Pilgrims, it was strange to think that the entire meal wasn't attributed to God. I was also surprised to read that the meal included duck and deer, not just turkey, which made me laugh. The turkey is a national symbol of thanksgiving; it’s hard to imagine an enormous duck-shaped float headlining the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade! This passage also changed how I visualize the event. I always unintentionally put the Pilgrims around a long table, along with some Natives looking on from a distance. I realize now that the table (if there even was a table) was not the centerpiece of the meal, and that the people gathered around several fire pits where the meat was roasting. In addition, the natives vastly outnumbered the Pilgrims because Massasoit brought a hundred of his people to the celebration. Thanks to Philbrick’s description of this event, my understanding is much stronger, and I now see that Thanksgiving was less of a dinner and more of a gathering to celebrate the fall harvest.
The description of the first Thanksgiving in the novel the Mayflower by Nathaniel Philbrick was very surprising to me. Before reading this I had always thought that the first Thanksgiving was mainly Pilgrims with just a couple Indians, and that it was a time of true peace throughout New England. I also believed that it was much more important, Philbrick makes it seem a lot less important, something almost unworthy of a yearly holiday. By no means am I saying I don't want Thanksgiving but I had just always thought the feast was a lot more extravagant and important to our country's beginning. To be honest I am disappointed that what has become a grand holiday was originally a bunch of indians and pilgrims eating and drinking together. We now celebrate Thanksgiving by eating a traditional meal with our families and saying thanks for the many things worthy of saying thanks for. Philbrick explains that “Instead of an English affair, the First Thanksgiving soon became an overwhelming Native celebration when Massasoit and a hundred Pokanokets (more than twice the entire English population of Plymouth) arrived at the settlement and soon provided five freshly killed deer” (117). This surprised me because I had previously thought it was mainly a pilgrim celebration. Philbrick also says that they were mostly eating deer and ducks. They also had wild turkey, but where as now a days that is the most important part of the Thanksgiving meal, on the first Thanksgiving it seemed to be a secondary part of the meal. Philbrick also says that the first Thanksgiving probably happened earlier in the year then we celebrate it now. He also says that for the Puritans it was a day when “villagers ate, drank, and played games”, but that it also had “religious overtones”. This makes sense, seeing as they came to the New Word for religious freedom but I had never imagined Thanksgiving being religious. I was also surprised by the fact that they had no forks so they ate with their hands, this make first Thanksgiving scene seem a lot less civilized than I imagined. Overall the description of the first Thanksgiving was surprising.
My general understanding of Thanksgiving was very much reaffirmed by the description of the first Thanksgiving in Mayflower by Nathaniel Philbrick. I always knew the first Thanksgiving to be a great celebration with the Natives and the Pilgrims. Celebrating the community that was built by sharing a great feast. In the novel, the festivity is described as an overwhelmingly positive experience, the celebration was a mix of english men and natives whom had brought five freshly killed deer to share. Thanksgiving is commonly connected with turkeys, as it was on the very first Thanksgiving when there was a “good store of wild turkeys” (118). The feast and celebration were as big and exciting as usually presented, with a hundred Pokanokets and Massasoit enjoying the celebration alongside the English. The great feast was filled with food such as the deer, duck, turkey, and even fish. The only “traditional” foods missing from the original Thanksgiving was the pumpkin and the cranberry sauce. The celebration of Thanksgiving was about as beautiful and sentimental as passed down through history. It was a celebration that was beautiful and memorable because of the changing colors of the leaves, as often attributed to New england autumns; and it was sentimental because the Pilgrims really did give thanks for the “conclusion of a remarkable year. Eleven months earlier the Pilgrims had arrived at the tip of Cape Cod, fearful and uniformed. … By all rights, none of the Pilgrims should have emerged from the first winter alive.”(119) The Pilgrims were celebrating their extremely extraordinary circumstances; the holiday as described in the novel is very inline with my general understanding of the first Thanksgiving, as celebrated by the Pilgrims and the Indians in 1621.
After reading the depiction of the First Thanksgiving given by Philbrick, in Mayflower, I find it interesting to compare it with the way Thanksgiving is understood by most Americans today. Besides specific details, such as the month in which it took place (September or October rather than November), and the large number of Native Americans present, I had a fairly accurate perception of this event and the relationship between the pilgrims and the natives, which was reaffirmed through this passage. However, it is likely that many Americans cannot say the same. This is due to the glorification and romanticizing that often occurs with historic events or groups of people. Thanksgiving is generally painted as a sweet and noble picture of Native Americans and pilgrims all gathering together to celebrate the beginnings of what was to be a beautiful and harmonious friendship. In reality, however, this is incredibly far from the truth. While the pilgrims and the Pokanokets were on good terms at the time of the feast, and may have even called each other friends in the moment, just several decades later, the two groups would be brutally murdering one another in King Philip’s War. Furthermore, the only real cause for their peace in the first place was that they wanted something from the other party, such as weapons and tools from the pilgrims and agricultural and hunting assistance from the Native Americans. So, the fact that we fondly remember and glorify this “friendship” each November makes me uneasy considering its short lived nature, the fact that it was likely laced with mistrust and motives of self-interest, and because it was shortly followed by bloody conflict between these “friends”
I have always believed that the stories about the first Thanksgiving were untruthful. The way children’s books describe the event is too light, cheerful, and perfect for a time that was filled with hardship and struggle. The Mayflower novel reaffirmed my ideas and understanding of the first Thanksgiving. It was not a warm and inviting get together of good friends. The first Thanksgiving was a large gathering of mostly Indians, the food was not as plentiful and diverse as picture books depict, and the day centered on politics and power. The meal was a show of power, success, and a shaky peace offering in hopes of creating closer ties with the Indians. What surprised me was that an event like the first Thanksgiving did indeed happen; A calm meeting of both the colonists and Indians seems unlikely, given the constant fighting that preceded and followed the first Thanksgiving. Although we celebrate Thanksgiving every year, many people probably do not know, and will never know, what actually happened at that first feast.
Since I was young, I had always thought of Thanksgiving as Pilgrims and Native Americans sitting amongst each other at large grand tables, passing food around and celebrating their friendship. I was not poorly mistaken in some aspects, but just now have I gained knowledge of how much more complex the day that first marked one of the most celebrated and popular holidays that we observe now in the Mayflower by Nathaniel Philbrick. What surprised me the most are the small differences; what we learned in elementary school versus the true historical facts. This includes the fact that the first Thanksgiving is considered as more of a festival whereas my general knowledge was that it was a single meal. Also it is shocking to consider that the first holiday served as a purpose to show the Pilgrims’ dominant force, and that it began shortly after the colonists raided and harmed multiple Native Americans; this discovery is quite uncomfortable and unnerving. We consider Thanksgiving as a celebration of gratitude and a gathering to appreciate loved ones. One more aspect to this story is that there were large meals were a reason; the Pilgrims were suffering of starvation. It is no wonder why this specific time and meal became to be so important. Based on this information, Thanksgiving marked the first assertion of Pilgrim dominance and served as a reminder that there was much needed room for improvement if they wanted to grow and expand their colonization.
I have to admit, I did not know much about the first Thanksgiving before reading Philibrick's description of the event. I've always had an elementary view on the first Thanksgiving. I mean as I have grown older I could assume that the first Thanksgiving was not as I exactly viewed it as a child, but my knowledge was still pretty very limited. I always thought of the event as an enormous feast, with Native Americans and Pilgrims enjoying a meal, living in happy harmony. Now after reading the novel, I realized that this was not really the true story. Though I guess some of the assumptions I hold about the first Thanksgiving ring some truth, it is described to have characteristics of "a secular celebration that dated back to the Middle Ages in which villagers ate, drank, and played games" (117). What I really did not know was that the first Thanksgiving was primarily Native Americans. A quote reads " the Pilgrims did not spend the day sitting around a long table draped with a white linen cloth, clasping each other's hands as a few curious Indians looked on" (117). Actually the first Thanksgiving was an "overwhelmingly Native celebration" (117). The affair was not primarily Pilgrim's but Natives.
Before reading Philbrick’s account of the First Thanksgiving, all I knew of it was what I knew from the traditional picture of, “the Pilgrims … sitting around a long table draped with a white linen cloth, clasping each other’s hands in prayer as a few curious Indians looked on” (117). I also believed, due to the Puritans’ very religious background, that it was a religious ceremony. According to Philbrick, however, “there was also much about the gathering that was similar to a traditional English harvest festival – a secular celebration that dated back to the Middle Ages in which villagers ate, drank, and played games” (117). I was also surprised that the number of Indians at the gathering more than doubled the Pilgrim population. I would never have assumed before that the two populations were close enough and trusting enough after less than a year to have such a large gathering of the two peoples. As an additional shock, the Pilgrims ate without forks. This, when thought about practically and logistically, makes sense. That they would only bring knives, which can also be used as weapons, is the most logical thing to do when packing the bare minimum of necessities, but it is never something I thought about. All in all, the First Thanksgiving was much like I had always imagined it, but with a few surprising and important details that had always eluded my imagination.
Before reading Philbrick’s account of the First Thanksgiving, all I knew of it was what I knew from the traditional picture of, “the Pilgrims … sitting around a long table draped with a white linen cloth, clasping each other’s hands in prayer as a few curious Indians looked on” (117). I also believed, due to the Puritans’ very religious background, that it was a religious ceremony. According to Philbrick, however, “there was also much about the gathering that was similar to a traditional English harvest festival – a secular celebration that dated back to the Middle Ages in which villagers ate, drank, and played games” (117). I was also surprised that the number of Indians at the gathering more than doubled the Pilgrim population. I would never have assumed before that the two populations were close enough and trusting enough after less than a year to have such a large gathering of the two peoples. As an additional shock, the Pilgrims ate without forks. This, when thought about practically and logistically, makes sense. That they would only bring knives, which can also be used as weapons, is the most logical thing to do when packing the bare minimum of necessities, but it is never something I thought about. All in all, the First Thanksgiving was much like I had always imagined it, but with a few surprising and important details that had always eluded my imagination.
After reading the Mayflower, I was surprised to learn that the Thanksgiving of today held many misconceptions. First off, it is odd that the original Thanksgiving did not take place during November, but rather "in late September or early October."(117) It was also surprising to learn that "the term Thanksgiving... was not used by the Pilgrims themselves."(117) Instead, thanksgiving "was a time of spiritual devotion."(117) This is greatly different than the modern interpretation of the meaning of the term, which is to be grateful of what you have. Even more shocking to me was that the Pilgrims did not eat turkey, which is the central meal of the current holiday, but instead ate "ducks and geese."(117) Lastly, when one thinks of Thanksgiving today they think of Englishmen sitting around a long wooden table with a few Natives scattered here and there. However, the Natives that attending the feast greatly outnumbered the Englishmen, making the holiday more Native American than English. Also, there were so many people there that they could not all sit at one table, but "most of the celebrants stood, squatted, or sat of the ground."(117) Overall, it was shocking to learn that the image of Thanksgiving with a big turkey and several Englishmen around a table was false, and that the holiday was in fact a gathering of mostly Native Americans scattered all over Plymouth colony.
Today in America Thanksgiving is a largely commercialized holiday dominated by football and devoted to eating until we feel sick, but Thanksgiving's historical significance is very important to the early survival of our country. I was not aware that the first Thanksgiving was also a religious event. "For the Pilgrims a thanksgiving was a time of spiritual devotion" (Philbrick 117) I was also not aware that the event became dominated by natives with many people gathered around not just at a table. Also, today's Thanksgiving occurs on the third Thursday in November, but the first Thanksgiving occurred earlier in the fall. "We do not know the exact date of the celebration we now call the First Thanksgiving, but it was probably in late September or early October" (Philbrick 117). This is very interesting because at the time it made sense for the Pilgrims to have it then as it coincided with the harvest. I am confused at how it got moved later in the year to November. When I was younger and I thought of the First Thanksgiving I considered the Native Americans and Pilgrims to be very good friends, but now I know that the friendship was in fact very fragile.
The “Mayflower” taught me a more realistic recording of Thanksgiving, unlike the sensationalist approach of primary schooling, was not surprising but reassured my speculated understanding of the event. Before reading “Mayflower” I reasoned that a newly arrived English settlement would not simply feast with a new faction of Native Americans as if they were long lost brethren, and vice versa. Since European settlers before the Pilgrims always met resistance from Amerindian tribes, the Pilgrims were destined to face some resistance. The Pilgrims, “ever since establishing diplomatic relations with Massasoit in March, the Pilgrims had been beset by a continual stream of Indian visitors” (104), therefore Thanksgiving was a means to secure a relationship rather than forming a diplomatic relationship. In conclusion, “The Mayflower” gave me a realistic insight of what would have actually happened at Thanksgiving, which I assumed the feast played a different purpose than what popular history tends to represent Thanksgiving.
After reading Mayflower, it was surprising to discover the differences between the modern American perception of Thanksgiving Day, which is filled with misconceptions, and the event as it occurred in history. Today Americans celebrate the holiday on the fourth Thursday of November because it is commonly believed that the Pilgrims invited the Wampanoags to feast together to celebrate the autumn harvest. However, According to Mayflower, “We do not know the exact date of the celebration we now call the First Thanksgiving, but it was probably in late September or early October, soon after their crop of corn, squash, beans, barley, and peas had been harvested” (117). Nathaniel Philbrick describes the First Thanksgiving as being more like a festival “in which villagers ate, drank, and played games” (117), rather than a single feast. It was surprising to find out that the celebration was actually predominantly composed of Native Americans. Massasoit and one hundred other Pokanokets arrived to the First Thanksgiving with five deer. This group of Native Americans were more than double that of the English that attended. Additionally, some of the foods that Americans eat during Thanksgiving today were not eaten by the Pilgrims and Native Americans at the First Thanksgiving, including pumpkin pie and cranberry sauce. The Pilgrims also did not eat turkey, a trademark of Thanksgiving today. Instead, they feasted on duck, other birds, and deer.
ReplyDeleteThe First Thanksgiving occurred shortly after the Pilgrims, headed by Miles Standish, led a violent raid on Nemasket, demanding to see Corbitant, who they believed had killed Squanto. They eventually ended up at Corbitant’s wigwam and barged in, shouting, and shooting their muskets, only to realize that Corbitant was not there, and that Squanto was alive. During this raid, the Pilgrims harmed several innocent Native Americans. During the First Thanksgiving, "Bradford declared it time to ‘rejoice together . . . after a more special manner’” (117). It is troubling to consider the possibility that the First Thanksgiving might have also been a celebration of the Pilgrims’ “show of force” (116) at Nemasket. Today, Thanksgiving is a very celebratory event, and it is interesting to think that it originally was held after such a brutal encounter with the Native Americans.
Today in America, a fair portion of our population is either misinformed or oblivious to the true creation of Thanksgiving as a national holiday. Many of us can generally describe its importance and founding, but not all can go into detail about its background and the events leading up to it. It is no wonder the meal is so substantial; the Pilgrims had been starved to the point where if they “should stay any longer, [they] should not be able to recover home for want of strength”(109). Prior to the holiday, the Pilgrims were eager “to show the Indians consequences of challenging the English—either directly or indirectly through one of their emissaries”(114). Violence in the form of a midnight raid “had won the Pilgrims some new respect”(116) and proven their loyalty to Massasoit, leading to “a much firmer peace”(116) throughout the region. This loyalty was signified through a treaty signed by nine sachems on September 13th, 1621 in Plymouth. Thanksgiving itself was first brought about between late September and early October, unlike today’s celebration on the fourth Thursday of September. Although the Pilgrims were unfamiliar with the term “Thanksgiving”, the gathering “was similar to a traditional English harvest festival—a secular celebration that dated back to the Middle Ages in which villagers ate, drank, and played games”(117). Another common misconception is that “turkeys were by no means a novelty to the Pilgrims”(118); they were spotted frequently and imported to other countries like Spain and England. Because Turkeys were not lavish to the Pilgrims, the meal also included ducks, deer, fish, and locally brewed beer. Items like pie, cranberry sauce and forks were not brought into the picture until the end of the seventeenth century. Therefore the Pilgrims dined “with their fingers and their knives”(118). For the Pilgrims, the first Thanksgiving symbolized an end to a productive year as they finally had “taken charge of their own destiny in the region”(119).
ReplyDeleteAlthough I was not generally surprised about many elements of the first Thanksgiving, I believe there are many pieces that the majority of the population of the United States simply does not know about or understand. Firstly, there are many misconceptions about the amount of Colonist-Native interactions prior to the first Thanksgiving. Although many (including myself prior to reading Mayflower) believe the First Thanksgiving was the first peaceful gathering of the Natives and Colonists, for months prior to the feast “the Pilgrims had been beset by a continual stream of Indian visitors” (105). Hence, Native-Colonist gatherings and shared meals were not uncommon, and an element of the First Thanksgiving was actually an attempt to subdue the large number of Natives visiting the Colonists and using their resources. Secondly, many do not know the application of the term “Thanksgiving” did not come about until the nineteenth century.The First Thanksgiving was similar to a traditional Puritan thanksgiving in that religion was interlaced into the feast; however, the First Thanksgiving better reflected an English harvest festival in the celebratory activities and indulgence in food that took place. Thirdly, I believe people are misinformed about the strength and number of the Pilgrims versus that of the Natives during the First Thanksgiving. Many believe the First Thanksgiving to have been a predominantly Colonist event; however, according to Philbrick “the First Thanksgiving soon became an overwhelmingly Native celebration when Massasoit and a hundred Pokanokets (more than twice the entire English population of Plymouth) arrived at the settlement…”(117). This proves that at this point in history, the strength, size, and cooperation of the Natives was unmatched by that of the Pilgrims, making the Natives feel less threatened by, and more welcome to, the band of colonists. Finally I found it surprising and humorous that the First Thanksgiving marked many of the Pilgrims’ first exposure to the brilliant colors of the autumn leaves in the northeast of present day United States. Although this fun fact is often left out of tales of the first Thanksgiving, it is a reminder that, at this point, the Pilgrims’ were still foreigners in an unknown land and had a long ways to go until they had established themselves in North America.
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ReplyDeleteAfter reading Mayflower, I admit that I was unsurprised that the Thanksgiving we know and celebrate today is a fabrication of pleasantries, and was truly nothing alike the first Thanksgiving. As Paris mentioned in her response, the first Thanksgiving was lack of the images we associate with it today; the white tablecloth and stuffed turkeys, the long tables of Indians and Englishmen side by side, the pumpkin pies being shared by amicable women in little white bonnets. Philbrick notes that “the Pilgrims were without pumpkin pies or cranberry sauce…The Pilgrims ate with their fingers and their knives” (118).
ReplyDeleteThe first Thanksgiving resembled “a traditional English harvest festival - a secular celebration that dated back to the Middle Ages in which villagers ate, drank, and played games” (117). This is in contrast to the modern American belief that Thanksgiving should be a peaceful, prayerful family day. Philbrick also describes that “most of the celebrants stood, squatted, or sat on the ground as they clustered around outdoor fires” (117). Surprising to me was the fact that the festival guests were predominantly Native, with “Massasoit and a hundred Pokanokets” (117) joining the Pilgrims. With the Native people in mind, I was made uncomfortable as well by the fact that the first Thanksgiving was held quickly after the brutish display of “dominance” by the Pilgrims at Nemasket. In the aftermath of this assertion of power, to feast and celebrate seems especially crude, considering the values of love and peace that Thanksgiving day has come to represent now.
My knowledge of the first Thanksgiving varies slightly from the historical facts. Albeit my perception was skewed, I did understand that the Pilgrims “were without pumpkin pies or cranberry sauce” (118), and that it was not a white table cloth affair. However, I never understood the complexity and uniqueness of having a joint celebration with the Natives, especially after the grueling year the Pilgrims had just survived in the New World. Since I was previously unaware of the events before that September or October day in the fall, my knowledge of the first Thanksgiving was limited.
ReplyDeleteThe Pilgrims had a difficult journey crossing the Atlantic Ocean, and many died. Once reaching the New World, I had assumed that the Europeans were foreign to the Plymouth Natives who welcomed the Pilgrims onto their land, unaware of the destruction that would result if the Pilgrims stayed. I understood Squanto helped the English plant corn and that they had a feast or Thanksgiving celebration together but did not realize that the majority of the members at the feast were Native American. I was also oblivious to the fact that these Natives had been in contact with multiple Europeans, prior to the Pilgrims, often resulting in chaos. For example, in 1614 when John Smith came to the New World another commander was with him named Thomas Hunt. Hunt gathered as many Natives as he could and sold them as slaves. Because of Hunt’s errant decisions his “actions grievously damaged Indian-English relations in New England for years to come” (52). Even with these unfortunate events, surprisingly, Massasoit still cautiously befriended the European settlers. Surprisingly, the Pilgrims realized they must treat the Natives as equals in the beginning in order to survive in the New World. Even on the first Thanksgiving Edward Winslow remarks that the Natives were not barbarians but “very trustworthy” (119). The Pilgrims further proved their allegiance when they attacked Corbitant’s tribe. Corbitant disliked Massasoit’s affiliation with the Pilgrims and was rumored to have killed Squanto. After the Pilgrims attacked the dangerous tribe and realized Squanto was still alive, they mended their alliance with Corbitant. As a result, Massasoit felt he could trust the Pilgrims. Paris explains how it is strange that this act of violence occurs right before Thanksgiving, an event most Americans think of as peaceful. However the Pilgrims demonstration of force gave Massasoit a strong reason to trust the Europeans. So although the Pilgrims small act of violence was dangerous, it ultimately allowed the Native American Tribes to align and trust the Pilgrims resulting in the first Thanksgiving. The ability of the Pilgrims and Natives to unite after the destruction that previously occurred, proves that this first Thanksgiving was an unbelievably rare accomplishment of forgiveness and trust.
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ReplyDeleteUpon reading Mayflower, I found that I had many gaps in my understanding of the First Thanksgiving. For example, I had always believed that the First Thanksgiving took place during a sort of ‘Golden Age’ of the Pilgrims. In the months leading up to November, they had labored to stay alive. For me, Thanksgiving marked the end of the life-and-death way of living, and from then on, the colonists at Plymouth were comfortable and safe. In reality, the Pilgrims struggled with the threats of “[in]fertile soil,” “disease,” and “war,” during and after this celebration (119). I believe that this illusion of mine came from the traditional image of Thanksgiving, where the Pilgrims and their Indian guests enjoyed an abundance of food. It is true that those attending the celebration could choose from freshly harvested crops, ducks, geese, deer, and various types of fish. However, the plentifulness of food was the temporary result of the end of the harvest season, not a more permanent solution like I had once believed. In the months following the First Thanksgiving, the Pilgrims were forced to ration what little sustenance they had - especially once the Fortune arrived in late November and brought to Plymouth “thirty-seven more mouths to feed.” (124) The First Thanksgiving was indeed a celebration of the success of the Pilgrims, however, it did not mark the end of their struggle to survive in New England.
ReplyDeleteAnother aspect of the First Thanksgiving that I did not expect was that the celebration was a symbol of the effective diplomacy between the Pilgrims and the Indians, and also the beginning of the end of such a relationship. Once the colonists made contact with the natives of the region, they put a lot of effort into “becoming an active part of the diplomatic process in southern New England.” (119) One example of when the Pilgrims reconciled themselves with their Native neighbors was when they “compensated the Nausets for the corn” that they had stolen when they first arrived, starving, in the New World (119). The time of the First Thanksgiving was the peak of Pilgrim-Native relations; this was a time when the Natives were regarded as “human beings,” as “trust[worth]y,” and “just,” as is reflected by the fact that the Indians were welcome at the First Thanksgiving (119). In the decades following, through the spreading of false rumors and conflict, the image of the Natives in the eyes of the English would decline to the point where (especially during King Philip’s War) the Natives became “merciless heathen,” where “the only good Indian [was] a dead Indian;” never again would the English come to respect them as much as they had during that first year in the New World (289, 261, respectively). I was surprised to find that the First Thanksgiving was one of the last times that the English and the Indians were together in peace, and that they managed to (generally) coexist amicably for only about a year.
After reading Mayflower, I realized I had some misconceptions about the First Thanksgiving similar to Sam Livermore. When we were younger, we learned that Thanksgiving was one day of sharing and peace between the first settlers and the local Indians, after trust and loyalty were established. After I read Mayflower, I realized this past information was mostly spurious. The First Thanksgiving actually took place after months of fighting between the settlers and Indians, disease, and starvation throughout the colonies; inevitably leading to more years of mistrust and disdain with the Native Americans. I believed Thanksgiving was a one night celebration where a surplus of food was harvested and shared with the “new neighbors.” Philbrick states, “Instead, of an English affair, the First Thanksgiving soon became an overwhelming Native celebration when Massasoit and a hundred Pokanokets arrived at the settlement and… provided five freshly killed deer” (117). Philbrick used Winslow’s description where the event was “similar to a traditional English harvest festival ...in which villagers ate, drank, and played games” (117). I did not know that the First Thanksgiving was a time of “spiritual devotion” (117), and “The Pilgrims ate with their fingers and their knives” (118).
ReplyDeletePhilbrick describes this event as it “marked the conclusion of a remarkable year” (119). I came to the conclusion that the First Thanksgiving was a type of celebration that acknowledged the Pilgrims’ survival and their diligent work over the past eleven months. If not for the Pilgrims’ courage upon arriving at Cape Cod, this celebration would not have taken place. Despite the differences between the Pilgrims and Pokanokets “especially when it came to technology, culture, and spiritual beliefs” (119), an alliance formed. The Pilgrims enjoyed “eating and drinking with the Indians (who) were not a pack of barbarians…(but) human beings”(119). Although Americans celebrate this beloved holiday with pumpkin pies and cranberry sauce, many do not know the origin of this holiday, especially in terms of a “celebration” of surviving a difficult year. I found it interesting to learn more about this event, because prior to reading Mayflower, I believed it was a simple feast with the local Indians.
ReplyDeleteWhile reading the Thanksgiving chapter in Mayflower i was uncomfortable with the information that I learned. My whole life I had been taught that Thanksgiving was this huge accomplishment of the pilgrims, worthy of our pride and celebration to this day. They showed generosity and a sense of community by hosting this great feast and inviting “ a few curious Indians.”(117) They expressed their desire for friendship with the Native Americans while rejoicing in the fact they survived the harsh winter. They feasted on turkey and cranberries while sitting around a table where they “clasp[ed] each other’s hands in prayer.” (117) However after reading this chapter I found this all to be myths. In reality the First Thanksgiving was a secular and “overwhelmingly Native celebration”(117) where they feasted on deer and birds. The celebration of Thanksgiving today is completely different to how it begun. The tradition of Thanksgiving that is told by families and taught in schools is a false representation of what actually occurred. We have spent our whole lives learning and believing a lie. We have now evolved into what the Puritans were trying to escape. Every practice of Church of England in the 1620s was based on tradition, not on what actually occurred in the bible. People absentmindedly followed the traditions of the church because it was they way they had always done things, even with access to the bible, which had no mention of their traditions. The Puritans left England because they wanted to “purge [the Church of England] of its many excesses and abuses” (4) and only practice strictly what was in the bible. Today the truth about the First Thanksgiving is known by historians as well as many authors and teachers. However children in school are still taught this misconception about the First Thanksgiving. We have access to the truth but we look past it and continue to celebrate the lie because it is what we’ve always done. This made me uncomfortable that our nation has become exactly what the pilgrims were trying to escape.
The nature of the celebrations and the circumstances surrounding the first Thanksgiving greatly surprised me. I had always assumed that the paintings of a calm, religious celebration were correct while, in fact the celebration was a mixture of a traditional English harvest celebration and a Native American celebration. Rather than spending the day “sitting around a long table draped with a white linen cloth, clasping each other’s hands in prayer(109),” they ate, drank, and played games alongside the Native Americans. Both the inclusion and number of Native Americans at the first Thanksgiving also surprised me. I thought that there were only a few present and that they merely played along with the English proceedings. On the contrary, there were more than twice as many Native Americans as pilgrims and the celebrations were heavily influenced by the Natives, to the point where the first Thanksgiving was more a Native American celebration than an English one. The events immediately preceding the first Thanksgiving were very surprising. The feast occurred shortly after Standish’s assault on Nemasket to find Corbitant. It is somewhat stunning that such a peaceful celebration happened after such a violent show of force.
ReplyDeleteThe description of the first Thanksgiving in Mayflower also reaffirmed and built upon some of my previous knowledge. I was already aware that the feast took place after a year of hardship and near starvation for the Pilgrims. From the Pilgrims’ arrival at Plymouth, they had little food and in the first year of their settlement, over half of the population died. The first Thanksgiving was a celebration of the fact that the Pilgrims made it through their first year and were now thriving with a relatively good relationship with the Pokanokets. I was also aware that the foods that we traditionally eat for Thanksgiving are very different from the foods eaten at the first Thanksgiving. Rather than turkeys, stuffing, and cranberry sauce, the Pilgrims and Native Americans ate the birds that were in surplus at the time, fish, and deer brought by the Native Americans. I was very surprised how much the Thanksgiving Americans celebrate today differs from the first Thanksgiving that the Pilgrims and Native Americans celebrated as well as how many details surrounding the event have been covered up.
I was aware of most the relationships that existed between the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag people. In particular, how the Pilgrims learned about survival in New England and in exchange the Wampanoag’s alliance with the Pilgrims enabled them to reassert themselves as a regional power amongst the New England tribes, with Massasoit personally benefiting as the leader of the tribe.
DeleteHowever I found it fascinating how we seemed to have “revisionist memory” and glorified view of the original conflict between the Pilgrim’s and the Wampanoag people. Philbrick describes the First Thanksgiving as more like a festival where Villagers ate, drank and played games rather than our contemporary feast. It is amusing to contrast today’s “Turkey Day” with the notion that the original Thanksgiving which involved Massasoit and one hundred Pokanokets to arriving with five deer, not our view of the Pilgrims eating Turkey, pumpkin pie or cranberry. I struggle to rationalize how we have commercialized the original event which was a celebration post- the Pilgrim’s battle at Nemasket, and a bloody one at that.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading the Thanksgiving chapter in Mayflower, I found myself surprised when I discovered that the way we chose to celebrate Thanksgiving is completely different than the way the Pilgrims celebrated it. From my previous understanding, I thought the Pilgrims were celebrating their successful harvest with a small amount of Native Americans who helped them survive and find food. I thought they all sat along a long table peacefully praying and eating turkey. After reading Mayflower, I realized some of my understanding of the Pilgrims’ First Thanksgiving was correct, but most was inaccurate. According to Philbrick, “the First Thanksgiving soon became an overwhelmingly Native celebration when Massasoit and a hundred Pokanokets (more than twice the entire population of Plymouth) arrived at the settlement and soon provided five freshly killed deer” (117). Since the amount of Native Americans who joined the Pilgrims’ Thanksgiving were so large, many did not sit at a long table among the Pilgrims as I previously thought; most “stood, squatted, or sat on the ground” (117). Today, food such as duck, geese, fish, and deer are not considered traditional Thanksgiving food, even though that is what the Pilgrims and Pokanokets actually ate. I am curious to know why teachers have not changed their lessons of the Pilgrims’ First Thanksgiving. Why have we not changed our incorrect perception of Thanksgiving when we have access to the truth?
I was uncomfortable with the transition from raiding the Nemasket village to celebrating a successful harvest with the Pokanokets. The Pilgrims believed the sachem of Mattapoisett village, Corbitant, had one of his warriors kill Squanto. If this was true, “Standish was to cut off his head and bring it back to Plymouth for public display” (114). While searching for Corbitant, Standish and his men harmed many innocent Native Americans. This display of force “had won the Pilgrims some new respect… Epenow, the Martha’s Vineyard sachem made overtures of friendship. Even Corbitant let it be known that he wanted to make peace” (116). It is shocking to think that the Pilgrims, who fled England to peacefully practice their own religion, were compelled to commit such inhuman acts of harming innocent Native Americans. I was uncomfortable by the difference between how the Pilgrims treated the Natives of Nemasket versus the celebration of their friendship with the Pokanokets at their Thanksgiving feast.
The contrast between today’s accepted perceptions of the first Thanksgiving and the actual events as described in Mayflower can be shocking to some people; however, given the multitude of other historical events that have been romanticized for the sake of posterity, it is not altogether surprising that today’s version of Thanksgiving is largely inaccurate. As so often happens with history, subsequent generations of Americans wished to remember their nation’s early years with nostalgia and wistfulness, not regret and embarrassment; thus, many of the less acceptable components of the event have been ignored and forgotten in the years since. The participants of the first Thanksgiving may have truly been sincere in their appreciation for, and acceptance of, their native friends; yet their actions before and afterwards bely a greater purpose in the relations with the Native Americans, which drove the cruelty and ambition of the following years of conflict. I was also uncomfortable with this fact, as you were, and I think this unwillingness to believe the indecency of America’s first people is what keeps teachers and history books from changing their stories. In my opinion, Thanksgiving is a glorification of the Pilgrims’ initial and short-lived attempts at harmony with the Native peoples, created and idealized by Americans who wished to preserve the dignity of our nation’s creation.
DeleteIt is true; our modern day portrayal of what historically happened on the day of Thanksgiving is inaccurate. However, I believe that if you strip away all the additives that have grown Thanksgiving into what could be referred to as a "Hallmark Holiday" the meaning of the day in 1621 still remains strong in 2015.
DeleteIn 1621, that first Thanksgiving “marked the conclusion of a remarkable year” (119). A group of people who went against all odds to start a new life for themselves began to see a glimmer of hope that the risk they took traveling across the ocean now was starting to pay off. After solidifying themselves as a force to be reckoned with in the New World through Standish’s midnight raid the Pilgrims had reason to be cheerful. In addition to that their relationship with Massasoit was greatly enhanced with their loyalty. Given these reasons, I hope one can assume that there was much to celebrate. On this historical day, the Pilgrims met up with their allies the Pokanokets and took time to reflect and be thankful for their own victories that led them to that day.
If you flash forward to today the same meaning stands. Once every year a family of any kind can join together and celebrate the victories that brought them to that table. Whether it means celebrating a new job or gaining a promotion, the victories that are being celebrated are relative to the people who are standing around the table. To the Pilgrims, it did not matter what bad events happened along the way to get them to the place they presently were in, all that mattered was that they are there now, and celebration should follow such a feat. By reading about the historically correct version of Thanksgiving, I was too surprised by the discrepancy in what I was taught at a young age to what I know now. However, I believe that the motive for changing the perception of Thanksgiving is actually just to make it seem more appealing for people to spend a day to be thankful. If children knew that the coming events of the day involved gunfire and bloodshed then the idea of the holiday would seem wrong to celebrate. As a result, facts have been changed/left out to keep the message of the holiday strong i.e. to be thankful.
It is true; our modern day portrayal of what historically happened on the day of Thanksgiving is inaccurate. However, I believe that if you strip away all the additives that have grown Thanksgiving into what could be referred to as a "Hallmark Holiday" the meaning of the day in 1621 still remains strong in 2015.
DeleteIn 1621, that first Thanksgiving “marked the conclusion of a remarkable year” (119). A group of people who went against all odds to start a new life for themselves began to see a glimmer of hope that the risk they took traveling across the ocean now was starting to pay off. After solidifying themselves as a force to be reckoned with in the New World through Standish’s midnight raid the Pilgrims had reason to be cheerful. In addition to that their relationship with Massasoit was greatly enhanced with their loyalty. Given these reasons, I hope one can assume that there was much to celebrate. On this historical day, the Pilgrims met up with their allies the Pokanokets and took time to reflect and be thankful for their own victories that led them to that day.
If you flash forward to today the same meaning stands. Once every year a family of any kind can join together and celebrate the victories that brought them to that table. Whether it means celebrating a new job or gaining a promotion, the victories that are being celebrated are relative to the people who are standing around the table. To the Pilgrims, it did not matter what bad events happened along the way to get them to the place they presently were in, all that mattered was that they are there now, and celebration should follow such a feat. By reading about the historically correct version of Thanksgiving, I was too surprised by the discrepancy in what I was taught at a young age to what I know now. However, I believe that the motive for changing the perception of Thanksgiving is actually just to make it seem more appealing for people to spend a day to be thankful. If children knew that the coming events of the day involved gunfire and bloodshed then the idea of the holiday would seem wrong to celebrate. As a result, facts have been changed/left out to keep the message of the holiday strong i.e. to be thankful.
When picturing the first Thanksgiving, the costumes and plays of elementary school are immediately conjured to my mind. Of course, I am well aware of the fact that the kindergarten version of the event is highly romanticized, and that the Pilgrims did not actually sit “around a long table draped with a white linen cloth… as a few curious Indians looked on”(117). However Philbrick’s account of the celebration did shed light on a few details I had never heard before. For instance, this now-famous event was an imprecise cross between an actual Puritan thanksgiving, or a “time of spiritual devotion”(117), and a traditional English harvest festival dating back to the Middle Ages. I was unaware that this was something the Pilgrims often did, and that one of the only differences was the inclusion of the natives in the festivities. This was interesting, but not shocking. The fact that Thanksgiving was established during the Civil War because there was a need “for a restorative myth of national origins”(354) and not because American’s felt thankful for everything and everyone that suffered through the building of our nation did shock me. Along these same lines, Philbrick points out that the modern and commercialized version of the holiday would have “probably appalled the godly Pilgrims.”(354). Despite these few facts about the event that I was not previously aware of, most of Philbrick’s description of the first Thanksgiving, a celebration of friendship and survival, was as I previously thought it to be.
ReplyDeleteDuring November of our years in preschool and kindergarten, it was inevitable that one of the crisp fall days you hurried into school, you would be greeted with a day full of learning about the very first Thanksgiving. This usually entailed cutting out paper feathers and establishing them as an Indian headdress; as well as observing drawings of the table where the Indians and Pilgrims had sat. Undeniably the table was covered in a white cloth. As almost all my peers have clearly pointed out, the fact that all of the information delivered to us during those adolescent years is false, is not an phenomenal revelation. The essence and purpose of Thanksgiving is not only misunderstood but we do not even, “know the exact date of the celebration we now call the first Thanksgiving, but it was probably in late September or early October…” (117). From dates to details the first Thanksgiving has been misinterpreted by an alarmingly large number of educated people, including myself. Originally, “For the Pilgrims a thanksgiving was a time of spiritual devotion” (117). The fact that a Thanksgiving was not primarily about the food for Pilgrims, is the only fact reaffirmed to my knowledge after reading Mayflower. The rest of the information comes not as a surprise, but is certainly not what was learned as a young student.
ReplyDeleteForemost, the first Thanksgiving represented “... a traditional English harvest festival…” (117), more than anything else. The actual celebration was less focused on religion and more on the peace of coming together with the Indians and having an opportunity to eat, drink, and enjoy the company. Without doubt, during the celebration “the Pilgrims did not spend the day sitting around a long table draped with a white linen cloth, clasping each other’s hands in prayer as a few curious Indians looked on” (117). The festival was actually heavily populated with Natives and the celebration was quite crowded. Philbrick points out, “Even if all the Pilgrims’ furniture was brought out into the sunshine, most of the celebrants stood, squatted, or sat on the ground…” (117). As far as the actual food goes, the pilgrims didn't enjoy the delicious pumpkin pies or cranberry sauce. They also may have eaten fish, which is not a common sight at a modern American Thanksgiving. In conclusion, it is clear that the first Thanksgiving is not at all what many of us think it is. Little knowledge of mine was affirmed; however, it was no surprise that the first Thanksgiving contradicts what many people conceptualize it to be.
During November of our years in preschool and kindergarten, it was inevitable that one of the crisp fall days you hurried into school, you would be greeted with a day full of learning about the very first Thanksgiving. This usually entailed cutting out paper feathers and establishing them as an Indian headdress; as well as observing drawings of the table where the Indians and Pilgrims had sat. Undeniably the table was covered in a white cloth. As almost all my peers have clearly pointed out, the fact that all of the information delivered to us during those adolescent years is false, is not an phenomenal revelation. The essence and purpose of Thanksgiving is not only misunderstood but we do not even, “know the exact date of the celebration we now call the first Thanksgiving, but it was probably in late September or early October…” (117). From dates to details the first Thanksgiving has been misinterpreted by an alarmingly large number of educated people, including myself. Originally, “For the Pilgrims a thanksgiving was a time of spiritual devotion” (117). The fact that a Thanksgiving was not primarily about the food for Pilgrims, is the only fact reaffirmed to my knowledge after reading Mayflower. The rest of the information comes not as a surprise, but is certainly not what was learned as a young student.
ReplyDeleteForemost, the first Thanksgiving represented “... a traditional English harvest festival…” (117), more than anything else. The actual celebration was less focused on religion and more on the peace of coming together with the Indians and having an opportunity to eat, drink, and enjoy the company. Without doubt, during the celebration “the Pilgrims did not spend the day sitting around a long table draped with a white linen cloth, clasping each other’s hands in prayer as a few curious Indians looked on” (117). The festival was actually heavily populated with Natives and the celebration was quite crowded. Philbrick points out, “Even if all the Pilgrims’ furniture was brought out into the sunshine, most of the celebrants stood, squatted, or sat on the ground…” (117). As far as the actual food goes, the pilgrims didn't enjoy the delicious pumpkin pies or cranberry sauce. They also may have eaten fish, which is not a common sight at a modern American Thanksgiving. In conclusion, it is clear that the first Thanksgiving is not at all what many of us think it is. Little knowledge of mine was affirmed; however, it was no surprise that the first Thanksgiving contradicts what many people conceptualize it to be.
After reading Mayflower I found it amazing how the first Thanksgiving has developed into the modern day version. It is appalling to think of how many people in America are so enthusiastic and passionate about Thanksgiving and its festivities (myself included), but don’t really know the true origins and history behind the holiday. Today in America we celebrate Thanksgiving by watching the parade in the morning and Dallas Cowboys at night, with a large meal thrown in somewhere in the middle. Contrary to the trademark of modern Thanksgiving, the Pilgrims did not eat turkey. They feasted upon duck, dear, and birds “with their fingers and their knives” (118). Unlike the First Thanksgiving which was celebrated sometime between September and October and is described as a “a traditional English harvest festival...in which villagers ate, drank, and played games” (117). Today, Thanksgiving is a celebration of peace, love, and gratitude. However, most people do not know that prior to the First Thanksgiving, the Pilgrims had raided Nemesket in hopes of killing a sachem named Corbitant. Their assertion of power paid off as Corbitant signed a peace treaty following the incident. This military invasion lead by Myles Standish made me most uncomfortable and schocked. Most people don’t know the ugly details of the Pilgrims and the First Thanksgiving; however, most know and agree that the First Thanksgiving “marked the conclusion of a remarkable year” (119) in America for the Pilgrims.
ReplyDeleteAs I continue to read Mayflower, certain aspects of the story are surprising in comparison to how the Pilgrims and their story are perceived today. For the first third of the book, I was shocked at how little war there really was. I was expecting this to be a large factor considering our country's past involvement with the genocide on Native Americans. However, it seems to be that at first, all the two groups shared together was a common fear for other. This obviously changed over time from their arrival, to their first Native encounter with the bold Samoset, and then to Thanksgiving. During this time of changing leaves and the transition into fall, the Pilgrims true colors also begin to show as we see them develop a sense of entitlement to the land and it’s inhabitants. With their intention to kill the sachem Corbitant and the raid of Nemesket, the Pilgrims are hardly the wholesome turkey loving people we know and associate with Thanksgiving today. Thanksgiving stood for a larger picture for the future of America: the Pilgrims were here to stay, and no morals were going to stop them.
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ReplyDeleteAlthough I knew that there were certain aspects of the first Thanksgiving that we don’t celebrate today, I was surprised to learn much of the truth that still eluded me. Some things I already knew were that the food was different than what we eat today, including “corn, squash, beans, barley, and peas...ducks and geese” (117) among other dishes, and that the First Thanksgiving “marked the conclusion of a remarkable year” (119) filled with confusion, fear and perseverance in this unknown World. What I did not know though was that over the past year, the Pilgrims and the Indians had been regularly in contact with one another. What I was taught before was that the Indians had mysteriously kept to themselves as the Pilgrims struggled to adjust to their new land, and through the act of kindness of inviting Massasoit and his men to a bountiful feast, all possible feelings of resentment were immediately mended. In fact, the Pilgrims had already created a treaty with the Pokanoket tribe and were now using the fear caused by their midnight raid of Corbitant’s camp in Nemasket to “w[i]n the Pilgrims some new respect” (116) among other sachems in the area. Not only did the Natives and Colonists admire one another, but shared meals and resources among the groups was common at the time, to the extent that it was often difficult for the Pilgrims to compensate for the food they lost in these meetings.
ReplyDeleteBefore reading this chapter, my perception of Thanksgiving had been based on a painting made by Jennie Augusta Brownscombe known as The First Thanksgiving at Plymouth, which portrays the Pilgrims (and a few Indian chiefs) sitting around a neatly made table as a minority of Natives looked on. In contrast to the images depicted in this scene, “the First Thanksgiving soon became an overwhelmingly Native celebration” (117) due mainly to the mortality rate of the Pilgrims over the past winter. Instead of the Pilgrims crowding around a table, “most of the celebrants stood, squatted, or sat on the ground” (117) around the fires cooking the meal. Lastly, rather than being only a religious celebration, this “time of spiritual devotion” (117) had more in common with “a traditional English harvest festival” (117), which was more secular. I think the most important factor of the First Thanksgiving that I learned from this chapter is that by being so engaged in the lives of the Pokanokets, the Pilgrims were able to realize that the Indians “were not a despicable pack of barbarians” (119), but like them, were just “human beings” (119).
The first Thanksgiving stood as a milestone for the Pilgrims, yet it was different from the Thanksgiving we know today. While there are many differences from that first celebration, none of them surprised me. If you look back to the core of almost any holiday or tradition, the meaning is the core of it and the celebration and tradition evolve over time. For example, the first Thanksgiving was a three day celebration in September or early October, which was the time of the harvest. Now it is one day in late November followed by excessive shopping and football games. Also, the “traditional” Thanksgiving meal is turkey, stuffing and cranberry sauce with pumpkin pie for dessert. However, at the first Thanksgiving they had a variety of meats like dear, ducks, and other birds because the Pilgrims would eat anything that was available to them. The Pilgrims ate all of this food “with their fingers and their knives…” (118) because forks were not available. In 1621, Thanksgiving was a harvest festival that celebrated life and the Pilgrim’s accomplishments in the New World. Now in 2015, it represents being thankful for family, friends, and the history made before us.
ReplyDeleteWhile reading the Mayflower, it became clear to me that as a child I was raised with misconceptions of what the first Thanksgiving was really like. Whereas Philbrick states that “the Pilgrims did not spend the day sitting around a long table draped with a white linen cloth, clasping each other’s hands in prayer as a few curious Indians looked on” (117), I, among others, was raised to believe the myth that this was a day when the Pilgrims and Natives shared a magnificent feast, with pumpkins, turkey, and harvests speckling a long table. In reality, I was not shocked that this was not the case, as I previously knew that the first Thanksgiving was falsified in order for Americans to have a day dedicated to peace, prayer, and being thankful. The Pilgrims also did not eat the food associated with the holiday in modern time. In contrast to Americans nowadays treating roasted turkey as a once-a-year pleasure, Philbrick makes it clear that “turkeys were by no means a novelty” (118) and instead they had ducks, deer, and birds. I believe that many are misinformed about the truths and falsifications of Thanksgiving. For example, many Americans may have the misconception that the first Thanksgiving was the new settlers having a welcoming feast with the Natives. In reality, they may not know that the Natives had previous experiences with new settlers that resulted in conflicts with them, and this was unusual for Natives to befriend this new group of Englishmen. Many may also be surprised that a majority of the people at the first Thanksgiving were Native Americans, almost double the amount of Pilgrims. One thing many are misinformed about was the inability to pinpoint a date of this celebration. Americans today all know that it is to be celebrated on fourth thursday each November, so it was made clear to me that this was not an unusual feast or anything of significant importance, as that would be recorded.
ReplyDeleteBefore reading the novel Mayflower by Nathaniel Philbrick, I believed that the Thanksgiving holiday stood to be a nationwide celebration for families to honor the Pilgrims who landed in America and for personal appreciations. After finishing Mayflower, and learning about the true history of Thanksgiving, I have found that most of my surprise regarding the holiday was not about big picture concepts, but about specific facts. For example, I never would have guessed that something as simple as the leaves changing colors could have been a “new and startling phenomenon” (118) for the Pilgrims, due to the fact that autumn colors in Britain are muted. This fascination of the Pilgrims contributed to their fall festivities. The first Thanksgiving honored the Pilgrims’ first full year in New England. It is unpleasant to know that “none of the Pilgrims should have emerged from the first winter alive” (119), due to the fact that the Pilgrims agitated the Native Americans who originally inhabited New England. Despite their unfortunate odds at survival, I found it amazing that the Pilgrims where able to “take charge of their own destiny” (119) and live on to inspire the start of the Thanksgiving holiday. Overall, I believe that the Pilgrims’ experience of the first Thanksgiving is roughly similar to my original opinions about Thanksgiving. Equivalent to my own traditions, the Pilgrims celebrated Thanksgiving by appreciating their experiences of the past year.
ReplyDeletePhilbrick's factual description of the Pilgrims first Thanksgiving proves to be very different from the traditional Thanksgiving holiday today. As a child, it was a common perception that the Pilgrims feasted with several Indians over a nice white table cloth. However, I was surprised to discover the Pilgrims did not spend the day sitting around a long table draped with a white linen cloth. In fact, most Pilgrims and Indians "stood, squatted, or sat on the ground as they clustered around outdoor fires" (117). Though, it does make sense that Thanksgiving was not as elegant as I had imagined, since the Pilgrims were dealing with limited resources and luxuries in their new and youthful settlement. Regarding the people who attended this famous feast, I was appalled to discover how many Indians celebrated with the Pilgrims. Originally I was under the assumption that Pilgrims made up the majority of the celebrants. Contrastly, the first Thanksgiving became an "overwhelmingly native celebration when Massasoit and a hundred Pokanokets" (117) arrived at the settlement with deer. Despite the majority of Indians, the first Thanksgiving still proves to be a famous gathering confirming peace and gratuity between the Pilgrims and Indians.
ReplyDeleteAdditionally, the traditional Thanksgiving foods of modern day differ from the feast described by Philbrick. Turkey, gravy, cranberry sauce, and stuffing are typical foods linked with Thanksgiving. Braford had actually sent men out to go fowling for "ducks and geese" (117), not strictly turkey of modern day Thanksgiving. Philbrick's description in "The Mayflower" of the first Thanksgiving opened my eyes to new details of the feast, but upheld the common concept of celebrating gratuity of the past year.
From musicals we performed for parents in elementary school, hand crafted turkey projects, and Indian head pieces made out of yarn and beads, a skewed perception of the first Thanksgiving has emerged in youth and adults throughout our whole nation. Thanksgiving to many Americans is about the best stuffing recipe, what store can attract the most customers by having the lowest prices, and what football team will rise victorious above all others. But that is not how the first Thanksgiving really happened. Thanksgiving always takes place on the last Thursday in November. However, the first Thanksgiving took place, “...probably in late September or early October” (117). Not only is it surprising, “the exact date of the celebration we call the first Thanksgiving” (117) is unknown, it is also surprising it is celebrated almost two months later. Another misinterpretation about the first Thanksgiving that has come to light is the seating arrangements. When children are asked to draw their interpretation of the first thanksgiving many will draw the Pilgrims, “...sitting around a long table draped with a white linen cloth, clasping each other's hands in prayers as a few Indians looked on” (117), but in reality, “...most of the celebrates stood, squatted, or sat on the ground” (117).
ReplyDeleteAs Nathaniel Philbrick clarifies in Mayflower, the first Thanksgiving was much different than what we know it as today. Yes, it is surprising to see the differences between the past and present, but more so it is interesting to see how the first Thanksgiving has evolved into today’s Thanksgiving. I think it is very important to learn the correct facts about one of our country’s most important events.
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DeleteThe real First Thanksgiving in U.S. History differs greatly from the modern perception of it, today thanksgiving is celebrated by feasting with family and friends, and a nice kindergarten play in which the Pilgrims invite the Native Americans to a big feast, to celebrate their friendship and the wonderful new land they have found. It is a common contemporary belief that the First Thanksgiving was a feast of turkey that occurred in late November, when in reality it was more of a festival where "villagers ate, drank, and played games"(117). I was surprised to read that the first Thanksgiving occurred most likely "in late September or early October" (117) after important crops such as "corn, squash, beans, barley, and peas had been harvested"(117) contrary to popular belief. Despite the similarities to a traditional English harvest festival, most modern day Americans celebrate with a feast. I always imagined the First Thanksgiving as an English event that consisted of a majority of pilgrims with some Natives, but to my surprise it was predominantly Native, yet the Natives along with the Pilgrims still wanted to “rejoice together… after a more special manner”(117). Another aspect of the first Thanksgiving I was surprised to read about was that there were games, and in modern America most people spend their thanksgiving watching their favorite football team square up for some good competition, much like the englishman enjoyed doing on a day of celebration. While the first Thanksgiving definitely had “marked the conclusion of a remarkable year” (119) as most people know, but I was shocked to find out that the first year had been so brutal, and the first Thanksgiving had been so different than I had previously believed.
It is inevitable that when one starts to think of the First Thanksgiving, he remembers the Pilgrim and Native American plays that were put on in elementary school with homemade costumes and fake feathers. I know that for myself and many others the idea of the First Thanksgiving is something along the lines of there being an equal amount of Native Americans and Pilgrims all joining hands while seated at a table. Philbrick proves to us that while there were both Pilgrims and Native Americans present, “the First Thanksgiving soon became an overwhelmingly Native celebration when Massasoit and a hundred Pokanokets...arrived at the settlement…” (117). It surprised me that there really was a much greater amount of Native Americans than Pilgrims in the settlement and there weren’t just a few small tribes of natives on the land. I also thought this feast was a very out of the ordinary event but the author states that the First Thanksgiving was “similar to a traditional English harvest festival” (117) that has been done for a long period of time. The First Thanksgiving also displayed the trust that the natives had now truly put in the Pilgrims. Prior to the autumn gathering, the Europeans attacked Nemasket and ordered to see Corbitant because they believed that Corbitant had killed Squanto. This loyalty to the natives shined through and Massasoit plus others saw this and realized that the Pilgrims were dependable.
ReplyDeleteThe First Thanksgiving described in the Mayflower is very different than the modern perception. I thought that the First Thanksgiving was for the majority Pilgrims with a few native American tribes but Philbrick describes how it "soon became an overwhelmingly Native Celebration" (117). What also surprised me was the time that the First Thanksgiving occurred. Contrary to the modern belief of it being in late November, the First Thanksgiving was thought to have occurred in "late September or early October" after crucial crops were harvested (117). What surprised me the most was that the First Thanksgiving was an event in which the people "ate, drank, and played games" (117). I always thought of the First Thanksgiving as more like a huge family dinner, but Philbrick describes it as more of a party like gathering. The modern perception of the First Thanksgiving varies, and the way Philbrick describes it is much different than I ever thought it was.
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ReplyDeleteIn the US, people define Thanksgiving as the forth Thursday in November. It is an annual holiday for giving thanks for what you have. Not many know that our current perception of Thanksgiving varies immensely from the first Thanksgiving. In 1621 Thanksgiving marked an end of suffering for the Pilgrims and Native Americans. We all think of Thanksgiving as a time to draw colorful turkeys with our hands and indulge in all sorts of food. The name Thanksgiving wasn’t even introduced until “the nineteenth century, [it] was not used by the Pilgrims themselves” (117). The actuality and importance of Thanksgiving are not only misunderstood but “We do not know the exact date of the celebration we now call the First Thanksgiving, but it was probably in late September or early October” (117). This was very surprising since it had been fixed into my mind that Thanksgiving had always been celebrated in November. Most people probably have a similar picture of what they think the first Thanksgiving looked like, “around a long table draped with a white linen cloth, clasping each others hands in prayer as a few curious Indians looked on” (117). While in reality it was a time “in which villagers ate, drank, and played games” (117). Also to my surprise the first Thanksgiving was mostly composed of Native Americans, almost more than double the Pilgrims population. The biggest symbol of Thanksgiving is none other than the turkey. To my disappointment I found that “Turkeys were by no means a novelty to the Pilgrims” (118). In its place they dined on birds like duck, and deer. Over long periods of time, the meaning and actuality of events change; Thanksgiving was once known as “a time for spiritual devotion” (117) but is now simply an occasion for excessive eating.
ReplyDeleteWhen I think of Thanksgiving, I imagine families gathering around large tables celebrating their gratitude for one another and eating enough turkey, stuffing, and cranberry sauce to feel full for weeks. Elementary school kids usually put on costumes and tell the story of how the English and Indians (led by Squanto) came together to celebrate their love and friendship for one another. I find it very interesting that our idea of Thanksgiving is so completely skewed from what actually happened. The fact that a rather short time before the First Thanksgiving occurred, The Pilgrims were actually planning on seizing and killing sachem Corbitant because of a simple rumor they had heard. The Pilgrims were not "happy go-lucky" with the Indians, like what is presumed today. To make sure the Indians had the English's interests best in their hearts, the English bullied "nine sachems-including Corbitant, Epenow, Massasoit's brother Quadequina, and Canacum, the sachem who had sent John Billington to the Nausets-journeyed to Plymouth to sign a treaty professing their loyalty to King James" (116). To celebrate this new found political loyalty, the Pilgrims created a more "English harvest festival-a secular celebration that dated back to the Middle Ages in which villagers ate, drank, and played games" (117). Today most people proclaim what they are thankful for and pray at the Thanksgiving table, because that is what has been engraved in our minds as what the Pilgrims did; but actually most of the Pilgrims just drank and ate. Also the first Thanksgiving is seen as a predominately English-hosted celebration, when really it "became an overwhelmingly Native celebration when Massasoit and a hundred Pokanokets (more than twice the entire English population of Plymouth) arrived" (117). I think people today should be more informed as to what really happened at the First Thanksgiving.
ReplyDeletePrior to reading Philbrick’s description of the First Thanksgiving, I had a rudimentary understanding of the monumental event. I figured that Squanto, along with his singular tribe, was invited to the event in celebration of the first harvest. This conception was proven invalid when Philbrick mentioned the presence of “nine sachems”(117), as well as “Massasoit and a hundred Pokanokets”(117). My misconceptions regarding the reason behind the festivities was replaced with another, more vicious explanation. This revelation was the most shocking to me, as it revealed the cruelty of the grounds of the First Thanksgiving. Instead of the celebration being mainly based off of the newfound peace between the settlers and the Natives, it was in reality quite the opposite. Rather, the attendees celebrated the English success against Corbitant, the sachem of Mattapoisett. Upon hearing the news that one of Corbitant’s men had murdered Squanto, which was later falsified, the English immediately sent a band of troops led by Miles Standish, to seize Corbitant. This retaliation was unsuccessful because Corbitant fled from Nemasket. However, his absence did not prevent the English from terrorizing those he left behind. Philbrick describes the horror as a “chaotic exercise in futility”(115). The response to the terror was especially troubling to me. It is noted that the attack “had won the Pilgrims some new respect”(116), even from Corbitant, who now wished to make peace with the settlers. The nine sachems who attended the celebration, celebrated the Pilgrim’s ferocity against their own civilians. The notion that bloodshed was honorable was concerning to me. When I first started reading Mayflower, my perception of the First Thanksgiving was that it was an amicable mark in our nation’s history; however, I quickly came to the realization it was nothing more than a disillusioned, heinous scar on our past.
ReplyDeleteThough the relationship between the Natives and English “was far from being a paradise of abundance and peace” (119), it was much stronger than I had imagined. I had no idea that by the First Thanksgiving, a treaty between the Pilgrims and Native Americans already existed. The treaty, although created for political reasons, affirmed a sense of friendship between the Pilgrims and Pokanokets. The Pilgrims were lucky to quickly establish a friendship with Massasoit and the Pokanokets, with whom they owe their success and survival to. The impact of this treaty can be clearly seen at the celebration of the First Thanksgiving. My assumptions of the First Thanksgiving being a primarily English affair, with Pilgrims sitting down at a table to give thanks and pray, was incorrect. The celebration was “an overwhelmingly Native celebration” (117), with almost no one sitting down at a table to give thanks. The First Thanksgiving was not a small, formal get-together, intended to celebrate personal victories, but rather massive gathering where everyone “ate, drank, and played games” (117). It surprises me that, especially after the treaty, the Pilgrims didn’t show much gratitude and express their thanks for the Natives. Without help from the Native Americans, the likelihood that the Pilgrims would be alive and celebrating is very slim. However, I still admire the early friendship between the two groups, who just a few months before had feared the other.
ReplyDeleteThe First Thanksgiving is shown to be an event marking a relative peace and acceptance between the Pokanokets and the invading white Europeans. Two points make this an incredibly uncomfortable, in terms of understanding, event. Firstly, as it turns out, the first thanksgiving was “instead of an English affair… an overwhelmingly Native celebration” (117). This exposes the force-fed whitewashed history that has been part of our education since our youngest years. We were taught in school that the first thanksgiving was a dominantly white English affair, with Pilgrims “sitting around a long table draped with white-linen cloth, clasping each other’s hands in prayer as a few curious Indians looked on.”(117). In this lie, the white people are shown to be the strong gifted people, where the indigenous onlookers are shown to be infantile and small in number. This, as we have read, and of course, is utterly false. The natives were the ones who came in large strong numbers; “Massasoit and a hundred Pokanokets (more than twice the entire English population of Plymouth)” (117); and the natives were the ones who, out of the kindness of their hearts, brought food and permitted the whites to live and eat with them in peace. The whites were the ones with small numbers and the whites were the ones who needed the support and help. Reading this chapter on Thanksgiving, gave me a feeling of uneasiness as it exposed the white-washed white-induced lie that is fed to us about how Thanksgiving actually took place. Secondly, as I read, in much admiration, about the openness and kindness of Massasoit and his people, and how he brought one hundred of his people, in a peaceful manner, to feast with the white invaders, another feeling of distress came over me. This First Thanksgiving, again, marked some form of peace between these two peoples, but in the end, it meant nothing. For, now we know, the initial invasion of the white man unto this new continent, would eventually lead to the near full decimation of the indigenous population; as he spread westward like a plague. A modern Thanksgiving does not mean anything of positive value. It is a sad excuse for white people and the American first world to soak in and consume excessive amounts of food. In fact, the original event, may have meant something when it actually happened (as symbolized a minute of peace and unity), but because of the next passing centuries in American history and the current status of the indigenous people of America, it’s meaning has been nullified.
ReplyDeleteBefore reading Mayflower, I had some understanding of the first Thanksgiving. I understood that our commercialized version of Thanksgiving is nowhere near the events of the first Thanksgiving. I knew that it consisted of a meal between pilgrims and Indians where turkey was not on the menu, but my knowledge of the event stopped right about there. I didn't expect that the first Thanksgiving was on the fourth Thursday of November as it is now, but I did expect the celebration to be in November. However, I was wrong as "it was probably in late September or early October"(117). I also expected that this celebration was attended by the pilgrims and multiple Indian tribes. As it turns out there was only one tribe that attended and that was the Pokanokets. I thought that within their first year, the pilgrims would have made more Indian allies. I was also surprised that the Indians outnumbered the Pilgrims by such a great margin, “Massasoit and a hundred Pokanokets (more than twice the entire English population) arrived at the settlement” (117). I expected that this was a predominantly English affair with a few representative from Indian tribes. This is one of my many misconceptions about one of our nation's biggest holidays. It is startling how our celebration of Thanksgiving is vastly different from the first Thanksgiving.
ReplyDeletePrior to reading Mayflower, I admit I did know that the modern-day celebration of Thanksgiving had been significantly altered from the original celebration. Particularly in terms of the contents of the meal, but I didn’t know exactly how different the modern-day celebration and the original celebration were. Especially the abundance of fish eaten at the First Thanksgiving surprised me, such as “striped bass, bluefish, and cod,” (118). I was also surprised to read that, to the Pilgrims, the celebration of Thanksgiving had spiritual connotations, “For the Pilgrims a thanksgiving was a time of spiritual devotion. Since just about everything the Pilgrims did had religious overtones, there was certainly much about the gathering in the fall of 1621 that would have made it a proper Puritan thanksgiving,” (117). As Philbrick mentioned, it was unusual thanksgiving to the pilgrims was a religious event, as almost everything to them had “religious overtones”, so I wasn’t entirely surprised to read that.
ReplyDeleteAnother feature of the First Thanksgiving I was shocked to read was the overwhelming Native American influence on the celebration. Before reading Mayflower, I thought the ratio between Pilgrims and Native Americans would be equal and therefore both of their cultures would have equal influence on the celebration, but surprisingly “the First Thanksgiving soon became an overwhelmingly Native celebration when Massasoit and a hundred Pokanokets (more than twice the English population of Plymouth) arrived at the settlement with five freshly killed deer,” (117).
The final part of the First Thanksgiving that I hadn’t thought about prior to reading Mayflower, was the importance of the turning season to the holiday itself. Every autumn the Pilgrims had experienced “autumn colors to be muted and lackluster,” (118) in England, but now they had, for the first time, witnessed the beauty of New England autumn and “the turning of green leaves of summer to the incandescent yellows, reds, and purples of a New England autumn,” (118). I hadn’t ever considered that one of the reasons for Thanksgiving being a holiday was because of the turning of summer into fall, but knowing that helps me better understand the importance of Thanksgiving to the Pilgrims.
For nearly seventeen years I have been living by the Thanksgiving lessons taught to us in early grade school. These lessons were understandably simplified as a seven or eight year old does not have the mental capacity or attention span to process the factual events that occurred on and before the first Thanksgiving celebration. We were taught that the Natives and the Pilgrims joined together in a feast to celebrate peace and unity among the two peoples. This statement is vastly oversimplified to the point where it is almost untrue... While the pilgrims did in fact find an ally in the Pokanoket tribe, the Pilgrims and the Pokanokets were, at this time, at war or at odds with nearly every other Native tribe because no other tribe sought friendship between them and the invasive pilgrims. The first Thanksgiving celebration was a celebration of unity among the Pokanokets and the pilgrims where both groups had recognized and come to terms with their dependence on one another and the settling of differences in order to come together to help one another survive. "There were profound differences between the Pilgrims and Pokanokets to be sure... but in these early years, when alliance appeared to be in their best interests, the two peoples had more in common than is generally appreciated today." (119) Pilgrims found that the Indians were not savages, but were humans. These Indians also helped guide the Pilgrims through their first eleven months in the New World. At the same time, Massasoit found that an English alliance protects his diminished tribe from threats from the Narragansetts. So, the first Thanksgiving celebration was not so much a general unity of Pilgrims and Indians, but rather the celebration of a newly found alliance between two small groups.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading about the true events of the First Thanksgiving, I find that my general understanding of the celebration has been reaffirmed. However, I was also surprised by certain aspects of Thanksgiving, like the spontaneous aspect of the celebration. All along I knew that Thanksgiving had involved some sort of conflict and that the English had a tense relationship with the Natives, but now that I have read about it I understand that they had just agreed to remain at peace. This was the peace that they had been waiting and pushing for since they came across one another. I did originally believe that the feast was made for everyone and that they had planned the celebration in advance, but now I know that was not the case. As the day went on the Natives arrived and ended up joining the English for dinner. Luckily, they “arrived at the settlement and soon provided five freshly killed deer” assisting the Puritans (Philbrick 117). The meaning of Thanksgiving is very similar to how the Englishmen and Natives used this day for, which is another thing that surprised me. We give thanks and cherish what we have in November once a year. The Puritans and the Natives had so little compared to us but they still were celebrating “the conclusion of a remarkable year” (Philbrick 119). I guess in some ways both types of ‘Thanksgiving’s’ celebrate a year that has been successful and worthwhile. The First Thanksgiving marked the time in which the Puritans and the Natives bonded, just as our families and friends do on Thanksgiving. But Philbrick wrote about the atmosphere that I believed the First Thanksgiving had, reaffirming my original beliefs.
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ReplyDeleteThe first Thanksgiving was a celebration of unity and friendship between the Pokanoket tribe and the pilgrims. At this time, other Indian tribes disliked the pilgrims because of their invasions within Indian territory and the Pokanoket's were at war with many other Indian tribes. The pokanokets realized they needed to build a friendship with the pilgrims in order to survive. The pilgrims had been starving and also needed an ally to depend on. As time progressed, the pilgrims realized the usefulness of forging the friendship with the Pokanoket tribe. The Indians began helping the pilgrims adapt to the New World with building their community and teaching them how to obtain a significant amount of food. The Pokanoket tribe began having fewer enemies among other Indian tribes and was now protected from attack by the Narragansett tribe. Thanksgiving was the celebration of the start to the alliance and friendship between the pilgrims and Indians. In the United States, most people celebrate Thanksgiving as a holiday for recognizing and appreciating the important people in their life. Unlike how the pilgrims and Indians celebrated their thanksgiving, which was based on forming an alliance between two people, the modern version of this holiday depends on giving thanks. The first Thanksgiving occurred in September or October and now Thanksgiving is always the last Thursday in November. The meaning of the first Thanksgiving and the modern Thanksgiving differs immensely.
ReplyDeleteThe First Thanksgiving, as described in Nathaniel Philbrick’s Mayflower, was both familiar and surprising. I was aware that Thanksgiving took place in the fall, was a celebration of the harvest, and featured a menu of turkey and harvested food. I was surprised to learn, however, that the First Thanksgiving “. . . was probably in late September or early October” (117), rather than the fourth Thursday in November, and that they dined on fish and deer as well as beer made from harvested barley. While I knew there were natives present at the First Thanksgiving, I was unaware that the event was, “. . . an overwhelmingly Native celebration . . .” with the Natives numbering, “. . . more than twice the entire English population of Plymouth” (117). The presence of so many Natives is surprising, as I would have expected the Pilgrims to be isolationist due to their strict religious tendencies. However, upon reflection, it is fitting that they would celebrate together because the Pilgrims could not have survived the first year without assistance from the Natives. Discovering that the Pilgrims and Indians ate their food outdoors using only knives and their hands, bearing more resemblance to a picnic than the formal meal we have at our celebrations today, was also surprising to me. After reading about the First Thanksgiving, I was pleasantly surprised to find that while I understood the basic framework of the celebration, the original event had many more unique qualities than I realized.
ReplyDeleteFor my entire life I have been taught the traditional story of the First Thanksgiving. From the beginning of school we have learned that Thanksgiving happens once in a year in November and is a time to spend with your family and give thanks. However the First Thanksgiving was not like the one we celebrate today. The Pilgrims and the Native Americans did sit together and feast however it was used as a tool to prevent future wars and create a truce. Prior to the First Thanksgiving the Native Americans had a goal to wipe out the Pilgrims and protect their land. The Pilgrims had a goal to create peace and live prosperously among the Native Americans. The feast was intended to share both of their crops and the ideals of creating peace among the colony. The Pilgrims were in a desperate need to stop living in fear of the Natives attacking. This made me really uncomfortable, a day we are supposed to look highly on and celebrate with our families, was the Pilgrims plea for mercy. Another thing I was uncomfortable to find out was that the date of Thanksgiving isn’t even definite, “We do not know the exact date of the celebration we now call the First Thanksgiving, but it was probably in late September or early October..” (pg 117) A holiday that is considered so highly valued in America is on a day that isn’t even in the month assumed to be the First Thanksgiving. Along side the date we celebrate being incorrect, the food we consume isn’t the traditional food eaten at the First Thanksgiving, “the Pilgrims were without pumpkin pies or cranberry sauce.” (pg 118) I was shocked to find out that one of the most important days in American history, the bonding between the Natives of our land and the Pilgrims isn’t being told to Americans as the true story, “Instead of an English affair, the First Thanksgiving soon became an overwhelming Native Celebration.” (pg 117) Reading Mayflower has definitely changed my view on the real meaning of Thanksgiving, the Pilgrims ability to have a feast in order to protect the land and encourage their coinciding in Plymouth was a sign of bravery, along with a strong desire to end future conflict. The First Thanksgiving gave the Pilgrims a chance to reflect on the previous year and the major choices they had made to make Plymouth succeed.
ReplyDeleteFor my entire life I have been taught the traditional story of the First Thanksgiving. From the beginning of school we have learned that Thanksgiving happens once in a year in November and is a time to spend with your family and give thanks. However the First Thanksgiving was not like the one we celebrate today. The Pilgrims and the Native Americans did sit together and feast however it was used as a tool to prevent future wars and create a truce. Prior to the First Thanksgiving the Native Americans had a goal to wipe out the Pilgrims and protect their land. The Pilgrims had a goal to create peace and live prosperously among the Native Americans. The feast was intended to share both of their crops and the ideals of creating peace among the colony. The Pilgrims were in a desperate need to stop living in fear of the Natives attacking. This made me really uncomfortable, a day we are supposed to look highly on and celebrate with our families, was the Pilgrims plea for mercy. Another thing I was uncomfortable to find out was that the date of Thanksgiving isn’t even definite, “We do not know the exact date of the celebration we now call the First Thanksgiving, but it was probably in late September or early October..” (pg 117) A holiday that is considered so highly valued in America is on a day that isn’t even in the month assumed to be the First Thanksgiving. Along side the date we celebrate being incorrect, the food we consume isn’t the traditional food eaten at the First Thanksgiving, “the Pilgrims were without pumpkin pies or cranberry sauce.” (pg 118) I was shocked to find out that one of the most important days in American history, the bonding between the Natives of our land and the Pilgrims isn’t being told to Americans as the true story, “Instead of an English affair, the First Thanksgiving soon became an overwhelming Native Celebration.” (pg 117) Reading Mayflower has definitely changed my view on the real meaning of Thanksgiving, the Pilgrims ability to have a feast in order to protect the land and encourage their coinciding in Plymouth was a sign of bravery, along with a strong desire to end future conflict. The First Thanksgiving gave the Pilgrims a chance to reflect on the previous year and the major choices they had made to make Plymouth succeed.
ReplyDeleteAs I began reading The Mayflower I expected to relearn what I have already heard of the first Thanksgiving many times, however Philbrick brought up many points that had not been brought to my attention. I have never seen Thanksgiving as a religious Holiday, for the Pilgrims however Thanksgiving appears to be a day where the gifts God has given to them are enjoyed. As Philbrick says “A Thanksgiving was a time of spiritual devotion, and everything the Pilgrims did had religious overtones.” (117) A modern Thanksgiving takes just a trip to the grocery store and nothing else. Having the food they did on the first Thanksgiving now seems to me some kind of miracle, for the Pilgrims this feast must have been something they believe God wanted them to have. The next surprise to me was the Native influence. I always had believed the Pilgrims hosted Thanksgiving as a sign of welcoming to all the peoples surrounding them. Yet when Philbrick says “The first Thanksgiving became an overwhelmingly Native celebration when Massasoit and a hundred Pokanokets arrived at the settlement with five freshly killed deer” the Pilgrims seem to be the invited ones. This is true not just at the feast but in the new world. The first Thanksgiving shows how necessary the bond between the Natives and Pilgrims was for the Pilgrims survival. Along with the protection provided from Massasoit, the knowledge of how to gather food, hunt and fish were all key parts to the Pilgrims survival during the first eleven months. Philbrick's quote “During the winter of 1621 the survival of the English settlement had been in the balance and Massasoit's decision to offer assistance had saved the Pilgrims lives.” (119) Proves that without Native help the Pilgrims would have nothing to be thankful for. Philbrick now brings to light how the Pilgrims faith in God was somewhat arrogant as it was clearly the natives they should be thanking.
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ReplyDeleteEvery year at Thanksgiving as a child I would always notice the depictions of Native Americans and the Pilgrims sitting together eating a large cornucopia of food along with a large turkey, with happy-go-lucky smiles on. However, after reading The Mayflower, I realize my childhood renditions had been misguided. The information we received since childhood was mostly based on coloring book diagrams of a few on looking native americans and white pilgrims with full cheeks of insinuated food did not turn out as true as my coloring hands had thought, “the pilgrims did not spend the day sitting around a long table draped with a while linen cloth, clasping each other’s hands in prayer as a few curious Indians looked on.”(117) Rather than a gathering of thankfulness this was “for the Pilgrims a thanksgiving was a time of spiritual devotion.” (117). As I was reading I figured out that my previous notion of the pilgrim initiating this celebration, rather it was an “overwhelmingly Native celebration” (117). There is little evidence about this celebration where Natives and Pilgrims alike gathered to enjoy the harvest of “their crop of corn, squash, beans, barley, and peas” (117). Even the classic Thanksgiving day novelty of a turkey was not the main focus. According to Philbrick there was a small amount of turkey but mainly there were deer and other wild game. Before i read The Mayflower my perception of Thanksgiving was distorted, given our national historical curriculum that romanticizes the even. However now I appreciate that Philbrick corrected my general understanding of the First Thanksgiving.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading the Mayflower by Nathaniel Philbrick, it’s hard to believe that the modern day Thanksgiving has roots back to the first Thanksgiving with the Pilgrims, seeing how they are vastly different. Most people today have a skewed view of what the first Thanksgiving was actually like in the New World. There is a classic stereotype of Pilgrims wearing buckled shoes and tall black hats sitting at a long table, side by side with the Native Americans who were feasting on plenty of turkey, corn and squash. The Pilgrims were happily celebrating the fruits of their fall harvest with the Indians, their new friends and adversaries that seemed to last for days. During the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln made this fall harvest celebration a national holiday known as Thanksgiving because it gave Americans a sense of hope and promise that we as a nation could put our differences aside and unite as one country, just as the pilgrim and Indians seemed to do. In reality, it appears that Thanksgiving was more than likely a simple get together where the wary and apprehensive participants sat on the ground around a fire outside and ate rations of corn and duck or deer. Neither party (the Pilgrims or the Indians) really trusted the other but they knew they needed to co-exist in order to survive. In order to make that possible, the two groups needed to be cordial and helpful to one and other, even though there was distrust between them. Another misconception of the first Thanksgiving was that it happened sometime in late November, which is why we have the holiday on the fourth Thursday in November to this day. However, the first thanksgiving “was probably in late September or early October” (117) due to the fall harvest.
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ReplyDeleteI was somewhat surprised by the timeline of the events leading up to the first Thanksgiving. Originally I had some vague notion that the first Thanksgiving occurred shortly after the arrival of the Pilgrims. In actuality, they arrived at Cape Cod a full eleven months prior to the first Thanksgiving, and spent the first month in America “alienating and angering every Native American they happened to come across” (119). I was surprised that the first Thanksgiving occurred after so much initial hostility, such as the signing of the Pokanoket-Pilgrim agreement, which was violated by the Pilgrims almost instantly (the agreement promised that weapons would be left behind, and the Pilgrims forced the Pokanokets to abide by this rule, while the Pilgrims themselves maintained their muskets).
ReplyDeletePrior to reading Mayflower, I visualized the First Thanksgiving as a celebration of peace among the Pilgrims and Natives, abundance of food and a thriving settlement. I envisioned many Pilgrims sitting around a large table, with a few Indians among them. Upon reading Mayflower, it was interesting to see how some parts of my understanding of the First Thanksgiving were accurate, while others were completely wrong. To my surprise, what I thought had been a celebration of peace and success in the New World, was actually full of many hardships such as disease, starvation, and war. Barely making it out of their first year in the New World alive, the First Thanksgiving was, in part, a celebration of survival: “By all rights, none of the Pilgrims should have emerged from the first winter alive.” (119). Another thing that I was previously unaware of was the timing of the First Thanksgiving. My initial perception was that the First Thanksgiving took place upon the arrival of the first settlers, and that it took place in November. Contrary to my belief, the First Thanksgiving actually took place in “late September or early October”, 11 months after the Pilgrims arrived in Cape Cod (117). The most shocking part about the First Thanksgiving I learned while reading Mayflower was the amount of Native Americans present: “Instead of an English affair, the First Thanksgiving soon became an overwhelmingly Native celebration when Massasoit and a hundred Pokanokets (more than twice the entire English population of Plymouth) arrived at the settlement and soon provided five freshly killed deer.” (117).
ReplyDeleteDespite my many misconceptions, it was pleasing to see that some of my perceptions of the First Thanksgiving were accurate. Drinking, playing games, eating corn, squash and other various crops were all things that affirmed parts of my general understanding of the First Thanksgiving. It is interesting to see how Philbrick, while describing the First Thanksgiving, writes in a sarcastic way at times, addressing general misconceptions before correcting them: “Alas, the Pilgrims were without pumpkin pies or cranberry sauce.” (118). It is because of this that one cannot help but wonder how all of these misconceptions and new traditions came about.
My understanding of the first Thanksgiving prior to reading Mayflower was extremely misguided. I imagined a bunch of Pilgrims in top hats (with buckles of course) and Native Americans all sitting together on one long wooden table eating turkey and potatoes. I also assumed it was in late November, when we celebrate it today. Unfortunately, besides the turkey eating, I was incorrect in assuming all of these things It took place in late December or early October, like the book states on page 117. They ate stews, deer, turkey, and fish; a very unusual Thanksgiving Day meal in today's world. The Pilgrims ate with only their fingers and knives, and in today's world, only top tier table manners are acceptable on Thanksgiving Day. I was also surprised to read that "Even if all the Pilgrims' furniture was brought out into the sunshine, most of the celebrants stood, squatted, or sat on the ground as they clustered around outdoor fires" (117). They didn't all sit at a long table, they were all around different fires, eating and watching the deer and turkey cook.
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ReplyDeletePrior to reading The Mayflower, I had a very vague understanding of the first Thanksgiving. I was aware that our society had altered the holiday to a more formal and light-hearted event including feasting and spending time with family, however I never took the time to learn about how the first Thanksgiving really came to be. My imagination of the first Thanksgiving was very stereotypical; I pictured the Pilgrims and Indians surrounding a large table enjoying a meal similar to what we eat today. However what we think is a delightful holiday full of feasting, were mainly solemn days of religious prayer and “a time of spiritual devotion” (117) to the Pilgrims. Of course I was very naive to assume that the Pilgrims and Native Americans enjoyed their meals with a somewhat sense of etiquette, but instead I learned the pilgrims ate with their fingers and had no forks “until the last decades of the seventeenth century” (118). I was also intrigued to find out that the first Thanksgiving meal was several months after the Pilgrim’s arrival to the “New World”. As Amber mentioned, my misguided knowledge was that they ate their Thanksgiving meal with the Native Americans shortly after their arrival upon the Mayflower. Another misinterpretation that took me by surprise was the first Thanksgiving did not take place in late November, “but it was probably in late September or early October” (117). After reading a novel with so many fundamental details about the first Thanksgiving, I am now knowledgeable about where our national holiday stems from.
ReplyDeletePrior to reading The Mayflower, I had a very vague understanding of the first Thanksgiving. I was aware that our society had altered the holiday to a more formal and light-hearted event including feasting and spending time with family, however I never took the time to learn about how the first Thanksgiving really came to be. My imagination of the first Thanksgiving was very stereotypical; I pictured the Pilgrims and Indians surrounding a large table enjoying a meal similar to what we eat today. However what we think is a delightful holiday full of feasting, were mainly solemn days of religious prayer and “a time of spiritual devotion” (117) to the Pilgrims. Of course I was very naive to assume that the Pilgrims and Native Americans enjoyed their meals with a somewhat sense of etiquette, but instead I learned the pilgrims ate with their fingers and had no forks “until the last decades of the seventeenth century” (118). I was also intrigued to find out that the first Thanksgiving meal was several months after the Pilgrim’s arrival to the “New World”. As Amber mentioned, my misguided knowledge was that they ate their Thanksgiving meal with the Native Americans shortly after their arrival upon the Mayflower. Another misinterpretation that took me by surprise was the first Thanksgiving did not take place in late November, “but it was probably in late September or early October” (117). After reading a novel with so many fundamental details about the first Thanksgiving, I am now knowledgeable about where our national holiday stems from.
ReplyDeleteAlthough knowing a few basics about the First Thanksgiving, as a teenager having grown up in a rural town in the early twenty-first century I naively celebrate Thanksgiving as a day of enjoying football games and feasting around a table with my family. Thanksgiving has become a trademark holiday accompanied by many misconceptions. Some of these include that it is currently celebrated on the fourth Thursday of November and how it is designated to spending time with primarily one's family, when, as Nathaniel Philbrick wrote in Mayflower, the First Thanksgiving "was probably in late September or early October" (117) and "became an overwhelmingly Native celebration when Massasoit and a hundred Pokanokets (more than twice the entire English population of Plymouth) arrived at the settlement (117). I believe my perception of the First Thanksgiving is similar to that of other Americans: a meal taken place soon after the arrival of the Mayflower where a plethora of Pilgrims sat around a table abundant with turkey, practicing etiquette while hosting a small group of Indians. What surprised me most was that the event did not occur soon after the arrival of the Pilgrims, but almost a full year after. Furthermore, although the natives were hosted by the Pilgrims, they somewhat dominated the event as they greatly outnumbered the Pilgrims and "provided five freshly killed deer" (117). Lastly, the atmosphere did not radiate manners and seriousness, but rather celebration and fun as the two peoples ate, drank, and danced while "they clustered around outdoor fires" (117).
ReplyDeleteAfter reading Mayflower I was surprised by how irrelevant the First Thanksgiving was to the book as a whole. In society today we are taught that the history of the Pilgrims leads up to the first Thanksgiving as the happy conclusion of the native and Pilgrim relationship. We celebrate Thanksgiving as a major national holiday, getting the day off from work and school. Although the First Thanksgiving was significant, as it “marked the conclusion of a remarkable year” (Philbrick 119), the event was not mentioned in the rest of the account. Mayflower focuses on the relationship between the Pilgrims and natives, yet our big national holiday occupies a mere four pages of a three hundred and fifty eight page book.
ReplyDeleteAs a person who was born and has spent the majority of her life knowing about the celebration of Thanksgiving as much as was shown in American TV shows, and who has had experience celebrating it three times in total, I was incredibly interested in the origins of this national holiday. I, as Jemma did, too, was surprised to see that it wasn't such a great part of the book, and that now, so many years later, it is one of the most celebrated events in this country. To me as a newcomer, it seemed like Thanksgiving was made to appear as the greatest thing the Pilgrims had ever done. It it obvious that the cooperation and community was an important lesson to take away from the Pilgrims' relations with the Native peoples, but much of those relationships are erased if one is taught that, on the greater scale, the European settlers went straight from sharing meals with the Native Americans to interracial genocide. I, for one, did not know that the First Thanksgiving happened in September/October if here we celebrate it in late November - what is curious to me, since the book did not specify on why exactly that is the case.
DeleteMy narrow minded idea of Thanksgiving is a football game, family, the fourth Thursday in November, and lots of food. Like most of my peers my understanding of the first Thanksgiving is formed from what I was taught in third grade. A stereotypical image of Pilgrims with buckled top hats and Native Americans wearing feathered headdresses sitting side by side at a long wooden table enjoying turkey and mashed potatoes is how the first Thanksgiving is thought of. Before reading Mayflower by Nathaniel Philbrick this is all I thought Thanksgiving to be, but while reading the novel I learned a totally different story of how the holiday began.
ReplyDeleteI always assumed that the Thanksgiving meal was the first thing the Pilgrims did when they arrived in the New World. Assuming it was in November like the twenty-first century holiday, I learned the first Thanksgiving actually took place in late September or early October. I was also surprised to learn that the meal didn't take place until after about a year of living in the New World and that it was marked as a celebration that they had officially made it. Thinking that Thanksgiving was the first thing the Pilgrims did, I was also surprised to learn about the fighting with the Native Americans that was most of the first year. I naively assumed that the Native Americans just let the Pilgrims right into their life. It was also unexpected to learn about the food that was enjoyed at the first meal. I learned the meal was more heavily dominated with deer, duck, and fish rather than turkey. In fact, “turkeys were by no means a novelty to the Pilgrims” (118). Another thing I found interesting about the holiday was the pilgrims original meaning of the word “thanksgiving”. The pilgrims were very religious so to them “a thanksgiving was a time of spiritual devotion” (117). In elementary school we are also taught to understand that Thanksgiving was such a monumental step in the Pilgrims coming to the New World. While knowing this I was amazed at the lack of importance it seems to have in the novel. After reading Mayflower I learned that what was originally taught to us by our elementary school teachers about the first Thanksgiving is far from what actually happened during that first meal.
After reading Mayflower by Nathaniel Phibrick I was amazed how different the modern day view of Thanksgiving is in comparison to the first Thanksgiving that the Pilgrims had with the Native Americans. Today most people imagine Pilgrims and Native Americans sitting peacefully around a large table filled with many foods such as turkey and potatoes. In reality it was much different than that. Instead of the a casual social gathering the first Thanksgiving was most likely more of a Native celebration. In my mind when I picture the first Thanksgiving I see a long table loaded with turkey, potatoes, squash and many other foods. It surprised me that they actually most likely sat on the ground around fire and didn't eat turkey. They ate duck and deer instead. I was also shocked that the first Thanksgiving wasn't on the 4th Thursday in November like it is today. It was actually most likely in September or October. It made me wonder what altered the modern day perception of the first Thanksgiving.
ReplyDeleteUpon reading Philbrick’s descriptive narrative of the first Thanksgiving, I, like Paris, was astonished to discover the dramatic differences between the celebration of today and that of the early settlers of Plymouth. I have been raised in a household where every holiday is an extravagant and long-anticipated event. I can most definitely say that I annually celebrate Thanksgiving much differently than the Pilgrims and the Indians initially did in the early 1600s. For one thing, my family and I memorialize this significant jubilee dressed in formalwear around a long dining room table with bounties of what Americans call “traditional” Thanksgiving food. I am amazed that the settlers of Plymouth “were without pumpkin pies or cranberry sauce” (118), which are threats that our family crave. Our celebration is probably closer in tone to that depicted in those described as “Countless Victorian-era engravings...sitting around a long table draped with a white linen cloth, clasping each other’s hands in prayer” (117). Understanding that the original Thanksgiving was actually very understated and minimal, came at a shock to me. I was aware that this affair was religious, but I was surprised to hear that it was “similar to a traditional English harvest festival - a secular celebration that dated back to the Middle Ages in which villagers ate, drank, and played games” (117). The First Thanksgiving also was an “overwhelmingly Native celebration when Massasoit and a hundred Pokanokets arrived at the settlement” (117). Instead of sitting around the comfortable and exquisitely decorated table I find myself present at every November, “most of the celebrants stood, squatted, or sat on the ground” (117). Even more astonishing, “Turkeys were by no means a novelty to the Pilgrims” (118). How could this be? Although turkeys were in fact served at this function, this fowl did not revolve around the whole meal as it does today. These dissimilarities made me come to the realization that Americans have greatly reinterpreted the initial message and nature of Thanksgiving. Not only have we shaped it into a stressful event, but we have also made it extraordinarily superficial. While the simplistic habitants were satisfied with eating “with their fingers and knives,” (118) we are concerned about how to wow our relatives with our food displays and well-mannered offspring. The Settlers’ and Natives’ motives of celebration of the season of bounty and gratitude of survival have become muddled with ours of overindulgence and football. All of us should be reminded to reflect upon the true meaning of giving thanks and fellowship, as did the heros of the first simple, yet meaningful, Day of Thanks.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading the novel Mayflower, by Nathaniel Philbrick, I couldn’t help but laugh at the way I thought the first Thanksgiving was like. In my mind I pictured the Pilgrims on one side of the table and the Natives on the other. I envisioned a peaceful feast, with foods like the traditional turkey, mashed potatoes, and gravy laid out along the long table. I was surprised to learn the first Thanksgiving was nothing like I thought. I assumed it would have taken place in late November, but I learned “it was probably in late September or early October” (117). It also surprised me that the holiday “became an overwhelmingly native celebration” (117) because I thought there would only be “a few curious Indians” (117) looking on. The biggest surprise was the fact that no turkey was actually eaten. I learned “Turkeys were by no means a novelty to the Pilgrims” (118) and instead they feasted on deer, duck, fish, and birds. Not until I read the Mayflower, did I know what the true first Thanksgiving was like.
ReplyDeletePrior to reading Mayflower, I had a decent knowledge of the First Thanksgiving; I knew the pilgrims did not have the pleasure of feasting on an abnormally large ovenroasted turkey, mashed potatoes drenched in gravy, cranberry sauce, butternut squash, endless bowls of stuffing, and multiple flavored pies, all on a diningroom table covered in draped white table cloth, shiny silverware, crystal glassware, colorful napkins, and festive center pieces, but as Sam Livermore mentioned earlier, I too had always believed the First Thanksgiving took place during a somewhat "Golden Age" of the Pilgrims. I believed the event took place in a time in which the Pilgrims had finally begun to develop surplus food, goods, and a sturdy, powerful society; however, they were still struggling immensely with disease and hunger, and the natives versus Europeans power struggle was killing people off daily. In addition, I also thought the event marked a true turning point in the relationship between the Native Americans and the pilgrims; I believed the First Thanksgiving was led up to and followed by a period of safety and serene peace amongst the English and the various native tribes, but in reality, there was basically always consistent conflict amongst the two. I was also was unaware that prior to the event, the pilgrims had hoped to kill sachem Corbitant in Nemesket, which resulted in "nine sachems ... journey[ing] to Plymouth to sign a treaty professing their loyalty to King James" on September 13th (161). Nevertheless, “the First Thanksgiving marked the conclusion of a remarkable year” and "was a testament not only to the Pilgrims’ grit, resolve, and faith, but to their ability to take advantage of an extraordinary opportunity" (165). In addition, “by making clear their loyalty to Massasoit at the “hurly-burly” in Nemasket—they had taken charge of their own destiny in the region" (166).
ReplyDeleteAside from these two main concepts-- struggle to survive and native conflict-- there are a few specific details that I did not have knowledge on. Firstly, I did not know that the event “was probably in late September or early October” (163). Secondly, I did not know that the term Thanksgiving, [was] first applied in the nineteenth century, [and] was not used by the Pilgrims themselves," I assumed it was applied by the English sometime within the 1600s or 1700s (163). Thirdly, I was unaware that so many natives had attended the feast. Lastly, it was interesting to think about how the fall foliage of New England was such a perplexing phonomenon to the Europeans, since it never really crosses my mind that, although we are so used to it, not many people have the delicacy of getting to see its beauty every year. All in all, most of the First Thanksgiving facts did not come as a surprise to me, but after reading Mayflower I have developed a more accurate understanding of the celebratory event that marked the end of a great year for the pilgrims and a step towards developing a stable civilization.
As many others, I was surprised in learning about what had really happened during the First Thanksgiving. I had always thought of the First Thanksgiving as how we had learned in kindergarten and elementary school, as Philbrick had described, the Pilgrims “sitting around a long table draped with a white table cloth, clasping each other’s hands in prayer as a few curious Indians looked on” (117). I was surprised to find out that it was a mostly Native celebration as there were a hundred Pokanokets. Rather than everyone in attendance sitting around a long table, “most of the celebrants stood, squatted, or sat on the ground as they clustered around outdoor fires”(117). Another misconception that I had believed was that the First Thanksgiving was the beginning of long standing peace between the Natives and the Pilgrims. I thought that once the Indians and Pilgrims had gathered around a table for this large meal, they had established a friendship and would continue to carry on this unity. I was startled by the fact that this celebration had taken place so soon after Standish’s terrifying ambush in Nemasket in an attempt to initiate fear in the Indians of what the English were capable of. Soon after the First Thanksgiving, the English would violate this peace even after nine sachems had signed a treaty stating their loyalty to King James. However, I was reassured of my belief of the two group's unity after reading that in the upcoming winter “Massasoit’s decision to offer them assistance had saved the Pilgrims’ lives in the short term” (119). Now, I am able to fully understand the roots of our national holiday and will have a new view on the festivities that will take place this year.
ReplyDeleteContrary to the modern day celebration of Thanksgiving, the accurate depiction of the first Thanksgiving described in Mayflower would have surprised me as child because of what I learned in school, however now that I am older realize that what we learned is a romanticized fictional story. Philbrick emphasizes “the Pilgrims did not spend the day sitting around a long table draped with a white table cloth, clasping each other’s hands in prayer as a few curious Indians looked on.” (117) As much as I would love to believe that that happened, I know it is unrealistic to say that everyone had a chair, a fork, and a big piece of Turkey in front of them. In reality, they ate deer, duck, fish, and wild turkey, and most people “stood, squatted, or sat on the ground” (117) It also did not surprise me that the first Thanksgiving was not first time the English and the Indians collaborated to make peace. It would not make sense if it were the first time because the Pilgrims would not have made it through the first winter in 1620 without the assistance of the Indians. However, it did surprise me that “the First Thanksgiving…was probably in late September or early October,” (117) because today we celebrate on the fourth Thursday in November. I am glad that I know the factual story of what happened during the first Thanksgiving, and will keep that in mind during Thanksgiving this year.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading Mayflower, I was surprised to learn that the general perception of the modern holiday Thanksgiving, barely has any correlation to the first Thanksgiving that occurred. When the first Thanksgiving comes to mind for most people, they think of an elaborate meal with Pilgrims and some Indians joined together in harmony for a feast after the harvest in late November. However, the actual date of the first Thanksgiving was “probably in late September or early October, soon after their crop of corn, squash, beans, barley, and pea had been harvested” (117). For some people today, but certainly not the majority, similar to the Pilgrims celebrated as “a time of spiritual devotion” (117). Although the holiday has evolved into one centered around eating, the traditions for the first Thanksgiving date back to English harvest festivals where “villagers ate, drank, and played games” (117). Contrary to popular belief, the Pilgrims “did not spend the day sitting around a long table draped with a white linen cloth” (117). Of course they “were without pumpkin pies or cranberry sauce” (118), but something more surprising was that “there were also no forks” (118). Instead, “the Pilgrims ate with their fingers and their knives” (118). I was surprised to discover that the Civil War triggered Abraham Lincoln to establish the holiday because of a “need for a restorative myth of national origins” (354). However I found it surprising that not until the “1960s a new sense of Native identity emerged that challenged the nation’s veneration of Thanksgiving” (355). Overall, I was somewhat surprised that the general knowledge of the first Thanksgiving of most people is somewhat inaccurate.
ReplyDeleteWhen reading about the first Thanksgiving, I was surprised to learn that it was exactly as the term “thanksgiving” represents. Instead of a modernized holiday created off of the basis of the Pilgrims and Indians, the Thanksgiving we celebrate today is based off of the same ideas as was celebrated 400 years ago. While the modern Thanksgiving is more of a social affair filled with pumpkin pie and family drama, the principle that we are giving thanks for all of the good things that happened in the previous year is the same as that of the first Thanksgiving. In the fall of 1621, the Pilgrims had been in the New World for almost a year, against all odds. There were so many things that could have killed them all or caused them to turn around and go back to Europe. When they first arrived, the Pilgrims stole corn, took land, and overall angered the Natives. They didn’t have houses, food, or protection. Half of them died the first winter. The Indians easily could have killed the entire group. The Pilgrims had so many reasons not to make it through that first year in the New World, and Thanksgiving marked the time when they feasted and played games to give thanks for all of the factors that helped bring them through those hardships. Just like the Pilgrims so many years ago, today we get together with our friends and families as the leaves change color to give thanks for all of the things that went right in the past year.
ReplyDeleteWhile reading some of my classmate's blogs, I have seen that many have been taken back and upset that the first Thanksgiving was different than how it is today. It is true that the first Thanksgiving did not come with a white tablecloth, a turkey, lots of gravy, and a family specialty dessert at the end, but that is not what Thanksgiving is about. The fundamental part of thanksgiving is the "giving of thanks", it's right in the word! When the Pilgrims sat down with the overwhelming number of Native Americans at the first Thanksgiving, it was to "mark the conclusion of a remarkable year"(119). These people had survived a task that most would consider impossible. As they sat down, they were able to be thankful for what they have accomplished and be thankful to have another year to make the most out of. When a family sits down at the Thanksgiving table, the same fundamental principle is there. Sometimes the way something is done isn't important as long as that fundamental principle is there.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading Mayflower I have realized that my interpretation of Thanksgiving has been completely skewed. Before reading this novel I believed that it was a meeting of peace and giving back between the two groups (Pilgrims and Indians) where turkey, potatoes and other vegetables were being served at a large table at the Plymouth Plantation. Also, the date of the first Thanksgiving celebration is still unknown, but is believed to have been in “late September or early October soon after their crop of corn, squash, beans, barley and peas had been harvested”(117). This shocked me because today we celebrate the holiday at the end of November. Also the meal that was part of the first Thanksgiving is different than the stereotypical meal we serve today which is turkey and mashed potatoes; the Pilgrims and Indians were sitting around individual camp fires eating duck, deer, turkey, and a assortment of fish. “In addition to duck and deer according to Bradford, a ‘good store of turkeys’ in the fall of 1621… The Pilgrims may have also added fish to their meal of birds and deer. In fall, striped bass, bluefish, and cod were abundant”(118). I find it extremely interesting reading about how the first Thanksgiving was celebrated and comparing it to the modern day version of Thanksgiving. There are a lot of differences and I am shocked at how we came to the modern tradition that we know and love today.
ReplyDeletePrior to reading Mayflower, I was under the assumption that the first Thanksgiving was generally pretty similar to how us Americans celebrate it nowadays; a single feast consisting of turkey, potatoes, corn, and other classics, a group of well acquainted individuals sitting around a table sharing what they are thankful for. Philbrick's analysis of the first Thanksgiving, however, assured me that it was somewhat different from how I and presumably many people envisioned it. It is mentioned in the book that, while our Thanksgiving celebrations typically only last a single day, the first Thanksgiving in 1621 lasted several days. I was shocked by this statement, because it seemed as though the Pilgrims struggled to acquire an ample amount of food for all of the settlers, let alone enough food for several days of feasting. Also, nowadays, the first Thanksgiving is celebrated on the last Thursday of the month of November. In 1621, "it was probably in late September or early October, soon after their crop of corn, squash, beans, barley, and peas had been harvested" (117). I never really gave much thought to this, but upon reading this section of the book, I wondered why the date was changed to the last Thursday of the eleventh month. Prior to reading Mayflower, I was also under the assumption that the first Thanksgiving was actually referred to as Thanksgiving, though Philbrick makes it clear that is not the case. The description of the first Thanksgiving makes it seem as though their celebration was much less orderly and methodical than it is today. Given that it wasn't one set feast, and instead more of a somewhat disorderly gathering of both natives and Pilgrims, who ate with their hands and their knives. Admittedly, I was a little disturbed by the thought of eating a meal with one's bare hands, but then again, the English settlers also had a reputation for not bathing regularly, so the lack of proper utensils would've been the least of my worries.
ReplyDeleteWhat really was not shocking to me about the first Thanksgiving, was that the celebration centered around the a giant, celebratory feast with a myriad of food options readily available for everyone. This notion was true then, and it still rings true today
Prior to reading The Mayflower by Nathaniel Philbrick, I knew there were differences between the First Thanksgiving and the holiday we celebrate today. What surprised me was how different the meaning behind the holiday is from the meaning of the original feast. The Pilgrims were celebrating the fact that they had survived a year in the New World, and had food to eat. Of course they had to thank God for their good fortune, but they were also celebrating their new relationship with Massasoit and the Pokanokets. Their mutually beneficial rapport was, for the time being, peaceful, and was crucial to the pilgrims' survival. According to the "Conscience" epilogue, the modern holiday is a more nationalistic event, romanticizing the Pilgrim-Native relationship, and reminding Americans of their origins. Most people (especially children) associate Thanksgiving with this image of the brave Pilgrims arriving in the New World, and coexisting with the Natives. I was surprised to learn that the holiday is actually more about "romantic nostalgia" (355) than thankfulness.
ReplyDeleteBefore reading Philbrick’s description of the First Thanksgiving, I had a very vague understanding of the First Thanksgiving. As we know today, Thanksgiving is an annual holiday celebrated to express thanks for one another and all that we have. Today, Thanksgiving is celebrated at the end of November. Although, the First Thanksgiving actually most likely occurred in “late September or early October” (117). This surprised me and triggered the question of why today, we celebrate it in late November? “The First Thanksgiving soon became an overwhelmingly Native celebration…” (117) To my surprise, there were more than twice as many Native Americans as there were Indians. I had always pictured the First Thanksgiving as primarily an English celebration with very few Native Americans. But, in fact, this event marked the end of conflict between the Pilgrims and the Natives. Newly found allies, the Natives and Pilgrims celebrated together. “The Pilgrims were without pumpkin pies or cranberry sauce.” (118) The food aspect of the First Thanksgiving surprised me as well. The Pilgrims celebrated with duck, geese, deer, turkey, and sometimes fish. Today, Turkey is the most important aspect of the traditional Thanksgiving meal, but to my surprise, “Turkeys were by no means a novelty to the Pilgrims” (118). Although I had a basic idea of the First Thanksgiving, Philbrick’s description made me realize how much the modern perception of Thanksgiving differs today.
ReplyDeleteThe American holiday of Thanksgiving conjures up memories of time with family and white-tablecloth feasts, which is not at all synonymous with Philbrick’s description of the first occurrence of the holiday. I was surprised to learn about the informality of the Pilgrims’ feast; “celebrants stood, squatted, or sat on the ground as they clustered around outdoor fires”(117), and “ate with their fingers and their knives”(118), an image that is completely contradictory to the contemporary concept of Thanksgiving. Another surprising element of the First Thanksgiving was the natives’ involvement in the holiday. Massasoit and the Pokanokets greatly outnumbered the Pilgrims, and the celebration was a largely secular festival, with both groups contributing equally to the festivities. I had previously harbored the misconception that the First Thanksgiving’s celebration entailed the Pilgrims teaching the curious Pokanokets their “civilized” manner of celebrating, a notion that was far from the reality. Neither group expressed any trepidation towards the idea of a joint celebration, and they were friendly enough to pool their harvests and game to prepare a feast, which included pottage, fish, ducks, geese, deer, and turkeys. Despite their strong relationship with the Pokanokets, the Pilgrims were far from being secure in the New World. Plymouth was still largely under the threat of a native attack, due to the various enemy tribes in the region. This was a deeply unsettling realization, because while the Pilgrims celebrated surviving a year in the New World, potential peril was still hanging over their heads.
ReplyDeleteBefore reading Mayflower by Nathaniel Philbrick, I had some knowledge that there were differences between the first Thanksgiving and the modern day celebration of Thanksgiving. However I was surprised to discover just how different the two celebrations are and how they differ in a variety of ways. On the first Thanksgiving, the Pilgrims were celebrating their survival in the New World for the year they had been there and that they had food to eat. They were also celebrating their new relationship with Massasoit and the Pokanokets. Their joining together was mutually beneficial and was instrumental to the Pilgrims' survival. On the other hand, the modern holiday is less of a celebration of survival, but more of a reminder to Americans about where they came from and how America would be different if the Pilgrims hadn’t survived. I used to (And I bet a lot of people still) associate Thanksgiving with this mental picture of, “brave Pilgrims arriving in the New World and coexisting with the Natives in perfect harmony.” I was surprised to learn the several differences between the first Thanksgiving and the modern day Thanksgiving.
ReplyDeleteThere were several facts I didn’t realize about the first Thanksgiving. First, I didn't know that it “was similar to a traditional English harvest festival- a secular celebration that dated back to the Middle Ages in which villagers ate, drank, and played games” (Philbrick 117) Had assumed it was rooted more religiously than a secular holiday. Another thing that surprised me was that the Indians at the party out numbered the pilgrims. “Massasoit and a hundred Pokanokets (more than twice the entire English population of Plymouth) arrived at the settlement” (Philbrick 117). I had often assumed that the populations at the party would be even. Next, I knew that the traditional Thanksgiving dinner that we know and love wasn't what they really ate, but I was shocked to see that the pilgrims “also added fish to their meal of birds and deer.”(Philbrick 118) Finally, I am always interested to see the use of silverware throughout the ages and I made note that “The Pilgrims ate with their fingers and their knives.”(Philbrick 118). I would have thought good Englishmen of the 1620s would have a similar set of manners if not a more strict one when considering eating utensils.
ReplyDeleteThere were several facts I didn’t realize about the first Thanksgiving. First, I didn't know that it “was similar to a traditional English harvest festival- a secular celebration that dated back to the Middle Ages in which villagers ate, drank, and played games” (Philbrick 117) Had assumed it was rooted more religiously than a secular holiday. Another thing that surprised me was that the Indians at the party out numbered the pilgrims. “Massasoit and a hundred Pokanokets (more than twice the entire English population of Plymouth) arrived at the settlement” (Philbrick 117). I had often assumed that the populations at the party would be even. Next, I knew that the traditional Thanksgiving dinner that we know and love wasn't what they really ate, but I was shocked to see that the pilgrims “also added fish to their meal of birds and deer.”(Philbrick 118) Finally, I am always interested to see the use of silverware throughout the ages and I made note that “The Pilgrims ate with their fingers and their knives.”(Philbrick 118). I would have thought good Englishmen of the 1620s would have a similar set of manners if not a more strict one when considering eating utensils.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading the Mayflower account of the first Thanksgiving, I am surprised by the few similarities between past and present Thanksgiving. In the process of reading, I noticed that today these positive elements transfer over to modern day Thanksgiving. I was previously unaware that the Pilgrims did not refer to Thanksgiving as such. However, I found that the religious undertones in the celebration of a good harvest rang more true to my modern day description of Thanksgiving than I expected. I also found it beautiful that the celebration coincided with the changing of the leaves in New England, despite that the date is truly unknown. Lastly, I was pleasantly surprised that the first Thanksgiving "became an overwhelmingly Native celebration" (117). Typically, that is not shown in the modern day depictions of Thanksgiving. According to Edward Winslow, these natives were "very trust[worth]y, quick of apprehension, ripe witted, [and] just," (119), adding to the all-American image of a harmonious Thanksgiving. Despite the threat of native attack that constantly lingered over the heads of the Pilgrims, the first Thanksgiving's happier elements are pulled out from the original account today, making it widely celebrated across the United States.
ReplyDeleteOnce I read about the First Thanksgiving in Philbrick’s “Mayflower”, I immediately recognized numerous differences between what was traditionally supposed to have happened that day and what really happened. When I think of the First Thanksgiving, I think of Pilgrims, being fully clothed and wearing big black hats with buckles, and Indians, wearing nothing but an animal skin and feathers in their hair, sitting together around a very long table and enjoying a huge feast. According to the book, it was a gathering of too many people to sit around a single table; there were hundreds of Natives and about 50 Pilgrims, “even if all the Pilgrims’ furniture was brought out into the sunshine, most of the celebrants stood, squatted, or sat on the ground as they clustered around outdoor fires” (117). I have always assumed that this event took place on the fourth thursday in November, November 26 is actually the exact day I thought it was on, but realistically, “We do not know the exact date of the celebration we now call the First Thanksgiving, but it was probably in late September or early October” (117). As for me personally, I found this information rather alarming. If this holiday is as misconcepted as it is today, what’s to say that others are not as well? Maybe other big events in history happened differently than what we believe today, and that idea is slightly unsettling for me.
ReplyDeleteThrough reading Mayflower I knew their were differences between our modern traditional thanksgiving and the first, but I was very surprised at how much they differed. Thanksgiving as I perceived it was a peaceful small dinner between the native Americans and the Pilgrims that was very proper and consisted of silver wear and nice clothing. It was disconcerting to read that the Pilgrims were greatly outnumbered at this feast and not a small group of natives as I grew up understanding. I was quiet concerned when I read that the true date of thanksgiving is unknown, I always thought it happened in November and couldn't comprehend that it may not even had happened that month " We do not know the exact day of celebration that we now call the First Thanksgiving, but it was probably in late September or early October"(117) I always thought the one thing that they knew for sure was the date. Some differences from modern thanksgiving I knew and found comforting. I understood that they did not have warm pies with icecream, heaping plates of mashed potatoes and stuffing. They had to utilize what they had at the time such as beans, corn, deer, and fish. "Turkeys were by no means a novelty to the pilgrims" (118) this I found most shocking of all. Whenever I think of thanksgiving I always think of a big cooked turkey at the table center and everything laid out in symmetry around it. Philbrick's Mayflower really taught me just how much the differences between the First Thanksgiving and today, which makes me wonder where some of these modern traditions origninated from.
ReplyDeleteIn general, the description of the first Thanksgiving given by Philbrick was not altogether surprising to me in any way. As with most of my classmates, the notion of a formal, Victorian-era civilized celebration has been laughable at best for a time. The specifics of how Indian-dominated the celebration was are not surprising, but definitely new to me; at the very least I had thought that the event was primarily English. Additionally, the existence of an existing event known as a thanksgiving was new to me, though it being an obscure Puritan gathering made it seem less pertinent. The main disillusionment most seem to hold or expect, however, should not be as surprising or as troubling as most make it out to be. Certainly, the popular depiction of Thanksgiving as a quiet, Puritan affair “as a few curious Indians looked on”(117) is apocryphal at best and facetious at worst, but nonetheless it is a holiday, not a textbook. As such, it is fully expected that little aside from the general intent (that of Pilgrim-native cooperation) has survived; few holidays survive intact for centuries.
ReplyDeleteIt's almost common knowledge that the historically-accurate first Thanksgiving is very far from a small crowd eating a single turkey on a picnic table, but until reading Mayflower I was unaware of what a historically accurate depiction would be. I was most surprised with how skewed the numbers had become; twice the number of Europeans is far from "a few curious Indians"(117). I also found it amusing that there was a lack of silverware and hence the Puritans and Natives alike used their hands. This is far from the typical civilized single-turkey meal one typically sees. Its interesting to see how far the holiday has come, yet not entirely unexpected when considering that an egg-laying rabbit is the mascot of another holiday.
ReplyDeleteBefore reading Mayflower by Nathaniel Philbrick, I knew the basics of the First Thanksgiving, such as it was a peaceful meeting between the Pilgrims and the local Native American tribes. What surprised me about the First Thanksgiving is that a “thanksgiving” was a Puritan event for a time of spiritual devotion. Also, the First Thanksgiving was “similar to a traditional English harvest festival,” (117) but it included Native American tribes from New England. Another thing that surprised me is that the Pilgrims did not have turkey on the table for the First Thanksgiving. Instead, they ate ducks, geese, and deer that was brought by Massasoit and a hundred of the Pokanoket tribe. It surprised me that the Pilgrims did not use forks at the First Thanksgiving, but only until “the last decades of the seventeenth century” did they use forks, and instead only used “their fingers and their knives” (118). It seems odd that forks were used but not knives, because the two are used hand-in-hand today. The First Thanksgiving surprised me with different, more specific facts than what I had known before reading Mayflower by Nathaniel Philbrick.
ReplyDeleteBefore reading Mayflower by Nathaniel Philbrick, I knew the basics of the First Thanksgiving, such as it was a peaceful meeting between the Pilgrims and the local Native American tribes. What surprised me about the First Thanksgiving is that a “thanksgiving” was a Puritan event for a time of spiritual devotion. Also, the First Thanksgiving was “similar to a traditional English harvest festival,” (117) but it included Native American tribes from New England. Another thing that surprised me is that the Pilgrims did not have turkey on the table for the First Thanksgiving. Instead, they ate ducks, geese, and deer that was brought by Massasoit and a hundred of the Pokanoket tribe. It surprised me that the Pilgrims did not use forks at the First Thanksgiving, but only until “the last decades of the seventeenth century” did they use forks, and instead only used “their fingers and their knives” (118). It seems odd that forks were used but not knives, because the two are used hand-in-hand today. The First Thanksgiving surprised me with different, more specific facts than what I had known before reading Mayflower by Nathaniel Philbrick.
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ReplyDeleteI was extremely surprised by how the first Thanksgiving was celebrated, even though I knew that it was a coming together of the Natives and Pilgrims there were many parts of it that I was unaware of. I knew that the holiday most of us celebrate now, is very different from the one celebrated originally, but I was unaware that some of the foods that we view as traditional such as, pumpkin pie, and cranberry sauce were not present during the original Thanksgiving. I knew that they did not have a white tablecloth; however, I expected the pilgrims to have forks, but instead they “ate with their fingers and their knives” (118). This fact helped put into perspective just how much more primitive the technology of the settlers was than the technology we have today. While these minor differences are surprising, I think that what shocked me the most is that there were more natives attending the first Thanksgiving than there were pilgrims. I always assumed that the settlers had more people attending since they were the ones who hosted it. I was aware that the pilgrims had celebrations similar to Thanksgiving, and the large native presence helps explain why there were so many native traditions mixed in with the English ones. Even though I may not have known all of the specifics of the first Thanksgiving, I did understand the significance of it, that it blended the two cultures, symbolically showing the blending of the two groups of people, and to thank the natives for helping the pilgrims survive the cold hard winter, something no other settlers had done before.
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ReplyDeleteAfter reading “Mayflower,” I discovered that there are many misconceptions of what occurred during the first Thanksgiving. When learning about the first Thanksgiving when I was younger, the first thing teachers taught was that Thanksgiving was about peace and being thankful for, and imaged Pilgrims and some Native Americans eating peacefully with utensils around a long table with a white table cloth, but in reality, both groups ate, drank, and played games together. Also, rather than few Native Americans, there were twice as many Native Americans than Puritans at the Plymouth colony. In addition, even though today we eat turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, and cranberry sauce on Thanksgiving, the meal on the first Thanksgiving included fish and deer that was hunted by the Native Americans. Before reading “Mayflower” I believed I knew what truly happened on the first Thanksgiving compared to today’s version of Thanksgiving, but I learned certain things that didn’t occur on the first Thanksgiving contrary to common belief.
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ReplyDeleteI had already been surprised by the minuscule amount of settlers in the early days of Plymouth - I’ve been on field trips to the plantation with more kids than there were Pilgrims at the original settlement - but the book describes a little-known disparity between the amount of Pilgrims and Native Americans at the first Thanksgiving, something that would have been more unexpected if I hadn’t just read about the deadly winter preceding it. Furthermore, the idea of Thanksgiving plants in our minds the idea of a planned event - but the book describes the Pilgrims sitting down to finally enjoy a surplus food, and then Native Americans dropping by and “providing five freshly killed deer” (117). Not that they weren’t welcome, but the feast wasn’t so much the official celebration of Native-English relations that we’ve turned it into, and more of a commemoration of the Puritan’s one-year survival.
Given the emphasis on the first Thanksgiving nowadays, and given the fact that we have a guiding question on the topic, I was expecting more than four pages dedicated to the subject. What was initially just a chance to “rejoice together… after a more special manner” (117), has become more of an exaggerated symbol of the two communities uniting. What we were taught in elementary school is, unsurprisingly, a more flowery version of what actually happened, with the commercialized holiday only building on that distortion. But what the book demonstrates more than those tiny inaccuracies, is that the event wasn’t as focal or emblematic to those attending as it is to those reading about it in 2015.
While it is fairly common knowledge that modern celebrations of Thanksgiving bear little resemblance to the first celebration of the Holiday, several aspects about the first Thanksgiving were surprising as well as disturbing to me. Philbrick describes the first Thanksgiving as "an overwhelmingly Native celebration" (Philbrick 117). Besides the surprising aspect of this fact, it is also quite disturbing when thought about in depth. At this point in the Plymouth Colony's history, the Natives had shown the Pilgrims the proper way to plant and harvest crops, and they also introduced them to numerous game around the area and goods that were used in trade. The Pilgrims were greatly indebted to the Natives, and without them it is almost certain that the Plymouth Colony would've quickly ended in disaster. With this taken into account, it is quite shocking to realize what Thanksgiving has come to symbolize as an American holiday today. Instead of the Pilgrims honoring all that the Natives had given them, they decimated the Natives of New England in the years that followed. While a fragile peace was kept between the Natives and the colonists for a few years after the first Thanksgiving, the Pilgrims ended up killing Natives by the thousands in King Phillip's War. This is a very tragic fact, and it is very upsetting and disturbing to realize that what was once "an overwhelmingly Native celebration" (Philbrick 117) is now mainly recognized as only a triumph of the Pilgrims, without giving any credit to the Native Americans who showed the Pilgrims how to survive in the New World.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading Nathaniel Philbrick’s, Mayflower my entire view on the First Thanksgiving changed. I had previously learned that the First Thanksgiving was not an extremely important or influential event in the Pilgrims first year here in America. I did not, however; realize how insignificant the entire event was. It was a huge gathering between the Native Americans and the Pilgrims in which they feasted and celebrated alongside each other. This however was not when the two groups came together to make peace. Peace had been established months before and the peace between these two groups was already strong at this point. It was also not even the first time that the Pilgrims had entertained the Indians, they had hosted many from the Pokanoket tribe in the previous months, so many that they had to created a system in which the amount of visiting Indians decreased since the Indians were eating though their already depleting food sources. The First Thanksgiving was nothing more than the Pilgrims celebrating their unlikely survival, and a way to thank Massasoit and his tribe for the aid that they provided them during their first year. Nothing political or instrumental to the Pilgrims survival in America occurred at this event, it was nothing more than a festivity.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading "Mayflower" by Nathaniel Philbrick there were several aspects of the first thanksgiving that surprised me. For instance, I did not know that the First Thanksgiving was in celebration of survival and had no religious undertone. I always assumed the First Thanksgiving was a celebration thanking god for allowing the Pilgrims to be able to set up a fairly successful settlement in the New World even though many Europeans before them failed miserably. However, the feast was more of an “English harvest festival—a secular celebration” (117)—to commemorate how much food the pilgrims were able to gather, and to honor their peaceful relationship with the Natives. I was also surprised at how the “First Thanksgiving…became an overwhelmingly Native celebration” (117). I always thought it was a pilgrim celebration that the Puritans invited a few Natives too, like Squanto and Massasoit—who helped them adapt to their new environment—in order give them thanks for helping them survive their first. In actuality, the Natives had a lot to celebrate too, and Massasoit brought “a hundred Pokanokets” (117) to the feast to celebrate how he now has the Pilgrims on his side in his fight against the Narragansettes.
ReplyDeleteSince seventh grade it has been taught that “history is vulnerable”, and the first Thanksgiving is a perfect example of how this vulnerability can lead people into believing incorrect information. In preschool and in early years of elementary school, a time when children's brains are eager to soak up knowledge, we are briefly taught about the first Thanksgiving. I cannot recall ever reading an actual history book to gather facts about this momentous day, but we did read fictional accounts of how the first Thanksgiving was spent, giving everyone a rather skewed perception of the events of the first Thanksgiving. Thus, when reading a true account of this greatly twisted day, there was some information that surprised me and some facts that I was able to reaffirm to be true. The idea of the Pilgrims “sitting around a long table draped with white linen cloth” (117) has always been preposterous and hard to believe. At this point in history, the Pilgrims had only been members of the New World for less than a year, therefore, it is difficult to believe that this first Thanksgiving was the rather fancy event that countless pictures portray. The Pilgrims did not yet have the time or the resources to build a house large enough to fit this large amount of people around a table dressed with a white linen cloth and silverware. At this point, the Pilgrims didn’t even have forks to eat with. Though I was aware that the first Thanksgiving wasn’t exactly how we have learned it to be, there were still various facts that shocked me. To start, I did not know that the first Thanksgiving was “an overwhelmingly Native celebration” (117). I always assumed that this celebration was about the Pilgrims spending time with one another, as most families do to celebrate nowadays, but the fact that it was mostly Native shows that this celebration was about whole areas coming together and having a good time rather than just families. Since the Pilgrims were very religious people and images of the first Thanksgiving portray the Pilgrims “clasping each others hands in prayer” (117), I always assumed that this first Thanksgiving was a religious affair. I thought that Thanksgiving gradually became a secular holiday from a very religious one, thus, I was shocked that the first Thanksgiving was similar to a secular English harvest festival. Though the Thanksgiving celebrations that happen today are drastically different from the first celebration 394 years ago, the reason for celebrating has remained the same. Thanksgiving is a time where you can reflect and be thankful for all of the good things that have happened, whether it be something as little as getting an “A” or something as big as surviving a year in a foreign place with foreign people. Though most of what is taught about the first Thanksgiving is drastically warped, it has been able to keep its true meaning of coming together and being thankful.
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ReplyDeleteAfter reading "Mayflower" by Nathaniel Philbrick, my knowledge of Thanksgiving was severely jolted. Today, as we are taught, many people including myself believed that everyone was sitting together feasting on a long, big table filled with food. Instead of stuffed Turkey, there were ducks, and fresh deers! Mayflower also brought me to question the exact date of Thanksgiving. As we know it, it is usually in the end of November. However, in the story, it states that it occurred sometime between October, and September. I also discovered that it was not all the Indian tribes that participated in the event. At this time, natives were barbaric, and mostly spent their times raiding one another. I was completely unaware of this situation, and thought that everyone lived happily ever after, after Thanksgiving. At the time period however, it celebrated the unity and new alliance between the Pokanokets, and the pilgrims. Mayflower definitely changed my view of Thanksgiving. It showed how brave the two people were in their hopes of preventing future clashes. This event was necessary to build up a stronger bond between pilgrims and natives so that they may co-exist, and began a new era of peaceful times.
ReplyDeleteThanksgiving is one of the most celebrated traditions in America. However, most of what I personally thought about the meaning of Thanksgiving was entirely misconstrued. First of all the date of the first Thanksgiving was most likely in September or October not in November which is when we celebrate the holiday today. Also and more importantly Thanksgiving was not nearly the first time the Native Americans and the Pilgrims had come in contact with each other. I was under the impression that the Pilgrims had just settled within weeks of the First Thanksgiving and hadn’t contacted the Natives at all, but this was not the case. The Pilgrims already had a solid relationship with the Native Americans and this harvest wasn’t the Natives saving the Pilgrims from starvation, but more the Pilgrims introducing their traditional religious harvest to the Natives. This was probably the most astonishing to me because I was always under the impression that during Thanksgiving the Native Americans were the ones who were taking care of and hosting the Pilgrims but this was not the case. Lastly and most importantly, they didn't even eat turkey.
ReplyDeleteThe First Thanksgiving described by Nathaniel Philbrick in his novel The Mayflower differed from my image of the First Thanksgiving. I imagined Pilgrims and Native Americans to be sitting together eating turkey as one big family. But I was surprised when I read that the food that they had was completely different. For me, turkey was one of the symbols of the Thanksgiving. Today, no one can imagine Thanksgiving with deer or ducks instead of turkey. Although the Pilgrims ate ducks and deer for Thanksgiving. Another thing that took me by surprise was that the First Thanksgiving was “in late September or October” instead of November (117). I did not expect that future generations would change the time of celebration, especially if it was “a time of spiritual devotion” (117). Also, the fact that modern Thanksgiving is about family and being thankful for the people around you distorted my image of the First Thanksgiving. Back then it was about religion and the celebration was meant to be a distraction from everyday labor. It was time when people could connect with God. When I realized that that modern visualization of Thanksgiving is counterfeit to the First Thanksgiving, I started to wonder what other American traditions have changed with time.
ReplyDeleteLike many people have talked about before me, my imagination of what the first Thanksgiving was differs entirely from the reality of it. I imagined the pilgrims and the indians sitting along a large table embellished with various pumpkins and freshly fallen leaves, not a group of people spread out among a large space standing and sitting on the dirt ground whilst eating. I also imagined, as redundant as it sounds, that the pilgrims and the indians were having nice little conversations about the weather and the previous harvest .However, it is just now coming to my realization that many of them couldn’t communicate because of the language barrier. This makes me feel a bit uncomfortable because if they weren’t talking, what were they doing. Did they just spend the day playing games and drinking together? I also imagined that Thanksgiving was the starting point of peace between the indians and the pilgrims when in reality, the most brutal of their fighting was yet to come. I had always pictured the day as a first meal between the indians and pilgrims to kick off the start to a new life together. Though the day did draw the two closer together, i was unaware that the day of Thanksgiving did not mark the end of their fighting. I was also unclear that the day of Thanksgiving really wasn’t all too significant. The two groups had signed a peace treaty a few months prior to the first thanksgiving, declaring their peace. They had also gathered in other sorts of manners not as formal. For instance, after Massasoit delivered his speech about the other villages trading with the pilgrims, they all had a smoke together and even slept in the sachem’s wigwam. All in all, my lack of understanding of what the first Thanksgiving really was made me feel a bit uncomfortable and uncertain. The amount of questions i have is unimaginable and i wish i had been there to see what truly occurred.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading the Mayflower’s narrative of the First Thanksgiving, I was shocked and surprised at how different the commonly told story of the uniting meal shared between the Pilgrims and the Wampanoags is from the actual event. We celebrate Thanksgiving on the fourth Thursday of November every year with an early dinner of turkey sitting alongside family and friends, recounting all that we are thankful for. On the contrary, it is stated in Mayflower that we are uncertain the exact date the First Thanksgiving was on, only that it was “soon after their crops of corn, squash, beans, barley, and peas had been harvested” (117). Apparently the Pilgrims were less than thankful for the Native Americans, because as soon as Squanto, the helpful “tongue” (113) of the English, was pronounced dead, “they decided to hit Corbitant quickly and to hit him hard (114). The Pilgrims believed “this was their chance to show the Indians the consequences of challenging the English…” (114). The fact that this statement is written in the chapter titled Thanksgiving is laughable. Yes, Corbitant traveled to Plymouth to sign his loyalty to King James in the end, but the Pilgrims had acted too fast in wanting to crush Corbitant based on a rumor they had heard. The First Thanksgiving was a result of the signed treaty, and with my previous knowledge of the happy, rejoicing, and overwhelmingly grateful atmosphere of Thanksgiving, it occurring after the Pilgrims almost attacked the group of people sharing the meal with them taints my idea of the celebration. In addition, contradicting my prior image of a vastly English attendance with significantly fewer Native Americans scattered throughout the feast, “the First Thanksgiving soon became an overwhelmingly Native celebration” (117). The Native Americans were also the ones to provide meat for everyone to eat. In my original perception, I thought the Pilgrims had provided food for the Native Americans as an act of thankfulness for all that they had helped the Pilgrims with. Tying in the theme of courage to this response, the Native Americans showed great courage in even coming to the celebration after the Pilgrims had invaded their homeland. On a lighter note, hearing that religion was largely incorporated into the feast was satisfying and symbolic, as the whole reason the Pilgrims had moved to the New World was to achieve religious freedom. Another point I was interested in hearing was how significant the changing of the seasons was to the Pilgrims. It was beautiful to read that the colors of the leaves sparked enthusiasm in the settlers and overall, it was relieving to read, “The First Thanksgiving marked the conclusion of a remarkable year” (119).
ReplyDeleteAfter reading the Mayflower’s narrative of the First Thanksgiving, I was shocked and surprised at how different the commonly told story of the uniting meal shared between the Pilgrims and the Wampanoags is from the actual event. We celebrate Thanksgiving on the fourth Thursday of November every year with an early dinner of turkey sitting alongside family and friends, recounting all that we are thankful for. On the contrary, it is stated in Mayflower that we are uncertain the exact date the First Thanksgiving was on, only that it was “soon after their crops of corn, squash, beans, barley, and peas had been harvested” (117). Apparently the Pilgrims were less than thankful for the Native Americans, because as soon as Squanto, the helpful “tongue” (113) of the English, was pronounced dead, “they decided to hit Corbitant quickly and to hit him hard (114). The Pilgrims believed “this was their chance to show the Indians the consequences of challenging the English…” (114). The fact that this statement is written in the chapter titled Thanksgiving is laughable. Yes, Corbitant traveled to Plymouth to sign his loyalty to King James in the end, but the Pilgrims had acted too fast in wanting to crush Corbitant based on a rumor they had heard. The First Thanksgiving was a result of the signed treaty, and with my previous knowledge of the happy, rejoicing, and overwhelmingly grateful atmosphere of Thanksgiving, it occurring after the Pilgrims almost attacked the group of people sharing the meal with them taints my idea of the celebration. In addition, contradicting my prior image of a vastly English attendance with significantly fewer Native Americans scattered throughout the feast, “the First Thanksgiving soon became an overwhelmingly Native celebration” (117). The Native Americans were also the ones to provide meat for everyone to eat. In my original perception, I thought the Pilgrims had provided food for the Native Americans as an act of thankfulness for all that they had helped the Pilgrims with. Tying in the theme of courage to this response, the Native Americans showed great courage in even coming to the celebration after the Pilgrims had invaded their homeland. On a lighter note, hearing that religion was largely incorporated into the feast was satisfying and symbolic, as the whole reason the Pilgrims had moved to the New World was to achieve religious freedom. Another point I was interested in hearing was how significant the changing of the seasons was to the Pilgrims. It was beautiful to read that the colors of the leaves sparked enthusiasm in the settlers and overall, it was relieving to read, “The First Thanksgiving marked the conclusion of a remarkable year” (119).
ReplyDeleteThanksgiving is made out to be a big celebration and the settlers and "Indians" brought food and had a big feast together. I learned that the date was more likely in September or October. It was a celebration of harvest and the hunter of migrating birds for food. All pictures portray the first thanksgiving as a big feast at a long table and as a English meal. It surprised me that the whole affair was a very Native celebration. People were sitting on the ground next to outdoor fires cooking stews and the freshly caught animals. The pilgrims ate with their hands and knives. The first thanksgiving was the year after the settlers had arrived at Plymouth. It reaffirmed my understanding of the relationship between the two groups during this time. The settlers had come to respect these different people as human beings like themselves and celebrate a good harvest with them. It is portrayed as one of the first American feasts and is celebrated that way today. My main reaction was a little bit of shock. Modern day society gives us such a clear view of how Thanksgiving is supposed to be celebrated. It’s portrayed as a great American feast and a celebration of what people are thankful for. The true thanksgiving is not very close to the way we celebrate and cherish it now in America.
ReplyDeleteAs Emma touched upon, the first Thanksgiving memory I have is my kindergarten class singing This Land is Your Land dressed in feather headbands and big buckle hats. Like many other Americans I have grown up with the understanding that this event signified a friendship between the Pilgrims and the local Indians in which they could peacefully trade and share land. Along with the idea of peace with the natives, before reading Mayflower I had perceived the Thanksgiving feast to mark a point in the Pilgrim’s settlement where they felt they had safely established a new home. But, as I began reading I surprisingly found this was an unrealistic idea due to the numerous obstacles they faced before settling. For example, the decision to no longer settle near the Hudson River resulted in the late blooming of a permeant settlement. Meanwhile it was the start of a bitter winter where poor weather and disease were potent. “December 21 … the terrible weather persisted throughout the day, making it impossible to work on the houses. In the meanwhile, the wind lashed Mayflower had become a grim hospital ship” (81) for the passengers tormented by “colds, coughs, and fevers” (81). The build up of several challenges and set backs like these surprised me more than the first Thanksgiving itself. By the time Philbrick mentioned the first Thanksgiving my expectation of the event had already been changed by the defeats leading up to it. Reading about the consecutive failures before the first Thanksgiving left no surprise that the feast wasn’t a celebration of their comfort at Plymouth or that they would endure more challenges like disease and war after it.
ReplyDeleteThe Thanksgiving that we know today is filled with turkey, clean linen, and loads of extended family. However, besides the fact that they did eat an abundance of turkey, surprisingly almost all aspects of thanksgiving we know today as classic have very little to do with the first Thanksgiving. First off, it was mainly a “Native a celebration” (117), Massasoit had brought close to a hundred Pokanokets to feast with the Pilgrims along with five newly killed deer. The large number of Native Americans as well as the fact that most of the pilgrim’s relatives were still in Europe lead to the first thanksgiving being more carnival-like than a day to spend celebrating with family. Secondly, as well as the five deer that were brought by the Native Americans, the guests ate mainly meat centered meals. Along with ducks, deer, and turkey, the celebration might have included fish because of their abundance during the fall. No pumpkin pie or stuffing, two dishes that are considered staple Thanksgiving items, were served. As well as not eating the “traditional” Thanksgiving food we know and love today, the iconic paintings of pilgrims and Natives sitting around a long banquet style table covered in crisp white linen table clothes is almost completely false. Even with all furniture that the Pilgrims could muster outside, they were not even close to being able to seat everybody. While reading Mayflower, I was surprised to learn the true origin of Thanksgiving. The Pilgrim’s Thanksgiving wasn’t an excuse to have a long weekend or to eats a lot of fattening food, but instead a celebration that they had survived almost a year in a foreign environment. The first Thanksgiving was a conclusion to one of the hardest years the pilgrims had faced and allowed them to reflect upon their survival and success.
ReplyDeleteSince I was young, I had always thought of Thanksgiving as Pilgrims and Native Americans sitting amongst each other at large grand tables, passing food around and celebrating their friendship. I was not poorly mistaken in some aspects, but just now have I gained knowledge of how much more complex the day that first marked one of the most celebrated and popular holidays that we observe now in the Mayflower by Nathaniel Philbrick. What surprised me the most are the small differences; what we learned in elementary school versus the true historical facts. This includes the fact that the first Thanksgiving is considered as more of a festival whereas my general knowledge was that it was a single meal. Also it is shocking to consider that the first holiday served as a purpose to show the Pilgrims’ dominant force, and that it began shortly after the colonists raided and harmed multiple Native Americans; this discovery is quite uncomfortable and unnerving. We consider Thanksgiving as a celebration of gratitude and a gathering to appreciate loved ones. One more aspect to this story is that there were large meals were a reason; the Pilgrims were suffering of starvation. It is no wonder why this specific time and meal became to be so important. Based on this information, THanksgiving marked the first assertion of Pilgrim dominance and served as a reminder that there was much needed room for improvement if they wanted to grow and expand their colonization.
ReplyDeleteSince I was young, I had always thought of Thanksgiving as Pilgrims and Native Americans sitting amongst each other at large grand tables, passing food around and celebrating their friendship. I was not poorly mistaken in some aspects, but just now have I gained knowledge of how much more complex the day that first marked one of the most celebrated and popular holidays that we observe now in the Mayflower by Nathaniel Philbrick. What surprised me the most are the small differences; what we learned in elementary school versus the true historical facts. This includes the fact that the first Thanksgiving is considered as more of a festival whereas my general knowledge was that it was a single meal. Also it is shocking to consider that the first holiday served as a purpose to show the Pilgrims’ dominant force, and that it began shortly after the colonists raided and harmed multiple Native Americans; this discovery is quite uncomfortable and unnerving. We consider Thanksgiving as a celebration of gratitude and a gathering to appreciate loved ones. One more aspect to this story is that there were large meals were a reason; the Pilgrims were suffering of starvation. It is no wonder why this specific time and meal became to be so important. Based on this information, THanksgiving marked the first assertion of Pilgrim dominance and served as a reminder that there was much needed room for improvement if they wanted to grow and expand their colonization.
ReplyDeleteThanksgiving in 2015 is the commercialized holiday about turkey, giving thanks, and football that marks the last Thursday on everyone’s November calendar. The real reason why Thanksgiving began is lost among the present day traditions, and the actual event is often misperceived. I did not know that “for the Pilgrims a thanksgiving was a time of spiritual devotion” (117). I assumed that their Thanksgiving, like most other things, would be religious. I thought their Thanksgiving was a day where they were thankful for God for helping them survive a full year in the new world. Although the First Thanksgiving did have religious overtones, it was also “similar to a traditional English harvest festival-- a secular celebration”. I also thought the Pilgrims were totally in charge on the First Thanksgiving, by organizing the event, and greatly outnumbering the Indians. To my surprise the Pilgrims did not control all aspects of the event, rather it was “an overwhelmingly Native celebration” (117). The Indians contributed with five killed deer, and outnumbered the Pilgrims 2:1. I believed it to be an event with “a few curious Indians looking on” (117). I also believed the First Thanksgiving to be a time where the Pilgrims taught the Indians their more civilized manner. However, this is not true for “The Pilgrims ate with their fingers” and “most celebrants stood, squatted, or sat on the ground clustered around fires (117,118). My original understanding of The First Thanksgiving was one of which the Pilgrims were fully in control, and taught the Indians their way of life. However, both the Pilgrims and Indians influenced the course of the event.
ReplyDeleteBefore reading The Mayflower my perception of the first Thanksgiving was much different from what was described by Nathaniel Philbrick. I had thought that it was a day where the pilgrims brought out their best cutlery and their nicest furniture to celebrate a successful summer. “Instead of an English affair, the first Thanksgiving soon became an overwhelmingly Native celebration” was the complete opposite of what I thought (117). My perception was that the term Thanksgiving was something it had been called by the pilgrims when the event first occurred, however it was “first applied in the nineteenth century”(117). The stereotype that the pilgrims all sat at a ornate table was false since “most of the celebrants stood, squatted, or sat on the ground”(117). I was surprised to learn that much of what I thought of first Thanksgiving was wrong.
ReplyDeleteAs I read about the First Thanksgiving in Mayflower, I was not all that surprised to learn about the many historical inaccuracies that I, as well as many American citizens, are subject to while learning about and celebrating the holiday. Many holidays celebrated in America today vary significantly from their origins; therefore, I was not surprised to find out that the First Thanksgiving was actually very different from the romanticized version we are taught about at a young age. One of the most drastic differences between the version we are taught in elementary school and the actual events of the First Thanksgiving, are that the First Thanksgiving followed a “show of force-no matter how confused- [that] had won the Pilgrims some new respect” (116). I was rather unsettled, yet not surprised by the Pilgrims’ acts of violence prior to the celebration. Although the Pilgrims’ actions at Nemasket are relatively disturbing, they were necessary in gaining Massasoit’s trust, which ultimately led to the Plymouth-Pokanoket alliance; an important alliance for each of the involved parties. Additionally, I was under the impression that the Pilgrims and Natives had gotten along well prior to their Thanksgiving feast, and that the Native American they had primarily dealt with had been Squanto. Contrary to what I had previously been taught, the Pilgrims “were now being controlled… by a Native American named Squanto” (120). Elementary school teachers had painted a pristine picture of Squanto in my mind. I had been taught he was an intelligent Native American who spoke English and assisted the Pilgrims in planting corn and communicating with other Native Americans. I was completely unaware of his schemes to seize power for himself; therefore, I was both surprised and unsettled by my fallacies regarding this important man. In addition to my misconceptions about Squanto’s involvement in the holiday, I assumed that the celebration consisted of the settlers and a small group of Natives who had helped them survive the first winter; therefore, I was surprised to find out that the First Thanksgiving “became an overwhelmingly Native celebration” (117). After reading about the many differences between the First Thanksgiving and the way Thanksgiving is celebrated today, I was elated to find out that one thing remains the same; Thanksgiving has, and hopefully always will be about being appreciative for what you have, and recognizing the challenges you faced to get you there.
ReplyDeleteThroughout elementary school, the week before Thanksgiving was an opportunity to review the story of the Pilgrims, talk about what we were thankful for, and make some turkey-themed arts and crafts. Each year, the history piece was the same: the Pilgrims sailed on the Mayflower to the New World in search of religious freedom, and were welcomed by the Native Americans (the teachers were careful not to call them “Indians”) with free farming lessons and a big turkey feast. I began Mayflower with only this flimsy and hardly accurate background knowledge, and because of this, every page held a piece of surprising information. On page 209, Philbrick describes how the First Thanksgiving truly happened, and I was happy and not uncomfortable at all with what I read. First off, I was surprised to hear that the event was secular; Philbrick wrote that the meal was more similar to “a traditional English harvest festival” rather than “a time of spiritual devotion”. Having read so much about the intense religious beliefs of the Pilgrims, it was strange to think that the entire meal wasn't attributed to God. I was also surprised to read that the meal included duck and deer, not just turkey, which made me laugh. The turkey is a national symbol of thanksgiving; it’s hard to imagine an enormous duck-shaped float headlining the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade! This passage also changed how I visualize the event. I always unintentionally put the Pilgrims around a long table, along with some Natives looking on from a distance. I realize now that the table (if there even was a table) was not the centerpiece of the meal, and that the people gathered around several fire pits where the meat was roasting. In addition, the natives vastly outnumbered the Pilgrims because Massasoit brought a hundred of his people to the celebration. Thanks to Philbrick’s description of this event, my understanding is much stronger, and I now see that Thanksgiving was less of a dinner and more of a gathering to celebrate the fall harvest.
ReplyDeleteThe description of the first Thanksgiving in the novel the Mayflower by Nathaniel Philbrick was very surprising to me. Before reading this I had always thought that the first Thanksgiving was mainly Pilgrims with just a couple Indians, and that it was a time of true peace throughout New England. I also believed that it was much more important, Philbrick makes it seem a lot less important, something almost unworthy of a yearly holiday. By no means am I saying I don't want Thanksgiving but I had just always thought the feast was a lot more extravagant and important to our country's beginning. To be honest I am disappointed that what has become a grand holiday was originally a bunch of indians and pilgrims eating and drinking together. We now celebrate Thanksgiving by eating a traditional meal with our families and saying thanks for the many things worthy of saying thanks for. Philbrick explains that “Instead of an English affair, the First Thanksgiving soon became an overwhelming Native celebration when Massasoit and a hundred Pokanokets (more than twice the entire English population of Plymouth) arrived at the settlement and soon provided five freshly killed deer” (117). This surprised me because I had previously thought it was mainly a pilgrim celebration. Philbrick also says that they were mostly eating deer and ducks. They also had wild turkey, but where as now a days that is the most important part of the Thanksgiving meal, on the first Thanksgiving it seemed to be a secondary part of the meal. Philbrick also says that the first Thanksgiving probably happened earlier in the year then we celebrate it now. He also says that for the Puritans it was a day when “villagers ate, drank, and played games”, but that it also had “religious overtones”. This makes sense, seeing as they came to the New Word for religious freedom but I had never imagined Thanksgiving being religious. I was also surprised by the fact that they had no forks so they ate with their hands, this make first Thanksgiving scene seem a lot less civilized than I imagined. Overall the description of the first Thanksgiving was surprising.
ReplyDeleteMy general understanding of Thanksgiving was very much reaffirmed by the description of the first Thanksgiving in Mayflower by Nathaniel Philbrick. I always knew the first Thanksgiving to be a great celebration with the Natives and the Pilgrims. Celebrating the community that was built by sharing a great feast. In the novel, the festivity is described as an overwhelmingly positive experience, the celebration was a mix of english men and natives whom had brought five freshly killed deer to share. Thanksgiving is commonly connected with turkeys, as it was on the very first Thanksgiving when there was a “good store of wild turkeys” (118). The feast and celebration were as big and exciting as usually presented, with a hundred Pokanokets and Massasoit enjoying the celebration alongside the English. The great feast was filled with food such as the deer, duck, turkey, and even fish. The only “traditional” foods missing from the original Thanksgiving was the pumpkin and the cranberry sauce.
ReplyDeleteThe celebration of Thanksgiving was about as beautiful and sentimental as passed down through history. It was a celebration that was beautiful and memorable because of the changing colors of the leaves, as often attributed to New england autumns; and it was sentimental because the Pilgrims really did give thanks for the “conclusion of a remarkable year. Eleven months earlier the Pilgrims had arrived at the tip of Cape Cod, fearful and uniformed. … By all rights, none of the Pilgrims should have emerged from the first winter alive.”(119) The Pilgrims were celebrating their extremely extraordinary circumstances; the holiday as described in the novel is very inline with my general understanding of the first Thanksgiving, as celebrated by the Pilgrims and the Indians in 1621.
After reading the depiction of the First Thanksgiving given by Philbrick, in Mayflower, I find it interesting to compare it with the way Thanksgiving is understood by most Americans today. Besides specific details, such as the month in which it took place (September or October rather than November), and the large number of Native Americans present, I had a fairly accurate perception of this event and the relationship between the pilgrims and the natives, which was reaffirmed through this passage. However, it is likely that many Americans cannot say the same. This is due to the glorification and romanticizing that often occurs with historic events or groups of people. Thanksgiving is generally painted as a sweet and noble picture of Native Americans and pilgrims all gathering together to celebrate the beginnings of what was to be a beautiful and harmonious friendship. In reality, however, this is incredibly far from the truth. While the pilgrims and the Pokanokets were on good terms at the time of the feast, and may have even called each other friends in the moment, just several decades later, the two groups would be brutally murdering one another in King Philip’s War. Furthermore, the only real cause for their peace in the first place was that they wanted something from the other party, such as weapons and tools from the pilgrims and agricultural and hunting assistance from the Native Americans. So, the fact that we fondly remember and glorify this “friendship” each November makes me uneasy considering its short lived nature, the fact that it was likely laced with mistrust and motives of self-interest, and because it was shortly followed by bloody conflict between these “friends”
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ReplyDeleteI have always believed that the stories about the first Thanksgiving were untruthful. The way children’s books describe the event is too light, cheerful, and perfect for a time that was filled with hardship and struggle. The Mayflower novel reaffirmed my ideas and understanding of the first Thanksgiving. It was not a warm and inviting get together of good friends. The first Thanksgiving was a large gathering of mostly Indians, the food was not as plentiful and diverse as picture books depict, and the day centered on politics and power. The meal was a show of power, success, and a shaky peace offering in hopes of creating closer ties with the Indians. What surprised me was that an event like the first Thanksgiving did indeed happen; A calm meeting of both the colonists and Indians seems unlikely, given the constant fighting that preceded and followed the first Thanksgiving. Although we celebrate Thanksgiving every year, many people probably do not know, and will never know, what actually happened at that first feast.
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ReplyDeleteSince I was young, I had always thought of Thanksgiving as Pilgrims and Native Americans sitting amongst each other at large grand tables, passing food around and celebrating their friendship. I was not poorly mistaken in some aspects, but just now have I gained knowledge of how much more complex the day that first marked one of the most celebrated and popular holidays that we observe now in the Mayflower by Nathaniel Philbrick. What surprised me the most are the small differences; what we learned in elementary school versus the true historical facts. This includes the fact that the first Thanksgiving is considered as more of a festival whereas my general knowledge was that it was a single meal. Also it is shocking to consider that the first holiday served as a purpose to show the Pilgrims’ dominant force, and that it began shortly after the colonists raided and harmed multiple Native Americans; this discovery is quite uncomfortable and unnerving. We consider Thanksgiving as a celebration of gratitude and a gathering to appreciate loved ones. One more aspect to this story is that there were large meals were a reason; the Pilgrims were suffering of starvation. It is no wonder why this specific time and meal became to be so important. Based on this information, Thanksgiving marked the first assertion of Pilgrim dominance and served as a reminder that there was much needed room for improvement if they wanted to grow and expand their colonization.
I have to admit, I did not know much about the first Thanksgiving before reading Philibrick's description of the event. I've always had an elementary view on the first Thanksgiving. I mean as I have grown older I could assume that the first Thanksgiving was not as I exactly viewed it as a child, but my knowledge was still pretty very limited. I always thought of the event as an enormous feast, with Native Americans and Pilgrims enjoying a meal, living in happy harmony. Now after reading the novel, I realized that this was not really the true story. Though I guess some of the assumptions I hold about the first Thanksgiving ring some truth, it is described to have characteristics of "a secular celebration that dated back to the Middle Ages in which villagers ate, drank, and played games" (117). What I really did not know was that the first Thanksgiving was primarily Native Americans. A quote reads " the Pilgrims did not spend the day sitting around a long table draped with a white linen cloth, clasping each other's hands as a few curious Indians looked on" (117). Actually the first Thanksgiving was an "overwhelmingly Native celebration" (117). The affair was not primarily Pilgrim's but Natives.
ReplyDeleteBefore reading Philbrick’s account of the First Thanksgiving, all I knew of it was what I knew from the traditional picture of, “the Pilgrims … sitting around a long table draped with a white linen cloth, clasping each other’s hands in prayer as a few curious Indians looked on” (117). I also believed, due to the Puritans’ very religious background, that it was a religious ceremony. According to Philbrick, however, “there was also much about the gathering that was similar to a traditional English harvest festival – a secular celebration that dated back to the Middle Ages in which villagers ate, drank, and played games” (117). I was also surprised that the number of Indians at the gathering more than doubled the Pilgrim population. I would never have assumed before that the two populations were close enough and trusting enough after less than a year to have such a large gathering of the two peoples. As an additional shock, the Pilgrims ate without forks. This, when thought about practically and logistically, makes sense. That they would only bring knives, which can also be used as weapons, is the most logical thing to do when packing the bare minimum of necessities, but it is never something I thought about. All in all, the First Thanksgiving was much like I had always imagined it, but with a few surprising and important details that had always eluded my imagination.
ReplyDeleteBefore reading Philbrick’s account of the First Thanksgiving, all I knew of it was what I knew from the traditional picture of, “the Pilgrims … sitting around a long table draped with a white linen cloth, clasping each other’s hands in prayer as a few curious Indians looked on” (117). I also believed, due to the Puritans’ very religious background, that it was a religious ceremony. According to Philbrick, however, “there was also much about the gathering that was similar to a traditional English harvest festival – a secular celebration that dated back to the Middle Ages in which villagers ate, drank, and played games” (117). I was also surprised that the number of Indians at the gathering more than doubled the Pilgrim population. I would never have assumed before that the two populations were close enough and trusting enough after less than a year to have such a large gathering of the two peoples. As an additional shock, the Pilgrims ate without forks. This, when thought about practically and logistically, makes sense. That they would only bring knives, which can also be used as weapons, is the most logical thing to do when packing the bare minimum of necessities, but it is never something I thought about. All in all, the First Thanksgiving was much like I had always imagined it, but with a few surprising and important details that had always eluded my imagination.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading the Mayflower, I was surprised to learn that the Thanksgiving of today held many misconceptions. First off, it is odd that the original Thanksgiving did not take place during November, but rather "in late September or early October."(117) It was also surprising to learn that "the term Thanksgiving... was not used by the Pilgrims themselves."(117) Instead, thanksgiving "was a time of spiritual devotion."(117) This is greatly different than the modern interpretation of the meaning of the term, which is to be grateful of what you have. Even more shocking to me was that the Pilgrims did not eat turkey, which is the central meal of the current holiday, but instead ate "ducks and geese."(117) Lastly, when one thinks of Thanksgiving today they think of Englishmen sitting around a long wooden table with a few Natives scattered here and there. However, the Natives that attending the feast greatly outnumbered the Englishmen, making the holiday more Native American than English. Also, there were so many people there that they could not all sit at one table, but "most of the celebrants stood, squatted, or sat of the ground."(117) Overall, it was shocking to learn that the image of Thanksgiving with a big turkey and several Englishmen around a table was false, and that the holiday was in fact a gathering of mostly Native Americans scattered all over Plymouth colony.
ReplyDeleteToday in America Thanksgiving is a largely commercialized holiday dominated by football and devoted to eating until we feel sick, but Thanksgiving's historical significance is very important to the early survival of our country. I was not aware that the first Thanksgiving was also a religious event. "For the Pilgrims a thanksgiving was a time of spiritual devotion" (Philbrick 117) I was also not aware that the event became dominated by natives with many people gathered around not just at a table. Also, today's Thanksgiving occurs on the third Thursday in November, but the first Thanksgiving occurred earlier in the fall. "We do not know the exact date of the celebration we now call the First Thanksgiving, but it was probably in late September or early October" (Philbrick 117). This is very interesting because at the time it made sense for the Pilgrims to have it then as it coincided with the harvest. I am confused at how it got moved later in the year to November. When I was younger and I thought of the First Thanksgiving I considered the Native Americans and Pilgrims to be very good friends, but now I know that the friendship was in fact very fragile.
ReplyDeleteThe “Mayflower” taught me a more realistic recording of Thanksgiving, unlike the sensationalist approach of primary schooling, was not surprising but reassured my speculated understanding of the event. Before reading “Mayflower” I reasoned that a newly arrived English settlement would not simply feast with a new faction of Native Americans as if they were long lost brethren, and vice versa. Since European settlers before the Pilgrims always met resistance from Amerindian tribes, the Pilgrims were destined to face some resistance. The Pilgrims, “ever since establishing diplomatic relations with Massasoit in March, the Pilgrims had been beset by a continual stream of Indian visitors” (104), therefore Thanksgiving was a means to secure a relationship rather than forming a diplomatic relationship. In conclusion, “The Mayflower” gave me a realistic insight of what would have actually happened at Thanksgiving, which I assumed the feast played a different purpose than what popular history tends to represent Thanksgiving.
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