Thanksgiving, the American holiday, is all about family reunions, football, roasted turkey and pumpkin pie. But it also evokes thoughts of the Pilgrims and the first Thanksgiving.
Today’s Thanksgiving celebration is a blend of three earlier traditions: first, the New England custom of rejoicing after a successful harvest; second, solemn religious observances; and third, the commemoration of the Pilgrims’ landing.
Celebrations combining sacrifices, rituals and joyful reveling after a successful crop gathering are as old as the harvest itself. Thus, in 1621, when the Pilgrims’ labors were rewarded with a bountiful harvest after a year of sickness and scarcity, they gave thanks to God and celebrated His bounty in the tradition in which they had been nurtured. To these people of strong Christian faith, this was not merely a revel; it was a joyous outpouring of gratitude.
When the Pilgrims came to New England they brought with them familiar customs, such as harvest celebrations, and a Puritan religious thanksgiving holy day. These two events were not connected. The differences have been blurred and the two celebrations merged.
A secular celebration, such as a harvest, was an annual event that would include the giving of religious thanks to God.
A true day of thanksgiving was a separate observance. When things went well, indicating God’s pleasure with the community, then it was proper to declare a day of thanksgiving. These were often concluded with a feast. But when God’s displeasure was evident and events were unfortunate, it was an indication that the community should repent and declare a day of fasting and humiliation.
The harvest celebration of autumn 1621 was neither a fast day nor a thanksgiving day in the eyes of the Pilgrims. It was a secular celebration, which included games, recreations and three days of feasting with Native American guests. The Pilgrims extended their gratitude to their friends, the Wampanoags, inviting 90 tribesmen to the 1621 celebration.
Only four married women survived the first winter in Plymouth – Elizabeth Hopkins, Eleanor Billington, Susannah Winslow and Mary Brewster. In fact, the little Colony lost almost half its members. When the following autumn arrived, the ladies coordinated a three-day celebration in gratitude for that year’s bountiful harvest, serving a great feast to 50 Colonists and 90 Native Americans. And so America had its first Thanksgiving.
The feast included cod, sea bass, wildfowl (duck, goose, swan and turkey), corn meal and five deer brought by the Wampanoag. A successful barley crop provided the Colonists with malt for beer, which Pilgrim children drank along with their elders. Other beverages included water and “Aqua Vitae” “strong waters” such as brandy. Milk was not drunk whole, and only occasionally as whey.
Ever since, the Pilgrims have been the symbolic originators of our familiar November holiday. Legends about the feast have turned it into a mythic event. It is a good story, and an important part of America’s cultural tradition. It helps us remember those hardy men and women who braved great dangers to follow their own consciences and give glory to God.
