400th Anniversary of the Pilgrims’ First Thanksgiving Feast
The brave congregation of Puritan Separatists who had fled persecution by the King and the Church of England, sojourning some 12 years in the Netherlands, had overcome a long string of almost insurmountable obstacles to finally anchor a hired ship called Mayflower in Plymouth Bay in November 1620. They finally chose an abandoned Wampanoag settlement Captain John Smith and Prince Charles had christened Plymouth (or New Plymouth) for Smith’s 1614 map of what he called New England. (Yes, it was all named by Smith before they got there.)
Because they were supposed to be on their patent on the Hudson River, and they had no British authority to be in New England, the group, led by the Puritans, wrote a compact to bind all of them into a “civil body politic,” laying the foundation for government by consent of the governed before they ever left the ship.
Over the next few months, about half of the group of Puritans and accompanying “strangers” had died. By strength of their biblical faith, the Puritans led the group in survival. Due to a death, William Bradford became the new leader. The following fall of 1621, a harvest feast and celebration of thanks was planned. Governor Bradford described it briefly about 10 years later when he began to pen his journal and official record called Of Plimouth Plantation.
They began now to gather in the small harvest they had, and to fit up their houses and dwellings against winter, being all well recovered in health and strength and had all things in good plenty. For as some were thus employed in affairs abroad, others were exercised in fishing, about cod and bass and other fish, of which they took good store, of which every family had their portion. All the summer there was no want, and now began to come in store of fowl, as winter approached, of which this place did abound when they came first…a great store of wild turkeys…besides venison, etc…and Indian corn….
That was all Bradford wrote of it. But years earlier, from 1620 to 1621, he and Edward Winslow had chronicled what came to be known as Mourt’s Relation, published in England in 1622. There they wrote more of the Thanksgiving event.
Our harvest being gotten in, our governor sent four men on fowling, that so we might after have a special manner rejoice together after we had gathered the fruit of our labors;…at which time amongst other recreations, we exercised our arms, many of the Indians coming amongst us, and among the rest their greatest King Massasoit, with some ninety men, whom for three days we entertained and feasted, and they went out and killed five deer, which they brought to the plantation and bestowed on our governor, and upon the captain (Standish), and others.
Thanksgiving was officially proclaimed by President Abraham Lincoln on October 3, 1863, to be celebrated the last Thursday in November.
Be thankful to God and His Pilgrims, who, along with Jamestown in Virginia, gave us a country, a government by consent of the governed, and an enduring national holiday of thanks.
