Thursday Thirteen 2, Thanksgiving Myths

Thirteen Things about THANKSGIVING MYTHS 1. The Pilgrims celebrated the first Thanksgiving. There is much debate where the Pilgrims held a harvest celebration or a time of thanksgiving. They did not refer to their three day feast as Thanksgiving as we refer to it. This feast did not become a yearly event, and it was not until the 1800s that Americans began to think about a regular Thanksgiving celebration. 2. Since it was a harvest celebration God was left out. The Pilgrims were a very religious group. To think they didn’t pray or include God in their celebration would be denying who they were. 3. Pilgrims……Puritans, they were all the same. The Pilgrims were Seperatists who disagreed with the Church of England. They preferred to leave England and settled in Holland before sailing for “Northern Virginia”……..actually present-day Massachusetts. The Puritans came over later and began settling in the area of present-day Boston. 4. Pilgrims wore dark clothing and per many of the paintings and school pageants where the feast is portrayed Native Americans wore feather headresses. In probate records from the time period we find inhabitants of Plymouth owned cloaks of red and clothing of various hues. The large buckles we are so fond of using to recreate Pilgrim clothing did not come into use until the late 1600s. Wampanoags would not have worn headresses in the manner of Plains Indians. They also did not live in teepees. 5. The Pilgrims were the only group to have a time of thanksgiving. Records indicate many different European groups in North America had times of thanksgiving including the Spanish in present-day Texas and in St. Augustine during the 1500s. The settlers at Berkeley Plantation, Virginia also make a claim of having an earlier thanksgiving celebration. Ultimately various Native Americans of North America must have the distinction of a harvest celebration and/or time of thanksgiving as they had done so for thousands of years as part of their culture. 6. They ate turkey. While we are certain through various records of the time they ate deer we are not certain about turkey. Records indicate fowl was served, but historians continue to debate the turkey issue. It is certain that many of the dishes we consider traditional today were not served at the Pilgrim’s feast. 7. The Pilgrims lived in log cabins. Many of the images that have been created over the years show Pilgrims living in log type cabins. This is incorrect. For many months the Pilgrims continued to use The Mayflower as a home. Slowly, wooden, clapboard building were fashioned to house the Pilgrims and their possessions. 8. The Pilgrims prepared the food and invited the Wampanoags. Like any pot-luck everyone participated. The Pilgrims would have prepared some of the food and Massasoit, along with 90 of his braves brought several deer. 9. After three days of feasting there must have been tons of dishes to wash. My students are usually delighted to find out that the early Pilgrims would have had no plates and there wasn’t a single fork at Plymoth Plantation. They ate with their hands. 10. The term “Pilgrims” was not in use until the 1870s. William Bradford states “They knew they were Pilgrims.” in his Of Plimoth Plantation. He was there. He should know. 11. William Bradford issued a Thanksgiving Proclamation in 1623. Jeremy D. Bangs gives a great debunking to this misconception here. 12. The Pilgrims were grave robbers. Written first-hand accounts of people who were there indicate they found graves, examined them, but left things intact. They did find buried corn and carried some of it away with them. 13. Celebrating Thanksgiving is a slap in the face to Native Americans and should not be done. True, after Massasoit died things began to get increasingly tense between the Wampanoags and all European settlers in the area including the Pilgrims. King Philip’s War is proof of that. Perhaps we could look at Thanksgiving as the time that once was…..the time when there was a promise of doing things in a more congenial manner. Thanksgiving should not be looked upon as a celebration of domination or a time of mourning……it serves as an important lesson that Europeans and Native Americans were not always at odds. They could cooperate and live together. There are lessons to be learned from the breakdown of relations. Links to other Thursday Thirteens!1. (leave your link in comments, I’ll add you here!)

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