Each year I try to make my Thanksgiving post about some aspect of that peculiarly American myth, the Thanksgiving story. Where the European Colonialists are called righteous Pilgrims, and the Indigenous People are portrayed as uncivilized; but despite obvious differences, they all sat down together to share a happy meal, thanking God, and becoming fast friends. The real story is more messy, and much sadder.
Past Thanksgiving posts: Southern (USA) Cuisine, Steaksgiving, and Indigenous Southern Grits.
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Living on Turtle Island
Indigenous Peoples
It is written that the Wampanoag people, who lived directly after the Ice Age in the present day southeastern Massachusetts and parts of eastern Rhode Island, typically roasted their foods over a fire, and primarily lived their lives as nomadic hunters and gatherers. I focus on these people for they were of the first peoples to encounter European settlers.
For thousands of years these Indigenous People lived their lives, adopting to changes in climate, the vagaries of weather, and the boom and bust of foraging and hunting. Not unlike what tribal Europeans were doing in similar circumstances. Those first peoples in the Americas called this land Turtle Island.
- Not all Indigenous People’s creation stories feature a turtle, some refer to a pregnant Sky Woman, others feature a Raven, and others speak of an ocean spirit Sedna. On the Northeastern part of America it was the Turtle story.
- The Turtle Story: There was a time when the planet was covered in water. Different animals tried to swim to the bottom of the ocean to bring back dirt to create land. They all failed, until a muskrat gave it a last try. The muskrat swam deep, and remained under water for a long time. When he surfaced he had some wet soil in its paws, but died from the effort. Nanabush (a supernatural, life creating being) took the soil and placed it on the back of a turtle. With this act, land began to form now North and Central America, and so became Turtle Island.
When the climate warmed and glaciers melted, called the Early Archaic Period (12k to 10k years ago), new animals (caribou, mastodon, musk ox, and giant beaver), new waterways, and new plant species became available for spear hunting, stone tool using, and foraging. The new waterways and shorelines provided access to fish and shellfish, which expanded the sources and types of food. The Wampanoag, as any peoples would, utilized these new or changed resources for shelter and food.
Later, during what is called a Woodland Period (3k to 500 years ago), the land further warmed and forests cropped up. Likewise, hunting techniques changed with the introduction of bows and arrows, cooking changed with the use of pottery, and foraging was changed into plant farming of maize (corn). Through an organized trade system, a variety of corn and other seeds were exchanged among the peoples, and gardens started to grow new foods.
Then came the time of Early Contact (the late 1500s onward). In the local area, at that time, there were 21k-24k Wampanoag people,
European Colonialists
Here are two stories of what happened when the Colonialists and the Indigenous People met. Both stories highlight the power of ideas (concepts of property, owning land, god), the death and suffering of people primarily due to ill preparedness on one hand, and on the other due to accidental exposure to new diseases (intentional spreading of disease was done later, 1, 2).
Jamestown Story + Powhatan: The very first boat, company sponsored, had 104 English men and boys who arrived in 1607 to start a settlement they named Jamestown. They built a fort with armaments, and soon thereafter, people started to die from diseases. The English drank bad water, and were dying from swellings, fluxes, fevers, by famine, and sometimes by wars. Food was running low, though then Chief Powhatan starting to send gifts of food to help the English. If not for the Powhatan Indians help in the early years, the settlement would most likely have failed, as the English would have died from the various diseases or simply starved (3).
The history then turns from bad to worse, by late 1609, the relationship between the Powhatan Indians and the English had soured as the English were demanding too much food during a drought. That winter of 1609-10 is known as the “Starving Time.” During that winter the English were afraid to leave the fort, due to a legitimate fear of being killed by the Powhatan Indians. As a result they ate anything they could: various animals, leather from their shoes and belts, and sometimes fellow settlers who had already died. By early 1610 most of the settlers, 80-90% according to William Strachey, had died due to starvation and disease.
Plymouth Story + Wampanoag: English families, seeking freedom to practice their conservative brand of religion, negotiated with investors to pay their way to the new land in exchange for 7 years of goods they may find there. Around 102 people set sale in the Mayflower, and 66 days later arrived in Plymouth Harbor on December 16, 1620. While searching around, the men chose what appeared to be an abandoned Wampanoag community as their home. But even while their initial houses were being built, many of the colonists fell ill, and 52 died that winter. Historians think they died from scurvy and pneumonia due to the cold winter and lack of adequate shelter as well as limited food stores.
Four months later the English and Wampanoag met, with a treaty agreed to in March 1621. In exchange for mutual defense, the native people would teach the newcomers about food. Later in the fall, the first harvest was celebrated with a 3-day festival. Although uninvited, the Wampanoag responded to hearing shots fired. After realizing it was a festival, they hunted dear and gifted them to the leaders. This became the mythicized Thanksgiving.
- Edward Winslow, Of Plymouth Plantation (1621): Recreations, we exercised our Armes, many of the Indians coming amongst us, and amongst the rest their greatest king Massasoyt, with some ninetie men, whom for three dayes we entertained and feasted, and they went out and killed five Deere, which they brought to the Plantation and bestowed on our Governour, and upon the Captaine and others.
Thanksgiving The Holiday
How Thanksgiving Came to Be
Thanksgiving was not named, nor given holiday status until much later than the dates I am referencing. Scholars have called the first several “Thanksgiving” events, such as I described above, more of a traditional European harvest festival.
The path to a holiday started 169 years later, when President Washington issued a 1789 proclamation for a day of public thanksgiving and prayer. Later in 1863, during the Civil War, President Lincoln encouraged Americans to recognize the last Thursday of November as a day of Thanksgiving. The 1870 Congress then passed legislation declaring Thanksgiving a national holiday. But it was not until 1941 that President Roosevelt would sign a resolution that Thanksgiving would officially fall on the fourth Thursday in November of each year.
Thanksgiving Myths
According to many (4, 5 ), these are the myths or outright conjecture surrounding the traditionally taught Thanksgiving story.
- First, since 1524 there was a string of bloody episodes between Europeans and Indigenous Peoples, when European explorers seized coastal Wampanoag People to be sold into overseas slavery, or to be trained as interpreters and guides.
- Second, the Pilgrims and other Colonialists did not enter an empty wilderness, they occupied land the Wampanoag people already claimed and had contained villages, roads, cornfields, monuments, cemeteries, and forests cleared of underbrush.
- Third, there was no Thanksgiving celebration.
- There was a 3-day harvest festival, like those celebrated in Europe for eons.
- There was no indication of a feast with turkey, pumpkin pie, mashed potatoes and gravy, green bean casserole, cranberry sauce, and bread stuffing.
- And there was no effort made to invite the Wampanoags to the feast.
- To clarify, read the original quote above: the Colonialists, for recreation, shot off their guns and some of the Indigenous warriors showed up as they had a mutual defense treaty. They assessed it was a festival, so they shot some deer and gifted them to the European leaders. That is how the Indigenous People wound up at the festival.
- By 1789, Massachusetts law made it illegal and “punishable by death” to teach a Mashpee Wampanoag Indian to read or write.
The WashingtonPost writes, that while the Wampanoags did help the Pilgrims survive, their support was followed by years of a slow, unfolding genocide of their people and the taking of their land.
Different Approaches to Farming + Animals
The one similarity is that both groups of people gave thanks for the food they ate. The Europeans gave their thanks to their God, the Wampanoag gave thanks to the animals and plants themselves. A difference that made a difference.
European Farm + Animals Approach
I provided some information in a previous post about Colonists bringing farm animals with them on the European boats sailing to North America. From all indications, the colonists relied on their farming skills from their home country. So English farmers, who traveled over in the 1600s, brought animals for milk (goats), meat (pigs) and eggs (chickens); also knowing full well that those animals would make manure to enrich their gardens and fields. They were informed enough that they knew they would not find these domesticated animals in the New World, so they brought the animals with them on ship. (Which I imagine made the trip over, a very smelly and uncomfortable venture.)
Native Peoples Approach
At the same time, on Turtle Island, the Wampanoag People had a different view and did not domesticate and house animals as part of their agriculture practices, although they did plant foods near their community. They believed animals and their families were to be respected, so their lives were not interrupted unless hunted for food. Sometimes animals were cared for, like dogs or birds, but were not kept as pets or farm animals.
Instead of domestic animal manure, they used fish fertilizer for their corn, beans, and squash plantings.
Traditional Thanksgiving Food
Food tradition is the very heartbeat of Thanksgiving. In fact, part of its official founding as a holiday included the idea of all Americans sharing the holiday would make the same or similar foods. The idea worked, and now it is rare for this celebration to deviate from turkey, dressing or stuffing, cranberry sauce, potatoes and gravy, and various casseroles and pies. So let us look into some of these traditions by referencing original writings from that time.
- The letter of William Hilton, passenger on the Fortune (1621): There is likewise walnuts, chestnuts, small nuts and plums, with much variety of flowers, roots and herbs, no less pleasant than wholesome and profitable. No place hath more gooseberrries and strawberries, nor better… great flocks of turkey, quails, pigeons and partridges; many great lakes abounding with fish, fowl, beavers, and otters. The sea affords us great plenty of all excellent sorts of sea-fish, as the rivers and isles doth variety of wild fowl of most useful sorts… Better grain cannot be than the Indian corn, if we will plant it upon as good ground as a man need desire.
His writing verifies many of the comments I make below with regard to what foods were most likely on that first festive table, or not.
Turkey: Wild turkey is a North American native bird. Because of that, they could be had fresh, were larger than chickens at that time (so could feed a large gathering), and were readily available. Although they could have eaten the pigs they brought as a meat product, it is believed they would save the pig for a real special feast which this was not. Also, it was likely they did not want to slaughter their goats, for it provided milk for cheese and yogurt; nor kill their female chickens, for they gave eggs. So while it would make sense to serve turkey, all indications from dairies and letters, were that turkey was not served at those first several festivals. During the first one, records indicate venison and wild fowl (geese and ducks).
- Edward Winslow, Mourt’s Relation (1621): our harvest being gotten in, our governour sent foure men on fowling, that so we might after a speciall manner rejoyce together, after we had gathered the fruits of our labours ; they foure in one day killed as much fowle, as with a little helpe beside, served the Company almost a weeke.
Seafood: Seafood was not mentioned, but no doubt was served, as the colony was close to waterways that held these foods in abundance. The Wampanoag People shared how to dry fish and smoke shellfish, as well as how to catch and cook other fish, shrimp, oysters, and crabs. The English already knew how to cook seafood such as eel, cod, and sea bass. The waterways also had clams, mussels and oysters.
- William Bradford, Of Plimoth Plantation (1621): They begane now to gather in ye small harvest they had, and to fitte up their houses and dwellings against winter, being all well recovered in health & strenght, and had all things in good plenty; for as some were thus imployed in affairs abroad, others were excersised in fishing, aboute codd, & bass, & other fish, of which yey tooke good store, of which every family had their portion. All ye somer ther was no want.
Cranberry Sauce: While blueberries, Concord grapes and cranberries are native to the lands, there is no mention of them being served on Thanksgiving. The Indigenous People did use cranberries as a food source, but also to dye fabric and as medicine. While the berries could have been served in a bowl, nowadays cranberry sauce requires sugar, which was not readily in supply. If cranberries were at that festival, it was probably as part of pemmican, a dish of crushed berries (in this case cranberries), meat fat, and dried meat (venison, beaver, duck, or even fish).
Beans, pumpkins, squashes, and corn: All of these foods were known and grown by many tribes across the land, and were likely to be on the feast table.
Potatoes and Gravy: Neither white nor sweet potatoes were served on that first Thanksgiving. In 1621, the potato had not yet made its way to the colonies or North American Indigenous Peoples, although it was making the rounds in Europe and moving up from South America. And sweet potatoes had not been introduced into North America yet either. Instead, some speculate turnips or harvested ground-nuts could have been served as a starchy dish.
Stuffing: This was not served, as wheat flour was extremely limited. It is more likely the bread served was cornbread and any wild fowl stuffing would be chestnut-based with onions and herbs found locally.
Cornbread: Likely was eaten, as was other corn-based dishes. Corn was the revered staple of the Indigenous Peoples, and became critical to the Colonialists survival as well.
Sugar + Pies: Likely was not eaten due to the rarity of sugar. Although pumpkins are native to the land, the flour and butter need to make a pie crust were not readily available. In fact, I can find no reference that the Colonialists even had ovens to bake it at this point.
Green bean Casserole: Nope, not likely as the recipe was not created until 1955. I read this casserole was originally marketed as an everyday side dish, but became popular for Thanksgiving dinners in the 1960s after the recipe was printed on Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom Soup.
Nuts + Seeds: They shared walnuts, beachnuts, and chestnuts and also Sunflower seeds and wild rice.
Veggies: This list would be too long, but here are some highlights: onions, parsley, carrots, lettuce, spinach, squash, cabbage, parsnips and peas.
Fruits: Apples, paw paws, chokecherry, American persimmons, fox grapes, black cherry, blueberries, strawberries, elderberries, juneberries, currants and salmonberries.
One thing that was done, and we still do this today, all the food is taken and placed on the table for people to take what they want and enjoy the bountiful food along with the love and gratitude for peace, our family and friends.
Today is not a time of peace. My wish, however, does not change and global peace is still on the list of desires. My list of gratitudes include the health and happiness of my intimate and greater family, and all of those people in the world who are seeking better ways to live on an overused planet, those who find their love disregarding norms and expectations, and those who seek, or not, and find spirit.
—Patty
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