FIRST AMERICAN THANKSGIVING

At Thanksgiving time, I like to go back and read about the Pilgrims who had the first official American Thanksgiving celebration with Squanto and his newly adopted Native American tribe. This was the Pilgrims’ second year in America. During their first year, half of the 102 Pilgrims died. Of the 50 who remained, only six or seven were strong enough to care for the others. But God had a plan for these people. A Native American man, Squanto, enter these Pilgrims’ lives to teach these new Americans how to survive.

The leader of the Pilgrims was William Bradford. He wrote about his experiences with Squanto. It’s in old English, but we can still understand it:

“They (as many as were able) began to plant ther corne, in which servise Squanto stood them in great stead, showing them both ye maner how to set it, and after how to dress & tend it. Also he tould them excepte they got fish & set with it (in these old grounds) it would come to nothing, and he showed them yt in ye midle of Aprill they should have store enough come up ye brooke, by which they begane to build, and taught them how to take it, and wher to get other provisions necessary for them; all which they found true by trial & experience.

“And thus they found ye Lord to be with them in all their ways, and to blesse their outgoings & incomings, for which let his holy name have ye praise for ever, to all posteritie.”

Bradford added: “Squanto… was a special instrument sent of God for their good beyond their expectation.”

Squanto was a willing teacher. He taught the Pilgrims how to find eels and trap deer. He showed them how to net birds, how to grind corn, and how to find berries. He taught them how to hunt raccoons, bears, otters, and beavers. He taught them how to fish in the bay and along the coast in the summer, and how to cut holes in the ice to catch pike, perch, and bream in the winter.

Squanto’s life itself was amazing; how God took bad circumstances and turned them into good for both Squanto and the Pilgrims. In 1605, a member of the Native American Patuxet tribe, Squanto was captured by an English explorer and taken to England where he learned to speak English. In 1614 Captain John Smith brought him back to America, but he was captured again and taken to Spain to be sold as a slave.  Local Catholic friars rescued him and introduced him to Christianity.

He went back to England and got on a ship to his native America. But when he got home, he found that all of his tribe had been killed by a plague. The sudden death of the whole tribe scared the neighboring tribes, and so they never went onto the property, making it available for the Pilgrims. Also because of the odd circumstances of the tribe’s annihilation, the other tribes didn’t attack the Pilgrims, and Squanto facilitated a peace treaty that lasted over 50 years.

With Squanto’s help, the Pilgrims’ second winter in America was far better than the first. William Bradford remembered the habit of the Dutch, who celebrated their freedom from the Spanish with a holiday every October. Bradford decreed a day to set aside so that all the Pilgrims might “after a more special manner, rejoice together.”

The Pilgrims gathered their food to feed the fifty of them, but Bradford sent Squanto to invite the chief of his tribe, who gladly came with 90 of his men, tripling the size of hungry mouths. The chief must have realized they needed more food, and he sent five of his men out. They came back with five deer and started celebrating. They ate deer, turkey, fish, lobster, eels, vegetables, cornbread, berries, pies and popcorn that the Native Americans showed the Pilgrims how to make.  They competed in games of wrestling, shooting, and running. The chief had such a good time he and his men stayed and celebrated for three days.

The first harvest feast of the Pilgrims was more than just a time to eat together. It was a whole celebration of God’s blessing. They had survived in this new land, and in their second year, they were beginning to succeed and grow.

Love, Carolyn

If you’d like to read more about this time in America, I recommend America’s Providential History by Mark Beliles and Stephen McDowell and William Bradford: Plymouth’s Faithful Pilgrim by Gary Schmidt.