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The Plymouth Thanksgiving Story |
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Written by Xiuhcoatl
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Nov 24, 2005 at 03:28 PM |
THE PLYMOUTH THANKSGIVING STORY
By Chuck Larsen
When the Pilgrims crossed the Atlantic Ocean in 1620, they landed on
the rocky shores of a territory that was inhabited by the Wampanoag
(Wam pa NO ag) Indians. The Wampanoags were part of the
Algonkian-speaking peoples, a large group that was part of the Woodland
Culture area. These Indians lived in villages along the coast of what
is now Massachusetts and Rhode Island. They lived in round- roofed
houses called wigwams. These were made of poles covered with flat
sheets of elm or birch bark. Wigwams differ in construction from tipis
that were used by Indians of the Great Plains.
The Wampanoags moved several times during each year in order to get
food. In the spring they would fish in the rivers for salmon and
herring. In the planting season they moved to the forest to hunt deer
and other animals. After the end of the hunting season people moved
inland where there was greater protection from the weather. From
December to April they lived on food that they stored during the
earlier months.
The basic dress for men was the breech clout, a length of deerskin
looped over a belt in back and in front. Women wore deerskin
wrap-around skirts. Deerskin leggings and fur capes made from deer,
beaver, otter, and bear skins gave protection during the colder
seasons, and deerskin moccasins were worn on the feet. Both men and
women usually braided their hair and a single feather was often worn in
the back of the hair by men. They did not have the large feathered
headdresses worn by people in the Plains Culture area.
There were two language groups of Indians in New England at this time.
The Iroquois were neighbors to the Algonkian-speaking people. Leaders
of the Algonquin and Iroquois people were called "sachems" (SAY chems).
Each village had its own sachem and tribal council. Political power
flowed upward from the people. Any individual, man or woman, could
participate, but among the Algonquins more political power was held by
men. Among the Iroquois, however, women held the deciding vote in the
final selection of who would represent the group. Both men and women
enforced the laws of the village and helped solve problems. The details
of their democratic system were so impressive that about 150 years
later Benjamin Franklin invited the Iroquois to Albany, New York, to
explain their system to a delegation who then developed the "Albany
Plan of Union." This document later served as a model for the Articles
of Confederation and the Constitution of the United States.
These Indians of the Eastern Woodlands called the turtle, the deer and
the fish their brothers. They respected the forest and everything in it
as equals. Whenever a hunter made a kill, he was careful to leave
behind some bones or meat as a spiritual offering, to help other
animals survive. Not to do so would be considered greedy. The
Wampanoags also treated each other with respect. Any visitor to a
Wampanoag home was provided with a share of whatever food the family
had, even if the supply was low. This same courtesy was extended to the
Pilgrims when they met.
We can only guess what the Wampanoags must have thought when they first
saw the strange ships of the Pilgrims arriving on their shores. But
their custom was to help visitors, and they treated the newcomers with
courtesy. It was mainly because of their kindness that the Pilgrims
survived at all. The wheat the Pilgrims had brought with them to plant
would not grow in the rocky soil. They needed to learn new ways for a
new world, and the man who came to help them was called "Tisquantum"
(Tis SKWAN tum) or "Squanto" (SKWAN toe).
Squanto was originally from the village of Patuxet (Pa TUK et) and a
member of the Pokanokit Wampanoag nation. Patuxet once stood on the
exact site where the Pilgrims built Plymouth. In 1605, fifteen years
before the Pilgrims came, Squanto went to England with a friendly
English explorer named John Weymouth. He had many adventures and
learned to speak English. Squanto came back to New England with Captain
Weymouth. Later Squanto was captured by a British slaver who raided the
village and sold Squanto to the Spanish in the Caribbean Islands. A
Spanish Franciscan priest befriended Squanto and helped him to get to
Spain and later on a ship to England. Squanto then found Captain
Weymouth, who paid his way back to his homeland. In England Squanto met
Samoset of the Wabanake (Wab NAH key) Tribe, who had also left his
native home with an English explorer. They both returned together to
Patuxet in 1620. When they arrived, the village was deserted and there
were skeletons everywhere. Everyone in the village had died from an
illness the English slavers had left behind. Squanto and Samoset went
to stay with a neighboring village of Wampanoags.
One year later, in the spring, Squanto and Samoset were hunting along
the beach near Patuxet. They were startled to see people from England
in their deserted village. For several days, they stayed nearby
observing the newcomers. Finally they decided to approach them. Samoset
walked into the village and said "welcome," Squanto soon joined him.
The Pilgrims were very surprised to meet two Indians who spoke English.
The Pilgrims were not in good condition. They were living in
dirt-covered shelters, there was a shortage of food, and nearly half of
them had died during the winter. They obviously needed help and the two
men were a welcome sight. Squanto, who probably knew more English than
any other Indian in North America at that time, decided to stay with
the Pilgrims for the next few months and teach them how to survive in
this new place. He brought them deer meat and beaver skins. He taught
them how to cultivate corn and other new vegetables and how to build
Indian-style houses. He pointed out poisonous plants and showed how
other plants could be used as medicine. He explained how to dig and
cook clams, how to get sap from the maple trees, use fish for
fertilizer, and dozens of other skills needed for their survival.
By the time fall arrived things were going much better for the
Pilgrims, thanks to the help they had received. The corn they planted
had grown well. There was enough food to last the winter. They were
living comfortably in their Indian-style wigwams and had also managed
to build one European-style building out of squared logs. This was
their church. They were now in better health, and they knew more about
surviving in this new land. The Pilgrims decided to have a thanksgiving
feast to celebrate their good fortune. They had observed thanksgiving
feasts in November as religious obligations in England for many years
before coming to the New World.
The Algonkian tribes held six thanksgiving festivals during the year.
The beginning of the Algonkian year was marked by the Maple Dance which
gave thanks to the Creator for the maple tree and its syrup. This
ceremony occurred when the weather was warm enough for the sap to run
in the maple trees, sometimes as early as February. Second was the
planting feast, where the seeds were blessed. The strawberry festival
was next, celebrating the first fruits of the season. Summer brought
the green corn festival to give thanks for the ripening corn. In late
fall, the harvest festival gave thanks for the food they had grown.
Mid-winter was the last ceremony of the old year. When the Indians sat
down to the "first Thanksgiving" with the Pilgrims, it was really the
fifth thanksgiving of the year for them!
Captain Miles Standish, the leader of the Pilgrims, invited Squanto,
Samoset, Massasoit (the leader of the Wampanoags), and their immediate
families to join them for a celebration, but they had no idea how big
Indian families could be. As the Thanksgiving feast began, the Pilgrims
were overwhelmed at the large turnout of ninety relatives that Squanto
and Samoset brought with them. The Pilgrims were not prepared to feed a
gathering of people that large for three days. Seeing this, Massasoit
gave orders to his men within the first hour of his arrival to go home
and get more food. Thus it happened that the Indians supplied the
majority of the food: Five deer, many wild turkeys, fish, beans,
squash, corn soup, corn bread, and berries. Captain Standish sat at one
end of a long table and the Clan Chief Massasoit sat at the other end.
For the first time the Wampanoag people were sitting at a table to eat
instead of on mats or furs spread on the ground. The Indian women sat
together with the Indian men to eat. The Pilgrim women, however, stood
quietly behind the table and waited until after their men had eaten,
since that was their custom.
For three days the Wampanoags feasted with the Pilgrims. It was a
special time of friendship between two very different groups of people.
A peace and friendship agreement was made between Massasoit and Miles
Standish giving the Pilgrims the clearing in the forest where the old
Patuxet village once stood to build their new town of Plymouth.
It would be very good to say that this friendship lasted a long time;
but, unfortunately, that was not to be. More English people came to
America, and they were not in need of help from the Indians as were the
original Pilgrims. Many of the newcomers forgot the help the Indians
had given them. Mistrust started to grow and the friendship weakened.
The Pilgrims started telling their Indian neighbors that their Indian
religion and Indian customs were wrong. The Pilgrims displayed an
intolerance toward the Indian religion similar to the intolerance
displayed toward the less popular religions in Europe. The relationship
deteriorated and within a few years the children of the people who ate
together at the first Thanksgiving were killing one another in what
came to be called King Phillip's War.
It is sad to think that this happened, but it is important to
understand all of the story and not just the happy part. Today the town
of Plymouth Rock has a Thanksgiving ceremony each year in remembrance
of the first Thanksgiving. There are still Wampanoag people living in
Massachusetts. In 1970, they asked one of them to speak at the ceremony
to mark the 350th anniversary of the Pilgrim's arrival. Here is part of
what was said:
"Today is a time of celebrating for you -- a time of looking back to
the first days of white people in America. But it is not a time of
celebrating for me. It is with a heavy heart that I look back upon what
happened to my People. When the Pilgrims arrived, we, the Wampanoags,
welcomed them with open arms, little knowing that it was the beginning
of the end. That before 50 years were to pass, the Wampanoag would no
longer be a tribe. That we and other Indians living near the settlers
would be killed by their guns or dead from diseases that we caught from
them. Let us always remember, the Indian is and was just as human as
the white people.
Although our way of life is almost gone, we, the Wampanoags, still walk
the lands of Massachusetts. What has happened cannot be changed. But
today we work toward a better America, a more Indian America where
people and nature once again are important." |
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