You weren't told the whole story about the first Thanksgiving. It's not the one that kids hear about in the government schools or in the media or in popularized American culture. Here's what really happened:
In 1620, 102 Pilgrims, Separatists from the Church of England sailed east across the Atlantic aboard the cramped 100 ft. "Mayflower" in a voyage that if compared with today, would be like a voyage to the moon. For 66 days they lived in an ill-lighted, close-quartered, rolling, pitching, stinking, over-heated "below-decks"; the hatches battened down, the smell of the bilge in their nostrils, and the crew hostile towards Separatists. Cloistered in a space the size of a volleyball court, 102 people with their spiritual leader William Bradford endured the unendurable. Why? Because they wanted to worship God without the needless legalistic restrictions imposed on them by England.
But on the voyage over, only two people died: one was a crew member who repeated mocked the Pilgrims until one day he died, and that silenced the rest of the crew for the voyage; and the other, because he refused orders to drink lemon juice and so died of scurvy. They were en route to the mouth of the Hudson River in a huge swath of territory extending from Virginia to New England called the "Virginia Plantation", uninhabited by Europeans, near-absolute wilderness, but claimed and peopled by hostile Indian tribes. If they had landed where they intended they would've likely been slaughtered quickly. But they were blown off course by hundreds of miles and were forced to land at a place know today as Massachusetts where, unknown to them, no tribe lived for many many miles because all tribes feared that land was cursed by a Great Spirit who had wiped out the former inhabitants, the Pautuxets, known by their neighbors as one of the most ferocious of tribes, who had killed every white man they had ever met. In the spring a single Pautuxet (named "Squanto") arrived in camp and said in perfect English: "Welcome Englishmen; do you have any beer?" Squanto's entire tribe had been wiped out mysteriously while he had been taken as a prisoner by a ship bound for England. From there he was rescued by Spanish friars who taught him the Christian faith, and he somehow managed to return to his homeland intending to rejoin the Pautuxets.
But the Pautuxets were all dead. So he wandered into the region of the Wampanoags who hated Pautuxets. Yet the Wampanoag chief ("Massasoit"), had decided to spare him and to let him live with them. When he was told by Squanto of the Pilgrims' arrival, he sent him back to them with one of his braves (named "Samoset"), to find out more about them and how they could dare live in region cursed by the great and unknown Spirit. When the braves report back to the Wampanoag chief what they were told, Massasoit decides to spare them all and instructs Squanto to help the Pilgrims.
The Pilgrims knew next to nothing about surviving in the wilderness. They didn't know how to properly plant or hunt or fish, except by their experience in England, and this wasn't England. They would've starved to death, normally. But Squanto taught them how to refine maple syrup, make popcorn, trap and trade in beaver pelts with surrounding tribes, fertilize soil; and how to become economically successful. By order of Governor Bradford, a day of Thanksgiving was proclaimed in the autumn of the second year, and Chief Massasoit was invited. But he brought more than twice as many tribesmen with him as the remaining Pilgrims (some had died). Fortunately he brought his own food, too. He arrived a day too early and stayed 3 days too late. But he enjoyed himself immensely, and so Thanksgiving was extended for 3 days.
There were footraces, games, shootings and sports, and by order of Governor Bradford the public giving of thanks to God, the Great Spirit that Massasoit so feared. And there they thanked God for Massasoit's kindness, too. And it was here that the Wampanoags heard the gospel of Jesus Christ. [The Light and the Glory: Did God Have a Plan for America by David Marshall & Peter Manuel, Fleming Revel]
When I was a little Jewish kid in the third grade in the year they took prayer out of the government schools my teacher Mrs. Helen Hunt, a Christian, made us all memorize this Thanksgiving poem. I still remember some of it today:
"The Landing of the Pilgrim Fathers"
by Felicia Dorothea Hemans.
The breaking waves dashed high
On a stern and rock-bound coast,
And the woods, against a stormy sky,
Their giant branches tost;
And the heavy night hung dark
The hills and water o'er,
When a band of exiles moored their bar
On the wild New England shore.
Not as the conqueror comes,
They, the true-hearted, came;
Not with the roll of the stirring drums,
And the trumpet that sings of fame
Not as the flying come,
In silence and in fear, -
They shook the depths of the desert's gloom
With their hymns of lofty cheer.
Amidst the storm they sang,
And the stars heard and the sea;
And the sounding aisles of the dim woods rang
To the anthem of the free.
The ocean-eagle soared
From his nest by the white wave's foam,
And the rocking pines of the forest roared -
This was their welcome home!
There were men with hoary hair
Amidst that pilgrim band:
Why had they come to wither there,
Away from their childhood's land?
There was woman's fearless eye,
Lit by her deep love's truth;
There was manhood's brow serenely high,
And the fiery heart of youth.
What sought they thus afar?
Bright jewels of the mine?
The wealth of the seas? the spoils of war? -
They sought a faith's pure shrine!
Ay, call it holy ground,
The soil where first they tro
They have left unstained what there they found -
Freedom to worship God!
In 1620, 102 Pilgrims, Separatists from the Church of England sailed east across the Atlantic aboard the cramped 100 ft. "Mayflower" in a voyage that if compared with today, would be like a voyage to the moon. For 66 days they lived in an ill-lighted, close-quartered, rolling, pitching, stinking, over-heated "below-decks"; the hatches battened down, the smell of the bilge in their nostrils, and the crew hostile towards Separatists. Cloistered in a space the size of a volleyball court, 102 people with their spiritual leader William Bradford endured the unendurable. Why? Because they wanted to worship God without the needless legalistic restrictions imposed on them by England.
But on the voyage over, only two people died: one was a crew member who repeated mocked the Pilgrims until one day he died, and that silenced the rest of the crew for the voyage; and the other, because he refused orders to drink lemon juice and so died of scurvy. They were en route to the mouth of the Hudson River in a huge swath of territory extending from Virginia to New England called the "Virginia Plantation", uninhabited by Europeans, near-absolute wilderness, but claimed and peopled by hostile Indian tribes. If they had landed where they intended they would've likely been slaughtered quickly. But they were blown off course by hundreds of miles and were forced to land at a place know today as Massachusetts where, unknown to them, no tribe lived for many many miles because all tribes feared that land was cursed by a Great Spirit who had wiped out the former inhabitants, the Pautuxets, known by their neighbors as one of the most ferocious of tribes, who had killed every white man they had ever met. In the spring a single Pautuxet (named "Squanto") arrived in camp and said in perfect English: "Welcome Englishmen; do you have any beer?" Squanto's entire tribe had been wiped out mysteriously while he had been taken as a prisoner by a ship bound for England. From there he was rescued by Spanish friars who taught him the Christian faith, and he somehow managed to return to his homeland intending to rejoin the Pautuxets.
But the Pautuxets were all dead. So he wandered into the region of the Wampanoags who hated Pautuxets. Yet the Wampanoag chief ("Massasoit"), had decided to spare him and to let him live with them. When he was told by Squanto of the Pilgrims' arrival, he sent him back to them with one of his braves (named "Samoset"), to find out more about them and how they could dare live in region cursed by the great and unknown Spirit. When the braves report back to the Wampanoag chief what they were told, Massasoit decides to spare them all and instructs Squanto to help the Pilgrims.
The Pilgrims knew next to nothing about surviving in the wilderness. They didn't know how to properly plant or hunt or fish, except by their experience in England, and this wasn't England. They would've starved to death, normally. But Squanto taught them how to refine maple syrup, make popcorn, trap and trade in beaver pelts with surrounding tribes, fertilize soil; and how to become economically successful. By order of Governor Bradford, a day of Thanksgiving was proclaimed in the autumn of the second year, and Chief Massasoit was invited. But he brought more than twice as many tribesmen with him as the remaining Pilgrims (some had died). Fortunately he brought his own food, too. He arrived a day too early and stayed 3 days too late. But he enjoyed himself immensely, and so Thanksgiving was extended for 3 days.
There were footraces, games, shootings and sports, and by order of Governor Bradford the public giving of thanks to God, the Great Spirit that Massasoit so feared. And there they thanked God for Massasoit's kindness, too. And it was here that the Wampanoags heard the gospel of Jesus Christ. [The Light and the Glory: Did God Have a Plan for America by David Marshall & Peter Manuel, Fleming Revel]
When I was a little Jewish kid in the third grade in the year they took prayer out of the government schools my teacher Mrs. Helen Hunt, a Christian, made us all memorize this Thanksgiving poem. I still remember some of it today:
"The Landing of the Pilgrim Fathers"
by Felicia Dorothea Hemans.
The breaking waves dashed high
On a stern and rock-bound coast,
And the woods, against a stormy sky,
Their giant branches tost;
And the heavy night hung dark
The hills and water o'er,
When a band of exiles moored their bar
On the wild New England shore.
Not as the conqueror comes,
They, the true-hearted, came;
Not with the roll of the stirring drums,
And the trumpet that sings of fame
Not as the flying come,
In silence and in fear, -
They shook the depths of the desert's gloom
With their hymns of lofty cheer.
Amidst the storm they sang,
And the stars heard and the sea;
And the sounding aisles of the dim woods rang
To the anthem of the free.
The ocean-eagle soared
From his nest by the white wave's foam,
And the rocking pines of the forest roared -
This was their welcome home!
There were men with hoary hair
Amidst that pilgrim band:
Why had they come to wither there,
Away from their childhood's land?
There was woman's fearless eye,
Lit by her deep love's truth;
There was manhood's brow serenely high,
And the fiery heart of youth.
What sought they thus afar?
Bright jewels of the mine?
The wealth of the seas? the spoils of war? -
They sought a faith's pure shrine!
Ay, call it holy ground,
The soil where first they tro
They have left unstained what there they found -
Freedom to worship God!
