Dawn and I have a great deal to be thankful for, so making “thanks” a big part of our Thanksgiving is important to us. And a great way to begin is to remember and reflect upon how it all began.
We learned in school that the first Thanksgiving in Plymouth, Massachusetts, starred the Pilgrims, Squanto and the friendly Wampanoag tribe led by Massasoit, who celebrated a bountiful harvest and the promise of making it through the harsh New England winter. But here are some lesser-known facts about that first Thanksgiving in 1621:
Squanto was a Patuxet Indian who almost single-handedly saved the first Pilgrims from starving to death. He taught them how to catch eels and trap fish during their spring run, plant corn and pumpkins and trap beavers. He helped the Pilgrims despite having been captured and sold into slavery by an English sea captain. According to Peter Marshall and David Manuel in The Light and the Glory, Squanto was shipped to Malaga, Spain, where he was rescued by local friars, and eventually returned to Plymouth, where he discovered not one member of his tribe was left alive.
During that first Thanksgiving celebration, the Wampanoags brought fat wild turkeys to the feast and introduced the Pilgrims to a local delicacy called popcorn. Next time you enjoy some at the movies, thank the Wampanoags, not Orville Reddenbacher.
They celebrated that first Thanksgiving in October, not November. In 1941, Congress issued a national proclamation setting our observance of Thanksgiving on the fourth Thursday of November.
During the winter of 1621-22, an influx of new settlers eventually forced the pilgrims to each live on a daily ration of five kernels of corn. At the following Thanksgiving, Marshall and Manuel noted, “the first course was served ‘…on an empty plate and in front of each person were five kernels of corn… lest anyone should forget.’”
We have a lot to be thankful for, as did those first pilgrims. And for all its faults, we live in a country where we can write, speak and worship freely, and where we can attempt to right wrongs without being thrown in jail or exiled. Solomon wrote, “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” Well, where there is no thankfulness, people sour, slowly, like leftover cranberry sauce. We need Thanksgiving, if for no other reason than to remember that, while there may be only five kernels of corn on our plate, there are still five, and the promise of harvest is only a season or two away.