This article is republished by the National Catholic Reporter from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license.
How the Plymouth Pilgrims took over Thanksgiving
Thomas A. Tweed
as a historian of religion, I feel obliged to recount how popular interpretations of Thanksgiving also have pulled us apart.
Communal rituals of giving thanks have a longer history in North America, and it was only around the turn of the 20th century that most people in the U.S. came to associate Thanksgiving with Plymouth "Pilgrims" and generic "Indians" sharing a historic meal.
The emphasis on the Pilgrims' 1620 landing and 1621 feast erased a great deal of religious history and narrowed conceptions of who belongs in America — at times excluding groups such as Native Americans, Catholics and Jews.
As I note in my 2025 book, Religion in the Lands That Became America, for instance, celebrants gathered for a communal feast in the late 11th century in the 50-acre plaza of Cahokia. That Native city, across the river from present-day St. Louis, was the largest population center north of Mexico before the American Revolution.
The usual depiction also de-emphasizes the tradition of officials announcing special "Days of Thanksgiving," a practice familiar to the Pilgrims and their descendants.
Harvest feast of 1621
Many Americans' view of "The First Thanksgiving" resembles the scene depicted in a Jean Ferris painting by that name. Finished around 1915, it is similar to another popular image painted around the same time, Jennie Augusta Brownscombe's "The First Thanksgiving at Plymouth."
Both images distort the historical context and misrepresent Indigenous attendees from the nearby Wampanoag Confederacy. The Native leaders wear headdresses from Plains tribes, and there are too few Indigenous attendees.
Only one eyewitness account survives: a 1621 letter from the Pilgrim Edward Winslow. He reported that the Wampanoag's leader, Massasoit, brought 90 men. That means, some historians suggest, the shared meal was as much a diplomatic event marking an alliance as an agricultural feast celebrating a harvest.
Pilgrims' primacy
The Pilgrims were latecomers to the Thanksgiving table. Lincoln's 1863 proclamation, published in Harper's Monthly, mentioned "the blessing of fruitful fields," but not the Pilgrims. Nor were Pilgrims depicted in the magazine's illustrated follow-up. The page showed town and country, as well as emancipated slaves, celebrating the feast day by praying at "the Union altar." For years before and after the proclamation, in fact, many Southerners resisted Thanksgiving, which they saw as a Northern, abolitionist holiday.
What I remember learning about the first Thanksgiving was that 45 of the original 102 of the Mayflower passengers who made up the first Pilgrims died that first year, from the harsh weather conditions and lack of food. And the ones who did survive, did so with the help of Indigenous people. I also remember learning that they were introduced to North American food such as squash, corn, and wild game such as turkey. Which are among the things we still eat at Thanksgiving.
ReplyDeleteYes , the mishmash of things such as Massachusetts Indigenous people wearing Plains Indian head-dresses is inaccurate. But the Thanksgiving narrative we learned is not an entirely made up story.
I read Tweed in The Conversation. He's right that colonial America was diverse socially and ethnically. Still is. That's been taught in public school for decades.
ReplyDeleteBut Tweed has not proved to my satisfaction that the Pilgrim legend, its treacly depictions, and a few sore losers down South "pulls us apart." The Pilgrims are merely symbols from our colonial hagiography that celebrate survival and gratitude.
In our corner of the cornfield, there's a community dinner. Free. Nobody's taking money or tickets. It's at the VFW hall where no denomination can hog it and no political party can make hay off it. Kids make construction paper turkeys and pumpkins as decorations. People can post stuff on the "thankful for ..." board.
Thanksgiving is for everybody. Even in my MAGA town everybody knows that.
Jean, I agree, Thanksgiving is for everybody. I remember it being one of my dad's favorite holidays; he didn't have to go to church, and other people did the work.
DeleteI also agree with Jean. I think Thanksgiving may be the only big holiday in our country that still pulls everyone together. (Unless trump talk ruins the family gathering.)
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DeleteWhen my Uncle Dick would get going on one of his weird political screeds, my gramma would say, "Say, Dick, run out to the kitchen and get that coffee can off the top shelf while I cut you another piece of pie." Didn't dawn on me until l was a teenager why a woman barely 5 feet tall would keep her coffee where she couldn't reach it. Thanksgiving offered many lessons in gratitude, subterfuge, and distraction.
DeleteGreat story, Jean. Thanks.
DeleteIt’s gotten cold here, by mid- Atlantic standards. But not cold like the standards of everyone else here. I’m reading about snow and very cold temps in Chicago, Michigan, Ohio. How is everyone doing? Stay safe!
Winter storm warnings here in Michigan this afternoon to Sunday morning. This is mostly lake effect, so snow dissipates as it moves east. We are in middle of state, so only 3-5 inches expected locally, but high winds and cold temps will cause drifting, so driving will suck.
DeleteWell, I guess the indigenous have problems with it. Thanks-taking Day. My cousins didn’t discuss anything political and neither did I so I don’t know if their politics evolved any. It has to be confusing for MAGA people these days.
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