Thanksgiving is one of the most popular autumnal holidays; feasting, football and the Macy’s Day Parade are all common themes throughout the celebrations of many families throughout America. Many of the impressions people have about the history of Thanksgiving celebrations are based on popular myths. The historical event itself was very different from the one many people imagine.
Myths and Facts about Thanksgiving
Many people assume that the first Thanksgiving became a tradition after 1621, when the recorded feast between settlers and Wampanoag Indians occurred. However, to the pilgrims, a day of thanksgiving was a holy day and therefore the reveling that occurred on the harvest feast day they celebrated would not have been allowed.
The first Thanksgiving as it is commonly represented was instead merely a celebration in thanks for a good harvest and did not become an established tradition among the colonies.
Myths and Facts about the First Thanksgiving Meal
Contrary to popular belief, the Pilgrims would not have eaten pumpkin pie at the first Thanksgiving. When the Plymouth Pilgrims arrived in the New World, they had only a limited amount of sugar and no ovens with which to bake.
Turkey would not have been a main course for the pilgrims; it was more likely that they ate venison and seafood, such as cod. The food that would have been served at the harvest meal would have consisted more of meat than of vegetables.
The settlers would not have had cranberries, corn, potatoes or fruit. They may have had peas, beans, onions and lettuce. The meal that most Americans picture as the traditional Thanksgiving dinner was not created until the late nineteenth century.
Myths and Facts about Pilgrims and Indians
Although many school productions feature pilgrims dressed in black, wearing buckles and celebrating peacefully with Indians. The Pilgrims frequently dressed in bright colors, although it was a pleasure reserved for the upper class; black and white clothing were reserved for formal occasions and buckles did not come into fashion until late in the seventeenth century.
The Indians were not in fact invited to the harvest feast thrown by the Pilgrims. According to historians, the Wampanoag tribe heard the shots of settlers hunting for the harvest and assumed that the Pilgrims were preparing to go to war. Chief Massasoit brought around 90 men with him to the area and, when it became clear that the settlers were merely hunting, ordered his men to bring back deer to contribute to the meal.
Although the modern perception of the Thanksgiving holiday has changed over the years as a result of popular mythologies and historical inaccuracies, both the truth of Thanksgiving and the myths provide an important part of American cultural heritage. Studying the feast that is now popularized as the first Thanksgiving can make the celebration in the present a much more interesting experience.
Sources:
Top 10 Myths about Thanksgiving
Deconstructing the Myths of the “First Thanksgiving”
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