Thanksgiving is a day designated to control the population of birds that gobble. No? Then Thanksgiving is a day to honor monster sized, cartoonish inflatables and those who play with pigskins. No? Well then it has to be a day to remember the founders of buckle fashion, all those who bravely wore gigantic square buckles on their hats and shoes. NO?! Then gosh darn it, why do we have Thanksgiving?

If you were a Pilgrim at Plymouth Rock in 1621 you would not have called the fall feast which occurred that year (the one considered the inspiration for the modern day holiday) Thanksgiving. The group of colonists who landed in the Mayflower off of Cape Cod, Massachusetts in December of 1620 were composed of two peoples. The first, members of the English Separatist Church (Puritans), became disillusioned with the religious practices and way of life in Europe and came to the New World in search of better living. The second group of individuals in the new colony were crew of the Mayflower and other non-Puritans commissioned by the English financiers of the Separatists' trip to supervise the endeavor. These two groups living together were called Pilgrims. "Thanksgiving" was to the Separatists a religious holiday to be spent at church thanking God. Such a day was usually held to give thanks for the occurrence of a special event like winning a battle. The nature of the fall feast held in 1621, with its light hearted atmosphere and festive game playing, would not have been considered by the Separatists' to be an appropriate Thanksgiving service.

But the Pilgrims did have a lot to be thankful for in the Fall of 1621. Arriving at the end of the year in 1920, the Pilgrims were not prepared to survive the harsh Massachusetts winter. Half the colony died in those first months due to disease and lack of food; they had arrived too late in the year to plant and grow a supply of food. In the spring, Wampanoag Indians befriended the settlers and showed them how to plant native crops, hunt, fish, and how to store food away for the winter. One of the crops the Indians helped the Pilgrims plant was maize (corn), a grain with which the English were not previously familiar. It is thought that the Indians also showed the colonists how to make popcorn and possibly brought some to the feast now referred to as the "First Thanksgiving".

The first Thanksgiving was a feast held in the fall to celebrate the success of the harvest that year. During the three day long event, about 90 Wampanoag Indians showed up at the settlement and joined the Pilgrims in eating and game playing festivities. The menu at the feast back then was probably not what it traditionally is today. They did not have ovens or great supplies of sugar so pumpkin pie was out of question. There is a record of the feast including venison and wild fowl, but it is not known for sure whether or not turkey specifically topped the table. Different meats, rather than a large variety of vegetables, most likely made up the bulk of the meal offerings. And about those buckles! The fashion of wearing huge buckles on hats, shoes, and belts (as depicted in many images of Pilgrims today) did not occur until later in the seventeenth century. So, along with vegetables, the presence of buckles at the first Thanksgiving was probably minimal.
Article Continues ...