Preview

Pilgrim's First Thanksgiving Traditions

Powerful Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1720 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Pilgrim's First Thanksgiving Traditions
INDEX
ABSTRACT 2
Introduction 3
INFORMATION 4
History 4
THANKSGIVING AT PLYMOUTH 4
THANKSGIVING TRADITIONS 6
THANKSGIVING’S ANCIENT ORIGINS 7
REFERENCES 8

ABSTRACT

The tradition started when in 1620 a group of men, woman and children left England on a ship called Mayflower. They were pilgrims and they wanted to start a new life in the New World.
The voyage was very hard. They were cold and hungry and most of them died. The voyage took 66 days and they landed on the north-east coast of North America what today we know as Massachusetts.
Only half of the Mayflower’s original passengers and crew lived to see their first New England spring.
One day they met some Native American Indian and they thought the pilgrims how to grow
…show more content…
Now remembered as American’s “first Thanksgiving”—although the Pilgrims themselves may not have used the term at the time—the festival lasted for three days. While no record exists of the historic banquet’s exact menu, the Pilgrim chronicler Edward Winslow wrote in his journal that Governor Bradford sent four men on a “fowling” mission in preparation for the event, and that the Wampanoag guests arrived bearing five deer. [2 ]
Pilgrims held their second Thanksgiving celebration in 1623 to mark the end of a long drought that had threatened the year’s harvest and prompted Governor Bradford to call for a religious fast. Days of fasting and thanksgiving on an annual or occasional basis became common practice in other New England settlements as well. During the American Revolution, the Continental Congress designated one or more days of thanksgiving a year, and in 1789 George Washington issued the first Thanksgiving. [3
…show more content…
Both the Separatists who came over on the Mayflower and the Puritans who arrived soon after brought with them a tradition of providential holidays—days of fasting during difficult or pivotal moments and days of feasting and celebration to thank God in times of plenty. [2 ]
As an annual celebration of the harvest and its bounty, moreover, Thanksgiving falls under a category of festivals that spans cultures, continents and millennia. In ancient times, the Egyptians, Greeks and Romans feasted and paid tribute to their gods after the fall harvest. [3 ]
Thanksgiving also bears a resemblance to the ancient Jewish harvest festival of Sukkot. Finally, historians have noted that Native Americans had a rich tradition of commemorating the fall harvest with feasting and merrymaking long before Europeans set foot on their shores. [2

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Powerful Essays

    When thinking about the name Mayflower it usually brings images of people in big hats and buckled shoes having Thanksgiving with some Indians; evoking memories of your history classes in elementary school. This isn’t the whole truth as Nathaniel Philbrick goes in deeper to what the relationship between the Pilgrims and Natives were really like. In the 1620s, English Puritans left England to the New World for the desire to seek religious freedom. They were a group of people unaware what will greet them across the vast, open ocean; taking their chances knowing the journey would prove both costly and frustrating. The English puritans arrived in Cape Cod after being blown north of their intended course, many people had gotten the plague due to close living conditions and low food supply on the ship.…

    • 1375 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The Pilgrims were the first Puritans to move to America. In the Netherlands they felt that their children were being corrupted, so they wanted to move to Virginia. The ended up Cape Cod instead. The survivors created the colony of Plymouth and they are responsible for the Mayflower Compact, which was the first written form of government at that time. The Indians helped the Pilgrims survive their first winter. In the Fall the following year, the Pilgrims invited the Indians to a feast celebrating their survival which was the first…

    • 92 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    New England Colonies Summary

    • 2987 Words
    • 12 Pages

    A small group of Separatists, or Pilgrims, first went to Holland and then settled the “Plymouth Plantation.” There these new settlers tried to replicate the villages and communities of England. Without assistance from the local Native Americans, the Pilgrims would not have survived in the New World.…

    • 2987 Words
    • 12 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    But, most important they landed in their new home of Plymouth, Massachusetts on November twenty-first, 1620. When they made it to America they found "nothing," like no life, no civilization, and no animals, just flatland. They then signed "the Mayflower Compact," which stated that all will abide by the rules they assigned to them. It was signed by all the males, the females were not allowed to participate in anything that had to do with the government. The Mayflower Compact was signed on November twenty-first, 1620. They explored and found nothing until what is called "the first encounter beach," where their neighboring Indians attacked them with arrows and was then overpowered and ran off when the Pilgrims use their better guns. Then they built their homes and started their colony. They then, met squanto who then, introduced them to the Wampanoag Indians. The Wampanoag Indians showed them how to farm, fish, and hunt. The Pilgrims had their first Thanksgiving in the fall of 1621 which, they used almost all of their food and then they paid for it by almost starving. But, they got everything afterwards…

    • 923 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Mayflower Paper

    • 2116 Words
    • 2 Pages

    myth, the view of the Pilgrims being a peaceful religious group in search of creating a place of…

    • 2116 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    The entire idea of Thanksgiving is essentially molded around the idea of crops. Thanksgiving is thought to be, historically, a time where the Pilgrims and Indians came together to give thanks for the great harvest. In reality, The Native Americans celebrated the gifts of harvest as often as possible and the Pilgrims and Natives didn’t come together celebrating crops, but instead crops such as corn, and land in general was stolen from the Native Americans.…

    • 413 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    If we consider the background history of the United States, it would be hard to distinguish one America from another since we all are one way a country made up of immigrants and those who are also citizens. Thanksgiving is as much a holiday for all people, but one especially for those first immigrants, the settlers. Then, the other settlers that came particularly, from Ireland, Italy, France and Germany. Afterwards they came from as far as Russia and even China. And still the immigrants continue to come to this nation, seeking if not political asylum or economic stability that is lacking from where they are from to realize here a lifestyle that is healthier then the poverty that was in their…

    • 2152 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Although the first Puritan English settlers in North America might have been shocked by the Native American semi nudity and seemingly primitive customs they soon found themselves adopting some of their ways of farming and eating the colonist were at first unfamiliar with the Native Americans methods of farming and with the main crop they produced corn the Native Americans were skillful cultivators of the land planting corn in rose and growing together with beans and squash the settler soon learned to cultivate these crops which they have never come across before and adapt them to their diet Europeans as it was to the native people and undoubtedly helped send off starvation for the poor farmers during the harsh winters the turkey was a wild…

    • 154 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    One fall day four settlers were sent to look for food for the celebrations. They heard gunshots and that got the leader hyped and they thought that the English wanted to start war. The Native Americans had realized that were only hunting for the harvest celebration. The feast last for three days all women, men, and children. They would say thanks to God for everything.…

    • 484 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Finally George Washington made thanksgiving once a year. The Native Americans went through a lot. They got scalped Scalped is when they would take a knife and cut around the forehead. After they would pull the skin back off the head. They say that the native american were the original scalpers, when actually they were. When the edomites would scalp them all the blood cell and veins would come off with the scalp so the person would bleed to death. For each Scalp they cut off they would get paid 5 cents or more, to prove that person was dead.…

    • 439 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The only written record of the famous meal tells us that the harvest celebration lasted three days and included deer and wildfowl. Beyond that, culinary historians such as Kathleen Curtin at Plymouth Plantation in Massachusetts rely on period cookbooks and journals, Wampanoag oral histories, paintings from the time, and archaeological evidence.…

    • 561 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Thankless Thanksgiving

    • 669 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Thanksgiving is the one holiday in which the meal takes six weeks to plan, three days to cook and five minutes and 30 seconds to eat so everyone can watch 10-hours of football. Contrary to popular wisdom, the sole purpose of the holiday is not giving thanks and togetherness. It is about football, and pie.…

    • 669 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Many people have a thanksgiving tradition, but it's not always the same as yours.When we asked three other students what their tradition was, there weren't a lot of similarities. Some of the things I do that are the same as what they do are: They don't always eat turkey they sometimes eat just ham, Their family visits, And we eat a lot of the same foods.…

    • 245 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Thanksgiving is a national holiday that has been celebrated for ages. Although there is a common theme for almost all thanksgiving traditions, none of them are the same. For some they roast a humongous…

    • 435 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Thanksgiving Essay

    • 1008 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Hands- On Project III Thanksgiving Thanksgiving is America's distinguished day. It is celebrated every year on the fourth Thursday in the month of November. Its origin can be traced back to the 16th century when the first Thanksgiving dinner is said to have taken place. The legendary pilgrims, crossed the Atlantic in the year 1620 on the Mayflower, and had a celebration with food with help from local Native Americans. Thanksgiving has many anthropological standings that deal with the setting, division of labor, rituals, and symbols of Thanksgiving decorations.…

    • 1008 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays