Morning Wire - The True Story of Thanksgiving | 11.23.23

Episode Date: November 23, 2023

Millions of Americans celebrate Thanksgiving every year, but do they know the true history of this holiday? Senior historian at Plimoth Plantation, Richard Pickering, reveals the authentic tale of the 1621 harvest feast. Discover the untold stories, challenges, and diplomacy that shaped Thanksgiving as we know it. Get the facts first with Morning Wire. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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I just love my job. Get tickets now, the Devil Wears Prada 2 in theaters May 1st, directed by David Frankel. 400 years ago, a small group of Ames. English settlers shared a three-day feast with dozens of Wampanoagmen to celebrate a successful harvest. Over the years, myths have proliferated about the true history of that first Thanksgiving, but the sentiment of gratitude has survived. In this special Thanksgiving episode, we're joined by a Plymouth historian as we dive into the real history of the holiday. I'm Georgia Howe with Daily Wire editor-in-chief Don Bickley. It's Thursday, November 23rd. Happy Thanksgiving. And this is Morning Wire.

Joining us to share the true story of the first Thanksgiving is Richard Pickering, deputy director and senior historian at Plymouth Plantation in Plymouth, Massachusetts. Richard, thanks so much for coming on. My pleasure. So what historical event specifically are we commemorating when we celebrate Thanksgiving? Traditionally, our national holiday has been associated with the harvest feast at Plymouth Colony in the fall of 1621. There is a specific feast that happens somewhere in the last week of September, first week of October 1621. And it was a way of the pilgrim celebrating that their first harvest was a good one, that the corn that they had learned to plant from the Wampanog people did very well.

And they were so excited at facing the winter with good stores knowing that they would. be fed. And Governor Bradford declared what he called a special manner of rejoicing. So they set aside time for feasting, for sports, for the men who had been working in the fields to exercise their arms, meaning practicing as soldiers to make certain that they could defend themselves. And in the course of the three days that they were sporting and feasting, the great sachem of the Poccanocat people arrives in Plymouth with 90 men. And we're told from the one eyewitness account that the sachem is there with his men. But then the phrase says, comma, amongst others, comma. So we have to imagine a human landscape where there are just 52 English men, women,

and children at the event, half of them are under 16 years old. But at a minimum, you've got 90 native men, but possibly there are other sachems with their men traveling as well. So it could be that the English were more dwarfed than the written record depicts. And what happened when those men arrived? They joined the feasting. They were together for three, three days. At one point, Sachim Massasoit sends his men out hunting, and they return to Plymouth with five bucks of venison, and the sachem presents a buck to the most significant men within the colony.

And for me, that's an incredibly interesting gift, because English people looked at venison as a meat of the rich. It's the kind of thing you would have wanted for your child's baptismal feast for a wedding feast. But most Englishmen rarely had venison because this was the meat of gentlefolk who had deer parks. So here are the Poccanocet presenting them with venison. And the Poccanocke couldn't have understood the meaning of their gift in English eyes. just like one of the great Wampanog historians when I was a young man, he said, Richard,

the English could not have known when Mayflower arrived and Wampanog people are seeing elderly and women and children coming ashore. They couldn't possibly have known that to native people, the presence of those kinds of people means there is no intent of violence because the Wampanog always remove their women, their elderly, and their children away from any field of battle. So in this early year

of relations, neither community really knows the nonverbal messages that are getting sent and that are beneficial to their relations. Now, for people who aren't familiar, can you introduce who Massasoit is? Massasoit was the sachem of the Poccanocet people, and his territories are a large area between what is now the Rhode Island, Massachusetts border and the south coast of Massachusetts. He was an influential leader of extraordinary diplomatic skill so that he has strong relations with other sachems through trade, through shared spiritual practice, through the inner marriage of families, community to community. So he's not a supreme sachem. He's not like a king, over other kings. He's just an amazing leader with tremendous regional influence.

Just to get the timeline right, my understanding is that the pilgrims arrived in the fall. They had a brutal winter, so if they're celebrating a good harvest, then that would have had to have been the following fall. This would have been, yes, almost a year to the day of Mayflower arriving. Mayflower spots Cape Cod on November 9th, 1620. So they sign the Mayflower Compact on November 11th, and then they come to shore for the first time. Now, tell us a little bit about that first year and the hardships that the pilgrims faced. What was that like? To us, I think it's unimaginable that 102 arrive as passengers in November 1620, and by the end of February, there are only 52 left alive. Plymouth was deeply devoted to writing and keeping record,

and we have a description that particularly in the month of February, there were sometimes two and three deaths a day. And William Bradford tells us that at their very worst, there were only five to seven people well enough to take care of everyone else. And so those five to seven, we are told our cooking, and feeding and burying the dead. And those that come on later ships see that there is something different

about Mayflower people. And when you look at the distribution of land over the course of the 17th century, Mayflower people always get just a little bit more. And it's a way of people honoring their horrific experience that winter. And you find that they are bound together through common suffering. They were also at a time when they recognize their own fragility and their need to build a community. And what astounds me is that when you look at this generation, over the course of the decades that they're

together until they begin dying so rapidly in the 1650s, they have strong differences of opinion, but they never allow those differences to mar their friendships. And that is the astounding thing to me that one of the most controversial questions is the introduction of religious liberty. And Captain Stangis is pushing for greater religious tolerance. His attempt is moved aside by a parliamentary move by Edward Winslow and William Bradford. And even after that, they are friends. they write very lovingly of each other in their wills. They are gifting things to one another in their wills.

And it's, I think, one of the things that we can learn from the 17th century's devotion and skill at consensus and community building and seeing the person and not the opinion. Now, at what point during that first year did the Wampanoag take the Pilgrims under their wing, or were they on their own that first winter? Because of the drama of the first winter, there has grown up this perception that native people got them through the first winter, when in truth, what they did for them was not harm them. The English were living from the stores that they had brought aboard Mayflower.

They had planned for an entire year, because they were going to be living from their supply until a first harvest came in. During that first year, who primarily survived? Did they end up with a group of all men, all women? Did any children survive? Among the 52, there are roughly 25 children under the age of 16. Wow. Then there are four adult married women, one adult woman whose name we do not know,

and then the rest are all men. there are only four intact households at the end of the first winter. And to me, one of the heartbreaking things is there are some young women 13, 14 years old, who are watching every member of their family die the first winter. So Priscilla Mullins, who will marry John Alden, is left entirely alone in the world. Elizabeth Tilly, who will marry John Howland entirely alone in the world, as will also be the case with Mary Chilton. Why is it that these young people survived, but primarily the adult women didn't? Is it because of childbirth? No, what Bradford thought was that the exposure, because they have no homes to go to, they're living on Mayflower in the harbor, coming in to build their,

houses and then going back to the ship at night. So the degree of dampness and exposure, he felt that's where the illnesses were coming from. Often in Hollywood depictions of the Pilgrim's First Winter, you'll see women looking very forlorn and they're pushing their food off their plates onto their child's plates when they had plenty of food. In fact, when you have a high death rate like that, your food supply is only getting bigger and bigger with every person lost. It's just the horrific circumstances of a brutally cold winter because Mayflower arrives during a period known as the Little Ice Age. So you touched on this, but what was the nature of the Pilgrim's relationship with the locals, just from the get-go and

through those first few years? Early on, it's representative of the highest levels of diplomacy. So in the early years, the diplomacy between those at Plymouth and the Poccanocat and other Wampanag communities is excellent because not in a naive kind of friendship way, but a realpolitik kind of way, they are beneficial to one another. The 52 English men, women, and children, and the 90 or more native people could not possibly have seen. seen Boston coming 10 years later. So the population in Plymouth Colony in 1629 is just 300 people. There's not a lot of pressure. There's not a lot of difference punctuated in the use of land. But in 1630, Boston and Massachusetts Bay starts. And within 12 years, by 1642, it is estimated there are 18,000 to 244, 5,000 English men, women, and children now add to it all of the differing types of cattle and pigs that are adding land stresses on Wampanog people. So I often say a wedding ceremony

could have been absolutely beautiful. That moment isn't harmed by the fact that years later that marriage might dissolve. But what happens over time is that with population growth, land, greed, the relationship changes, and by 1675 it devolves into violence because the children and grandchildren of those first-comers were not as accomplished in diplomacy. And because their numbers had grown, they needed indigenous resources if they were to survive. And so that's where you see a breakdown decades later. Now, what was the social dynamic between the various tribes like prior to the arrival of the pilgrims in New England. What political context were they walking into? The English arrive at a moment when everything is chaotic because in 1616, so four years prior to Mayflower's

arrival, a European epidemic had started somewhere around what is currently Portland, Maine. and within months it had spread all along the New England coast to what is now the contemporary border between Massachusetts and the state of Rhode Island. So in the course of 16 to 24 months, in some places in Indigenous New England, 70 to 90 percent of the population was lost rapidly. this is the equivalent of the black death in Europe in 1348. The infection stops at that contemporary Massachusetts-Rud Island border because the infection was moving along trade networks between different native peoples. It stopped on the Narragansett territory

because the Poccanocet and the Narragansett had had three generations of animus between them. So being outside of that trade network, the Narragansett were protected. What that meant was that the Narragansets had thousands of men they could muster against the people surrounding them, and Massasoit's people were now reduced to a tributary tribe. And he was looking at the English as a way of escaping that tributary status and getting his people's power back. We often hear about new settlers bringing disease. Was that an issue for natives encountering the pilgrims?

Mayflower did not carry any infection. It was all prior to their arrival in what had been brought unintentionally by English fur traders and fishermen. But at the time of Mayflower coming into Montpennag territory, the infection was already passed and the different satem ships or communities were trying to rebuild themselves and regain their strength. When did the disputes over land and disputes over resources really begin in earnest? You described a pretty long period between about 1620 and 1675. What led to the breakdown of peace? There are skirmishes across time, but not large ones. For the most part, between the postings. The postings, the postage,

Okanaket and the English, up until the horror of King Phillips War, there is peace. What you find is that the first generation of men, like Miles Standish, William Bradford, William Brewster, they are all very concerned that young people want more land than they need. And so the first generation of leaders is trying to keep people together as much as possible, so that communities and churches will be protected and encouraged, but their sons and their grandsons want a lot more land.

The English of the first generation are coming from a landscape where you don't need a great deal of land to feed yourself. They're accustomed to smaller farms. Their sons and their grandsons only see through what their eyes looks like a vast and empty place to fill.

And so with the death of the first generation between 1655 and 1657, key leaders are lost very quickly and the young men begin grabbing land. And so after 1660, you see increasing pressures on Wampanag people to sell land. You see them increasingly encircled by English settlement in the western parts of Plymouth's territory.

So it does come with the second generation. You mentioned something kind of interesting there. It sounds like there were concerns about large plots of land that people were gobbling up and that the elders were concerned that these large farms would undermine the church. Exactly. That what the first generation valued

was face-to-face community, living within convenient transportation to Sabbath worship. Because as Reformed Christians, although not all of those within the colony were members of the different congregations, they did worship together. And they were very watchful of one another's behavior to keep each other falling into sin. And when you spread out on the land, that kind of Christian discipline, becomes very difficult. But you do see within the second generation,

there is less education. Those that came over on Mayflower, William Brewster had been at Queen Elizabeth's court as a secretary to one of her secretaries of state for three years. He had attended Cambridge University. There were men who had been to grammar school. and a grammar school education in this period, you are walking away from school speaking Latin like a scholar.

But the second generation being in New England, they don't have that access to a sophisticated ministry and education. So they are less adept and less cosmopolitan than their fathers were. So what were those first interactions between pilgrims and natives like? in March of 1621, when Massasoit comes to Plymouth for the first time, the English have been in New England for five months before they have any conversation with Wampanog, Poccanocket people. Massasoit appears on the other side of the brook near Plymouth with 60 men. He crosses over, and they spend hours together crafting a mutual alliance of five points. There's a second visit in which Massasoit says to Governor Carver later that night, oh, our wives and our women are in the woods, and we are going to be

back in eight or nine days to plant on the other side of the brook. Because there's only the written record, people thought, oh, this is just the pilgrims doing some really good marketing. about their relationship with Pocconoket and Wampanog people. Archaeology that the museum has done with the University of Massachusetts, Boston, over the last 12 years, has shown exactly what is reported in the pamphlet-Mort's relation happened. So again, this is an opportunity to reimagine that first year. Traditionally, we're told Tisquantam taught the English how to plant corn, beans, and squash. True, but in this time, plants for Wampanog people are gendered.

Men do not touch corn, women do not touch tobacco. So now the archaeology is showing that in the earliest years of Plymouth, there is this Pocanacet-Wampanag presence, just 12 feet away from them. Who is actually teaching them how to plant and then process a grain they have never seen before? The Wampanog women on the other side of the brook. Because there is only one person aboard Mayflower who would have seen corn, and that was Stephen Hopkins, who was in Virginia prior to crossing the Atlantic yet again to come to New England. So this is where women's history is present in ways that until recently none of us knew about.

So it's transforming the story in that Tisquantam is not showing them how to plant corn. He is translating what the women are doing. And then over the course of the year, the Wampanog are willing to show these people a grain they've never used before, how to dry it, how to store it, ways of cooking. So native people ensure Plymouth's success the second winter. Without that relationship in the first year, and again, this is an expression of the diplomacy and of living face to face

and seeing the other as that person on the other side of the brook, that it is the second year and the survival of the colony is ensured by that, willingness to share agricultural technology. And how were they able to communicate? Was Massasoit fluent or at least partially fluent in English? No, he had to rely on translators. Dutch, English, French traders and fishermen had been coming to New England for a hundred

years prior to Mayflower. They just didn't stay. They were there in the spring, drying their fish, getting their furs, and going back to England and Europe by the month of August. Some learned to speak English so they could trade more effectively with these foreigners. We also know some of the native people spoke French when Mayflower arrived. The translator who is most known to most Americans is to Squantum or Squanto. And the reason that he could speak English, he was stolen in 1614.

Captain John Smith brought a small flotilla of three ships to New England to map the New England coast. He charted it. He returned to England, leaving the two junior officers with their ships in New England. And unknown to Smith, Captain Thomas Hunt began stealing Wampanog men. And he stole 27 from the islands of Martha's Vineyard, Nantucket, and coastal Massachusetts, one of them was Squanto. He's taken to Spain. When they arrive in Spain, Hunt is thinking he can sell these men,

and slavery laws in Spain have just changed, keeping indigenous people from perpetual servitude. It seems as if there's some English traders in Malaga, Spain at this time, the next time to Squantum appears in the historical record he's living in London. and he is in London for four years before he sent back to his homeland as a translator for Captain Dermer. Now, before you go, what are some myths about Thanksgiving that you'd like to settle the record on? Well, I think right now just where we are culturally as a nation, we're so uncivil and distrustful of each other, that in many ways we're enacting the very thing that's so worried, non-apposhaum, about our understanding.

of that 1621 harvest feast, where there is, in some circles, this sense of the English invited Wampanog people to harm them. And this is utterly false because they were not the stronger of the parties here. They were the weaker of the parties. At any moment, had it been in Massasoit's interest or those of his particular allies to drive these strangers off. their land, they would have done it. And so we need to see that 1621 harvest feast, remember that Poccanocca people, indigenous people at this period in New England are pre-literate. They have different memory devices for holding on to their history, whether it's digging holes along trails and the hole becomes an indicator of something important happened here or a pile of stones.

And with oral tradition, they know what happened at that hole or this particular pile of stones. And some of the pilgrims men who were sent out as diplomats to different communities said, walking a trail with our native guides was like storytelling after storytelling. So there is no way of a native person checking what's in the written treaty that has been devised in March of 1621. Native people affirm and reaffirm treaties on a face-to-face daily basis. So in that fall, when they are all gathering, we have to harken back to what happened in the spring in March. they're all getting together in the fall as an affirmation by being together of the mutual alliance they devised. All right. Well, Richard, this has been really interesting. Thank you so much for coming on.

My pleasure. Thank you so much and happy Thanksgiving. That was Richard Pickering, Deputy Director and Senior Historian at Plymouth Plantation. And this has been a special Thanksgiving episode of Morning Wire. And because I know my dad is probably sitting on the edge of his seat during the time, this interview. I want to note that I'm a proud descendant of Mayflower Travelers, Priscilla Mullins and John Alden. If you'd like to hear this podcast ad-free, become a Daily Wire Plus member. Annual memberships are currently being offered at 50% off. It's the best deal of the year. That gives you ad-free access not only to this show, but all of DailyWire's popular podcasts,

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