What was the real story of the Pilgrims and the first Thanksgiving?

It’s important to know the Puritans weren’t the first Europeans to celebrate Thanksgiving in the New World.

The first Thanksgiving took place in May of 1541 not that far from here at Palo Duro Canyon. It took place with Spanish explorer Francisco Vasquez de Coronado who had marched north from Mexico City looking for the Seven cities of Gold.

The Thanksgiving we talk about most took place in 1620, 79 years after Coronado’s reverent celebration in the middle of America.

It’s important to remember why the Puritans wanted to come to America. England had one church, and that was the church of England. It looked very much like Catholicism with there being only one real difference, instead of answering to the Pope it answers to the King or Queen of England, and just below that the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Other than that, it was Catholic and very ritualistic.

The Puritans were the Protestants of their day, believing in the direct relationship between God and the individual, and so they wanted to “purify” the church from the rituals of Catholicism and the Church of England.

Which was illegal in England.

And so, they saw an opportunity to come to the New World where such laws didn’t exist, and religious freedom would allow them to worship without the rituals of the state church.

In essence, The Pilgrims as they became known were the result of a church split from the Church of England. When the English church started to crack down on separatists in 1608, these people headed to Amsterdam Netherlands to escape persecution.

When they were told of a chance to leave Europe and go to the New World, to America, the jumped at the chance. In America they could be free to establish their own method of worship free from the constraints of the English church.

And so about 40 Pilgrims along with 62 others jumped on board the Mayflower in 1620, and headed to America.

They weren’t necessarily heading for the Cape Cod area. They were supposed to go further south.

But instead of landing near Hudson Bay, they ended up further north. In late November.

They were living in close quarters on the ship, and they only left the Mayflower to start working on their new community. But disease struck, and of the 102 settlers, only 50 survived the first winter.

Food was running out, and William Bradford recorded that “… being infected with the scurvy and other diseases… there died sometimes two or three of a day, in the aforesaid time, that of one hundred and odd persons, scarce fifty remained.”

Many of the women died, and of those who survived 22 were men, five were married women, and 23 were children nd teenagers.

By the time spring came, there was little to be thankful for. With so many dead and do few remaining, it appeared the whole effort was in vain.

This was the low point at the time.

Those who survived persevered. They continued to build their settlement, and with the help of local tribes they were able to plant crops and learned how to hunt local game.

At one point they faced starvation, but the crops started to produce, fishing helped provide sustenance, and hunting led to food being added to the storehouse.

By the end of the harvest season in November 1621, the Pilgrims and the Natives came together and shared a feast. They may have had turkey, but the main course was deer. Five of them. Some wildfowl, cod and bass, and a native variety of corn that was turned into bread and porridge. There were also chestnuts, cranberries and other native plants that the Pilgrims were learning how to use as a food source.

The natives outnumbered the Pilgrims two to one at the feast of about 150.

And so again we may think this is the success, this is the end of the story.

Sadly, no.

More ships with settlers arrived, and while that may have added human resources, they came empty handed.

And the original Pilgrims first attempted a social lifestyle at Plymouth Bay Colony. They shared in the farming duties and shared the food equally.

With additional mouths to feed the system soon proved to be ineffective. Some worked while others saw no gain in it.

And by the winter of 1622, starvation was setting in.

Rations were reduced to five kernels of corn per person.

The system of communal farming had failed, so Governor Bradford instituted a new system that would become the foundation of American society to this day.

Each person was given a plot of land, and they were required to grow what was needed to be sent back to the Virginia Company, but the rest was their own to use for themselves or to sell.

By rewarding each person for their own labor, the crops flourished. The colony paid back the investors who subsidized the journey, and the Pilgrims sold additional crops for profit.

Two years after that first Thanksgiving, Governor Bradford officially established Thanksgiving in the colony to be an annual event.

It’s important to remember the struggle of the Pilgrims along with the blessings.

What do we give thanks for?

Only for what we have?

We should be thankful for what we have.

But in times of struggle we should also be thankful. In the good and the bad. The fat and the lean.

Our nation flourished from the sacrifices made by these Pilgrims because through all the trials they were focused on faith. Through all the challenges they worshiped the Lord.

And they did it without an archbishop or a King.

They were still Englishman, but that was secondary to being Christian.

The traditions they established became the cornerstone to American democracy.

Thanksgiving is not something we give only when times are good. It’s to recognize that no matter our circumstances that we are thankful for the gift of salvation. Whether one dies or lives we give thanks. Whether one prospers or struggles we give thanks.

We give thanks not that we may live to see another day. We give thanks for the days we’ve already seen. We give thanks for the meals we’ve already had. We give thanks when the church is filled, and we give thanks when it seems empty. 

The beacon of light the Pilgrims provided wasn’t that they came to the New World and flourished but that they came to the New World and suffered and struggled and many died and yet persevered and never abandoned the faith.

Let us all be so dedicated. Let us all be so thankful.