Thanksgiving is a key national holiday and important moment in the year for all Americans to
give thanks….a 2003
article explores the largely unknown history:
"MOST AMERICANS KNOW the story of the
First Thanksgiving. The Pilgrims, who had been persecuted in England and were
unhappy in Holland, sailed to the New World and established a colony in
Plymouth, Massachusetts. With the assistance of local Native Americans, the
Pilgrims hunted turkeys and planted corn. When their crops were harvested, they
celebrated the First Thanksgiving, and Americans have been commemorating the
day ever since. . . . While this may be the common understanding today, no one
would be more surprised at these modern-day beliefs than the Pilgrims
themselves. . . ."
Andrew
F. Smith, The First Thanksgiving, 3 Gastronomica
no. 3 at 79 (2003).
In
this excellent article, the author shows that the Puritans had numerous days of
thanksgiving and did not remember any special "First" one. The reason
we have Thanksgiving today is because Sarah Josepha Hale devoted an entire
chapter to a "thanksgiving feast" in her 1827 novel, Northwood: or a Tale of New England. She
wrote:
"The roasted turkey took precedence on
this occasion, being placed at the head of the table; and well did it become
its lordly station, sending forth the rich odour of its savoury stuffing, and
finely covered with the froth of the basting. At the foot of the board a
sirloin of beef, flanked on either side by a leg of pork and loin of mutton,
seemed placed as a bastion to defend innumerable bowls of gravy and plates of
vegetables disposed in that quarter. A goose and pair of ducklings occupied
side stations on the table, the middle being graced, as it always is on such
occasions, by that rich burgomaster of the provisions, called a chicken pie.
This pic, which is wholly formed of the choicest parts of fowls, enriched and
seasoned with a profusion of butter and pepper, and covered with an excellent
puff paste, is, like the celebrated pumpkin pie, an indispensable part of a
good and true Yankee Thanksgiving; the size of the pie usually denoting the
gratitude of the party who prepares the feast. . . . Plates of pickles,
preserves, and butter, and all the necessaries for increasing the seasoning of
the viands to the demand of each palate, filled the interstices on the table,
leaving hardly sufficient room for the plates of the company, a wine glass and
two tumblers for each, with a slice of wheat bread lying on one of the inverted
tumblers. A side table was literally loaded with the preparations for the
second course, placed there to obviate the necessity of leaving the apartment
during the repast. Mr. Romelee keeping no domestic, the family were to wait on
themselves, or each other. There was a huge plum pudding, custards and pies of
every name and description ever known in Yankee land; yet the pumpkin pie
occupied the most distinguished niche. There were also several kinds of rich
cake, and a variety of sweetmeats and fruits. On the sideboard was ranged a
goodly number of decanters and bottles; the former filled with currant wine,
and the latter with excellent cider and ginger beer —a beverage Mrs. Romelee
prided herself on preparing in perfection. There were no foreign wines or
ardent spirits, Squire Romelee being a consistent moralist."
That
sounds familiar 180 years later, doesn’t it!
After
Hale became editor of the Godey's Lady
Book magazine, in 1846, she launched a campaign lobbying Congress to
create a Thanksgiving as a national holiday. Once the Civil War began, she
urged President Lincoln directly. And after the Union victories at Vicksburg
and Gettysburg in 1863, Lincoln declared the third Thursday of November to be
the national Thanksgiving Day.
But
not until 1865 did Hale associate the Pilgrims with Thanksgiving, and when she
did so, many writers of fiction picked up that notion and ran with it. Andrew
Smith then tells the rest of the story:
"The reasons for the rapid adoption of
the First Thanksgiving myth had less to do with historical fact and more with
the arrival of hundreds of thousands of immigrants to the United States.
Previous immigrants had come mainly from the United Kingdom and Ireland, with a
smattering from other western and northern European nations. In the 1880s this
immigration pattern changed as southern and eastern Europeans flooded into the
United States. The pace of immigration exploded in 1990, when nine million
people arrived in American cities. As these immigrants came from many lands,
the American public-education system's major task was to create a common
American heritage, an easily understood history of America. The mythical
Pilgrims were an ideal symbol for America's beginning, and so they became
embedded in the nation's schools, as did their mythical First Thanksgiving
feast.
"The Pilgrims and their proverbial
First Thanksgiving are origin myths, tracing America to its beginnings. That
Jamestown has a better historical claim is complicated by the fact that
American slavery began at Jamestown, which made it unacceptable as the starting
point for the nation. Since the origin myths did not become prominent until
after the Civil War, the South was in no position to challenge the primacy of
the mythical Pilgrims idealized by New Englanders. As a result, many
southerners refused to celebrate Thanksgiving Day until long after the Civil
War had ended.
"Although historians have long since
debunked the myths surrounding the Pilgrims and the First Thanksgiving,
illustrators, filmmakers, and television producers continue to generate new
Thanksgiving images, and immigrant groups add new ingredients to the
Thanksgiving table. Advocates for the poor and homeless gain visibility by
serving dinner to the needy on Thanksgiving Day. Meanwhile, Native Americans
have proclaimed Thanksgiving a national day of mourning, and vegetarians
campaign against the consumption of turkey and other meats at Thanksgiving
dinner. Yet despite these strong and varied responses, the First Thanksgiving
myth has not faded, for it remains a basic building block of America's national
identity."
Enjoy
Thanksgiving with family and friends!
-Josiah
