What Really Happened at the First Thanksgiving? The Wampanoag Side of the Tale

The First Thanksgiving was a fact finding party

When you hear about the Pilgrims and “the Indians” harmoniously sharing the “first Thanksgiving” meal in 1621, the Indians referred to so generically are the ancestors of the contemporary members of the Wampanoag Nation. As the story commonly goes, the Pilgrims who sailed from England on the Mayflower and landed at what became Plymouth, Massachusetts, in 1620 had a good harvest the next year. So Plymouth Gov. William Bradford organized a feast to celebrate the harvest and invited a group of “Native American allies, including the Wampanoag chief Massasoit” to the party. The feast lasted three days and, according to chronicler Edward Winslow, Bradford sent four men on a “fowling mission” to prepare for the feast and the Wampanoag guests brought five deer to the party. And ever since then, the story goes, Americans have celebrated Thanksgiving on the fourth Thursday of November. Not exactly, Ramona Peters, the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe’s Tribal Historic Preservation Officer told Indian Country Today Media Network in a conversation on the day before Thanksgiving 2012—391 years since that mythological “first Thanksgiving.”

For Thanksgiving this year ICTMN spoke to the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe’s Tribal Historic Preservation Officer to get a better understanding of what really happened 401 years ago at the first Thanksgiving, and what Wampanoags do today.

The post What Really Happened at the First Thanksgiving? The Wampanoag Side of the Tale appeared first on Indian Country Media Network.

Read the full article at: https://indiancountrymedianetwork.com/history/events/what-really-happened-at-the-first-thanksgiving-the-wampanoag-side-of-the-tale/

 

 

 

Read the full article at: https://indiancountrymedianetwork.com/history/events/what-really-happened-at-the-first-thanksgiving-the-wampanoag-side-of-the-tale/