Debunking Popular Myths about the First Thanksgiving

Most people think that they know the story of the first Thanksgiving. The truth, though, is that much of the traditional narrative that we have all been taught about the so-called “first Thanksgiving” is historically inaccurate. Here, in this article, I debunk a few of the most popular misconceptions about the so-called “first Thanksgiving,” including when it was held, why it was held, and who was present at it.

Misconception #1: The first Thanksgiving dinner in North America was held by the Pilgrims in Massachusetts in 1621.

This is completely false. First of all, the feast held by the Pilgrims and their Wampanoag allies in 1621 was not, strictly speaking, a “thanksgiving dinner,” but rather a harvest dinner. None of the extant sources describing the event refer to the feast as a “thanksgiving dinner,” nor do they mention anything about it having been held with the specific intention to give thanks. Instead, the feast is described as a celebration of the bountiful harvest.

You could argue that the feast was probably at least partly intended as a time to give thanks, since the Pilgrims were such a deeply religious people who gave thanks for everything. That is probably at least partly true. Nonetheless, for the Pilgrims, a “thanksgiving” was a solemn, religious event that was supposed to take place in church and that did not involve feasting. Therefore, by their own definition, the so-called “first Thanksgiving” was not even a thanksgiving at all.

Second of all, there had been previous thanksgiving celebrations held in North America on various occasions long before the Pilgrims ever arrived in Massachusetts. For instance, a thanksgiving celebration was held by the English settlers in Jamestown, Virginia in 1610. The earliest recorded thanksgiving celebration known to have been held in the territory that is now the United States was held by a group of Spanish explorers led by the conquistador Pedro Menéndez de Avilés (lived 1519 – 1574) on 8 September 1565 in St. Augustine, Florida.

ABOVE: Portrait of the Spanish explorer and conquistador Pedro Menéndez de Avilés, whose men celebrated the earliest known thanksgiving to have been held in the land that is now the United States in 1565

Misconception #2: The Pilgrims were Puritans.

Although the Pilgrims are often confused with the Puritans, the two groups are, in fact, different. Both the Pilgrims and the Puritans were strict Calvinists who regarded the Church of England as corrupt. The Puritans, however, wished to remain a part of the Church of England and to “purify” it; whereas the Pilgrims were Separatists, meaning they desired to break away from the Church of England altogether. In other words, the Pilgrims were not Puritans, but they were very similar to the Puritans. All in all, it is understandable why many people tend to get the two groups confused.

By the way, while we are talking about Puritans, neither the Puritans nor the Pilgrims were anywhere near as stern and hateful towards all things fun as they are often portrayed. Primary sources written by actual Puritans clearly show that they enjoyed alcohol, food, sex, and idle chit-chat just as much as anyone else of their era. They even regarded sex between a husband and his wife as a holy act, sanctified by God.

The Puritans were stereotyped as dour and fun-hating to an extent even in their own time, with the character of Malvolio in William Shakespeare’s comedy The Twelfth Night, written in around 1601 or 1602, being a notable example of just such a Puritan caricature. Nonetheless, it is largely the later eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth-century Protestant fundamentalists who have given the Puritans of the seventeenth century such a bad name. They were the ones who hated all alcohol, food, sex, idle chit-chat, and so forth, so their ironically less puritanical Puritan ancestors were given the blame.

Misconception #3: The Pilgrims came to North America solely because they wanted religious freedom.

The Pilgrims are usually painted as the first true Americans who came to the New World in search of religious freedom. The reality, however, is far more complicated. A desire for religious freedom was certainly the main reason why the Pilgrims chose to flee England in the first place. The Pilgrims, however, did not travel straight from England to North America without going anywhere else first; they actually stayed in the city of Leiden in the Netherlands from around 1606 or 1607 until 1617.

In Leiden, the Pilgrims were free to practice their religion as they pleased. In other words, they already had religious freedom before they ever set out for the New World. The problem was that the Pilgrims feared that, if they stayed in Leiden, they would lose their English identity, since their children were growing up surrounded by Dutch culture. The Pilgrims regarded Dutch culture as decadent, libertine, and overall a bad influence. Meanwhile, many Pilgrims were struggling economically and were in desperate need of more economic opportunities. There was also a prevailing belief that there was little the Pilgrims could do in Leiden to benefit the larger community.

Ultimately, many Pilgrims eventually resolved to travel to North America, not because they wanted religious freedom, but rather because they hoped that, in the New World, they would be able to preserve their English culture and to find more economic opportunities.

ABOVE: The Embarkment of the Pilgrims, painted in 1857 by the American Realist painter Robert Walter Weir

Misconception #4: The Pilgrims first came ashore on Plymouth Rock.

None of the primary sources written by the Pilgrims themselves ever mention anything at all about Plymouth Rock. In fact, the idea that the Pilgrims came ashore on Plymouth Rock seems to have arisen in 1741—over a century after the Pilgrims’ first landing at Plymouth—when there were plans to build a wharf that would cover the rock. A ninety-four-year-old elder named Thomas Fauce requested to be brought to the rock so he could say farewell, insisting that that very rock had been the place where the Pilgrims had first come ashore.

Thomas Fauce, though, was born in 1647, over two decades after the Pilgrims came ashore, meaning he was not actually there when it happened. It is possible that Fauce simply made the whole story up, since there are no sources prior to 1741 that claim Plymouth Rock as the site of the Pilgrims’ first landing. It is also entirely possible that Fauce may have simply been misinformed; at the very best, Faunce can only have heard the story of the Pilgrims coming ashore at Plymouth second-hand more than two decades after it actually happened. That is hardly the kind of sourcing that bodes well for accuracy when it comes to specific details like the exact site where the Pilgrims came ashore.

In any case, many historians argue that the Pilgrims probably did not come ashore at Plymouth Rock because it would have made for an extraordinarily impractical landing site. Even if the Pilgrims did come ashore somewhere near Plymouth Rock, the exact site is hardly of much significance, since Plymouth was not even the first place the Pilgrims landed. The first place they landed was actually Provincetown at the end of Cape Cod. They landed there about a month before they landed at Plymouth, but they did not stay there.

ABOVE: Photograph of Plymouth Rock, inscribed with the date 1620, the year the Pilgrims arrived at Plymouth. The Pilgrims probably did not come ashore on Plymouth Rock, however.

Misconception #5: The Wampanoag decided to help the Pilgrims purely out of the goodness of their hearts.

There is a dark side to why the Wampanoag and Pilgrims formed an alliance that most of us were never taught. The real reason why the Wampanoag decided to form an alliance with the Pilgrims was not because they cared about the Pilgrims, but rather because they wanted guns and military aid from them that would aid them in fighting their enemies, the other native tribes that inhabited the region.

One of the conditions that the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag agreed to when they made their treaty was that they would each come to the other’s aid in time of war. Before the so-called “first Thanksgiving” even happened, the Pilgrims were already called upon to fight the other tribes in the region to aid their Wampanoag allies. In other words, the story of the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag is not one of pure altruism and peaceful cooperation, but rather one of martial alliance.

Misconception #6: The Pilgrims and the Wampanoag definitely ate turkey during their feast in 1621.

Actually, we cannot be completely certain that the Pilgrims ate turkey at their feast in 1621. Our only sources of information about the feast itself are a journal entry from Mourt’s Relation written by Edward Winslow in late November or early December 1621 and a single passage from William Bradford’s chronicle Of Plymouth Plantation, which was written between 1630 and 1651. Although both accounts do mention a few of the foods that were served at the feast, the exact details concerning specific dishes that were served are rather spotty.

We do know that the Pilgrims did eat some kind of wild poultry because Edward Winslow mentions in Mourt’s Relation that several Pilgrims went out on a “fowling” trip before the feast. Nonetheless, we do not know what kind of “fowl” those Pilgrims caught. In Early Modern English, the word fowl simply meant “bird,” so the Pilgrims could have served just about any kind of bird native to New England at their feast.

William Bradford’s account of the so-called “first Thanksgiving” in Of Plymouth Plantation does explicitly state that “wild turkeys” were served at the feast. Bradford, however, unlike Winslow, was writing his account of the feast many years afterwards and it is unlikely that he would be able to remember every dish on the menu with any degree of accuracy. The Pilgrims, therefore, may have had turkey, but, ultimately, we have no way of knowing for sure.

We do know for certain that the Pilgrims did not eat pumpkin pie, mashed potatoes, or cranberry sauce at their feast in 1621, since none of these foods had been introduced to New England yet at that time.

ABOVE: Photograph of a Thanksgiving turkey, from Wikimedia Commons

Misconception #7: The Pilgrims and the Wampanoag held their feast on the fourth Thursday in November.

The Pilgrims probably actually held their feast sometime between late September and early November, at the end of the harvest season. There are no known surviving accounts that specifically mention the exact date on which the feast was held. Furthermore, the Pilgrims’ feast actually lasted for three whole days, meaning that it did not just take place on only one day of the week.

Misconception #8: The Pilgrims wore tall, black hats with buckles, black and white clothes, belt buckles, and black shoes with buckles.

Today, we all have a very iconic image in mind of what the Pilgrims looked like. Unfortunately for fans of the traditional “Pilgrim look,” our modern image of what the Pilgrims looked like is probably deeply historically inaccurate. We have a fairly good impression of how the Pilgrims really dressed because it was common for people to leave articles of clothing to their descendants in their wills. Because it was necessary for the person executing the will to be able to recognize the articles of clothing being described, these wills often included brief descriptions of the articles of clothing.

In reality, the Pilgrims most likely would have worn baggy, brightly-colored outfits made from cheap fabric. Most of them probably did not wear any sort of buckles because buckles were very expensive and very few of the Pilgrims would have been able to afford them. Instead, most Pilgrims would have used inexpensive leather laces to hold their pants up and tie their shoes. They did not wear hats with buckles on them.

Now, you may be wondering, “If that is how the Pilgrims really dressed, then where on Earth did we get the impression of them dressed in black outfits with all the funny buckles?” Well, our modern image of what a “pilgrim outfit” is supposed to look like is heavily inspired by the way the Puritans back in England dressed when they sat for portraits.

Later painters saw these portraits and mistakenly assumed that those were the style of clothes that the Pilgrims in America would have worn on everyday occasions. They painted paintings of the Pilgrims’ feast depicting the Pilgrims wearing this style of clothing. As time passed, the image of the Pilgrims dressed in this distinctive style became so firmly entrenched that people could no longer imagine the Pilgrims having dressed in any other way.

ABOVE: Photograph of the sculpture The Puritan, created in 1887 by the sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens. Most of the Pilgrim colonists at Plymouth probably did not dress like this.

Misconception #9: The Wampanoag wore loincloths to the feast.

The Wampanoag people at the first Thanksgiving are often represented as wearing only loincloths. This portrayal is in line with Edward Winslow’s description of their attire in Mourt’s Relation, in which he states, “The men and women go naked, only a skin about their middles.” Winslow, however, surely must have been only describing the clothes the Wampanoag wore during the summer, since Massachusetts is very cold in the late fall, winter, and early spring and loincloths are not appropriate attire for such cold weather.

The so-called “first Thanksgiving” took place in Plymouth, Massachusetts at some point between late September and early November. The average low temperature for Plymouth, Massachusetts today during the month of September is 53.5°F (11.9°C). During the month of November, the average low is 34.6°F (1.4°C). Considering that the so-called “first Thanksgiving” took place in 1621, in the midst of the so-called “Little Ice Age”—a period when global temperatures were relatively cool—loincloths probably would not have been weather-appropriate attire.

It is highly probable that the Wampanoag people present at the feast in autumn 1621 would have been wearing much heavier clothing than just loincloths. The main reason why the Wampanoag are so often depicted wearing loincloths to the first Thanksgiving is probably because it has become customary to portray native Americans in general as “savages” who wore nothing but loincloths all year round.

ABOVE: Fictional illustration of Tisquantum from 1911. The Wampanoag may have dressed like this in the summer months, but they probably did not wear loincloths to the first Thanksgiving.

Misconception #10: The holiday of Thanksgiving has been celebrated every year since 1621.

Many people assume that Thanksgiving has been celebrated continuously every year ever since 1621. In reality, although the Pilgrims and their descendants did celebrate specific occasions of thanksgiving, they had no concept of “Thanksgiving” as an annual holiday. The feast held by the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag in 1621 was seen as a one-time event. It did not mark the beginning of a continuous tradition of celebrating Thanksgiving every year.

President Abraham Lincoln declared Thanksgiving a national holiday in 1863 after receiving a letter written by the American author Sarah Josepha Hale (lived 1788 – 1879), advocating for the creation of a national Thanksgiving holiday. Sarah Josepha Hale is also famous for having written the beloved nursery rhyme “Mary Had a Little Lamb.”

In creating the national holiday of Thanksgiving, Abraham Lincoln was intentionally trying to establish a new American tradition—a tradition which he hoped would aid in bringing the North and the South back together once the Civil War was finally over. In other words, the modern annual national holiday of Thanksgiving as we know it is far more a product of the Civil War Era than a product of the Pilgrim Era.

ABOVE: Portrait of American writer Sarah Josepha Hale, painted in 1831 by James Reid Lambdin

Misconception #11: The feast in 1621 was the beginning of a long-lasting friendly relationship between English settlers and native Americans.

Sadly, the holiday of Thanksgiving has a dark, tragic history behind it that many people are not aware of. Many people imagine that the descendants of the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag continued to live in peace and harmony for generations afterwards. In truth, within less than a century after the so-called “first Thanksgiving,” the settlers had virtually annihilated the Wampanoag from Massachusetts.

Ousamequin, the sachem of the Wampanoag people at the time when the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag formed their alliance, assiduously maintained peace between his own people and the English settlers of the Massachusetts Colony. Ousamequin died in 1661, however, and, almost immediately after his death, the already fragile peace between the Wampanoag people and the Massachusetts settlers began to crumble.

In 1675, the violent conflict known as Metacom’s War, also known as “King Philip’s War,” broke out. On one side was a coalition of the Wampanoag and their native allies, who were led by Ousamequin’s own son Metacom (lived 1638 – 1676). On the other side were the English settlers. Metacom’s War quickly turned into what may have been the bloodiest war in all of colonial American history.

Over the course of the war, Metacom and his allies attacked roughly half the English settlements in the region and killed roughly one tenth of all male English settlers of fighting age in Massachusetts. The native Americans, however, suffered even worse devastation. By the end of the war in 1678, the English colonists had almost completely extirpated Wampanoag people living in Massachusetts. Even worse, the English enslaved many of the Wampanoag who survived the war and shipped them to Bermuda.

For many Indigenous people who are alive today, Thanksgiving is a grim reminder of the beginning of the brutal genocide that white colonizers perpetrated against their ancestors. This tragic truth has often gone ignored. This Thanksgiving, be sure to reverently remember the countless Indigenous peoples whom the white settlers brutally massacred.

ABOVE: Fictional illustration of Metacom, who was also known by the English name “King Philip,” drawn in 1772. Metacom led a coalition of native peoples in a bloody war against the English colonists. The war resulted in the Wampanoag being virtually annihilated by the European settlers.