1
00:00:00,560 --> 00:00:03,760
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class from how

2
00:00:03,800 --> 00:00:13,920
Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.

3
00:00:14,080 --> 00:00:16,960
Speaker 1: I'm Katie Lambert and I'm Sarah Dowdy. And if you're

4
00:00:17,000 --> 00:00:20,400
Speaker 1: in the United States, you're getting ready to celebrate Thanksgiving.

5
00:00:20,920 --> 00:00:22,840
Speaker 1: I'm really excited about all the eating, I'm not going

6
00:00:22,880 --> 00:00:25,840
Speaker 1: to lie and the two days off work. Right. Um,

7
00:00:25,840 --> 00:00:28,400
Speaker 1: But when you were in elementary school, you probably learned

8
00:00:28,480 --> 00:00:32,720
Speaker 1: a pretty picturesque story about the first Thanksgiving. You might

9
00:00:32,760 --> 00:00:35,800
Speaker 1: have even dressed up as a pilgrim or a Native American,

10
00:00:36,200 --> 00:00:39,199
Speaker 1: put some buckles on your shoes or a feather in

11
00:00:39,240 --> 00:00:44,760
Speaker 1: your cap, and celebrated a big feast with your class. Actually,

12
00:00:44,760 --> 00:00:47,360
Speaker 1: I've got to go off on a brief family tangent there.

13
00:00:47,479 --> 00:00:52,000
Speaker 1: My eight year old brother Stephen, learned about Thanksgiving last year,

14
00:00:52,040 --> 00:00:54,080
Speaker 1: you know, in his class, and he came home with

15
00:00:54,440 --> 00:00:57,920
Speaker 1: a very graphic place match that he made for my mother.

16
00:00:58,040 --> 00:01:02,480
Speaker 1: Lucky Mom. That's these Pilgram's violently, you know, shooting all

17
00:01:02,520 --> 00:01:07,880
Speaker 1: these turkeys and there's a lot of blood. Stephen, you

18
00:01:07,920 --> 00:01:10,800
Speaker 1: know how you feel about Thanksgiving, And he gave us

19
00:01:10,840 --> 00:01:14,240
Speaker 1: the whole story, and after that day he's never eaten turkeys.

20
00:01:14,480 --> 00:01:17,720
Speaker 1: So when we give him his dinner at Thanksgiving, we

21
00:01:17,800 --> 00:01:20,120
Speaker 1: just tell him it's chicken, and so far he hasn't

22
00:01:20,120 --> 00:01:22,080
Speaker 1: caught onto the fact that it comes from the same

23
00:01:22,120 --> 00:01:24,600
Speaker 1: plate as the turkey. So, Stephen, if you hear this

24
00:01:24,680 --> 00:01:27,920
Speaker 1: podcast in a few years, I'm really start Well. One

25
00:01:27,920 --> 00:01:32,440
Speaker 1: thing Stephen can be happy about is that the turkey,

26
00:01:32,520 --> 00:01:35,920
Speaker 1: which was the focal point of his drawing, apparently is

27
00:01:36,040 --> 00:01:38,720
Speaker 1: a vital part of this myth. It's not something that's

28
00:01:38,760 --> 00:01:43,600
Speaker 1: made up, so at least that much of this idealized

29
00:01:43,680 --> 00:01:47,560
Speaker 1: Thanksgiving story is true, even though plenty of it is not.

30
00:01:48,080 --> 00:01:51,840
Speaker 1: So let's start with some of the real stories. Background.

31
00:01:52,360 --> 00:01:55,720
Speaker 1: In sixteen o seven, British Protestants break from the Church

32
00:01:55,720 --> 00:01:58,760
Speaker 1: of England and they sail to Holland, where they're a

33
00:01:58,760 --> 00:02:02,360
Speaker 1: little more religiously tall aren't because Spain and the Spanish

34
00:02:02,400 --> 00:02:05,080
Speaker 1: Catholics have been harassing them for so long. And they

35
00:02:05,120 --> 00:02:07,960
Speaker 1: stay there for twelve years until they run out of money,

36
00:02:08,240 --> 00:02:11,560
Speaker 1: and then they get a nice offer from English merchants

37
00:02:11,639 --> 00:02:14,359
Speaker 1: who will give them money to sail to the New

38
00:02:14,400 --> 00:02:20,440
Speaker 1: World and uh settled down start a little town, which

39
00:02:20,480 --> 00:02:23,200
Speaker 1: they do. Of course. They sail on the Mayflower, a

40
00:02:23,240 --> 00:02:26,079
Speaker 1: cargo ship used in the wine trade, and they were

41
00:02:26,120 --> 00:02:28,360
Speaker 1: either a hundred and one or a hundred and two

42
00:02:28,400 --> 00:02:30,560
Speaker 1: of them. We keep finding different numbers. We thought there

43
00:02:30,600 --> 00:02:35,640
Speaker 1: was a baby born. Yeah, we're wondering if Mayflower history.

44
00:02:36,120 --> 00:02:39,320
Speaker 1: But they're aiming for near Virginia, but they end up

45
00:02:39,600 --> 00:02:43,359
Speaker 1: in Cape Cod because of winds. And we were saying,

46
00:02:43,400 --> 00:02:47,960
Speaker 1: what a sad, sad course change that would be if

47
00:02:47,960 --> 00:02:52,200
Speaker 1: you were arriving the winter in New England and half

48
00:02:52,200 --> 00:02:54,960
Speaker 1: of them die in this New England winters. So again

49
00:02:55,040 --> 00:02:58,720
Speaker 1: not a fortuitous change, of course, but the settlers who

50
00:02:58,760 --> 00:03:01,639
Speaker 1: make it through the winter set up a pretty comfortable

51
00:03:01,720 --> 00:03:05,480
Speaker 1: place in the Plymouth Colony, which is in Massachusetts. And

52
00:03:06,280 --> 00:03:12,079
Speaker 1: they're actually not Pilgrims. That's our first point of deep. Yeah,

53
00:03:12,080 --> 00:03:14,800
Speaker 1: I'm going to debunk that they're not Pilgrims because the

54
00:03:14,919 --> 00:03:19,480
Speaker 1: term pilgrim lumps together separatists and non separatists. Um, so

55
00:03:19,520 --> 00:03:21,840
Speaker 1: we're just going to call them settlers if that's okay

56
00:03:21,880 --> 00:03:25,680
Speaker 1: with everybody, and um we can even go further. And

57
00:03:25,800 --> 00:03:29,600
Speaker 1: they call themselves first comers, which is a little misleading

58
00:03:29,639 --> 00:03:31,880
Speaker 1: to that kind of makes it sound like they're the

59
00:03:31,919 --> 00:03:38,360
Speaker 1: first people, uh, first European people settling in what will

60
00:03:38,440 --> 00:03:41,520
Speaker 1: be the United States, and of course they're not. First

61
00:03:41,600 --> 00:03:44,680
Speaker 1: we had the Rowanote colony, and then second we had

62
00:03:44,680 --> 00:03:47,680
Speaker 1: the Jamestown Colony, which Sarah and I discussed in our

63
00:03:47,680 --> 00:03:51,920
Speaker 1: Pocahontat podcast. Yeah, so the first Comers is really just

64
00:03:52,080 --> 00:03:56,160
Speaker 1: marking the beginning of a wave of subsequent settlers arriving

65
00:03:56,160 --> 00:03:59,920
Speaker 1: through the sixteen twenties, and Pleteth is in Okay place

66
00:04:00,040 --> 00:04:02,120
Speaker 1: to live if you're one of the people who makes

67
00:04:02,160 --> 00:04:05,560
Speaker 1: it through the winter, better than very early Jamestown's a

68
00:04:05,600 --> 00:04:09,200
Speaker 1: lot better than Jamestown. They have seven houses, there's a meetinghouse,

69
00:04:09,400 --> 00:04:12,440
Speaker 1: and there are some structures for food and storage, but

70
00:04:12,520 --> 00:04:16,640
Speaker 1: there's still kind of desperate for supplies and they pilfer

71
00:04:16,920 --> 00:04:21,279
Speaker 1: from uh the nearby Native Americans, the Wampanoags, who have

72
00:04:21,440 --> 00:04:23,919
Speaker 1: been in the region for twelve thousand years. So the

73
00:04:23,920 --> 00:04:29,680
Speaker 1: Wampanoags are not particularly impressed with the settlers initially at least,

74
00:04:30,040 --> 00:04:33,560
Speaker 1: but a Wampanoagg named Squanto, who you've probably heard of,

75
00:04:33,680 --> 00:04:36,880
Speaker 1: and an Abenaki named Samoset are very friendly and they

76
00:04:36,920 --> 00:04:40,359
Speaker 1: show the settlers had a harvest corn and fertilized crops

77
00:04:40,720 --> 00:04:43,159
Speaker 1: with fish, which are valuable skills to have in the

78
00:04:43,160 --> 00:04:47,080
Speaker 1: new world, and this starts the beginning of pretty friendly

79
00:04:47,560 --> 00:04:51,039
Speaker 1: relation between the Wampanoag and the settlers. They make an

80
00:04:51,080 --> 00:04:55,800
Speaker 1: alliance by March of sixty one UM, offering each other

81
00:04:55,920 --> 00:04:59,920
Speaker 1: protection from other tribes in the area. The Wampanoagg's teaching

82
00:05:00,120 --> 00:05:04,440
Speaker 1: the settlers fishing, hunting, and farming um tailored to the seasons.

83
00:05:04,560 --> 00:05:06,520
Speaker 1: That was an important thing for them to learn to

84
00:05:07,040 --> 00:05:10,960
Speaker 1: roll with how the the year progressed. And this is

85
00:05:11,360 --> 00:05:13,880
Speaker 1: a nice thing that's in line with the myth, the

86
00:05:13,960 --> 00:05:18,760
Speaker 1: idea that the settlers and the Native Americans could be friends. Yeah,

87
00:05:18,880 --> 00:05:22,359
Speaker 1: it's it's in line with the elementary school story. And

88
00:05:22,360 --> 00:05:25,880
Speaker 1: then it's weirdly out of line with what you're more

89
00:05:25,920 --> 00:05:28,760
Speaker 1: likely to learn in high school or something where the

90
00:05:29,800 --> 00:05:32,680
Speaker 1: you sort of imagine the settlers and the Native Americans

91
00:05:32,880 --> 00:05:38,640
Speaker 1: clashing right from the start until until the end. Basically,

92
00:05:38,839 --> 00:05:41,440
Speaker 1: but for this first generation at least, and we should

93
00:05:41,440 --> 00:05:44,640
Speaker 1: say this just this piece between them does not last long,

94
00:05:45,040 --> 00:05:49,840
Speaker 1: but for a generation it's there. So after a successful

95
00:05:49,960 --> 00:05:53,839
Speaker 1: spring and summer of trying out these new farming techniques

96
00:05:53,839 --> 00:05:56,920
Speaker 1: that they've learned, the settlers decide to have a harvest

97
00:05:56,920 --> 00:06:00,400
Speaker 1: celebration in the fall of sixty one and they're going

98
00:06:00,440 --> 00:06:03,000
Speaker 1: to go out and hunt wild game and make a

99
00:06:03,000 --> 00:06:07,080
Speaker 1: big feast for everyone. But the Wampanoag leader, Massive Slot,

100
00:06:07,880 --> 00:06:12,520
Speaker 1: thinks that the gunfire means war and takes ninety men

101
00:06:13,080 --> 00:06:16,039
Speaker 1: to the settlers to get an explanation. What were you

102
00:06:16,080 --> 00:06:18,159
Speaker 1: doing shooting in the woods the other day? And when

103
00:06:18,160 --> 00:06:20,400
Speaker 1: you have ninety people behind you, there had better be

104
00:06:20,440 --> 00:06:23,960
Speaker 1: a good explanation. And so they say, you know, we're

105
00:06:24,040 --> 00:06:27,560
Speaker 1: hunting for a feast. And then once once they get

106
00:06:27,600 --> 00:06:31,719
Speaker 1: that explanation, the uh Native Americans are like, okay, well

107
00:06:31,960 --> 00:06:33,919
Speaker 1: we'll hunt for a feast two and we'll all have

108
00:06:34,000 --> 00:06:38,239
Speaker 1: one together. So this Thanksgiving meal is a bit different

109
00:06:39,240 --> 00:06:41,320
Speaker 1: from what you and I would have. For one thing,

110
00:06:41,400 --> 00:06:44,360
Speaker 1: it started, it went from about what three days to

111
00:06:44,480 --> 00:06:47,560
Speaker 1: a week? Yeah, different accounts put it between a week

112
00:06:47,600 --> 00:06:50,800
Speaker 1: and three days. And there were ninety Wampanoags and fifty

113
00:06:50,800 --> 00:06:53,760
Speaker 1: three settlers, which even with my huge Catholic family, we

114
00:06:53,800 --> 00:06:57,120
Speaker 1: don't quite measure up. And the food they have is

115
00:06:57,160 --> 00:07:00,960
Speaker 1: also a little different. They had turkey, Indian worn pumpkin,

116
00:07:01,080 --> 00:07:06,719
Speaker 1: which makes sense, does sound pretty standard, chestnuts, eels feels.

117
00:07:07,360 --> 00:07:10,880
Speaker 1: My family does not have eel for Thanksgiving. Most years.

118
00:07:11,120 --> 00:07:16,360
Speaker 1: Mine also doesn't have swans, seals, cranes, eagles, or corn, porridge,

119
00:07:17,520 --> 00:07:25,120
Speaker 1: goose duck. Those those sound okay. Venison, onions, radishes, plums, parsnips, leaks,

120
00:07:25,240 --> 00:07:27,600
Speaker 1: dried currants. It kind of gets good again towards the

121
00:07:27,640 --> 00:07:30,880
Speaker 1: end of that list. There's just an odd interli maybe

122
00:07:30,880 --> 00:07:36,240
Speaker 1: between eel and eagle. But the settlers would have seasoned

123
00:07:36,280 --> 00:07:39,920
Speaker 1: their meat with cinnamon and ginger and nutmeg, sauces and

124
00:07:40,320 --> 00:07:44,160
Speaker 1: pepper and dried fruit, so it sounds kind of tasty.

125
00:07:44,240 --> 00:07:47,120
Speaker 1: It sounds for the most part. And they didn't have forks,

126
00:07:47,200 --> 00:07:50,240
Speaker 1: so this is not quite medieval times because they did

127
00:07:50,360 --> 00:07:53,360
Speaker 1: have spoons and knives and big napkins that they used

128
00:07:53,400 --> 00:07:56,080
Speaker 1: to grab the hot food and they ate whatever was

129
00:07:56,120 --> 00:07:58,720
Speaker 1: in front of them, which there was no passing. Mother

130
00:07:58,920 --> 00:08:01,480
Speaker 1: wouldn't be proud of that. And the highest people, and

131
00:08:01,480 --> 00:08:04,480
Speaker 1: people were highest in the hierarchy, got the best food.

132
00:08:04,560 --> 00:08:06,560
Speaker 1: So maybe if you really liked somebody and you were

133
00:08:06,960 --> 00:08:09,360
Speaker 1: kind of high up, you could send a dish down

134
00:08:09,400 --> 00:08:13,080
Speaker 1: to them, maybe some eel past the eel, please. And

135
00:08:13,120 --> 00:08:16,120
Speaker 1: there was entertainment as well. It wasn't all just gluttony.

136
00:08:16,280 --> 00:08:19,480
Speaker 1: They played blind Man's Bluff and a pin game for

137
00:08:19,520 --> 00:08:22,960
Speaker 1: the kids. There was target shooting for the adults, dancing

138
00:08:23,000 --> 00:08:25,880
Speaker 1: and singing, so altogether it really sounds like a lovely time.

139
00:08:25,920 --> 00:08:28,760
Speaker 1: And the Native Americans probably would have had to establish

140
00:08:28,840 --> 00:08:34,160
Speaker 1: their own lodging too, because they lived a ways outside

141
00:08:34,160 --> 00:08:37,680
Speaker 1: of the settlement. So everyone's just hanging out for days,

142
00:08:37,840 --> 00:08:42,240
Speaker 1: eating and having fun. And some of the illustrious people

143
00:08:42,240 --> 00:08:46,880
Speaker 1: who would have been there were Massa Squat Squanto, Governor

144
00:08:46,880 --> 00:08:50,599
Speaker 1: William Bradford, Captain Miles Standish, and William Brewster, who was

145
00:08:50,640 --> 00:08:53,240
Speaker 1: the religious leader. So there there'd be the guys who

146
00:08:53,240 --> 00:08:55,520
Speaker 1: would get the really good dishes set in front of them.

147
00:08:55,679 --> 00:08:57,760
Speaker 1: And Sarah said this to me earlier, and she's like, oh,

148
00:08:57,800 --> 00:08:59,600
Speaker 1: you know, it's like having a celebrity at dinner, like

149
00:08:59,640 --> 00:09:01,760
Speaker 1: school into and she points and I didn't even think

150
00:09:01,760 --> 00:09:05,160
Speaker 1: about it and just turned around into the other department.

151
00:09:05,160 --> 00:09:07,160
Speaker 1: I was pointing it, and I have to live with that.

152
00:09:07,840 --> 00:09:11,240
Speaker 1: Most of our information about this feast in sixteen twenty

153
00:09:11,320 --> 00:09:14,439
Speaker 1: one comes from Edward Winslow's A Journal of the Pilgrims

154
00:09:14,440 --> 00:09:17,000
Speaker 1: at Plymouth, And again we're not using the term pilgrim,

155
00:09:17,040 --> 00:09:19,800
Speaker 1: but he can if he wants to. But well, this

156
00:09:20,040 --> 00:09:23,680
Speaker 1: was certainly a monumental feast, and this is what we're

157
00:09:24,920 --> 00:09:30,560
Speaker 1: essentially celebrating when we celebrate Thanksgiving. Wasn't really the first

158
00:09:30,640 --> 00:09:34,560
Speaker 1: religious Thanksgiving? That happened in Plymouth two years later in

159
00:09:34,679 --> 00:09:39,480
Speaker 1: sixteen twenty three, following a two month drought. And where

160
00:09:39,520 --> 00:09:42,240
Speaker 1: this all got kind of mixed up was with the

161
00:09:42,240 --> 00:09:47,400
Speaker 1: writer editor Sarah Josepha Hale, who edited the Goadies Ladies

162
00:09:47,480 --> 00:09:51,840
Speaker 1: book and also authored Mary had a Little Lamb. Interestingly

163
00:09:52,040 --> 00:09:54,840
Speaker 1: a woman of many literary talents, but she thought that

164
00:09:54,880 --> 00:10:00,520
Speaker 1: the sixty one feast was Thanksgiving. But it's understandable why

165
00:10:00,600 --> 00:10:02,679
Speaker 1: she mixed things up a little bit, because what we

166
00:10:02,760 --> 00:10:07,719
Speaker 1: celebrate today is a combination of two distinct celebrations, this

167
00:10:08,280 --> 00:10:11,680
Speaker 1: religious Thanksgiving and also a harvest ritual where you you know,

168
00:10:11,760 --> 00:10:17,319
Speaker 1: celebrate abundance. Yeah, and we also have another Thanksgiving um,

169
00:10:17,400 --> 00:10:22,280
Speaker 1: the religious Thanksgiving on record that's earlier than both of these,

170
00:10:22,360 --> 00:10:26,320
Speaker 1: and that's sixteen nineteen when the British settlers under Captain

171
00:10:26,400 --> 00:10:30,520
Speaker 1: John Woodley celebrated their Safe Passing Um in the Berkeley

172
00:10:30,559 --> 00:10:34,400
Speaker 1: Plantation in Virginia near the Charles River. So that's to

173
00:10:34,480 --> 00:10:36,600
Speaker 1: further muddy what the water is a little we just

174
00:10:36,679 --> 00:10:40,120
Speaker 1: have a lot of early celebrations to go along and

175
00:10:40,160 --> 00:10:47,160
Speaker 1: balance the starving time and all those other wonderful religio settlement. Settlement,

176
00:10:47,720 --> 00:10:51,600
Speaker 1: it was Abraham Lincoln who gave us, and by us,

177
00:10:51,640 --> 00:10:54,360
Speaker 1: I mean the United States our national holiday for the

178
00:10:54,440 --> 00:10:59,040
Speaker 1: last Thursday of every November. So happy Thanksgiving gob will

179
00:10:59,080 --> 00:11:01,560
Speaker 1: go will y'all. And if you'd like to learn more

180
00:11:01,600 --> 00:11:05,200
Speaker 1: about this first Thanksgiving and all sorts of interesting facts

181
00:11:05,240 --> 00:11:08,560
Speaker 1: about turkeys, you can go and search for everything you

182
00:11:08,559 --> 00:11:10,520
Speaker 1: wanted to know about the First Thanksgiving on our home

183
00:11:10,600 --> 00:11:14,959
Speaker 1: page at www dot how stuff works dot com. For

184
00:11:15,080 --> 00:11:17,600
Speaker 1: more on this and thousands of other topics, visit how

185
00:11:17,679 --> 00:11:20,720
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. Let us know what you think,

186
00:11:21,000 --> 00:11:24,480
Speaker 1: Send an email to podcast at how stuff works dot com,

187
00:11:24,520 --> 00:11:26,200
Speaker 1: and be sure to check out the stuff you missed

188
00:11:26,200 --> 00:11:28,559
Speaker 1: in History Class blog on the how stuff works dot

189
00:11:28,559 --> 00:11:32,719
Speaker 1: com homepage