Notes

Thanksgiving!!!



Many Americans today enjoy a feast for Thanksgiving. The most popular food is usually turkey. Other Thanksgiving dishes often include stuffing, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, and pumpkin pie. The feast is inspired by a Pilgrim and Wampanoag event from long ago. But that celebration looked very different from today's traditional feast. In 1621, people known as the Pilgrims had a huge celebration in what is now Plymouth, Massachusetts. They wanted to celebrate their successful harvest of crops and their survival in a land unfamiliar to them. The Pilgrims had arrived from Europe the year before the celebration. They arrived on Wampanoag land. Wampanoag people had been living in this area for thousands of years before the Pilgrims arrived. The Wampanoag had met other Europeans before. Those meetings had been violent. ManyWampanoag people had been captured and sold into slavery. Many others had died from diseases brought by Europeans. So, the Wampanoag thought they may be safer if they created a good relationship with this group of Europeans. After a few months, the Wampanoag tribe reached out to the Pilgrims. They wanted to protect themselves from more harm. So the Wampanoag helped the Pilgrims. They taught the Pilgrims how to grow some crops like corn. Because the Wampanoag shared their knowledge and skills, the Pilgrims were able to have a successful harvest. The celebration of the harvest lasted for three days. Some Wampanoag people joined. All of the cooking and eating happened outside. The Pilgrims and Wampanoag ate bread or porridge made from corn. They also ate a lot of deer or venison. The Wampanoag were skilled deer hunters. There are still some details people today don't know about this celebration. Why did the Wampanoag people join the Pilgrims? No one knows for sure. Did they eat turkey, like many Americans do today? No one knows for sure. We do know that this meal was a brief moment of peace before the relationship between the settlers and the Wampanoag and other NativeAmerican tribes turned violent. Today, some Native Americans hold a Day of Mourning on the day that many other Americans celebrate Thanksgiving. This is a day to recognize the harm and suffering that European and American settlers brought to Native Americans.