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FIELD NOTES

Origins . . .

Phyllis Harmon, DTM, PDG

In September 1620, the Mayflower, with 102 passengers English-speaking, Wampanoag men, Samoset and

and 30 crew, set out for America. The journey took over Tisquantum, who befriended the colonists and taught
two months, much longer than originally anticipated. them how to hunt, plant crops and how to get the best
During the crossing, the passengers suffered from of their harvest, saving the colonists from starvation.
seasickness, hunger, and thirst. The ship arrived in the The colony's first harvest provided a bumper crop
Cape Cod area in November 1620 and anchored in what assuring their survival. They decided to hold a three-day

was later known as Provincetown Harbor. On December festival of prayer inviting their benefactors to join them.
25, 1620, the ship moved further south to what is now Edward Winslow, one of the colonists, recorded the
known as Plymouth Bay, Massachusetts. The winter was festival in his diary:

harsh and the passengers remained on the ship until “Our corn did prove well, and God be praised, we had
February 1621. Only one person died on the journey, but a good increase of Indian corn. . . Our harvest being gotten
since their arrival, forty-five of the original 132 people in, our governor sent four men on fowling, that so we
died of scurvy, starvation, and unhealthy shipboard might after a special manner rejoice together, after we had
conditions. gathered the fruits of our labors; they four in one day killed

The Mayflower was not the first ship to land on the as much fowl, as with a little help beside, served the company
shores of America. Europeans had been fishing and almost a week, at which time amongst other recreations, we
trading in the area since the early 1600's. Several of the exercised our arms, many of the Indians coming amongst

local Wampanoag peoples had been captured as slaves us, and amongst the rest their greatest king Massasoit, with
or human exhibits and taken back to England. Between some ninety men, whom for three days we entertained and
1616 and 1620, the indigineous peoples, who had lived feasted, and they went out and killed five deer, which they
in the area for 10,000 years, were nearly wiped out by brought to the plantation and bestowed on our Governor,
Euopean diseases during the time known as the "Great and upon the Captain and others. And although it be not

Dying." always so plentiful, as it was at this time with us, yet by the
The settlers, during their exploration of the shoreline, goodness of God, we are so far from want, that we often
dicovered Patuxet. It was one of the abandoned villages wish you partakers of our plenty.”

(because of the Great Dying) where several of the And so the first Thanksgiving survived without college
captured natives once lived. They reinhabited the village football, adult beverages, and Hallmark movies. The
and renamed it Plymouth, Massachusetts. tradition of celebrating the end of the harvest and giving
The colony was down to 53 people. With their thanks for the blessings of the earth was signed into law
numbers dwindling, food scarcities, and lack of as a national holiday on December 26, 1941 by President

knowledge of how to survive in the new environment, Franklin Roosevelt. It has only been in recent years that
the colonists were facing extinction. Thanksgiving has morphed into a secular holiday which
In March 1621, the colony was visited by two marks the beginning of the holiday shopping season.

VOICES! | NOVEMBER 2022 25