On behalf of everyone here at First Congregational Church, I want to wish you and yours a very Happy Thanksgiving!  And while you are celebrating around the table, here are a few interesting facts about the first Thanksgiving for you to chew on:

Did you know that turkey probably wasn’t served at the first Thanksgiving?  I know, right?!  It’s enough to make you want to tear the buckles off your shoes (which also wasn’t a thing until much later).  However, if you were a fan of venison (deer meat) you were all set since it seems that it was at the top of the menu.  Turkeys didn’t come into the picture until the early 1800s when Americans started raising them as livestock.   

The first Thanksgiving in 1621 was a three-day event but…it probably wasn’t in November.  It was more likely at the end of September to coincide with Michaelmas which is the celebration of the archangel Michael (plus it would have been way too cold at the end of November for this kind of outdoor celebration).

How many people were there?  The best estimate is 140 people total.  That’s a lot!  The majority (get this) were Wampanoag.  90 Wampanoag to 50 pilgrims.  And of those 50 pilgrims, only 4 of them were women.  Why so few?  Well, all of the pilgrim women were in attendance: four.  There were 28 women on the Mayflower and all but four died during the first winter after their arrival and 24 of the men had died leaving the 50 in attendance.

There is some dispute about the number of children and youth who were at the feast and whether they are counted in the records.  The best estimate is 25 which would mean that only five of them passed away during the first winter because there were 30 aboard the Mayflower.  That in itself is amazing because there were 102 passengers total on the Mayflower meaning that about 30% of them were under 18.  

All of these numbers were recorded by the pilgrims so it is unclear how many of the Wampanoag were women.  Records show that 4 were women but the pilgrims didn’t necessarily “notice” native women.

Most of the food was provided by the Wampanoag making it a three-day period of generosity on their part and gratitude on the part of the pilgrims.  The intent was to celebrate the harvest and to solidify an alliance between the two parties which was, unfortunately, short-lived.  

Still, the first Thanksgiving is a great reminder that good things are possible when suspicions are set aside and two very different cultures come together, share the same table, talk, and seek common ground.

See you in church,

–Rev. Dominic