The First Thanksgiving

The first Thanksgiving occurred the year after the Pilgrims arrived at America. In the winter of 1620, a group of Pilgrims landed at Plymouth on the Mayflower. With the harsh winter weather of New England, the Pilgrims struggle to survive and settle down; within a year, many Pilgrims had died due to starvation. When spring came around, the nearby Native Americans offered help to the Pilgrims: the Native Americans taught the Pilgrims how to plant corn and vegetables. They also taught the Pilgrims how to fish for food. Thanks to the help of Native Americans, the Plymouth Pilgrims were able to have a great harvest that year. In order to thank the Native Americans and to celebrate the good year of harvest, the Pilgrims put on a celebration and invited the Native Americans to attend. This begins a good relation between the Pilgrims and the Native Americans for the years to come.

The modern traditional Thanksgiving meal usually includes a turkey with stuffing, sweet potatoes, corn, squash, cranberry sauce, among other things. Most of the traditional dishes derived from the dishes from the First Thanksgiving, when the Pilgrims brought out their good harvest to celebrate with the Native Americans. Most of food now eaten for Thanksgiving is native to the New World; they were food that Native Americans taught the Pilgrims how to plant and catch, like corns and turkey; and these traditional dishes were passed down to today's society.

As my family does not celebrate Thanksgiving, I never really got a good understanding of what Thanksgiving is really about. I learn from the popular media, friends that do celebrate Thanksgiving, and school. Using these resources, I gathered that Thanksgiving was a celebration of the family, much like the First Thanksgiving, when the Pilgrims celebrated with the Native Americans of their good harvest. On Thanksgiving Day, people traveled back to homes to gather with close family members and friends to give thanks for their success, accomplishment, or just things that happened over the course of the year.

Popular media portrays Thanksgiving as a holiday for family gathering; during which time, people would stuff themselves with good food and catch up on past events. In this case, the modern Thanksgiving is like the First Thanksgiving as it provides a connection between a group of people. Even though it is not between two groups of people like the First Thanksgiving that provided and established a formal connection and relation between the Native Americans and the Pilgrims, modern Thanksgiving celebration provides a chance for connecting with family members and close friends. In today's society, Thanksgiving has incorporated more elements such as the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade and watching football; however, we do not really think about the Native American factors anymore. If I did not learn about the First Thanksgiving in school, I would not know about the involvement of the Native Americans