Modern day Thanksgiving can be shown from the first feast with the Pilgrims in 1621. This holiday is simply a show of good faith for a good harvest. The pilgrims came to North America is seeking a good life, and began a American holiday still celebrated to this day. Without the pilgrims to settle in modern day Massachusetts we wouldn’t be able to stuff our face with turkey and call it a holiday.
Plymouth Colony, America’s first permanent Puritan settlement, was established by Separatist Puritans from england in December 1620. The Pilgrims left England to seek religious freedom, and to find a better life. They set sail from Plymouth, England, on September 16, 1620, on the Mayflower. Its 102 passengers spent 65 days at sea before landing in what is now known as present-day Plymouth, Massachusetts on December 26, 1620.
41 male passengers signed the Mayflower Compact, an agreement to enact “just and equal laws for the general good of the colony.” The Pilgrims finally landed at the site of present-day Plymouth, Massachusetts on December 26, 1620. By legend the Pilgrims stepped ashore at Plymouth Rock, but their records do not mention this landmark. Settlers began building homes and rough shelters for the upcoming winter.
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Although, harsh climate and illness took many lives, by the end of winter half the colonists had died. The colonists encountered the Indian Samoset, who surprised them by speaking English, learned from English traders on the coast of Maine. Samoset introduced the colonists to Massasoit, the chief of the Wampanoag Indians, who signed a peace treaty with the Pilgrims.
Squanto, another English-speaking Indian, acted as a guide and interpreter, and with his help the colonists learned to plant corn, catch fish, and gather fruit. The Pilgrims invited the Indians to celebrate their first harvest in 1621, an event now celebrated as Thanksgiving Day. After Massasoit’s death, the Wampanoag joined to eliminate English settlers, but in the ensuing King Philip’s War the Wampanoag were nearly exterminated.
The colony gradually grew in size, and the original settlement known as the Plimoth Plantation expanded as settlers built houses in the area. Plymouth Colony retained its independence for over 70 years, and by 1691 its population exceeded 7,000. It was integrated with the Massachusetts Bay Company’s much larger colony to establish the royal colony of Massachusetts, now the state of the same name.
The colonists had no intention of declaring their independence from England when they signed the Mayflower Compact. In the opening line of the Compact, the Pilgrims refer to themselves as “loyal subjects” of King James. The rest of the Mayflower Compact is very short. It simply bound the signers into a “Civil Body Politic” for the purpose of passing “just and equal Laws . . . for the general good of the Colony.”
These words express the idea of self-government for the first time in the New World. Immediately after agreeing to the Mayflower Compact, the signers elected John Carver as governor. They called it the Plymouth Plantation. When Governor Carver died under a year later, William Bradford replaces him. The “Civil Body Politic,” consisting of all adult males except indentured servants, assembled to elect a governor and a small number of assistants. Bradford was re-elected 30 times between 1621 and 1656.
References
- History of Thanksgiving – HISTORY
- All About Thanksgiving – Plimoth Patuxet
- 5 facts about the history of Thanksgiving – CNN
- The History and Origins of Thanksgiving in the United States – ThoughtCo
- Thanksgiving Day | History & Traditions – Britannica
- First Thanksgiving: Facts About the Mayflower, Pilgrims & More – HISTORYnet
- The Role of Plymouth Rock in Early Culture
