The Thanksgiving Story You Never Learned in School

On this episode of Our American Stories, so much of our Thanksgiving imagery and tradition is not rooted in historical reality, yet the truth is far more colorful and meaningful. Here to help us revisit the real story is Simon Whistler from the “Today I Found Out” YouTube channel and its companion podcast, “Brain Food Show.”

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is Lee Habib and this is our American stories,
the show where America is the star and the American
people coming to you from the city where the West begins,
Fort Worth, Texas. So much of our Thanksgiving stereotypes and
traditions are not rooted in historical reality. Yet the reality
is much more colorful and much richer. Here to tell

(00:33):
the story is Simon Whistler from the Today I Found
Out YouTube channel and its sister, the Brain Food Show podcast.
Also contributing to this story is the late great historian
David McCullough. Let's take a listen.

Speaker 2 (00:50):
Today, we're looking at the common myth that the Pilgrims
wore black and white clothing with buckles top hats. The
myth that they dressed like this stems from a popular
claith clothing style in England in the late seventeenth century,
which carried over to the eighteenth and nineteenth century artists
depictions of the Pilgrims. So what did the Pilgrims actually wear?

(01:11):
Historical records of Pilgrim's clothing, such as the passenger List
of the Mayflower Wills, which included descriptions of clothing, and
other such records. Painting very different picture than the late
seventeenth century artists depicted for Starters. The Pilgrims didn't wear
buckled hats, nor did they wear buckles on their shoes
or their waists. Buckles were expensive and just not in

(01:32):
fashion at the time. They simply wore the much cheaper
leather laces to tie up their shoes and hold up
their pants. Buckles later became very popular in England for
their expense than as a fashion statement. Those who were
too poor to afford buckles wore laces similar to the Pilgrims.
They also didn't only wear black and white the pilgrim's
common garb, but was very colorful, as was the fashion

(01:54):
at the time. They only wore predominantly black and gray
clothing on Sundays. The rest of the time, they were
more heavily dyed clothing in many different colours. For one example,
a pilgrim by the name of Brewster left his clothing
in his will to someone, which was described as one
blue cloth suit, green draws, a violet cloth coat, black
silk stockings, sky blue garters, red grow grain suit, red waistcoat,

(02:18):
tawny colored suit with silver buttons. Another myth surrounding the
Pilgrims is that they would have probably died in the
first winter had the Native Americans not taught them various
agricultural tips and tricks. In fact, the Pilgrims didn't come
so unprepared. They had a contract with various merchants who
would come regularly to bring them supplies of food, clothing, etc.

(02:41):
For a term no less than seven years. While they
established their colony. They were also well versed in hunting
and farming techniques from Europe. When the Pilgrims left, they
were quite well aware of the colonies that had tried
to settle in America and failed. Thus, they took appropriate
steps to avoid this happening to them. This all brings
us to the most pervasive myth of all concerning the

(03:04):
Pilgrims that they celebrated the first Thanksgiving in America and
invited the Native Americans to join in. The Pilgrims did
not celebrate the first Thanksgiving in America. In fact, the
particular Pilgrim event that is often cited as the first
Thanksgiving wasn't even the Pilgrim's first Thanksgiving. They had several

(03:27):
before then at various times, and none of them were
an annual thing. These days weren't simply a particular time
when they had something significant to thank God about, so
they would set aside a day.

Speaker 1 (03:37):
To do so.

Speaker 2 (03:39):
Around the time the Pilgrims came to America in sixteen twenty,
it was common in England and many parts of Europe
to frequently set aside days for giving thanks to God.
In the New World, where life was harsh in the beginning,
there were numerous opportunities to hold such days of thanks.
For example, any time a particularly good crop would come in,
anytime a drought would end, any time a particularly harsh

(04:01):
winter was survived, anytime a group managed to repel an
attack by Native Americans, anytime they ship supply arrived safely
from Europe, et cetera. This sort of practice remained fairly
common up until the time around when Thanksgiving became a
national holiday. Most of these celebrations bore little resemblance to
what we think of as Thanksgiving. Indeed, even the particular

(04:21):
Thanksgiving day that the pilgrim celebrated sometime between September and
early October of nineteen sixty one, bore little resemblance to
what it is depicted as now. So who actually celebrated
the first Thanksgiving in America. Nobody knows for sure, knowing
to how common these days of thanks were in the
New World. This December fourth, sixteen nineteen, when thirty eight

(04:44):
settlers landed on James River on a ship called the Margaret,
about twenty miles from Jamestown. Their charter required that the
day of landing be set aside as a day of Thanksgiving,
both on that first date and every year after. This
tradition died out due to the Indian Massacre of six
sixteen twelve, where many of the settlers were killed and
most of the rest fled to Jamestown, Okay. So the Pilgrims,

(05:08):
they were not the first, but they invited the Native
Americans to their sixteen twenty one party right in truth.
From the only two first hands passages that directly described
the event in question, a letter from Edward Winslow in
December of sixteen twenty one and William Bradford's passage in
of Plymouth Plantation, it would appear the party was held
with no such invite. We do know the Native Americans

(05:30):
stopped by at random times, probably attracted by all the
noisy games like shooting contests, and some that stopped by
were allowed to participate. That as for specifically thinking to
invite them to take part in the event, there's no
such record nor any real indication of this. So why
is the Pilgrim Thanksgiving that happened in the autumn of
sixteen twenty one often considered the first Thanksgiving? And why

(05:54):
do we have all these myths surrounding the sixteen twenty
one event? This is largely thanks to Sarah Joseph for Hale,
author of the Nursery Rhyme Mary had a Little Lamb
and one of the most influential women in American history.
She was particularly enamored with this Pilgrim event that she
had read about in a passage by William Bradford in
of Plymouth Plantation, as well as the particular Thanksgiving tradition

(06:16):
which was somewhat common in New England at the time.
She tirelessly campaigned for over twenty years to have Thanksgiving
become a national holiday with a set date, and was
ultimately successful. Through her highly circulated editorials, she was largely
responsible for much of why we view the Pilgrim sixteen
twenty one Thanksgiving how we do, and was also largely

(06:36):
responsible for many of the traditions that we now tend
to attribute to that Thanksgiving. For example, things like the
tradition of eating turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing cranberry sauce, and
pumpkin pie on Thanksgiving. They were all popularized by her,
and it is extremely unlikely that the Pilgrims ate any
of those things during their little sixteen twenty one party.

Speaker 1 (07:00):
Job on the production, editing and storytelling by our own
Greg Hengler, and a special thanks to Simon Whistler from
the Today I Found Out YouTube channel and its sister,
the Brain Food Show podcast, and Our American Stories runs
those stories about Thanksgiving all day Thanksgiving Day every year,

(07:20):
and you can go to our website and find them
the myths of Thanksgiving. Here are our American Stories. This
is Lee Habib, host of our American Stories. Every day
please set out to tell the stories of Americans past
and present, from small towns to big cities, and from
all walks of life doing extraordinary things. But we truly

(07:42):
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