Thanksgiving - 1621-31 Gov John Winthrop's Mixed Emotions

Governor Winthrop had a conflict of emotions about Thanksgiving. Even though the Thanksgiving that is celebrated on the last Thursday of November was proclaimed by Governor Winthrop of the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1637, to honor a massacre of Indigenous Peoples. The Governor, wrote that for “the next 100 years, every Thanksgiving Day ordained by a Governor was in honor of the bloody victory, thanking God that the battle had been won."

The 1st Pilgrim “Thanksgiving” meal in 1621 was an event celebrated between the immigrant Pilgrims & the Wampanoag, Pequot & Narragansett people. In fact, in October of 1621, survivors of their first winter in Turtle Island in North America, the Pilgrims who had a miserable crop that year invited a Native named Massaosit to their meal.  Massaosit followed the Indigenous tradition of equal sharing & invited many from his Nation. Much of the food brought to that meal was provided by the Natives, as they had much more of a bountiful harvest that year.

Ten years later, after often being separated from his wife by the Atlantic Ocean for 10 years, Margaret Winthrop (c. 1591-1647), the 3rd wife of John Winthrop, first governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, celebrated a Thanksgiving full of love. 

During this long period of enforced separation that letters between them were written. Here both husband & wife put their love to God first, love of husband & wife second.  In Margaret Winthrop’s words “ I have many reasons to make me love thee, whereof I will name two, first because thou lovest God, & secondly because that thou lovest me.” Religious feeling exalted their mutual love & dignified it.

After her visiting husband had left England, Margaret Winthrop remained at Groton for more than a year, until he could make suitable preparation for her coming to North America. She arrived in Boston Nov. 4, 1631, in the ship Lyon, which brought a cargo of much-needed supplies for the winter. Her baby daughter, Anne, had died on the voyage.

“The like joy & manifestations of love had never been seen in New England,” John Winthrop wrote in his Journal. One week later, on Nov. 11, “We kept a day of thanksgiving at Boston.”

See:

Notable American Women edited by Edward T James, Janet Wilson James, Paul S Boyer, The Belknap Press of Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts. 1971

Some old Puritan love-letters: John and Margaret Winthrop, 1618-1638. Edited by Joseph Hopkins Twichell. Dodd, Mead and company, 1894.

1621 Plymouth Pilgrim Thanksgiving Menu

1899 The 1st Thanksgiving in 1621 by Jean Leon Gerome Ferris  Jean Leon Gerome Ferris !863-1930)  was an American painter best known for his series of 78 scenes from American history, entitled The Pageant of a Nation, the largest series of American historical paintings by a single artist.

What Was on the Menu at the First Thanksgiving?

By Megan Gambino in the Smithsonian November 21, 2011

Today, the traditional Thanksgiving dinner includes any number of dishes: turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, candied yams, cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie. But if one were to create a historically accurate feast, consisting of only those foods that historians are certain were served at the so-called “first Thanksgiving,” there would be slimmer pickings. “Wildfowl was there. Corn, in grain form for bread or for porridge, was there. Venison was there,” says Kathleen Wall. “These are absolutes.”

Two primary sources—the only surviving documents that reference the meal—confirm that these staples were part of the harvest celebration shared by the Pilgrims and Wampanoag at Plymouth Colony in 1621. Edward Winslow, an English leader who attended, wrote home to a friend: “Our harvest being gotten in, our governor sent four men on fowling, that so we might after a special manner rejoice together after we had gathered the fruit of our labors. They four in one day killed as much fowl as, with a little help beside, served the company almost a week. At which time, amongst other recreations, we exercised our arms, many of the Indians coming amongst us, and among the rest their greatest king Massasoit, with some ninety men, whom for three days we entertained and feasted, and they went out and killed five deer, which they brought to the plantation and bestowed on our governor, and upon the captain and others.”

William Bradford, the governor Winslow mentions, also described the autumn of 1621, adding, “And besides waterfowl there was great store of wild turkeys, of which they took many, besides venison, etc. Besides, they had about a peck a meal a week to a person, or now since harvest, Indian corn to that proportion.”

But determining what else the colonists and Wampanoag might have eaten at the 17th-century feast takes some digging. To form educated guesses, Wall, a foodways culinarian at Plimoth Plantation, a living history museum in Plymouth, Massachusetts, studies cookbooks and descriptions of gardens from the period, archaeological remains such as pollen samples that might clue her in to what the colonists were growing.

Our discussion begins with the bird. Turkey was not the centerpiece of the meal, as it is today, explains Wall. Though it is possible the colonists and American Indians cooked wild turkey, she suspects that goose or duck was the wildfowl of choice. In her research, she has found that swan and passenger pigeons would have been available as well. “Passenger pigeons—extinct in the wild for over a century now—were so thick in the 1620s, they said you could hear them a quarter-hour before you saw them,” says Wall. “They say a man could shoot at the birds in flight and bring down 200. Small birds were often spit-roasted, while larger birds were boiled. “I also think some birds—in a lot of recipes you see this—were boiled first, then roasted to finish them off. Or things are roasted first and then boiled,” says Wall. “The early roasting gives them nicer flavor, sort of caramelizes them on the outside and makes the broth darker." It is possible that the birds were stuffed, though probably not with bread. (Bread, made from maize not wheat, was likely a part of the meal, but exactly how it was made is unknown.) The Pilgrims instead stuffed birds with chunks of onion and herbs. “There is a wonderful stuffing for goose in the 17th-century that is just shelled chestnuts,” says Wall. “I am thinking of that right now, and it is sounding very nice.” Since the first Thanksgiving was a three-day celebration, she adds, “I have no doubt whatsoever that birds that are roasted one day, the remains of them are all thrown in a pot and boiled up to make broth the next day. That broth thickened with grain to make a pottage.”

In addition to wildfowl and deer, the colonists and Wampanoag probably ate eels and shellfish, such as lobster, clams and mussels. “They were drying shellfish and smoking other sorts of fish,” says Wall. According to the culinarian, the Wampanoag, like most eastern woodlands people, had a “varied and extremely good diet.” The forest provided chestnuts, walnuts and beechnuts. “They grew flint corn (multicolored Indian corn), and that was their staple. They grew beans, which they used from when they were small and green until when they were mature,” says Wall. “They also had different sorts of pumpkins or squashes.”

As we are taught in school, the Indians showed the colonists how to plant native crops. “The English colonists plant gardens in March of 1620 and 1621,” says Wall. “We don’t know exactly what’s in those gardens. But in later sources, they talk about turnips, carrots, onions, garlic and pumpkins as the sorts of things that they were growing.”

Of course, to some extent, the exercise of reimagining the spread of food at the 1621 celebration becomes a process of elimination. “You look at what an English celebration in England is at this time. What are the things on the table? You see lots of pies in the first course and in the second course, meat and fish pies. To cook a turkey in a pie was not terribly uncommon,” says Wall. “But it is like, no, the pastry isn’t there.” The colonists did not have butter and wheat flour to make crusts for pies and tarts. (That’s right: No pumpkin pie!) “That is a blank in the table, for an English eye. So what are they putting on instead? I think meat, meat and more meat,” says Wall.

Meat without potatoes, that is. White potatoes, originating in South America, and sweet potatoes, from the Caribbean, had yet to infiltrate North America. Also, there would have been no cranberry sauce. It would be another 50 years before an Englishman wrote about boiling cranberries and sugar into a “Sauce to eat with. . . .Meat.” Says Wall: “If there was beer, there were only a couple of gallons for 150 people for three days.” She thinks that to wash it all down the English and Wampanoag drank water.

All this, naturally, begs a follow-up question. So how did the Thanksgiving menu evolve into what it is today? Wall explains that the Thanksgiving holiday, as we know it, took root in the mid-19th century. At this time, Edward Winslow’s letter, printed in a pamphlet called Mourt’s Relation, and Governor Bradford’s manuscript, titled Of Plimoth Plantation, were rediscovered and published. Boston clergyman Alexander Young printed Winslow’s letter in his Chronicles of the Pilgrim Fathers, and in the footnotes to the resurrected letter, he somewhat arbitrarily declared the feast the first Thanksgiving. (Wall and others at Plimoth Plantation prefer to call it “the harvest celebration in 1621.”) There was nostalgia for colonial times, and by the 1850s, most states and territories were celebrating Thanksgiving.

See:

Giving Thanks: Thanksgiving Recipes and History, from Pilgrims to Pumpkin Pie, Kathleen A. Curtin, Sandra L. Oliver and Plimoth Plantation [Clarkson Potter:New York] 2005.

American Heritage Cookbook and Illustrated History of American Eating & Drinking, Menus and Recipes, Helen McCully recipe editor [American Heritage Publishing Co.:New York] 1964 (p.416-417)

1621 Gossip 0n 4 Women who Cooked the 1st Puritan Thanksgiving

1899 painting, The 1st Puritan Thanksgiving 1621 by Jean Leon Gerome Ferris   Jean Leon Gerome Ferris !863-1930)  was an American painter best known for his series of 78 scenes from American history, entitled The Pageant of a Nation, the largest series of American historical paintings by a single artist.

Four Women Who Cooked the 1st Puritan Thanksgiving

The New England Historical Society conjectures that 4 women who cooked the 1st Puritan Thanksgiving probably didn’t feel all that thankful, when they learned there would be 90 guests, all Wampanoag men that their husbands may have invited , to eat with them.

They were the only women left after the 1st deadly winter that killed half of Plymouth Colony. They died of exhaustion, starvation, pneumonia, scurvy & cold. By springtime, 14 women had perished. The 4 women left managed to feed 143 people without kitchens, ovens, wheat, spices or butter.

Their dinner guests may have shown up unexpectedly, or...perhaps their menfolk had invited them to seal a peace deal. The meal itself – or rather meals, because they stayed for three days – served as more of a harvest celebration than a Thanksgiving.

The women faced another challenge: getting along with each other. Cooking for so many people required cooperation among the 4, who had different backgrounds & aspirations. They included a Saint, a Goodwife, a Traveler & a Troublemaker.

The colonists referred to themselves as “Saints” & “Strangers” or “Travelers.” The devout Saints wanted to separate from the Church of England & crossed the Atlantic for religious freedom. Strangers came for adventure & opportunity. That both Saints & Strangers signed the Mayflower Compact shows the inclusiveness of the colonists.

That 1st Puritan Thanksgiving was cooked by 2 Saints, Mary Brewster & Susanna Winslow, & 2 Strangers, Elizabeth Hopkins & Eleanor Billington. But they probably all deserved sainthood for cooking all that food. The men just “feasted & entertained,” according to one of their husbands.

Goodwife Susanna White Winslow had married Edward Winslow, had married Susanna in May, about 5 months earlier. He would serve as Plymouth’s governor & diplomat, & together they would prosper. So at 29, Susanna Winslow was a rising figure in the little colony...

Her 1st husband had a common name, & no one seems to really know which Englishman named William White boarded the Mayflower with her. Susanna & William brought their young son, Resolved, about 5 years old. Susanna was pregnant, & gave birth to their 2nd son, Peregrine, below decks on the Mayflower as it lay at anchor in Massachusetts Bay. Odd as “Resolved” & “Peregrine” may seem, their names were typical of the Puritans. They suggest Susanna was a Saint.

William died in February & another  wife Elizabeth Winslow died in March. Forty-eight days after Elizabeth died, Edward married Susanna. He brought to the union a daughter, Margaret, about 3 years old.

Edward & Susanna had practical & emotional reasons for marrying so soon after their spouses died. Martyn Whittock points out in Mayflower Lives, “Shared faith, shared history, mutual respect, &, no doubt, physical as well as emotional attraction drew them together. & there is plenty of evidence for loving physical union enhancing partnership in the godly marriages.”

A portrait of Edward Winslow suggests a happy marriage. In his hand he holds a letter. The last three lines read, “From your loving wife, Susanna.” The portrait was painted in 1651, 30 years after their wedding.

William Brewster's wife was Mary Brewster, who was a Saint. Puritans believed in social hierarchy, so one can easily guess who took charge of the cooking operation. Mary probably wished she had the help of her 2 daughters, Patience, 21, & Fear, 15, to cook for all those people. But the Brewsters left their daughters behind. They believed, like many of the colonists, that the weaker sex might not survive the journey. That Mary joined her husband tells us something about her grit, her courage & her deep religious faith.

The Brewsters did bring their two boys with them, Love & Wrestling, about 11 & 7 at the 1st Thanksgiving. They would have helped prepare the meal, along with little Resolved White & Margaret Winslow. Richard More, their 7-year-old servant, would have helped, too.

Young Richard had come with three siblings, all dead by the time of the 1st Thanksgiving. Known as one of the Mayflower Love Children, Richard’s legal father had sent the children to America, when he discovered he was not their biological father. Patience & Fear arrived in Plymouth a few years later, along with older brother Jonathan. Fear married another saint, Isaac Allerton.

Another female survivor was Elizabeth Hopkins, Traveler. Two years before boarding the Mayflower, Elizabeth Hopkins, married one of the most interesting Plymouth colonists, Stephen Hopkins. She was 33, he was a 36-year-old widower with 3 children. He had already survived a shipwreck in the Caribbean & taken part in the settlement of Jamestown before returning to England. His adventure as a castaway on a Caribbean island probably inspired Shakespeare to create the character Stephano in The Tempest.

Stephen, a rough-&-ready sort, planned to return to Virginia with his family. His family included Constance, 14, & Giles, 12, the t2 surviving children from his 1st marriage. Little Damaris was about three.  She probably hoped to have her baby on land, but crosswinds & storms extended the unpleasant Mayflower voyage. She gave birth to Oceanus in a dark, cramped berth below the decks of the gyrating vessel.

Stephen, though a Traveler, held a position of importance in the colony. Because of his time in Jamestown, he could hunt, & he knew about Native Americans. When the English-speaking Native American Samoset came to Plymouth, Elizabeth & Stephen put him up that night in their tiny house.

The house had at the very most three rooms, cramped quarters 4 adults, 3 children & the Hopkins’ 2 servants, Edward Doty & Edward Leister. The crowding probably didn’t help anyone’s temper. The 2 servants had fought & wounded each other in a sword-&-dagger duel a few months before that Thanksgiving...

 They would have 5 more children, run a tavern & occasionally get into trouble with the authorities. Stephen had to pay fines for allowing drinking & shuffleboard on Sunday, for overserving & for overcharging customers. But theirs seems to have been a successful partnership. When Stephen died in 1644 his will directed he be buried as close as possible to Elizabeth.

Eleanor Billington, on the other hand, was a troublemaker from a troublemaking family. The younger of her 2 sons, Francis, nearly burned down the Mayflower as it lay anchored in Plymouth Harrbor in December of 1620. He’d set off some homemade fireworks with his father’s gunpowder.

Eleanor had a hard time controlling her sons... Both tended to wander off unsupervised. In one case her older son John roamed into a camp of Nausets, who had clashed with the colonists upon their 1st arrival.

Gov. William Bradford described Eleanor’s husband, John Billington, as “a knave.” Billington contemptuously challenged Capt. Myles Standish’s orders during a militia drill in March 1621.Had he not begged forgiveness, the Plymouth authorities would have punished him. In 1630, he did get punished – hanged for murdering a neighbor. Bradford then described the Billingtons as one of the “profanest families among them.” He could not understand how the Pilgrims had allowed them to join them from London.

Eleanor Billington also caused trouble. In 1636, she went to the stocks & received a whipping for slandering another Plymouth citizen, John Doane.

Five teenaged girls survived the winter, & they would have worked alongside the 4 Thanksgiving cooks. Mary Chilton was 14 when she came ashore from the Mayflower, the 1st woman to set foot on Plymouth soil.

The oldest, Priscilla Mullins, at 19 had lost her mother, father & brother during the winter. She would soon marry John Alden after a courtship immortalized by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, their descendant. 

Constance Hopkins (13 or 14), Elizabeth Tilley (14 or 15) & Dorothy, an unnamed maidservant, perhaps 18 or 19, would have helped prepare the meal as well. They probably also had to keep an eye on the children, who included Bartholomew, Mary & Remember Allerton, Humility Cooper, Samuel Eaton & Desire Minter. The older ones would have helped.

Perhaps the teenagers minded fires, turned spits, carried water, plucked wildfowl or shucked shellfish. Maybe the lucky ones got the easy job of setting the tables – rough boards covered with cloth. They had just knives & spoons, as the 1st fork wouldn’t arrive in America until 1633. Tableware would have included pewter or wooden trenchers, tankards & lots & lots of napkins. Since they ate roast meat with their hands, napkins were a must.

While the women cooked, the men entertained their guests. They showed off their military drills for the Wampanoags. & theymight have played a version of football on the beach with the Natives, using a deerskin ball stuffed with deer hair.

At least they’d brought food. Bradford ordered 4 (probably including Stephen Hopkins) to shoot wildfowl. They blasted their muskets for the benefit of the Wampanoags, who outnumbered them.

They may have shot some turkey, but they most likely got duck, geese, swans & maybe even carrier pigeon. The women would have plucked, trimmed & trussed them, then spit-roasted the small birds & boiled the larger ones.

They may have stuffed the birds with onions & herbs from their garden, & maybe chestnuts from the woods. The next day, they would have taken the leftover meat & made a broth or a potage in their Dutch ovens.

The Wampanoags killed 5 deer & brought them as gifts. The women would have also cooked them on spits outdoors. Vegetables like corn, turnips, cabbages & carrots went into Dutch ovens on the hearths.

They would have eaten lobster, mussels & clams without butter, because cows didn’t arrive until later. Cod, bass & eels likely appeared on the tables.

They probably also served native fruit—cranberries, wild plums, melons & grapes – as well as walnuts, beechnuts & chestnuts.

Pumpkin, called pompion, undoubtedly would have appeared on the menu. The early colonists ate vast quantities of the stuff. In fact, the 1st American folk song is a lament about how much pumpkin they ate. The 4 women who cooked the 1st Puritan Thanksgiving most certainly did not make pumpkin pie. With no flour, sugar or baking ovens, they probably just stewed it.

1921 at Tomb of The Unknown Soldier - Veterans Day

Tomb of The Unknown Soldier

The White House Historical Association tells us that November 11 is Veterans Day, & on this day in 1921 President Warren G. Harding presided over the dedication of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington National Cemetery. 

The process of selecting the World War I Unknown had begun earlier that fall in France. Once the casket was randomly chosen, it was then transported to Washington, D.C. aboard the USS Olympia. 

Arriving in the nation’s capital on November 9, the World War I Unknown was brought to the Capitol Rotunda. Some 90,000 people filed past the bier to pay their respects to this fallen soldier. 

On Armistice Day (November 11), an honor guard of service members from the Army, Navy, & Marine Corps escorted the casket from the Capitol to Arlington Cemetery, while a procession followed including President Harding, Vice President Calvin Coolidge, Medal of Honor recipients & other prominent military officers & veterans. 

At the Arlington ceremonies, President Harding said, "Standing today on hallowed ground, conscious that all America has halted to share in the tribute of heart, & mind, & soul to this fellow American … it is fitting to say that his sacrifice, & that of the millions dead, shall not be in vain." 

As the ceremony drew to a close, President Harding pinned the Medal of Honor & the Distinguished Service Cross to the casket of the Unknown.

Red Poppies & Thousands of Years of Remembrance - Veterans Day

In the 21st Century  Poppy Field Remembrance, Adam Borman in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

From the classic myths of Greece & Rome, to poets Ovid & Martial during Classical Antiquity, to the fields of 19th Century Europe, to World War I at Flanders Fields, to the 21st Century - honoring & remembering those who have died.

 Walter Field (British painter) 1837 - 1901

The red poppy has become a symbol of war remembrance throughout much of the world. People in many countries wear the poppy to remember those who died in war or those who still serve in their nation's armed forces. In many countries, the poppy is worn around Veterans Day (or Armistice Day) on November 11th.

Hippolyte Camille Delpy (French painter) 1842 - 1910

In both Greek & Roman myths & classical antiquity, poppies were associated with sleep, death, & remembrance. The symbolic significance of poppies, particularly in the context of honoring the dead, can be traced to various mythological & literary traditions.

Anthonore Christensen (Danish painter) 1849 - 1926

In Greek mythology, the poppy was often linked to Demeter, the goddess of agriculture, & her daughter Persephone, who was abducted by Hades & became the queen of the Underworld. According to the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, poppies grew in the meadows where Demeter mourned the loss of her daughter, symbolizing both the cycle of life & death.

In Greek lore, poppies were also associated with Hypnos, the god of sleep. In various myths, Hypnos is depicted wearing a crown of poppies, signifying the sleep-inducing properties of the plant.

Anthonore Christensen (Danish painter) 1849 - 1926

In Roman mythology, the festival of Floralia, dedicated to the goddess Flora, involved the wearing of wreaths made of flowers, including poppies. This celebration marked the renewal of life & the coming of spring.

The association of poppies with death & remembrance persisted in Roman culture. Poppies were often used in funerary customs & rituals to honor the deceased.

Dora Hitz (German painter) 1856 - 1924

During Classical Antiquity the Roman poet Martial wrote about poppies being scattered on tombs, emphasizing their connection to death & remembrance. Marcus Valerius Martialis (born between 38 & 41 AD – died between 102 & 104 AD) was a Roman poet born in Hispania (modern Spain) best known for his 12 books of Epigrams, published in Rome between AD 86 & 103, during the reigns of the emperors Domitian, Nerva & Trajan. 

Ovid, another Roman poet, mentioned poppies as symbols of both sleep & death in his works. Publius Ovidius Naso 43 BC – AD 17/18), known in English as Ovid was a Roman poet who lived during the reign of Augustus. He was a younger contemporary of Virgil & Horace, with whom he is often ranked as one of the three canonical poets of Latin literature.  Although Ovid enjoyed enormous popularity during his lifetime, the emperor Augustus exiled him to Tomis, the capital of the newly-organised province of Moesia, on the Black Sea, where he remained for the last 9 or 10 years of his life. 

Alexander Mark Rossi (British painter) 1840 - 1916

The symbolism of poppies honoring the dead was later revived & popularized in the early 20th century during World War I. The famous war poem "In Flanders Fields" by Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae (1872-1918) refers to poppies growing amidst the graves of soldiers in Flanders, Belgium. The poem inspired the use of the poppy as a symbol of remembrance for those who served or died in war. Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae was a Canadian poet, physician, & soldier during World War I, & a surgeon during the Second Battle of Ypres, in Belgium. He died before the war ended. He is best known for writing the famous war memorial poem "In Flanders Fields."

Anthonore Christensen (Danish painter) 1849 - 1926

In Flanders fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses, row on row,

That mark our place; and in the sky

The larks, still bravely singing, fly

Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

Loved and were loved, and now we lie,

In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:

To you from failing hands we throw

The torch; be yours to hold it high.

If ye break faith with us who die

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow

In Flanders fields. 

"In Flanders Fields" was first published in December 1915. Within months, this poem came to symbolize the sacrifices of all who were fighting in the First World War. 

 Robert Vonnoh (American painter) 1858 - 1933

Today poppies are often associated with memorial ceremonies honoring military personnel who have lost their lives in conflicts & to those still serving their country.

Olga Wisinger-Florian (Austrian painter) 1844 - 1926 (2

See Christa Zaat for many more poppy paintings.

See Adam Borman in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada