(2nd revision)
As you learned in school, the Pilgrims made landfall on November 9, 1620—but not at Plymouth. They landed near the tip of Cape Cod, and after exploring the area, finally landed at Plymouth in mid-December. They had already exhausted their food on the voyage. Unfamiliar with the local vegetation, they did not know what could be eaten. Confronted with a wilderness and unfamiliar with the local game trails, hunting was unproductive.
Chief Massasoit, the sachem of the Pokanoket tribe, observed the hardships of the colonists. He was familiar with white men. For as long as anyone could remember, Europeans had been visiting his lands, occasionally seizing and enslaving natives from the New England coast. A year before, the sailors aboard an English vessel had killed a number of his people without provocation.
During the winter, Massasoit gathered the region’s shamans to lay a curse upon the newcomers. They had some success. By March, only 47 of the 102 colonists remained.
Squanto, himself a former slave of the Europeans, advised Massasoit that the white men had powerful weapons. He believed that they also had the power to unleash plagues. Massasoit was acquainted with the power of disease. Perhaps 90% of his people had fallen during the last three years to diseases introduced by visiting Europeans. His own power was weakened because rival tribes now far outnumbered his.
Massasoit came to a momentous decision. He decided that his tribe's chances were better if he enlisted the newcomers as his allies rather than as his enemies.
On March 16, for the first time, a handful of native Americans approached the colony. They advised the colonist to expect a visit by their chief. Six days later, a half-dozen armed men led by Capt. Miles Standish met the chief at the entrance to the settlement. The colonists greeted the chief in the manner that Europeans would greet a visiting head of state. They shared what little food they had and then entered negotiation. During the talks, Massasoit was seen to tremble. It is believed that Squanto told him that the visitors kept the plagues in barrels beneath where they were sitting.
Governor John Carver and Massasoit reached an agreement, including, “If any did unjustly war against him [Massasoit], we would aid him; if any did war against us, he should aid us.” (Within a month, Carver had died and William Bradford became the governor of the colony.) Massasoit promised to return in a week to show the colonists how to plant corn. Squanto returned the next day with a large basket of eels.
As the year went on, many curious and friendly native American visited the colony. The colonist despaired of saving enough food to survive the next winter. They decided to give Massasoit a token, a chain of copper. If the sachem desired the colonists to entertain a friend or messenger, he would give him the copper chain to present as proof. Two envoys reached Massasoit and presented him with the chain. As word spread of their presence, neighboring minor sachems decided to visit and see the Englishmen. Soon the village became crowded and assumed the nature of a party despite the fact that the only food was two fish to feed forty or so people. The two Englishmen did some target shooting to demonstrate the accuracy of their muskets. Two days later, they returned home. The relationship with the Pokanoket chief had been strengthened.
In August, word reached Plymouth that Massasoit’s enemies had attacked the Pokanoket and had captured Squanto and, perhaps, the sachem himself. Standish led 10 men on a rescue mission. Few had military experience and were terrified. Nevertheless, the show of force caused the rebelling Indians to flee and the captives were freed. An Indian man and a woman had been wounded in the skirmish and the colony’s doctor attended their wounds. On September 13, nine sachems journeyed to Plymouth and pledged their loyalty to King James, in effect renouncing hostility to the Pilgrims and their ally, Massasoit.
The days were getting shorter as fall approached. The tremendous number of migrating ducks, geese and other fowl were easy pickings for the colonist’s hunters. Governor Bradford declared it time to “rejoice together . . . after a more special manner.” The Pilgrims were very religious, but this celebration had no religious import beyond their daily lives. It had more in common with an English Middle Ages harvest festival where everyone ate, drank, and played games. The colonists were surprised when Massasoit and a hundred Pokanokets, more then twice the population of the colony, joined the celebration, bringing five freshly killed deer.
The celebrants stood, squatted or sat on the ground around outdoor fires as the deer and the birds turned on spits and stews simmered in pots. Yes, they had turkeys. The conquistadors of the 15th century had found turkeys in the New World. By 1575, domesticated turkeys had become a common dish at English Christmas. Striped bass, bluefish, and cod were plentiful in the fall. The recent harvest of barley made it possible, at last, to brew beer. (Their supplies of beer, safer than water, had spoiled before the Mayflower landed nearly a year before.) However, there were no pumpkin pies, no cranberries, and no forks. They ate with knives and their hands.
The scenery would have been remarkable to the colonists. The cloudy English weather results in muted colors on the fall trees. The colonists had never seen colors like the New England trees.
Massasoit must have felt great satisfaction. Once in danger of paying tribute to the powerful Narragansett tribe, the Pokanokets, only a fraction of the population of the larger tribe, now enjoyed a sense of equality. His son remembered fifty-four years later that he had rescued the Plymouth colonists when they were “as a little child.” His alliance promised safety for his own people.
The peace held for 15 years, but eventually collapsed in the bloodiest war ever conducted in North America. But, that’s another story.
Capt. Miles Standish was the ninth great-grandfather of the Moore brothers. Colonist John Howland was an ancestor of the Thompsons.
There are many interpretations of Thanksgiving. I’ve tried to stick with historical facts, although I’ve clearly taken the viewpoint that the alliance with the colonists was sought by Massasoit for enlightened self-interest. This account is primarily based on Nathaniel Philbrick, “Mayflower,” Penguin Books, 2006.