[Homestead] the first and *real* Thanksgiving :
Lynda
lurine at softcom.net
Mon Nov 22 18:21:23 EST 2004
Nice story. Not true, but a nice story.
Lynda
*****
The First Thanksgiving
The year was 1637. 700 men, women and children of the Pequot Tribe, gathered
for their "Annual Green Corn Dance" in the area that is now known as Groton,
Conn.
While they were gathered in this place of meeting, they were surrounded and
attacked by mercenaries of the English and Dutch. The Indians were ordered
from the building and as they came forth, they were shot down. The rest
were burned alive in the building.
The next day, the Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony declared : "A day
of Thanksgiving, thanking God that they had eliminated over 700 men, women
and children. For the next 100 years, every "Thanksgiving Day" ordained by a
Governor or President was to honor that victory, thanking God that the
battle had been won.
Source: Documents of Holland, 13 Volume Colonial Documentary History,
letters and reports form colonial officials to their superiors and the King
in England and the private papers of Sir William Johnson, British Indian
agent for the New York colony for 30 years.
----- Original Message -----
From: Toni Hawryluk <tonihawr at msn.com>
To: Homestead mailing list <homestead at lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Monday, November 22, 2004 2:48 PM
Subject: [Homestead] the first and *real* Thanksgiving :
> .. from Nat Geog kid's section, but maybe the adults could
>
> do with a "refresher", too ?
>
>
>
>
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/kids/2003/11/thanksgiving.html<http://new
s.nationalgeographic.com/kids/2003/11/thanksgiving.html>
>
>
>
> The Truth Behind Thanksgiving Dinner
>
> By Sarah Ives
>
> National Geographic News
>
> November 24, 2003
>
> "Pass the deer and eel please!" Are these words you would expect to hear
around your Thanksgiving dinner table?
>
> When most people think of a traditional U.S. Thanksgiving dinner, they
think of turkey, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, and maybe apple pie. The
original American Thanksgiving dinner in 1621, however, was very different.
>
> In the fall of 1621, 52 Pilgrims and 90 Native Americans came together in
Plymouth, Massachusetts, for meals celebrating the harvest. Although
Thanksgiving did not become an official holiday until 1863, most Americans
consider the Plymouth feast as the first Thanksgiving.
>
> The food that these early Americans shared was not what most people would
expect.
>
> Pilgrims and Native Americans probably ate turkey. Mashed potatoes,
cranberry sauce, and apple pie, however, were not on the menu.
>
> In 1621, potatoes were not part of the Pilgrims' diet. According to
Kathleen Curtin, most Pilgrims had never heard of potatoes-potatoes grew
only in South America until the late 1600s. Curtin is a food historian at
Plimoth Plantation, a living-history museum in Massachusetts.
>
> The Pilgrims and Native Americans may have eaten cranberries, but
certainly not cranberry sauce. Sugar, an important ingredient in cranberry
sauce, had probably not yet traveled to the New World. According to Curtin,
"It would be 50 years before an Englishman mentioned boiling this New
England berry with sugar."
>
> But the Pilgrims must have eaten apple pie? Surprisingly, they did not.
Apples do not naturally grow in North America. The fruit didn't come to the
United States until years later.
>
> So what, then, did people eat at the first Thanksgiving?
>
> The meals and festivities lasted for three days. During that time, the
early Americans ate a lot of food. They probably had deer, clams, dried
berries, corn, wild turkeys, and fish such as cod, sea bass, and eels.
>
> And the meat did not come in packages from the grocery store.
>
> "Animals were often cooked with heads and feet still attached. The
'humbles' [what we would call guts] were cooked and eaten as well," Carolyn
Travers, a researcher at Plimoth Plantation, explained.
>
> This Thanksgiving, as you dig in, be thankful you're eating turkey and
pie-and not baked guts!
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