Thanksgiving is one of our favorite holidays. Like all harvest celebrations, it’s a special time in which to give thanks for a successful growing season with enough food to last through the coming winter. For us it’s also a time to offer extra thanks for our abundant blessings of freedom, health, home, friends and family. During our Thanksgiving weekend gatherings inevitably someone will suggest the old New England tradition of retelling the Pilgrims’ story followed by trivia games so we thought you all might also enjoy this too.
The story of the First Thanksgiving
In the fall of 1620 two ships carrying 102 passengers sailed from Plymouth England for the New World. After 66 days at sea, on Nov. 11, 1620 the “Mayflower” dropped anchor in Cape Cod Bay near the tip of modern day Provincetown Massachusetts.
Capt. Myles Standish and a few men immediately disembarked to scout out the area’s natural resources but, having found limited amounts of fresh water and experiencing exposure to the cold winds of the North Atlantic Sea during their explorations, they returned to the ship and recommended the Pilgrims sail on to a more protected site. Finally, on Dec. 11, 1620 the “Mayflower” landed at Plymouth Rock.
The winter of 1602-1621 was a particularly harsh and cold one and many of the colonists who chose to remain sheltered on their ship perished there from communicable diseases caused by conditions associated with poor sanitation. One spring day when the 51 surviving Pilgrims were out walking Samoset, a member of the Abenaki Nation from Maine, unexpectedly emerged from nearby woods and greeted them in English.
Two days later Samoset returned to Plymouth Colony with his friend Squanto, another Native American who also spoke fluent English. For the rest of the year Squanto stayed with colonists, diligently teaching them such survival skills as how to plant crops utilizing fish as fertilizer and helping them to establish a treaty of alliance with the local Native American tribe. By 10 months after their arrival the Pilgrims had successfully farmed enough food to sustain themselves and to have surplus supplies as well.
During this time they’d also managed to build seven houses, a common meeting hall, and three grain and supply storehouses. To celebrate the good fortune of their very survival and their bountiful first harvest, Gov. William Bradford organized a celebratory feast to which he invited the local chief, Massasoit, and his tribesmen. It was a two day walk from their villages but the Native Americans happily accepted the invitation and came to New Plymouth to join the Pilgrims in feasting on fowl, game, seafood and samp.
After much eating and drinking, everyone enjoyed games, singing and dancing.
SOME FIRST THANKSGIVING TRIVIA
Editor’s note: The answers are on a separate page to keep things honest! See page xx for the answers.
1) What was the name of the pastor to the Pilgrims up until the time
they sailed on the Mayflower?
2) What was the name of the “Mayflower” ‘s sister ship?
3) Why is there no mention made of the second ship’s arrival in Cape
4) What was the name of the Captain of the “Mayflower”
5) How many crew did the “Mayflower” have?
6) What was the destination of the “Mayflower”?
7) Why did they land instead in Massachusetts?
8) Why did the Pilgrims decide to leave England?
9) If 102 Pilgrims sailed from Plymouth and one died during the ocean
crossing, how come the passenger manifest at Cape Cod Bay showed 102 passengers?
10) What three animals were probably brought along on the “Mayflower”?
11) To what tribe did Squanto belong?
12) How come Squanto spoke fluent English?
13) What was Squanto’s Massachusetts name?
14) What was the name of the local Native American tribe with whom the
15) What was Massasoit’s first name?
16) What crop was so successfully farmed that it inspired the
17) How many Native Americans came to the first Thanksgiving?
18) What food did the Native Americans bring to the feast?
19) What was the first thing the Native Americans did after arriving for
the Thanksgiving celebration?
20) Why weren’t mashed potatoes served at the first Thanksgiving?
21) What is samp?
22) Why should what we call the First Thanksgiving properly be called a
23) Both Pilgrim boys and girls wore dresses or gowns until what age?
24) What was wampum and from what was it made?
25) What game played after the feast was common to both the Pilgrim and
Native American children?
26) What game played after the feast was common to both Pilgrim and
Native American men?
27) What was the name of the song written by Squanto that the Pilgrims
28) How long did the first Thanksgiving last?
29) Who wrote in a letter dated Dec. 12, 1621 the only contemporary
account of the first Thanksgiving?
30) In what month did the Pilgrims declare the next Thanksgiving should
Thanks for reading. Blessings be to you and yours on this Thanksgiving.
1) Mr. John Robinson
2) The “Speedwell”
3) The “Speedwell” sprang a leak and was declared unseaworthy before they left England so all its passengers sailed on the” Mayflower”
4) Christopher Jones and he was also the co-owner of The Mayflower
6) The Virginia settlements near the Chesapeake Bay
7) Navigational errors, probably due to bad weather, forced them off course and because winter was already setting in, the elders decided it best to make landfall.
8) Some were Calvinists who came to escape religious persecution and others came along for adventure and opportunity.
9) A boy named Oceanus was born at sea.
10) Dogs, chickens and pigs
12) He was captured by English explorer Capt. George Weymouth in 1605 and sold into slavery in England. Squanto escaped and then worked as a translator for English settlers.
15) His birth name was Ousamequin. Massasoit means Great Sachem or leader in Wampanoag.
17) About 90
19) a) Put down the deer they were carrying and/or b) began building a shelter since the Pilgrims didn’t have any housing for them.
20) Potatoes were not introduced to the New World until 1719 when the Irish emigrants arrived.
21) A kind of corn porridge
22) Because Thanksgiving was a solemn religious day of prayer and fasting for the Pilgrims the First Thanksgiving really wasn’t a holiday, it was just a joyful gathering of folks.
23) Boys started wearing breeches around age 6 or 7
24) Used as money and game pieces by the Native American and was fashioned from clam shells.
25) Blind man’s bluff
26) Target shooting
27) “All We Offer Is Love”
28) Three days
29) Edward Winslow
30) None. After 1621 they never again celebrated a Thanksgiving feast.