The Role of Native Americans in Thanksgiving

Video Transcript

"Hello, I'm Matt Cail and on behalf of Expert Village, I'm here today to tell you all about the history of Thanksgiving. So at this point, the Pilgrims were cold, starving and dying. Things didn't look too good. Winter still had a long way to go and they'd lost nearly half their numbers. It was at this point they received a miracle in the form of assistance from the local native Americans. There were several different tribes in the area. Not all of them were friendly to the European settlers. No, actually some of them didn't like the Europeans at all and were quite hostile. But others were very friendly and definitely believed in lending a helping hand. Also, the Pilgrims had a kind of a hidden advantage in having one native American who had been to Europe actually in slavery but then had been freed and made his way back to the New World. His name was Squanto and he served as a nice go between between the Pilgrims and one of the friendlier tribes of native Americans who then insisted the Pilgrims learning things such as how to do some of the local fishing, the local marine life, now to tap that. Also started introducing them to new crops like corn and how to make things grow in New England soil."