Understanding the First 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. With native American assistance, 1621 turned out to be a much better year than 1620 had been for the Pilgrims. They were able to plant their crops, lots of them in fact, and they had a bountiful harvest. It was at this point that a lot of them remembered some of the Old World traditions and having like a big harvest feast. You know, getting everybody together, family, friends, kids and kin, big tables and just you know, as great of a spread as you could put out. Now in retrospect, we think of the Pilgrims and their Puritanism as being a pretty rigid, stoic, dull, repressed lot. That's not entirely fair. Because while they may not have drunk a whole lot, at least not most of the time, they certainly did know how to eat, so in 1621, when it looked like there was going to be a big harvest going on, basically the Governor of the colony, William Bradford, he did a couple of things. He basically called up all the local native Americans who were friendly and said basically bring your guys over, we're going to have a good big eatin'. And the big eatin' lasted three days. This was not Thanksgiving dinner at grandma's, one day thing, no, this was three days of good eating. They did that, they played games, they gave thanks for the great harvest, they gave thanks for their friends, it was a pretty good time. And then basically, the next year or so, they basically started to repeat the custom though it was not regular as you'll soon find out. Nor was this the first Thanksgiving as many people think. There are other Thanksgiving celebrations that pre-dated this one, also in North America, also by settlers and also with the basic idea of giving thanks for family, friends and food."