Mid-Shore Life

 By Dwayne Eutsey

Every year around this time when I was a kid, I remember learning in school about the origin of this month’s big holiday.

As we made pilgrim hats and Indian headbands out of construction paper, the teacher told us the familiar story of how the Plymouth colonists and Wampanoag Indians celebrated the first Thanksgiving together in 1621. It’s a nice story about the Indians teaching the pilgrims how to plant their first crops in the New World and the pilgrims inviting the Indians over for a feast to thank them and God for the harvest.

However, as with many of our national myths, the story we were taught in school is greatly embellished. In fact, beyond two brief accounts written by pilgrims Edward Winslow and William Bradford we know very little about what happened during this event. There was a harvest feast in Plymouth and Indians were there, but a lot of the rest is open to interpretation.

http://www.pilgrimhall.org/1stthnks.htm

For example, Tobias Vanderhoop, a descendent of the Wampanoag tribe, says his ancestors were not invited guests at all. They had shown up at the settlement to investigate concerns that the pilgrims had become “a little rowdy during their harvest celebration, firing off their muskets,” Vanderhoop says.

http://www.voanews.com/english/archive/2006-11/2006-11-22-voa27.cfm?CFID=320334045&CFTOKEN=55016283&jsessionid=8830d48de76ecebeb1e44b36783d487a765c

Nonetheless, the pilgrims apparently welcomed the 90 Wampanoag to stay for a three-day feast and the Indians went out and killed five deer to contribute to the festivities, according to Winslow’s account. This impromptu gathering was far from the first Thanksgiving in North America, however.

According to the Smithsonian Institute, “The first Thanksgiving service known to be held by Europeans in North America occurred on May 27, 1578 in Newfoundland, although earlier Church-type services were probably held by Spaniards in La Florida.”

http://www.si.edu/Encyclopedia_si/nmah/thanks.htm

The article goes on to mention other colonial Thanksgiving services held in Maine (1607), Jamestown (1610), and Virginia (1619). It even suggests that the real origin of our current observance was actually in 1623, when pilgrims gave thanks for crop-saving rains and news that much-needed supplies from Europe were on the way. There were no Native Americans around this time, apparently.

Whatever the actual history may be, the obvious common thread underlying all these observances is the custom among early colonists to set aside a special time to thank God for their blessings. After the Revolutionary War, this practice was evident in the first Thanksgiving proclamation in the U.S. made by President George Washington in 1789:

“Whereas it is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favor…Now therefore I do recommend and assign Thursday the 26th day of November next to be devoted by the People of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being…That we may then all unite in rendering unto him our sincere and humble thanks…”

You can read Washington’s full proclamation at the bottom of the Smithsonian Institute link above.

The Smithsonian article goes on to give a good summary of how Thanksgiving went from a regional New England celebration to become in 1941 the official American holiday we now celebrate. That history is interesting, but I was particularly intrigued by the article’s passing mention of Thanksgiving customs like the Green Corn Dance that indigenous people in North America practiced long before European settlers arrived.

After doing a little independent research on my own, I found that details of early Native American culture are a bit sketchy. Still, we know that native peoples were deeply religious and that their nature-based spirituality acknowledged many manifestations of the divine.

For example, here on the Delmarva Peninsula the tribe known as the Nanticoke (or “Nantaquak” as explorer John Smith spelled it), believed in a supreme Great Spirit and “lesser deities who had jurisdiction over the various departments of everyday life.”

http://www.mitsawokett.com/Winnesoccum.htm

The Nanticoke people regularly celebrated “first fruits ceremonies” to demonstrate their gratitude to these deities. As offshoots of the Delaware/Lenape Indians, the Nanticoke and other Mid-Shore tribes probably participated in annual harvest feasts like the one described by a Lenape Indian chief named Waubuno in Religion and Ceremonies of the Lenape:

“At the great feast of the offerings of the first fruits of the earth, which feast the Delawares or Munceys hold annually, they brought a little of all that they raised, such as Indian corn, or hweisk-queem, potatoes, beans, pumpkins, squashes, together with the deer” they hunted and offered them first to the Great Spirit.

The twelve-day ceremony didn’t just involve offering food, however. According to Chief Waubuno, after the chief announced that the purpose of the festival was “to thank the Great Spirit for the growth and ripening of the corn,” tribal members took turns recounting “the mercies of the Great Spirit” they had received during the previous year.

I’m not aware of any Thanksgiving feasts shared between Eastern Shore Indians and white settlers. However, when explorer John Smith first encountered the Nanticoke in 1608 the native people showed him and his men warm hospitality once the tribe’s initial mistrust of the newcomers was allayed.

That sounds a lot like the welcome the pilgrims gave their apparently uninvited visitors back in 1621. In both cases, we’re reminded that Thanksgiving isn’t really just a one-day event. For the pilgrims and the Nanticoke, who were both religious in very distinct ways, it was more a way of life. Every day, not just during celebration feasts, they acknowledged the providence of a reality much larger than themselves and were inclined to share with others the mercies they had been shown.

The actual history of all these events from the 17^th century may be murky, but one thing remains clear: They still impart an enduring lesson in deep gratitude and generous hospitality that we can still learn a lot from today.