Today, November 24, is a traditional day in the USA where we gather our friends and family and enjoy a meal together in honor of the harvest feast of 1621, celebrated by the early pilgrims who traveled on the ship Mayflower to land at what is known now as Plymouth Rock, Massachusetts. They and the Native Americans they’d become friends with gathered together to feast and dance.
Two of my ancestors were on the Mayflower, Thomas Rogers and his oldest son Joseph, so Thanksgiving Day has an extra meaning for me, I wouldn’t be here today if they hadn’t braved that voyage.
A good friend is coming over to share my turkey dinner today. It’s a good day.
I wish everyone a very happy Thanksgiving day.
Two of your ancestors were on the ship Mayflower in 1620!!!
Gosh, you and your family are More American than the flag itself.
Without the help of the Native American community they met upon settling in America, the Mayflower Pilgrims would have likely never survived.
Instead, the mutual understanding between the two groups led to one of the world’s most well-known dates – Thanksgiving.
Feliz Dia de Ação de Graças.
http://www.tivertonhistorical.org/tiverton-stories/the-mayflower-pilgrims-and-thanksgiving/
Seeking the right to worship as they wished, the Pilgrims had signed a contract with the Virginia Company to settle on land near the Hudson River, which was then part of northern Virginia. The Virginia Company was a trading company chartered by King James I with the goal of colonizing parts of the eastern coast of the New World. London stockholders financed the Pilgrim’s voyage with the understanding they’d be repaid in profits from the new settlement.
Storms threw them off their course and instead of reaching the Virginia Colony, they landed in Provincetown Harbor in November, 1620 after a treacherous and uncomfortable crossing that lasted 66 days. When the Mayflower landed in Massachusetts instead of Virginia, discord began before the colonists even left the ship. The strangers argued the Virginia Company contract was void. They felt since the Mayflower had landed outside of Virginia Company territory, they were no longer bound to the company’s charter.
The defiant strangers refused to recognize any rules since there was no official government over them. Pilgrim leader William Bradford later wrote, “several strangers made discontented and mutinous speeches.”
Pilgrim leaders wanted to quell the rebellion before it took hold. After all, establishing a New World colony would be difficult enough without dissent in the ranks. The Pilgrims knew they needed as many productive, law-abiding souls as possible to make the colony successful. With that in mind, they set out to create a temporary set of laws for ruling themselves as per majority agreement.
While on board the Mayflower in Provincetown Harbor, the Pilgrims drew up the Mayflower Compact and all the men aboard the ship— 41 adult male colonists, including two indentured servants—signed the Mayflower Compact on November 11, 1620 (although it wasn’t called that at the time).
This document created the way for the Pilgrims to govern themselves. The Mayflower Compact was important because it was the first document to establish self-government in the New World. It remained active until 1691 when Plymouth Colony became part of Massachusetts Bay Colony.
After exploring the area, the Pilgrims decided to settle in Plymouth.
Throughout that first brutal winter, most of the colonists remained on board the ship, where they suffered from exposure, scurvy and outbreaks of contagious disease. Only half of the Mayflower’s original passengers and crew lived to see their first New England spring. In March, the remaining settlers moved ashore, where they received an astonishing visit from an Abenaki Indian who greeted them in English. Several days later, he returned with another Native American, Squanto, a member of the Pawtuxet tribe who had been kidnapped by an English sea captain and sold into slavery before escaping to London and returning to his homeland on an exploratory expedition. Squanto taught the Pilgrims, weakened by malnutrition and illness, how to cultivate corn, extract sap from maple trees, catch fish in the rivers and avoid poisonous plants. He also helped the settlers forge an alliance with the Wampanoag, a local tribe living on Cape Cod, Nantucket, Martha’s Vineyard, and inland. Massasoit was the chief. (“Massasoit” in the Wampanoag language means “great leader” and “Wampanoag” means “People of the Dawn”.) In early spring of 1621, the Pilgrims met with Massasoit and agreed to live peaceably with the Wampanoags and to help each other. This relationship would endure for more than 50 years and tragically remains one of the sole examples of harmony between European colonists and Native Americans.
Two of my ancestors were on the Mayflower!!!
Gosh, you and your family are More American than the flag itself.
Feliz Dia de Ação de Graças.