Weird Island

65. THANKSGIVING: Revisiting the Origin Story

Episode Summary

This week, as many get ready to celebrate Thanksgiving, I wanted to revisit the story of the Pilgrims and the first Thanksgiving that many of us learned as kids. Because, I found out as an adult that I didn’t really learn the full story–I learned a mythologized version of it. And I learned that while I heard a lot about the Pilgrims landing at Plymouth, I didn’t know as much about the Wampanoag people who were already in New England, many of whom were living in what is part of Rhode Island today.

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Episode Transcription

If you’ve listened to this podcast for a while, you might know that I’m not originally from Rhode Island. I grew up in Plymouth, MA and around this time of year, I spend a lot of time back in Plymouth visiting with my family for Thanksgiving and Christmas.
And there’s one tradition my dad has always especially loved–Plymouth’s Thanksgiving Parade. He’s a big parade person. And I remember many years where we’d bundle up, because it is cold in November, and head to this steep hill called Cole’s Hill that overlooks Plymouth Harbor and directly faces the portico sheltering Plymouth Rock. And we’d shiver and clap and watch as bands and floats and people dressed in costume marched by.
And at the very top of that steep hill that we huddled against, watching over everything, is a bronze statue of a man known to many today as Massasoit, a great leader of the Wampanoag, remembered for establishing peaceful relations with the Pilgrims who arrived in 1620. The statue keeps watch over a hill that was used as the Pilgrim’s burial ground in the first winter they arrived in America. But it’s not where the great Wampanoag leader is buried.
That is most likely another hill overlooking the water, one called Burr’s Hill, and it’s located in Warren, RI. In the 1600s, Warren and Bristol and Barrington would have been called Sowams, and generations of Wampanoag leaders, including the great Massasoit, called this place home.
I’m Sara, and you’re listening to Weird Island. Each week I’ll be telling you about the strangest stories I can dig up from my tiny, little state of Rhode Island. And this week, as many get ready to celebrate Thanksgiving, I wanted to revisit the story of the Pilgrims and the first Thanksgiving that many of us learned as kids. Because, I found out as an adult that I didn’t really learn the full story–I learned a mythologized version of it. And I learned that while I heard a lot about the Pilgrims landing at Plymouth, I didn’t know as much about the Wampanoag people who were already in New England, many of whom were living in what is part of Rhode Island today.
Burr’s Hill, in Warren, faces West. You can stand on the grassy, rolling hills and watch the sun set over the water. During the Ice Age, glaciers shaped the land here into high mounds of sand and gravel that thousands of years later, in the 1850s, would be used in the construction of a railroad track that stretched from Providence to Bristol.
But then people began finding things in the sand and gravel. Iron tools, ceramic bowls, glass bottles, wampum. And human remains. This hill had been a Native American burial ground, and it was being dug up.
In 1913, in an effort to preserve and protect the remaining graves, the town Librarian, an amateur archaeologist, removed artifacts from 42 graves. Some were donated to Brown University and the Heye Museum of the American Indian. Others ended up in private collections. One finding was particularly interesting. A local author and historian wrote, “in one of the graves were found a feather war bonnet, the remains of two fine muskets, and a roll of gold lace. All these things indicate the burial place of a man of high rank.”
Historical accounts noted how the Plymouth Colonists had gifted a red horseman’s coat to the Wampanoag Massasoit in 1621, and the coat was trimmed with gold lace. Suggesting, perhaps, this was the grave of the great chief.
As a kid, I learned about Massasoit and Squanto and the Pilgrims, and that first Thanksgiving celebration. It sounded something like this–My little cousins called in to help me tell the story they learned:
Kids talking
They did a great job telling me what they learned, and it sounded a lot like what I learned. But that story–it’s more of a folk story than a history. There was a Thanksgiving celebration, but there was so much important context before and after that meaningfully changes the way this event is seen today. So, given that much of this story happened close to or even in parts of what is today Rhode Island, I wanted to share what I learned of the true story behind Thanksgiving as we celebrate this week.
Plymouth, today, is celebrated as the birthplace of America. And I envisioned that when the Pilgrim’s showed up, the land was a vast wilderness. But it wasn’t. People had been living along the coast for thousands of years.
And 100 or so years before the Plymouth colonists arrived, Europeans had begun showing up. In 1524, an Italian explorer named Giovanni da Verrazzano explored the east coast, from Florida all the way to Nova Scotia, and noted that the coastlines were densely populated with people. Of all the places and people he visited with, Verrazzano was most impressed with Narragansett Bay, where he saw vast plains of land that had been heavily managed for farming and hunting and he met “the most beautiful” people who lived in the area.
At the time, the bay was inhabited by two distinct tribes. On the west side of the bay were the Narragansetts, and on the east side of the bay were a tribe of people who came to be known in early colonial records as the Pokanoket. The Pokanoket were the headship tribe, or leadership tribe, of the Wampanoags. Though, the term Wampanoag would not have been used at the time. I’ll share more on “why” later. But from here on out, you will hear me refer to the tribe as Wampanoag.
Verrazzano would hardly be the last European to sail into the bay. By the early 1600s, indigenous people living along the coast of MA and RI were dealing with almost yearly visits from Europeans. Some were more peaceful than others, primarily seeking trade partners. Others were more violent, murdering and capturing indigenous people, either bringing them back to England or selling them into slavery. Whether peaceful or violent, English explorers represented massive change for local tribes, bringing with them new goods, new ideas, and new diseases that would have devastating effects.
In 1614, 6 years before the Mayflower set sail, an expedition led by Captain John Smith visited the northeast coast seeking trading partners and potential sites for settlements. Smith created a detailed map of the area, which he named New England, and then he returned to London, leaving one of his commanders, Thomas Hunt, behind to continue fishing and trading in what is, today, Plymouth harbor. Hunt had his own ideas about what to do next.
Seeing an opportunity for personal gain, he captured 27 Wampanoag men. These men were stuffed below deck, where they were chained together and given just enough food and water to stay alive for the six weeks it took to get to Malaga, Spain to be sold into slavery. Most of those men were never heard about again, but one man was able to escape. His name was Tisquantum, also known as Squanto.
A group of friars blocked the sale of Tisquantum into slavery, likely citing a Spanish law prohibiting the enslavement of Native Americans. An English merchant brought him to London, and for the next four years he lived with a merchant and shipbuilder, learned to speak English, and gained somewhat of a celebrity status among the English–who were fascinated by the presence of a Native American. Then in 1619 he joined an expedition back to America.
During his time in London, Tisquantum had likely heard news of a great epidemic back at home that had devastated indigenous communities. But though he may have had some sense of the illness, Tisquantum likely wouldn’t have understood the full extent of its impact. It’s estimated that between 1614 and 1619, as many as 45K Wampanoag people may have died, representing ⅔ of the entire population.
The ship carrying Tisquantum first arrived in Maine and then traveled down the coast towards his home village of Patuxet. Along the way, the captain of the ship noted that the previously populated shores were “utterly void” of people. After five years away and an unlikely journey home, Tisquantum arrived in Patuxet, probably hoping for a joyous reunion, only to find that everyone was dead. The illness had spread so quickly, there had been no one to bury those who passed away.
This was one year before the Mayflower set sail. This was the world the English colonists would arrive to.
Back in England, Europeans took the epidemic as a sign of God’s favor. While indigenous men, women and children died at unprecedented rates, English explorers appeared to have been spared. Likely because the English brought the disease with them and had the antibodies to fight it. John Smith wrote, “God had laid this country open for us”
Open, for the taking. By people like those on board the Mayflower. The people we know today as the Pilgrims were a group of English Separatists, a type of reformed Protestant, and they were fleeing religious persecution back in England. I learned that they were coming to America to establish a society based on religious freedom, but that wasn’t exactly right. They wanted the freedom to practice their religion, but didn’t necessarily support that same freedom for others.
When the Mayflower first arrived off the coast of Cape Cod, the Wampanoag avoided the English for months. Modern tellings strongly imply the Wampanoags were intimidated by the appearance of strangers, but the truth is that they were well-acquainted with Europeans, with their violence and their diseases, and knew it was in their best interest to be cautious.
The colonists immediately proved the Wampanoags’ fears were well-founded when they anchored off Cape Cod, came to shore, and rummaged through Wampanoag homes–unearthing graves, picking through funerary offerings, and digging up underground storage pits containing corn that would be planted in the next season.
“Some of the best things we took away with us, and left the houses standing still as they were,” they wrote, thanking God again for providing for them.
Ultimately, the English chose to settle within Wampanoag territory at Tisquantum’s village of Patuxet, the site of modern-day Plymouth. It was described as a place with open fields, freshwater, a good harbor, and it appeared to be free for the taking because the recent epidemic had left it empty of people. Before the colonists could build their homes, they had to clear away the sun-bleached remains of the dead.
That first winter was hard. Nearly half of the Pilgrim’s original population of 102 people died from extreme cold, lack of food, and disease. At one point, only 7 people were healthy enough to care for the sick. Despite the hardships, they continued to build a settlement on shore and spent most nights sleeping on board the ship where it was anchored in the harbor.
The Wampanoag monitored the colony from a safe distance until March, four months after their arrival, when they sent an ambassador named Samoset to the English settlement. Samoset was a visitor from the Abenaki tribe in Maine, who had been staying among the Wampanoag for the past 8 months. Some historians have suggested he may have been somewhat of an expert in dealing with Europeans acting in kind of an advisory role.
Samoset approached the colonists and welcomed them in English. He proceeded to explain who he was and how he’d gotten there. He told them about the place where they had chosen to settle, saying it was called Patuxet and that the residents had all died of the plague. He told them about the Wampanoag–likely sharing some insight to the nuanced and complex political structure.
The Wampanoag tribe was composed of as many as 69 villages, stretching from southeastern MA to Bristol, RI. Each village had a sachem (or chief) but the whole confederation of tribes was presided over by a headship tribe–the Pokanoket–and a great sachem, called a Massasoit.
After months of informed debate, the Wampanoag Massasoit, a man named Ousamequin, had decided to make the English his allies.
On April of 1621, the English and Wampanoag signed a treaty, pledging to come to the aid of the other in the case of an attack. This was a far cry from an act of mutual friendship–this was a political necessity. The English settlers had lost nearly half of their population, and the alliance offered both protection and critical access to information about how to hunt, fish and grow crops. The Wampanoag were similarly situated, having lost nearly ⅔ of their population, they were faced with the threat of the rival Narragansett tribe to the west. While the English didn’t offer much in terms of numbers, they had weapons. Guns, swords, daggers. And some even believed the English had weaponized the disease that had decimated local populations.
After the treaty was signed, the Massasoit Ousamequin returned to his home in Sowams–or modern day Warren, Bristol, and Barrington–roughly 40 miles away. But he left Tisquantum behind to act as a translator and guide for the English.
After his capture, his lengthy time in London, and his epic journey home, Tisquantum found himself rejected and possibly even held captive by his own people, who were suspicious of his close relationship with the English and his time spent among them. But in acting as a translator, he was able to establish himself as an important resource.
The English colonists said Tisquantum was a “special instrument sent of God.” He taught the colonists how to grow corn, fish and hunt–and would live among the English until his death.
The road between Plymouth Colony and Sowams would become a well-traveled path. In the summer of 1621, Colonists Edward Winslow and Stephen Hopkins made their first visit to Ousamequin’s home, and gifted the great sachem a red horseman’s coat trimmed in gold lace.
By the fall, the pilgrims had their first harvest, thanks in no small part to the Wampanoags. The thing the myth of Thanksgiving really gets right is that the English had a very difficult time making it through their first year–and when they did, it was worth celebrating.
Most of what we know today of the first Thanksgiving comes from a single letter written by colonist Edward Winslow.
The event took place over the course of three days, sometime between late September and mid-November. There were roughly 50 colonists and Winslow notes that the Massasoit Ousamequin arrived with about 90 men, who contributed five deer to the feast.
Historians today debate whether or not the Wampanoag were actually invited. Some historians have suggested Ousamequin would have been in the area already at the close of the harvest season. Others have noted that the Colonists recreationally shot their guns as a form of entertainment during the event, and it’s theorized Ousamequin may have thought the English were under attack. Either way, the event was an important cross-cultural moment that was also a diplomatic event between two allies. And all would have certainly given thanks, which was important to both cultures. The English would likely have given thanks before or after every meal. And giving thanks was a daily part of Wampanoag life.
It’s unclear if this event was celebrated in the years following, but by the late 1600s and early 1700s, harvest celebrations had become a colonial New England tradition. Then in the mid-1800s a couple of things happened. A historian named Alexander Young rediscovered Winslow’s letter, with the description of the harvest celebration, and published it in his history titled “Chronicles of the Pilgrim Fathers.” In a tiny footnote, he wrote “This was the first Thanksgiving.” Then, the editor of a popular women’s magazine, Sarah Josepha Hale, began advocating for a national day of Thanksgiving. You might might not recognize the name Sarah Josepha Hale, but she was an influential writer and editor and famously wrote the poem “Mary Had a Little Lamb.”
Hale had grown up celebrating Thanksgiving in New England, and believed that the holiday could help unify a country divided by the Civil War. She had been lobbying for a national day of Thanksgiving for years, and in 1863 Abraham Lincoln responded by declaring the last Thursday of November a national day of Thanksgiving. The holiday was tied back to the “first Thanksgiving” myth in the late 1800s and early 1900s amidst anxiety over immigration, as white Protestants saw their power and authority slipping away. The myth helped cement the idea that the Pilgrims were the forefathers of America. And it ignored the next 400 years of indigenous history.
Peace between Plymouth colony and the Wampanoag nation lasted past Ousamequin’s death in 1661. But throughout that time, thousands of English colonists settled in New England. Their settlements expanded, encroaching on Native American land, and their livestock trampled crops and destroyed food. Praying towns popped up to convert Indenous people to Christianity, teach them about the bible and force them to live in English style homes. And in 1675, all of these tensions erupted into war. King Philip’s War is remembered today as the first pan-tribal war of Native American resistance to English settlement, and the effects are still felt today. Only about 400 Wampanoag people survived. Those who did either fled, or were captured and sold into slavery, or were relocated to reservations so their land could be taken. King Philip’s War would signify the conduct of further European settlers to come.
Gathering with your family is important, and I hope you’re able to spend this holiday with the people you love. But it’s also important to realize Thanksgiving came at a price. The lives of indigenous people living in America were forever damaged after the English arrived, and today, many recognize Thanksgiving not as a day of thanks, but as a day of mourning.
Following King Philip’s War, English towns were laid out in what was Sowams, the land inhabited by the Pokanoket. Today, those towns are Barrington, Warren, Bristol, Seekonk, Rehoboth, Swansea, East Providence and parts of Providence. And English histories noted colonial settlements as the “first,” as if indigenous people had never lived there.
Today, the Sowams Area Project is working to help people explore the history of Sowams. They’ve identified over 50 historically significant sites, including the burial site at Burr’s Hill.
Beginning in 2007, the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe petitioned for the return of more than 600 items that had been removed from graves on Burr’s Hill. And in 2017, the artifacts were reinterred in a crypt–and marked with a monument to the Massasoit Ousamequin. It is a humble stone engraved with the following words: “While memories of this land spark the fires of his spirit, let the smoke rise in prayerful respect to Wampanoag Massasoit Ousamequin, Yellow Feather, esteemed leader of the Wampanoag nation. His vision and 1621 treaty upheld fifty-four years of peace with early English settlers.”
Thank you so much for listening. I had a really tough time writing and researching this episode, because as I learned this story myself, I realized how much I didn’t know. And there was a lot more that I would have like to learn, and a lot more that I would have liked to talk about. I really appreciate you joining me as I learned this story this week.
As always, all episodes are written and researched by me, Sara Corben. If you liked this episode, I would love it if you could share it with your family or friends, or you can send me a note at Weird Rhode Island at Gmail.com or on IG at Weird Island Podcast. And if there’s a topic you’d really like to hear about, let me know! See you next time as we dig up more stories about all things weird and wonderful in the little state of Rhode Island.