The story of the first Thanksgiving is a classic and the foundation of one of America’s favorite holiday traditions. Who could ever forget how the destitute pilgrims and friendly native Americans came together to share in their bounty and give thanks to each other and to God. But what many don’t realize was that this moment in history was not as happy and wondrous as we may have perceived it when our second grade teachers first told us about it. In fact it was more than happy and wondrous it was a moment in which against all odds two peoples celebrated the fact that the key to living is living together. But the first Thanksgiving nearly didn’t happen and only narrowly avoided a disaster. It also serves as the perfect representation of how cultures can clash and converge. It also serves to show that we in our day really aren’t that different from our ancestors when it comes to our own Thanksgiving troubles and triumphs.

Upon arriving at Plymouth the Pilgrims had essentially separated themselves from everything they ever knew, to build a new society in the wilderness. In the sixteen hundreds North America was considered the very edge of the world to many it represented an entirely different world. It was vast and mysterious land fraught with dangers and beyond any hope of immediate aid should unfortunate colonist come under threat of famine, disease or war. To colonize such a place black then would be equivalent to us trying to colonize an alien planet. Yet they did it, in November of 1620 the Pilgrims took their first trembling steps off of the Mayflower and on to the New World.

It had been a hard crossing fraught with rough seas, an unfriendly crew, and terrible living conditions. I can only imagine that it was with a mixture of joyous gratitude and absolute terror that the Pilgrims set about constructing their new settlement. It’s important to consider that these weren’t expert woodsmen nor would they have sufficient tools or skill to build structures that would for sure hold off the hard winter months to come. But like good enthusiastic Americans they rolled up their sleeves and began to starve.

Not everyone aboard the Mayflower had been experienced farmers many had been simple merchants and businessmen. Even those who did have agricultural experience would have been hard pressed to cultivate a decent harvest so late in the year and in a strange untamed land. On top of their rush to build a warm and defensible settlement lack of food, and rising death rate was the fear of what lurked just beyond the tree lines. This was not an era of good feelings among peoples, England and mainland Europe had been fraught with war and mistrust and hatred governed the known world. The same was doubly so here in the Americas. The Pilgrims wouldn’t have been so proud or stupid to think that the land was inherently theirs just because they were white and Christian. They would have been very aware that they were trespassing on foreign territory. The firearms they brought with them weren’t just for hunting after all.

The Indian’s would have taken a similar point of view towards the pilgrims. The tribes of North East America weren’t strangers to war and mistrust nor were they strangers even to Europeans. One Indian by the name of Squanto had gotten to know the English all to well when he was kidnapped by them earlier in his life. What a meeting it must have been when he and Pilgrims first met.

Squanto was a young man when the English Explorer George Weymouth captured him and brought him back to Britain. Weymouth had regarded Squanto and his people as part of the American fauna and thought it might be profitable to bring group back to England to show to the public like animals in a zoo. Weymouth’s employer Ferdinando Gorges, regarded the captives as an excellent business opportunity. He took Squanto and a few other captive Indians into his house and taught them English and hired them as interpreters and guides. He then sent Squanto on a voyage back to North America with John Smith. After he was released by Smith Squanto was captured yet again this time by Spaniards and was taken back to Spain as a slave. After escaping his masters he took refuge with a group of monks and then made his way back to America in 1619 only to find his whole tribe had been whipped out by Small Pox.

Here was a man who’d been kidnaped and exploited by Europeans, a man whose people had been decimated by the infections the Europeans brought with them. And what were his words when he met this ragged and miserable band of white men who’d started living on the same ground his lost tribe once was and who were likely pointing guns at him? “Welcome, Englishmen.” To Squanto’s everlasting credit he was able to look past the years of mistreatment he’d endured and see these people for what they truly were. Sad, hungry, and frightened refugees trying to scratch out a living in a new place.

You probably know the rest of the story. Squanto acted as an intermediary between the Pilgrim leaders and the Wampanoag tribe who’d taken him in. The Wampanoags helped the English survive they had a big meal and lived happily ever after right? Wrong. The Wampanoags and English alike would have still been extremely warry of each other. The Wampanoags knew that European explorers always brought trouble kidnaping, infection and death always fallowed in their wake. The English for their part realized they were trespassers and that the natives would harbor no great love for European neighbors. The Wampanoags had numbers but the English had guns and cannon. These facts played on both people’s fear of each other but it also fueled their desire to form an alliance.

The Wampanoags had been weakened by disease and were surrounded by other larger tribes who they saw as a threat. If they could only have peace with the English it would have been great but it would be even better to have them as allies. The English for their part needed food and skill pure and simple. Despite their fears and cultural barriers the two people’s struck an accord. The English would live in peace with the Wampanoags and Squanto would help them learn how to make a living in the New World.

A year later the English reaped their first successful harvest and decided to celebrate with a feast. In recognition of their friendship with the Wamponaugs the newly elected leader of the Pilgrims Edward Winslow invited the Wampanoag Chief Massasoit to join them. This is where Old and New world cultures and Thanksgiving mix-ups began. The Pilgrims came from an individualistic society one man such as King James embodied the whole of a nation and people, in a sense King James was England. By extent the Pilgrims assumed Massasoite would arrive as the sole representative of his people. But what the Pilgrims didn’t realize was that the Wamponaugs were communalistic meaning all for one and one for all. The ate from the same bowls slept in the same long house, and saw their collective society as representatives of that society. In other words You invite me to dinner, you invite me and my entire extended family to dinner.

So there they were, Chief Massasoit and his ninety uninvited guests and Plymouth colonies cooking staff of five women having to set a table for around one hundred and forty five diners. The result was three day banquet during which they feasted on venison kindly provided by the Wamponaugs, roast fowl, cranberries, corn squash and fish. Grace was said in accordance with the Christian practices that the pilgrims held and the food was shared Wampanoag style. Every one eating with their hands from the same platter. It is unknown whether or not the Thanksgiving staples of turkey and potatoes were present but as is true with today’s thanksgiving celebrations the feast was followed by contests and games in which the men proved their marksmanship a wrestling skills and children played tag.

They say Plymouth Rock was the corner stone of America. If that’s true then the first thanks giving was the mortar that held everything together. This event wouldn’t become a tradition until well after the American Revolution but it served as reminder of America’s great founding principles of faith, courage, love, and the quest to build better society from the one before. This moment represents the best of the American spirit. Two peoples looking past their differences and celebrating the bounty which comes from hard work, friend ship, and a loving creator even if that creator was recognized by different names. And that is something to be truly thankful for.