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The First Thanksgiving
The Pilgrims reached a peace agreement with Massasoit of the Poconoquet tribe – a sachem with alliances across New England. They spent the next few months growing crops and strengthening their peace with the local tribes. A year after they’d set sail, they seemed to have enjoyed a great degree of success. When the harvest came in, Massasoit brought plenty of his own food, and Indian and Englishman alike sat down for a three day celebration.
Transcript
Five days after his initial visit, Samoset returned to Plymouth with four other Indians, including Squanto, who talked about his own time in Spain, Newfoundland and London. They’d also brought furs to trade, along with fresh herring. An hour later, Massasoit himself appeared on the hill across the creek. He was about 35, serious, and quiet, with his face painted dark red, a wide necklace made of shell beads, and a long knife suspended from a string. He was surrounded by an entourage of 60 warriors whose faces were painted in assorted colors and designs, holding bows and arrows. Squanto spoke with Massasoit, and returned with the message that the Pilgrims should send someone to speak to him.
Winslow’s wife was dying, but he agreed to act as the messenger. He put on a suit of armor, walked alongside Squanto, and presented the sachem with a pair of knives, some copper chains, alcohol and biscuits, and then delivered a brief speech, saying that King James of England saluted him with words of love and peace, and looked to him as a friend and ally. Carver wished to speak and trade with Massasoit, and hoped to establish a formal peace. Massasoit asked if Winslow was willing to sell his sword and armor, but Winslow politely declined. They decided that Winslow would remain with Massasoit’s brother while the sachem went with 20 of his men, unarmed, to meet the governor.
In Plymouth, Brewster organized a reception for the Indian King. Standish led a delegation of 6 armed men to greet the sachem at the brook. They exchanged salutations, and Standish accompanied Massasoit to a house in the town, as the Pilgrims played a drum and trumpet. When he entered the house, governor Carver kissed his hand. He returned the gesture, and they sat down, and Carver offered Massasoit a ceremonial drink of liquor. Massasoit was sweating in fear, though, seeing the English guarding their storehouse, which held the gunpowder.
Massasoit and Carver negotiated an agreement for an alliance between their two peoples. According to the agreement, Massasoit’s people wouldn’t hurt the English, and if any of his subjects did, Massasoit would send the offender to be punished. If any tools were taken, he would have them returned, and the English would reciprocate. If anyone made an unjust war against Massasoit, the English would help him, and if any Englishman harmed an Indian, they’d turn them over to the Poconoquets. Massasoit would tell his neighbors about the peace agreement, so they’d be included, and both sides would meet unarmed. The Pilgrims broke the last part pretty quickly, though, continuing to carry their muskets throughout the meeting. Massasoit chose not to comment on it, but his brother did, and they put their muskets aside.
They also decided that Squanto would stay with the English, and Massasoit said he would plant corn near Plymouth, which he officially gave to the English as a gift. The Pilgrims sent him a large kettle of peas as a gift, which he liked, and that night Squanto and Samoset spent the night with the English, while Massasoit and his men slept in the woods half a mile away.
They were officially at peace with Massasoit, the man allied with most of the region’s tribes. It was a big step toward peace, though certainly not a final one. Some of Massasoit’s allies had reservations about the move, trusting both the English and Squanto as little as Massasoit had. Plus, Massasoit had enemies among the Naragansetts.
Shortly after the agreement was reached, Christopher Jones returned to England. He left the rest of the Mayflower’s beer with the Pilgrims, and drank water on the way home. Right after returning, he died, and the Mayflower rotted in the river near his grave until it was useless and broken down for scrap. There’s a barn in Buckinghamshire which legend says was built from the ship’s scrap, and which you can still see today.
Unsurprisingly, Weston’s finances were continuing to disintegrate, and now he didn’t have much-needed returns on his Mayflower investment. Jones had brought back no fish, and no fur, and had dropped the passengers off outside of their patent area. That meant the investors had to buy a new patent from the Council for New England, and needed to raise funds to send over reinforcements, and they’d had no infusion of money. Weston was trying to recoup Mayflower losses by smuggling aluminum sulfate, or alum, a chemical used to fix dyes into woolen cloth. James had declared Yorkshire’s alum mines to be an issue of national security, taken them from their previous owners who weren’t using them, and rented them out to people who would extract the chemical and pay him rent. To ensure that their business was profitable enough to sustain this plan, James banned European alum, and set a minimum price of 26 pounds a ton within England. English alum sold for just 13 pounds a ton in Europe, so a group of desperate merchants including Weston had started to buy English alum in Europe at the reduced price, and then smuggle it back into England to sell for 22 pounds a ton. James found out what was happening, sent out an investigator, and that investigator found Weston and filed a lawsuit against him. Weston, of course, had bought on credit, and when he lost the lawsuit others involved the trade said he was the person responsible for the smuggling, making him alone liable for the court’s heavy penalty of 345 pounds. He didn’t help matters when he offered “willful contempt and abuse” to the state, but to be honest there wasn’t much he could have done to help matters at the time.
The Council for New England was the revived Plymouth Colony, which James was encouraging to try to divert investors away from the Virginia Company. It was led by the same person who had led the Plymouth colony, Fernandino Gorges. Gorges was passionate about New England, but he himself drew strong criticisms of being a feudalist. He saw colonization as an aristocratic endeavor, and collected rents from everyone who lived or did business in his patent area. This was deeply unpopular, especially coming from someone who dealt largely with puritans but was himself aristocratic. It’s worth noting, though, that he did this largely so he could afford to defend these areas from attack, especially from the Spanish, with whom he saw war as an inevitability.
The Council used the system of “particular plantations” to remain financially solvent, and in 1622, Gorges himself would partner with John Mason to buy a patent for a particular plantation – Maine. He was one of 40 members of the new Council, though, which would comprise a “body politick” that would vote on various issues. Other members’ names will look familiar at this point, Southampton, Cecil’s son William, Buckingham, Francis Popham, Richard Hawkins, Warwick and his brother.
It took two months to raise the money and organize the second mission, a tiny ship called the Fortune which would carry 35 new settlers, but no supplies or trading goods. They needed the Fortune to return to England as soon as possible, though, with beaver skins to help maintain the financial solvency of the investors and the colony.
Back in Plymouth, Carver died. His wife followed five weeks later. A jarring winter was just ending, and the Pilgrims were beginning to realize that the theft of corn from the Nausets had damaged their ability to trade for fur or build an alliance with the tribe. On the bright side, Squanto was teaching them to plant corn, squash and beans, and to fertilize the crops with the herring which was starting to fill the rivers.
Still, Carver’s death was a big blow at the end of a winter that had already killed half the settlers.
The winter’s hardship had also exacerbated tensions among the settlers. Hopkins’ two servants had injured each other in a duel, and been sentenced to have their heads and feet tied together. And Billington was continuing to rail against Standish’s demands. They needed to replace Carver with someone reliable and respected, and Bradford was the natural choice. He’d been part of Robinson’s congregation since he was a young teenager, after his parents had died, and he’d sold pretty much everything he had for the benefit of the colony. He was elected governor, with Brewster, Winslow, Standish and Allerton as advisors. Soon, Winslow married Susannah White – both having been widowed over winter.
Over spring, they planted, they fished, and by summer they were at least recovering from the traumatic first few months. They did have a continual stream of Indian visitors asking for food, though, so in July Winslow and Hopkins visited Massasoit at Nemasket, and gave him a chain and said they’d only feed visitors who were carrying the chain. That way, they could be sure to feed the people sent by Massasoit without having to entertain every guest that came along. On their way, the Englishmen saw story holes, which Indians dug wherever major events had happened. Squanto told them stories of the past, the land as it used to be, before the plague had set in. Two older Indians welcomed them into their home on the way to Nemasket, and they learned that the two 60 year old warriors were the last survivors of a once-thriving village. Finally they reached Massasoit’s village of Sowams, a beautifully fertile piece of land with two rivers running through it. By comparison, Plymouth was a wasteland.
The sachem invited them into his wigwam, and in addition to the chain they gave him a horseman’s coat, which both he and his people loved to see him in. He happily agreed to their requests, and then gave a speech to each of his villages, saying they could trade with the English and provide them with furs, and that the French would no longer be welcome in their area. Because he named each village by name, the speech went on for a long time, and Winslow and Hopkins were torn between boredom and happiness. There was no food in the village, because the Poconoquets had just arrived from their winter village, but they smoked, talked, and stayed overnight in Massasoit’s house, sharing a sleeping platform with the sachem, his wife, two more warriors, and a bunch of lice, fleas and mosquitos. The Indians also sang themselves to sleep, which kept the Englishmen from sleeping. The next day they played games, and Winslow and Hopkins gave a shooting demonstration with their muskets. With little food the next day and no sleep the next night, Winslow and Hopkins decided it was time to return home. Squanto would stay at Pocanoquet, though, to help establish trading relations between various villages and the Pilgrims, which would provide the English furs and corn. In the meantime, Tokomahamon would serve as their guide, and two days later, they returned home having successfully strengthened the friendship with the Indians to the west.
Not long after Winslow and Hopkins returned to Plymouth, John Billington’s teenage son Francis lost his way in the woods. He’d already found the giant lake which served as the source of Town Brook, which was named the Billington Sea after he managed to convince someone to come with him to verify his claims. Two miles away from the town, it would be extremely helpful for the colony. This time, he got lost and wandered for 5 days, living on nuts, roots and anything else he could find, until he stumbled into the Indian village of Manomet, about 20 miles East. The town’s sachem, Canacum, turned him over to the Nausets, still hostile to the English, and led by the sachem Aspinet.
The Pilgrims didn’t know what had happened to him for a long time, but they learned from Massasoit that Billington was fine and living with the Nausets. Bradford ordered a party of 10 men, more than half the adult males in the settlement, to set out in the shallop with Squanto and Tokomahamon as guides.
As they made their way to Nauset, a thunderstorm forced them to take shelter for the night, and the next day they found themselves on tidal flats, surrounded by Indians collecting lobsters. Squanto and Tokohamanon went to speak with them, and they introduced the Pilgrims to their sachem, Ianough. He was a 20-something, personable and courteous man. While in the town, they also met a 100 year old woman who started crying when she saw them, saying her kids had been captured by Thomas Hunt several years before, and she was still mourning their loss. They said they were sorry an Englishmen had given them that offense, that Hunt was a bad man, and that all the Englishmen who had heard of his crimes condemned him, too.
Then, they were approached by the man whose corn they had stolen, and they invited him to visit the settlement, where they promised to reimburse him for his loss. Aspinet then brought the kid, well cared for and with a string of shell beads around his neck. The Pilgrims gave Aspinet a knife, and peace was declared between the English and Nausets.
They had made peace with the tribe most hostile to them, but it was the Nauset sachem who told them they may now be at war with another tribe. The Naragansetts had killed several of Massasoit’s men, and taken the sachem captive. According to their treaty with Massasoit, they were obligated to go to war with the most powerful tribe in the region. The Naragansetts were easily strong enough to wipe them out. They had to get back to Plymouth as soon as possible.
Once they got back to Plymouth, Bradford sent Squanto and Tokomahamon to Nemasket to find out what was going on. The next day, one of Massasoit’s warriors, named Hobbamock, arrived at Plymouth, gasping for breath and covered in sweat. He’d just run the 15 miles from Nemasket, where he’d last seen Squanto held by a warrior with a knife to his chest. Corbitant viewed Squanto as the instigator of Massasoit’s shift toward the English, and he was the best translator the English had. Corbitant was a lesser sachem who had previously been allied with Massasoit, but who was part of a group of sachems who opposed the leader’s treaty with the English. Corbitant wanted to convince the Poconoquet to follow him instead of Massasoit.
Standish went to Nemasket to avenge Squanto’s death if they found that he’d been killed, to make a show of English strength, and to show the English would defend their allies. If Squanto had been killed, he planned to behead Corbitant, behead him and display his head publicly in Plymouth. He took Hobbamock, who had quickly become his closest friend, as well as a couple of Englishmen. They didn’t have any military experience, but Standish gave them a pep talk, and instructed them to shoot any Indians who attempted to escape.
Standish and Hobbamock burst into Nemasket that night. It was raining, it was dark, and no one could see much of anything. Hobbamock interpreted while Standish demanded to know where Corbitant was. The town’s residents were too terror-stricken to speak, and some panicked and fled. The guards started shooting off their muskets, and several women clung to Hobbamock, calling him “friend.” They didn’t find Corbitant, the chaos ended, and they learned that no one actually knew where the sachem was. They found Squanto still alive, though, as well as Tokomahamon. They stayed in Nemasket overnight, and the next morning they found that Corbitant and his men had fled. Standish told the residents of Nemasket that they shouldn’t shield Corbitant if he continued threatening the English. They treated the people they’d injured in the melee, and returned to Plymouth.
By the time they got home, Massasoit was already back in Sowams, likely having been released before the confrontation. It seemed that the show of force earned the Pilgrims some respect, though, and several petty sachems sent messages to Bradford. Epenow made new overtures of friendship, and even Corbitant said he wanted peace. A much firmer peace now existed in the region, and on September 13, 9 sachems, including Corbitant, Epenow and Canacum, went to Plymouth to sign a treaty professing their loyalty to King James.
The Massachusetts had threatened the Poconoquets, though, so Bradford sent an exploratory expedition north to what’s now Boston Harbor. They immediately noted what a perfect settlement location it was, and in fact one of the Mayflower sailors had mentioned it as a potential settlement location, and they could see why. Three navigable rivers, an easily defensible neck of high ground, access to the fur-rich interior of New England, and a shore where ships of any size could go right up to the land. But, it would be more work than it was worth to move now, and there were no Indians around, so they returned home.
When they returned to Plymouth, they had finished their first harvest, and migrating birds filled the air. Massasoit brought 100 people to Plymouth with five freshly killed deer. For three days, the two groups celebrated with food and beer. They stood, squatted or sat on the ground around outdoor fires as birds cooked on spits, and stews were filled with meat and vegetables. There were birds, likely turkeys and ducks, deer, lobster and possibly fish. It was also possible to brew beer. They ate with fingers and knives, socialized and reflected on the year they’d just experienced. For puritans, Thanksgiving meant a day of fasting and prayer, but this was the celebration we refer to when we talk about the first Thanksgiving, and the Pilgrims certainly had a lot to be thankful for. After eleven months in New England, they could grow crops, and had a close friendship with the locals, and peace with others. Massasoit himself had a lot to celebrate. He was surging in influence and power thanks to his alliance with the English. At this point, his people could rival the Narragansetts in power, though not in population. And Squanto, Squanto was the man on whom everyone had come to depend, especially the Pilgrims, and especially Bradford, which put him well on his way to being the most powerful Indian leader in New England.