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North and South
Stories and Genealogy of Theodore Charles Anderson and Sara Carlene Shuttleworth
The First Thanksgiving
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Indians
In 1600, many hundreds of thousands of Native American Indians densely populated the area now known as New England and Nova Scotia; from the Atlantic seaboard to the St. Laurence water way. In those days, the Indians knew this area as the Dawnland. They were organized into closely-knit tribes, often at war with one another. These tribes were (from South to North):
 The Quiripi,
The Mohegan-Pequoit,
The Narragansett,
The Massachusett,
The Nipmuck,
The Mahican,
The Western Abenaki,
The Eastern Abenaki,
The Iroquois,
The Passamoquoddy, and
The Micmac
By 1600, the Indians had had contact with the Europeans for about 100 years, some friendly, many not so. British fishing vessels may have reached Newfoundland as early as the 1480s, 10 years before Columbus, and New England soon thereafter. In 1501, just nine years after Christopher Columbus’s first voyage, the Portuguese explorer Gaspar Corte-Real abducted 50 Indians from Maine and took them back to Europe as specimens.
By 1610, Britain alone had about 200 vessels operating off Newfoundland and New England; hundreds more came from France, Spain, Portugal and Italy. There were a few heavily fortified European settlements along the New England seaboard at that time, mostly British, but the total non-Indian population didn’t number more than a thousand or so.
Then, in about 1615, disaster struck the Indians. An epidemic swept through their tribes like wildfire. The Europeans, who were immune to it, carried the disease. Based on accounts of the symptoms, researchers have guessed that the disease was probably viral hepatitis A. Whatever the cause, the results were catastrophic to the Indians, as many as 90% of them died within a few years. Those who survived retreated to heavily guarded, scattered villages, never understanding what had happened to them.
It was into this environment that the Pilgrims decided to immigrate to New England in 1620.
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The Voyage of the Mayflower
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The English ship, the Mayflower, carried the Separatist Puritans, later known as the Pilgrims, to Plymouth, Mass. in 1620. The 180-ton vessel was about 12 years old and had been in the wine trade. It was chartered by John Carver, a leader of the Separatist congregation at Leiden, Holland, who went to London to make arrangements for the voyage to America.
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The Pilgrims were typical of other English settlers of that time in their almost total lack of preparation. Expeditions from France and Spain were usually backed by the State, and generally staffed by soldiers accustomed to hard living.
English voyages, by contrast, were almost always funded by venture capitalists who hoped for a quick profit. Like Silicon Valley in the heyday of the Internet bubble, London was the center of a speculative mania about the Americas. As with the dot-com boom, a great deal of profoundly irrational thinking occurred. For example, decades after first reaching the Americas, the English still hadn’t figured out that New England was colder than England despite being much further south.
Inexperienced in agriculture, the Pilgrims were also not woodsmen and had little or no idea how to survive in the wilderness. They intended to produce their own food when they arrived, but inexplicably neglected to bring any livestock. To be fair, they probably intended to make most of their livelihood not from farming but from fishing, but the only fishing gear they brought with them turned out to be useless in the waters off New England.
The Leiden Separatists, who had initiated the venture, sailed for Southampton from Leiden on July 22, 1620, aboard the 60-ton vessel, the Speedwell, to meet up with the Mayflower for the voyage across the Atlantic.
The flotilla of two ships sailed from Southampton on August 15, but was forced back twice by dangerous leaks on the Speedwell.
After much consternation, they finally gave up on the Speedwell and transferred her passengers over to the Mayflower.
And so, on September 16, 1620, they set sail on the Mayflower on their historic voyage, ill prepared, not really knowing where they were going or how they were going to survive when they got there.
The Mayflower carried 102 passengers, 37 of whom were from the Leiden congregation. The rest were crew or hired help, among them Myles Standish, a professional soldier. One of Sara’s ancestors married his son, so he is a distant Father-in-Law. John Alden, a cooper, was also hired to make the wagons they would need when they arrived in North America. Other colonists, “the Strangers”, were taken along at the demand of the London businessmen who financed the expedition and insisted on a larger landing party.
The passengers on the Mayflower related to Sara were:
Edward Fuller (age 45) 10th Great Grandfather,
His wife Ann (age 42) 10th Great Grandmother,
Their young son Samuel (age 8) 9th Great Grandfather,
Dr. Samuel Fuller (age 40) 10th Great Granduncle
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The Voyage took 65 days
The ship came in sight of Cape Cod on November 19th but spent several frigid weeks scouting around up and down the New England coast trying to find a good place to land, during which time many of the Pilgrims became sick and died.
Finally, they dropped anchor at Plymouth on November 21st only six weeks before winter without food or shelter!
That day, 41 men signed the so-called Mayflower Compact, a "plantation covenant" modeled after a Separatist church covenant, by which they agreed to establish a "Civil Body Politic" (a temporary government) and to be bound by its laws.
This agreement was thought necessary because there were rumors that some of the non-Separatists (“the Strangers") among the Pilgrims would defy them if they landed in a place other than that specified in the land grant they had received from the London Company. The compact became the basis of government in the Plymouth Colony. After it was signed, the Pilgrims elected John Carver their first governor.
The Mayflower's passengers finally landed at Plymouth Rock on the day after Christmas, December 26, 1620. Tradition has it that the little orphan girl Mary Chilton was the first white woman to set foot on Plymouth Rock.
They began to build their settlement at the site of a former Indian village that had been abandoned because of the epidemic.
Although the Mayflower's captain and part owner, Christopher Jones, had threatened to leave the Pilgrims unless they quickly found a place to land, the ship remained at Plymouth during the first terrible winter of 1620-21, during which half of the colonists died, including young Samuel Fuller’s parents Edward and Ann Fuller. Samuel was only 8 at the time. His uncle Dr. Samuel Fuller brought him up.
Huddled together in their half-built village that first cold winter, the Pilgrims rarely saw the area’s native Indians, except for the occasional shower of brass- or claw-tipped arrows. After February 1621, glimpses and sightings became more frequent. Scared, Myles Standish hauled five small cannons from the Mayflower ashore and placed them in a defensive formation around the settlement. But, after all the anxiety, their first contact with the Indians went surprisingly well. Within a few days, an Indian Shaman came and asked to stay with them for a while. His name was Tisquantum. He was a fascinating fellow, spoke perfect English, as he had been abducted years before and lived in England for a while. (His is worth a whole story by itself.)
Tisquantum decided to gather the few survivors of his tribe from the surrounding countryside and attempt to reconstitute his old community at a site near Plymouth. The Indians helped the Pilgrims, so much so that by fall their situation was secure enough that they decided to hold a feast of thanksgiving.
Tisquantum showed up with about 90 young armed braves. Myles Standish and his militia responded by marching around, firing their muskets in the air in a manner intended to convey menace. Satisfied with their mutual display of bravado, both sides sat down and partook in a great feast.
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Who Came to the First Thanksgiving
In addition to the 90 or so Indians, of the Pilgrims there included 28 adults and 23 kids (Sara’s ancestors, the Fullers, are highlighted in brown):
John Alden 22, cooper of the Mayflower
Isaac Allerton 35
Bartholomew Allerton 8
Remember Allerton (girl) 6
Mary Allerton 4
John Billington 41
Elinor Billington 37
John Billington 13
Francis Billington 11
William Bradford 31
William Brewster 53
Mary Brewster 52
Love Brewster (boy) 10
Wrestling Brewster (boy) 7
Peter Browne 21
Unknown Female 24, maidservant to Carver
Mary Chilton 14
Francis Cooke 38
John Cooke 15
Humility Cooper (girl) 2
John Crackstone 21 (est.)
Edward Dotey 21, servant to Hopkins
Francis Eaton 29
Samuel Eaton 1
Ely 23, hired seaman
Dr. Samuel Fuller, the elder 41
Samuel Fuller 9
Richard Gardiner 22
Stephen Hopkins 40
Elizabeth Hopkins 27
Constance Hopkins 16
Giles Hopkins 14
Damaris Hopkins (girl) 3
Oceanus Hopkins (boy) approx. 1
John Howland 28, servant to Carver
William Latham 13, servant to Carver
Edward Lester 22, servant to Stephen Hopkins
Desire Minter (girl) 15
Priscilla Mullins 19 (est.)
Joseph Rogers 17
Henry Sampson 17
George Soule 24, servant to Edward Winslow
Myles Standish 37, Military Commander of the Mayflower
Elizabeth Tilley 14
William Trevore 23, hired seaman
Richard Warren 41
Resolved White (boy) 6
Peregrine White (boy) approx. 11 months
Edward Winslow 26
Elizabeth Winslow 24
Gilbert Winslow 21
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The First National Thanksgiving
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In 1789, following a proclamation issued by President George Washington, the United States celebrated its first National Day of Thanksgiving under its new constitution.
Despite this first national proclamation, official Thanksgiving observances usually occurred only at the State level.
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Lincoln’s Thanksgiving Proclamation
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Much of the credit for the adoption of the annual national Thanksgiving Day is attributed to Mrs. Sarah Joseph Hale, the editor of Godey's Lady's Book. She was the one who wrote the poem “Mary had a Little Lamb.”
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For thirty years, she had promoted the idea of a national Thanksgiving Day, contacting President after President until finally, in the darkest days of the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln responded by setting aside the last Thursday of November, 1863 as a day of national Thanksgiving.
Here is his actual proclamation:
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By the President of the United States of America
A Proclamation
The year that is drawing towards its close has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God.
In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign States to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict; while that theatre has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union.
Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defense have not arrested the plough, the shuttle or the ship; the axe has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore.
Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege and the battlefield; and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom.
No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.
It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American People.
I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens.
And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility and Union.
In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the Seal of the United States to be affixed.
Done at the City of Washington, this Third day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the Unites States the Eighty-eighth.
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Over the next seventy-five years, each succeeding President followed Lincoln's precedent, annually declaring a national Thanksgiving Day. Then, in 1941, Congress permanently established the fourth Thursday of each November as a national holiday of thanksgiving.
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References:
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This writing is a compendium of many Internet sources.
- A major source was "1491, New Revelations of the Americas before Columbus" by Charles C. Mann, 2005. Many passages were taken verbatim but edited for effect.
- "Mayflower" by Nathaniel Philbrick,
- "The First Year" by Enid LaMonte Meadowcroft
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This page and all genealogical data contained on it are Copyrighted © 2007/2008
by Theodore C. Anderson
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