20. The Mayflower survivors attended the harvest celebration in the fall of 1621
At the end of the summer of 1621, likely during the last week in September, the surviving Pilgrims harvested their first crop in the New World. Squanto and Samoset provided the guidance which ensured the crop succeeded. Two of the Separatists, William Bradford and Edward Winslow left behind records of the event, and the harvest celebration which ensued. Fishing had proved successful, in both fresh and salt water. Waterfowl and game teemed in the area throughout the summer, and though the Pilgrims still had no cattle to provide beef, they had plenty of venison, and the meat of smaller game. To celebrate the harvest, the Pilgrims and their Indian allies enjoyed a three-day feast, “so that we might after a special manner rejoice together after we had gathered the fruits of our labor”.
There were only 50 surviving of the more than one hundred who arrived in the Mayflower less than one year earlier. They were joined by upwards of 90 natives, meaning Indians outnumbered Pilgrims by nearly two to one. Yet neither chronicler of the event referred to it as Thanksgiving. That did not occur until midsummer, 1623. After mid-July rains ended a drought which threatened that year’s crops, Governor Bradford ordered a 14-day fast, and “they also set apart a day of thanksgiving”, celebrated before completing the year’s harvest. It was the first Thanksgiving in what became the United States ordered by civil, rather than by religious authority.