They were known in England as Separatists. People who had illegally separated themselves from the Church of England. But to us they are forever known as the Mayflower Pilgrims.
Men and women who, in late 1620, braved the North Atlantic to emigrate to the New World. Headed for the Virginia Colony, they were blown 600 miles off course and set anchor in the place known today as Provincetown, on the tip of Cape Cod.
In the Virginia Colony they would have been greeted by other settlers, fed, clothed, sheltered and received help planning and planting their first gardens. But they were not in Virginia; they were lost, they were hungry and in front of them lay sand dunes and frozen soil.
Their exodus from England began in 1608 when the group emigrated to religiously tolerant Holland and lived for several years in Leiden. Not pleased with the government, the long-endured hardships and the “dangers to the soul” of living in Holland, they returned to England to prepare for a journey that would take them to the New World and the Virginia colony.
The leader had in his possession a letter of introduction to the colony’s governor and a patent for land on which to begin their plantation. Originally, there were to be two ships bringing the passengers to the New World, the Mayflower and the Speedwell, scheduled to depart in mid-July 1620. However, after three attempts were made to sail and numerous repairs made to the ship Speedwell, the plan was abandoned.
The sailing finally took place Sept. 16 on The Mayflower from Plymouth, England carrying 102 passengers. The original plan was to arrive in the Virginia colony by early fall, when they could plant their fruit and vegetable gardens with seeds and starts brought from home. This plan was abandoned when the winds blew the ship into the northeast in the dead of winter.
Sixteen weeks of living on The Mayflower, 66 days of it spent on the north Atlantic winter seas, they had reasons enough to despair. The situation seemed hopeless, but on Nov. 11, 1620, they spotted land and dropped anchor. In front of them were the barren sand dunes and frozen land of Cape Cod, the area that we now know as Provincetown; behind them was the ocean and a verdant, lush homeland, to which they could never return. Separatists were hunted and persecuted in England during this time, so their only option was to accept their fate in America.
After arriving in the New World, they spent the next six weeks living on The Mayflower while a few of the men used a shallop to shuttle up and down the northern Cape Cod coastline looking for signs of life and places that could both accommodate their ship and an appropriate space to build shelter. One woman had already committed suicide according to some reports, and the leaders were anxious to bring the rest to safety.
During one of their sojourns in the shallop, they spotted a native who welcomed them saying “welcome Englishmen.” He had been kidnapped and taken to England as a slave where he learned basic English. After escaping he returned to his tribe.
Upon meeting the Mayflower passengers, he brought another native who had also been taken to Europe where he had remained for a number of years, becoming proficient in the English language. His name was Squanto (Tisquantum), the only survivor of the Patuxet tribe. After returning to America, he lived with the Wampanoag tribe, and his interaction with the pilgrims would change history.
Squanto’s captor, Capt. Thomas Hunt, took him and four others to Spain with the intent of selling them into slavery. Squanto escaped, made his way to England and lived for a few years with a merchant in London, but was finally returned to his tribe. His command of the English language allowed him to become the interpreter between the Mayflower pilgrims and King Massasoit, leader of the Wampanoag tribe.
In December 1620, The Mayflower finally sailed into the area now known as Plymouth, Massachusetts, where the passengers began building their shelter. Half of the passengers would perish during that winter from malnutrition and disease. Those who lived realized that growing food was going to be difficult given the harsh climate and shorter growing season.
In the spring of 1621, Squanto taught the group where to fish and how to grow corn after first amending the soil with dead herring. He also taught them how to hunt turkeys, deer and bears.
Corn was an important staple in the native diet, as it was ground into meal and used for bread and cakes year-round. Once the crop had a good start, the pilgrims were taught how to plant beans and squash around the base of the corn so that these vegetables could grow onto the cornstalk by encircling it.
According to William Bradford, five-time governor of the colony, the wheat and pea seeds that they brought from England did not germinate either from “badness of the seed, lateness of the season, or both.” The new settlers planted pumpkins, barley, oats, spinach, carrots and turnips as well.
One of the major changes to the Pilgrims’ diet was the addition of shellfish and wild game. Although there was still a large population of wild animals in England, hunting was often the privilege of the land-owning aristocrats. The common man was a planter who existed by planting vegetables and fruits, and perhaps raising an animal for some meat.
In the New World, the natives raised foods that were either stored in cool places (like root cellars), buried underground or dried in the sun and stored for later. The Wampanoags’ diet was rich in roots, berries and local plants, information that was critical to the survival of the Mayflower passengers. Thanks to the Wampanoag tribe they were able to subsist during that first harsh winter on stored corn, beans and fish, planting their first garden in April 1621. Unknown in Europe at this time, Indian corn played an important role in the survival of the pilgrims
Their first harvest and the ensuing feast occurred sometime between mid-September and Nov. 21, 1621, and was described in a letter written by Edward Winslow to a friend in London: “Our governor sent four men on fowling, so that we might rejoice together after we had gathered the fruit of our labors.”
King Massasoit and 90 of his men brought five deer, and the group feasted for three days. Winslow went on to say in his letter that “we are so far from want that we often wish you partakers of our plenty.”
Winslow didn’t know what was in store for the group as they faced a crop failure in 1622 that plunged the Pilgrims into starvation for much of the year. Fortunately, the following harvest of 1623 was plentiful and established them as a thriving community.
Our Thanksgiving Day commemorates that feast of long ago, but there is so much more to celebrate than just our bounty. We should be thankful for the ability to grow this food on our own land without giving part of the harvest to the landowner as a tithe; for our ability to hunt or raise animals freely without giving the aristocracy the best animal; for a young man named Squanto, who interpreted for the pilgrims and taught them how to hunt, fish and grow crops; for King Massasoit and his people who kept the immigrants alive during their winter of despair.
It’s a celebration of a moment in our history, no matter how brief, that two alien groups found common ground in their humanity.
Almost 400 years later, Thanksgiving remains an American holiday like none other. One of simple pleasures born of the complicated and desperate beginnings on the shores of Cape Cod. We take delight in the company of family and friends, feast on traditional foods and importantly on this holiday there is no expectation of gifts. With one exception: the gifts of the earth.
Sandra Schumacher writes the Plant of Merit column for The Herald and is a freelance garden writer and Master Gardener. She is a member of the Garden Writers of America.
Learn more
Read
“Of Plymouth Plantation,” by William Bradford, 1620-1647
“Mourt’s Relation: A Journal of Pilgrims at Plymouth” by Anonymous
“Edward Winslow’s letter of 1621” at mayflowerhistory.com/letter-winslow-1621/
“Squanto’s Biography” at mayflowerhistory.com/tisquantum/
Visit
Plymouth, Massachusetts at www.plimouth.org
Plymouth, England, where the journey began at www.mayflowersteps.co.uk/
Think that you are a descendant of the pilgrims? Learn to trace your lineage at mayflowerhistory.com
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