On November 13, 2008 faculty and staff of The Ohio State University met with Native American students and all other interested students to discuss the real events on the first European (English) settler's Thanksgiving in the New World. Some of the facts in the case were stunning.

There was no pie at the first Thanksgiving held by the British settlers with some Native Americans in attendance. The Caucasians did not call themselves pilgrims, but saints (meaning individual "believers"). Historians of the future decided that these people were pilgrims and so they have been called.

As a response to the information brought out and revealed in this meeting, historical documents, and written and oral histories among Native Americans in the Northeast and in Ohio, our local Native American Nations and people sympathetic to learning and respecting the truth in this matter (fellow travelers of a sort) are instituting an alternative celebration to Thanksgiving on the OSU Campus and in the surrounding community. We already have Native American Day, but wish to go a few steps further. At OSU on November 20, an alternative meal from the original menu featured below will be served by the OSU Multicultural Center. Some other surprises follow here -

Vlad the Impaler at Plymouth Colony

In mid-October of 1621, one saint from the Mayflower at Plymouth wrote just one paragraph about the first "Thanksgiving", which was not even called by that name. It was just a general feast and there was no prayer from the white men and women at all. The saints did not wear black, but bright colors. They brewed beer and drank heavily. There was a lot of drinking - by the English, to the disgust of their Governor. Some of the men waved rifles around in their drinking, and the Native Americans must have wondered what sickness this was.

The “Indians” were not invited, but their leader Massasoit was, so he invited 90 more in the tradition of sharing. Massasoit himself also brought all the wild fowl and 5 deer for the feast for 150 people. He'd already been giving the saints food all along. The English farm crop failed that first summer and fall, but the Native Americans grew and harvested twenty acres of corn and gave much to the saints initially, but continued to help them with food and agricultural instruction.

Soon after the feat, Myles Standish decided to behead a Chief (of people that had helped the whites survive) and instigated rivalry between two Natives to start a feud and gain "better intelligence" from their arguments [Did dysfunction begin with the British? I can ask that, I'm 3/8 UK heritage.]. Then a wall nearly 12 feet high was built around the English settlement to keep the natives out. Standish took the guise of a fur trader and then beheaded the native Wituwamat, putting the head on a wooden spike at Plymouth as a symbol of power, like Vlad the Impaler. Standish earned the English the name of Wotowquenange, meaning cutthroat stabbers.

However, we can make our own Thanksgiving traditions and leave behind these monstrosities, having learned from them.

Remember A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving? When Snoopy and some of the kids were left behind on Thanksgiving Day, they prepared buttered toast and popcorn for their meal, because that is all there was. They also had some whipped topping in dessert dishes. The real first Thanksgiving for the saints/pilgrims and Native Americans was similar to Charlie Brown's.

Few food items were available in the frigid lands of what is now New England in the early 1600s. This is one of the causes of the large number of deaths among the settlers during the first winter. There were no fresh fruits, although dried cranberries may have been present.

The Indigenous Peoples may have had some ground acorn flour with them, but the saints from the Mayflower ship likely had no flour with them with which to make pies.

The First Thanksgiving Menu

• Venison - deer meat, likely roasted over the open fires or cooked in a stew.
• Wild Fowl - duck, geese, pheasant, possibly wild turkey
• Corn Porridge
• Fried Pumpkin Mush - mixed with acorn flour and fried in deer or duck fat; served with honey, perhaps dried cranberries 
• Cooked Squash - maybe with honey.

While some Native Americans may have helped some of the first British settlers through the first winter, some settlers robbed the sacred gravesites and even burglarized Native American dwellings.

Native Americans had been holding Harvest Fesitivals in the autumn of each year for at least 12,000 years in September, October, and November [the link describes them in detail] and this was long before the British came to the New World and had a Thanksgiving Day. In fact, Harvest Festivals were a millennia-old "Old World" tradition in many cultures of the Far East and Middle East, as well as Africa and India, among other regions. They'd been going on for 1000s of years; today in the 21st century, some American communities have reverted to a Harvest Festival in place of, or in addition to, Halloween and Thanksgiving.

This recipe is about as close to the original recipe in what is now New England as one can approach. The duck fat can be found in gourmet markets or you might ask your butcher.

SIMPLE INGREDIENTS

• 1 large wild onion, a bunch of small wild onions, or 1 good sized leek, sliced medium
• 1 onion, chopped coarse
• 2 carrots or 1 sweet potato or 1 northern potato, sliced
• 1 handful of wild herbs
• 1 handful of dried cranberries
• 1 pound of venisen meat, chunked or cubed
• 1/4 cup oil or duck fat

INSTRUCTIONS

• Place venison in large pottery or ceramic bowl (metal will react and cause an off flavor)
• Mix vegetables, cranberries, and herbs together in another bowl and pour this mixture over the meat for a marinade.
• Let sit, covered, overnight or at least for 12 hours in your refrigerator.
• Remove meat and vegetables & cranberries onto separately plates and save the marinade.
• Heat half of the fat in a skillet and brown venison for 3-4 minutes.
• Heat remaining fat in another pan and fry vegetables & cranberries lightly for 2-3 minutes.
• Add fried meat into the other ingredients and stir the marinade back in and bring to the boil.
• Reduce heat to low and simmer, covered, for 2 hours.

You will need a medium sized fresh pumpkin or squash, several cups of water, some flour or cornmeal, and some oil.

INSTRUCTIONS

• Cut off the pumpkin stem end and remove the seeds and save them to roast.
• Scoop out the flesh.
• Place flesh in a large pot of boiling water and then reduce heat to a simmer and cook until tender (8-10 minutes).
• Drain the water and stir and mash the flesh.
• Add enough flour or cornmeal to make a mixture that holds together. You may want to add some salt and pepper, to taste.
• Heat some oil in a skillet and fry the pumpkin mixture by large spoonfuls or scoops in the way that you would a potato pancake, until golden brown on the bottom. Flip and repeat.
• Serve with honey, butter, syrup, or even salsa.

I wish you all a happy celebration of your own Thanksgiving or harvest time traditions. Often, our own traditions are happier when we know the truth and create something good from it.

My tradition is to make as many different kinds of pie as I can. I have more pies than the Bubba Gump Shrimp Company had shrimp dishes -

Cranberry pie, sweet potato pie, pear pie, squash pie, vegetable pie, quiche, turkey pot pie, shepherd's pie, mince meat pie, butter pie, apple-walnut pie, and many others. Most of them are around Hub Pages somewhere.

The YouTube presentation below begins with a short instrumental and then adds the swing lyrics from around the Depression Era. Way before my time, but I like it.

Here is some useful and fun history about how Indigenous Peoples in North and South America, Asia, and some other parts of the world have celebrated the concept of thankfulness for millennia. 

Native American Harvest Feasts Before Thanksgiving