Trivia Connection: The First Thanksgiving Trivia Paula Green

The First Thanksgiving Trivia

Celebrating 400 Years

By Paula Green

Thanksgiving is a special time for family and friends to gather and thank God for their many blessings. This year marks a significant milestone for this holiday, for it was four hundred years ago that the first Thanksgiving feast occurred in Plymouth, Massachusetts.

What we’ve learned about that inaugural event comes from an eyewitness report—a letter written in 1621 by Edward Winslow. He was one of the 102 people who sailed from England aboard the Mayflower in 1620. Winslow wrote about the feast in a pamphlet more than 20 years after the actual first celebration.

The Pilgrims’ Thanksgiving didn’t occur on the fourth Thursday in November; instead, it took place over three days sometime between late September and mid-November in 1621. The festivity was a harvest celebration. Fortunately, the settler’s (Pilgrims) first corn harvest was relatively prosperous. It was so plentiful that Governor William Bradford invited their Native American allies to enjoy the fruits of their labor. Members of the Wampanoag tribe came bearing food to share. They had so much bounty; the revelers decided to extend the affair a few days.

While most of us love turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes and trimmings, that is not the actual food served 400 years ago. There was fowl, but it is not known if the celebrants ate wild turkey, goose or duck. In addition to the bird, the first Thanksgiving feast consisted of shellfish and vegetables such as cabbage, carrots, cucumber, leeks, lettuce, pumpkins and squash. Instead of bread-based stuffing, the colonists might have added herbs, onions, or nuts to the bird for extra flavor.

What else missing were potatoes; this vegetable wasn’t around in 1621. If they served cranberry sauce, it was tart, not sweet. Pumpkin pie would have been impossible, as the colony didn’t have butter, wheat flour or an oven.

Speaking of ovens, fast-forward 332 years for information on this tasty tidbit. In 1953, the Swanson TV dinner company had 260 tons of frozen turkey leftover after Thanksgiving. So they packaged them into trays with peas and potatoes, which evolved into the TV dinners America knows and loves today.

Since we’ve stuffed you with first Thanksgiving info, we must now test your knowledge of this Pilgrims’ query; get set to don those capotains, because it’s time to get a little trivial. 1. The Wampanoag guests arrived at the first Thanksgiving feast with this gamey meat. 2. This Native American spoke fluent English and served as a translator at the feast. 3. Which U.S. President first ordered a national day of Thanksgiving? 4. Thomas Jefferson was the only Founding Father who refused to declare days of thanksgiving and fasting in the United States. Why? 5. What was the traditional eating utensil not used on the first

Thanksgiving? (it was invented in 1631) 6. Who led the Wampanoags during the first Thanksgiving? 7. How many pilgrim women who came over on the Mayflower survived to celebrate the 1621 feast? 8. What did Wampanoag teach the Pilgrims? 9. Name the journal by William Bradford, the leader of the Plymouth

Colony in Massachusetts that he wrote over several years. 10. What year did the Pilgrims hold their second Thanksgiving celebration, which marked the end of a long drought that threatened the harvest? 11. This Mary Had a Little Lamb author is known as the “Mother of

Thanksgiving.” She launched a campaign to establish Thanksgiving as a national holiday. 12. It is said that 53 colonists attended the first Thanksgiving feast; how many Wampanoags were present? 13. Some feel this U.S. city may have been the actual site of the first

Thanksgiving. In 1565, a Spanish fleet planted a cross in the sandy beach to christen this new settlement. 14. The first official proclamation of a national Thanksgiving holiday didn’t come until 1863, but by whom? 15. What was the name of Edward Winslow’s Thanksgiving journal? n

Sources: https://kids.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/first-thanksgiving, https://www.history.com/news/first-thanksgiving-colonists-native-americans-men, https://www.goodhousekeeping.com/holidays/thanksgiving-ideas/a35457/thanksgiving-trivia/, https://www.history.com/topics/thanksgiving/first-thanksgivingmeal, https://www.usefultrivia.com/holiday_trivia/thanksgiving_trivia_index.html, https://kidadl.com/articles/thanksgiving-trivia-questions-and-answers-that-youllwant-a-piece-of

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