By: Lauren Gray, Head of Reference
Thanksgiving. Much has been written about this uniquely American holiday and much can be said about its mythos and origins. Regardless of the “true” story of the first Thanksgiving, there are two truths buried between history’s pages: first, the Pilgrims were real people who sailed to a faraway place (Massachusetts) in order to practice their religion without interference; the second is that the Pilgrims’ legacy spans into the 21st century, with more than 35 million descendants worldwide, including a number of them right here in Kansas. But I’ll get to them shortly.
Understanding the Pilgrim experience is an integral part of interpreting the Thanksgiving story. It’s also not surprising that the violence perpetuated against Native tribes during the establishment of Plymouth was quickly removed from the narrative. No one wants to be told that one of their most beloved holidays is actually a story of blood, theft, and murder. History has viewed the Pilgrims in many ways. To some, they were Saints (literally, that’s what they called themselves during the period); to others, they were bloodthirsty zealots and colonizers responsible for the destruction of entire cultures. But the reality, of course, is far more complex.
The Pilgrims were a group of religious separatists who followed an extreme form of Puritanism. Their approach to scripture differed from the Church of England (Anglicans) in several significant ways, which led to their eventual withdrawal from the Church to practice independently. Due to this, Separatists faced official censure and violence from English authorities, and many fled to Holland for religious tolerance. However, as the years passed, Puritan children started to take on Dutch habits and culture. Their English parents, aghast that their sons and daughters played hoops on the Sabbath and adopted the Dutch language, made plans to emigrate yet again.
The Separatist community that had remained in England solicited financial support from the Merchant Adventurers to set up a colony in the newly “discovered” North America in exchange for a seven-year indentureship wherein the Pilgrims would repay the original cost of settlement. The colony at Plymouth would be a financial investment as well as a religious enclave. Ships and funds secured, over 100 colonists set sail in the fall of 1620 aboard the now-famous Mayflower (a small ship repurposed from its original trading days), destined for the colony of Virginia. (The expedition’s second ship, the Speedwell, ended its journey to America prematurely after it spouted leaks shortly after leaving English harbor and was compelled to turn back.)
Two groups emigrated to the New World on this journey. The Separatists, and a group they called the “Strangers,” who were Anglican craftsmen, merchants, and their families who sought a different life in America.
The Saints and Strangers traveled during the Age of Sail. Despite several advances in naval technology in the preceding century, the lower decks of the Mayflower were small, cramped, and soon began to stink of unwashed bodies, cooked food, and bodily excretions. The tumultuous Atlantic tossed the ship in a series of gales and storms, and seasickness was incessant.
The Mayflower’s journey took just over two months, and when they spotted land on November 9, it was immediately apparent that they had not arrived in Virginia. The fierce Atlantic winds had blown the ship off course several hundred miles, and the Mayflower had instead landed at Cape Cod, off the coast of what would become Massachusetts. With winter setting in, the group found a protected harbor to shelter the Mayflower, and quickly set about building the colony.
Winter arrived quickly and dreadfully. With many passengers still cramped aboard ship, and supplies running perilously short, illness and hunger were rampant. It was far too late in the season to consider planting, and it was all the beleaguered colonists could do to unload the ship and set up temporary housing. The land they chose for the site of their colony had recently been the site of a Patuxet village, the original inhabitants culled by a European disease (most likely smallpox) before they ever saw a Pilgrim face. The remnant caches of food and the cleared fields convinced the Pilgrims that they had received God’s Providence for their venture.
The supplies they pilfered enabled them to survive the winter, but barely. Malnutrition and close quarters spread fever and illness. The sick (men, women, and children) were lined up in rows in the community house, and there were hardly enough able-bodied persons to care for the ill. The Pilgrim dead were buried in secret, in the dark of night, so neighboring tribes would not know of the settlers’ diminished numbers. The Pilgrims feared attack from the indigenous inhabitants. Though many of their number were sick and suffering, the colonists still mounted guards around the new town. At the height of their suffering, there were barely a dozen adults to manage the colony. Half of the original colonists perished before spring.
But winter eventually passed. Among those who survived are names we now count as the founding members of the Plymouth colony: Brewster, Bradford, Alden, and Standish. Most survivors had lost family members. Come spring, the colony still faced enormous challenges. Their supplies were all but exhausted. The fields needed planting and the colony lacked secure defenses. But in March of 1621, the Pilgrims had an unexpected visitor.
Most schoolchildren are taught of the Pilgrims’ first meeting with Samoset, an Abnaki leader, and later, Tisquantum (Squanto), a surviving member of the original Patuxet village. In addition to teaching the Pilgrims survival skills for their new environment, Samoset and Tisquantum introduced the colony’s leadership to Massasoit, sachem of the Wampanoags. Massasoit, in his early meetings with the Pilgrims, came with the intention of making good relations. The Wampanoags’ position had been made increasingly untenable in the unstable power-vacuum of 16th century New England. As much as the Pilgrims needed a relationship with the Wampanoags for their security and sustainability, Massasoit needed an agreement with the Pilgrims to give him a show of strength, especially to the neighboring, and powerful, Narragansetts.
While the groups exchanged food, drink, and tobacco during these first encounters, they were not the cheerful, festive gatherings that history and school plays remember. While the Pilgrims had long-standing traditions of fall festivals, they were obligated to host 90 of Massasoit’s warriors in their ill-defended colony. The Pilgrims were very suspicious of their new allies. They had arrived in Massachusetts with preconceived notions of the savagery of Native peoples, and their initial encounters did not dissuade them of these opinions. Likewise, indigenous peoples had suffered under the scourge of European disease for years prior to the Pilgrims’ arrival. Hundreds, if not thousands, of Native people had already died, and the shifting political landscape of New England reflected that upheaval. If their first meeting was not the Thanksgiving of Norman Rockwell’s dreams, it nevertheless was an important event that cemented the Pilgrims’ presence in the region. Without the arrival of the Pilgrims and their tenacity in clinging to the newly formed colony, and the assistance of Massasoit and his people, the landscape of American life and culture would be vastly different.
Here is the second part of the story. While history remembers the Pilgrims as intrepid explorers and stock figures at a Thanksgiving table, their story does not stop at Plymouth Rock. The colonists birthed a legacy carried on by over 35 million descendants world-wide as of 2020. The General Society of Mayflower Descendants, founded in 1897, exists to promote and maintain that legacy, and to create a brother-and-sister-hood of Mayflower descendants. The Kansas Society of Mayflower Descendants was chartered in 1914. Its mission is the same as the General Society: in short, to promote the accomplishments and contributions of the Mayflower passengers and to continue their legacy. The Kansas branch is still alive and active over 100 years later.
The most familiar “Mayflower” Kansan was Laura Ingalls Wilder, who wrote the timeless classic, Little House on the Prairie. Though she wasn’t born in Kansas, her story takes place in the early days of Kansas settlement. Wilder descended from Mayflower passenger Richard Warren.
Another famous Kansan and descendant was Amelia Earhart. Little could her ancestors have known as they endured the heaving Atlantic that their intrepid progeny would someday take to the skies and make her own history as the first female aviator to fly over the same ocean that they traversed so many centuries before. Earhart descended from passengers Richard Warren and Edward Fuller.
Most Topekans will recognize the name of the illustrious benefactor and namesake of the local university, Ichabod Washburn. A descendant of Eleanor and John Billington (whose family remained one of the few intact after that first bitter winter), Washburn wasn’t a Kansan by birth, but was a committed philanthropist and abolitionist. Though he never saw the school that bears his name, he supported its early founding.
Are you curious about your own genealogy? To research if you have a connection to the Mayflower’s passengers, the Kansas Society of Mayflower Descendants has kindly gifted the lineage books of the Society (which are colloquially known as the Silver Books) to the Kansas Historical Society. We hold these invaluable resources in our archives, available for any researchers who are interested in exploring their genealogy. Find out if you, too, are related to one of the Mayflower passengers!
Thank you for reading, and we wish you all a very safe and happy Thanksgiving!
Additional reading
For adults:
Hodgson, Godfrey. A Great and Godly Adventure: The Pilgrims and the Myth of the First Thanksgiving. PublicAffairs, 2006.
For children:
Lasky, Kathryn. Dear America, A Journey to the New World: The Diary of Remembrance Patience Whipple. Scholastic, 1996.
For Native American Genealogy Resources:
https://www.kshs.org/p/native-american-genealogical-sources/10980
More information about Native Americans in Kansas:
https://www.kshs.org/kansapedia/american-indians-in-kansas/17881