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Almost everything we know about the first Thanksgiving in 1621 is based on a few lines from a letter. "Our harvest being gotten in, our governor sent four men on fowling, that so we might after a special manner rejoice together, after we had gathered the fruits of our labors; they four in one day killed as much fowl, as with a little help beside, served the Company almost a week, at which time amongst other Recreations, we exercised our Arms, many of the Indians coming amongst us, and amongst the rest their greatest king Massasoit, with some ninety men,...

On this date in 1622, or very close to it, the Patuxet Native American Tisquantum (better known as Squanto) was about to be yielded by Plymouth Colony Governor William Bradford to Wampanoag chief Massasoit for immediate execution … when the unannounced appearance of a strange ship fortuitously saved him. Squanto is most famous as the Indian godsend who saved the Mayflower Pilgrims at the Plymouth Bay colony from starvation by teaching those pious wayfarers how to live off the land in the New World. In that capacity, he made possible (and participated in) the “First Thanksgiving” harvest gorger in 1621...

As you gobble your Thanksgiving turkey, imagine being a Pilgrim in March 1621. Hardly four months after the Mayflower reached Plymouth Rock the previous November, you still struggle for food, shelter, and survival in the state of nature.Suddenly, an Indian reaches your outpost. Friend or foe? What brought him here? How would you ever communicate with him?And then he opens his mouth. He speaks English! More amazing, he does so with a British accent and the demeanor of someone who had lived and worked among England’s elite.Who on Earth is this incredible man?Squanto, a.k.a. Tisquantum, was born about 1580...

"...and as one small candle may light a thousand, so the light here kindled hath shone unto many, yea in some sort to our whole nation, let the glorious name of Jehovah have all the praise." Gov. William Bradford, 1640's That is my favorite passage from Bradford's Journal. Two decades after the famous landing of the Mayflower, Bradford sat down to write of Pymouth Colony, in a family journal to pass on to his descendants, relating the period of time from the first beginnings in England, their sojourn in Holland, and their first 20 years in New England. Little did...