The harvest was plentiful so the Pilgrims knew they would have enough food to last through the coming winter Although there are just two known eyewitness accounts of this feast of thanksgiving we do know a few details They served freshly caught fowl such as swan duck and goose Their tables were also filled with wild fruits and berries Vegetables such as corn cabbage carrots cucumbers radishes turnips onions and beets made a colorful display Many Pilgrims afterwards wrote so largely of their plenty here to their friends in England which were not feigned but true reports Plymouth governor William Bradford Of Plymouth Plantation 1620 1647 6
The Wampanoag added food to the celebration too They offered their Pilgrim friends fish clams lobsters oysters five deer and several wild turkeys Many people think the Pilgrims feast of 1621 turned into the annual Thanksgiving celebration Americans observe today In fact the Pilgrims did not even hold a similar celebration the very next year It would be another 242 years before Thanksgiving would become an official national holiday 7
The feast contained turkey waterfowl venison fish lobster clams berries fruit pumpkin and squash Over the years several U S presidents declared a one-time national Thanksgiving day General George Washington did in 1777 for example New York established an annual statewide Thanksgiving celebration in 1817 8
The Wampanoag went out and killed five deer which they brought to the plantation and bestowed on our governor and upon the captain and others Pilgrim Edward Winslow Mourt’s Relation A Journal of the Pilgrims at Plymouth 1622 The white-tailed deer was the chief source of meat and leather for the Wampanoags 9
