The Pilgrims Were Not Present at the First Thanksgiving in America! A Story to Share With Your Children

Each Thanksgiving for the last twenty years, students from my classes have startled their families by announcing that the Pilgrims were not part of the first thanksgiving in America.

They know this to be true because I always tell this story, a mix of legend and history, on the last school day before the Thanksgiving break. The story of the Five Thanksgivings that Native Americans in Southeastern New England celebrated each year for hundreds or perhaps thousands of years before ever seeing a European was recorded by Princess Redwing (1896–1987), a Native American leader known for her wisdom and her storytelling. Her father was Narragansett and her mother was Wampanoag.

I hope you will learn the story of the Five Thanksgivings and share it with your children, your students and your friends. For it carries deep wisdom about humility, forgiveness and gratitude.

The Five Thanksgivings

a story from an audiotape…