In the spring of 1621, the Pilgrims have met Samoset and Tisquantum, and were learning from Squanto to feed themselves. This they would be able to do within one growing season, something the settlers at Jamestown took many years to accomplish. They had also signed a peace treaty with the grand sachem of the Wampanoag, Massasoit.

Now they are learning that Massasoit was weaker than he postured, and that even some of his own sachems were planning to rebel, just as the Narragansetts to his west were increasing the pressure on him. From May to August 1621, the Pilgrim leaders would make decisions and take actions, all very much in the fog of pre-war, that would cement the peace with the tribes closest to them, and strengthen their ally Massasoit immeasurably. They did this without any loss of life, all while constructing their settlement, growing their own food, rebuilding their families, and worshiping their God. They concluded their miraculous year with a great three-day feast, in which they were joined by almost 100 Indian warriors. Even at that “first Thanksgiving” they might have been slaughtered at any time, but had so established themselves as measured and, it should be said, useful, that no trap was sprung, no ambush launched.

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Selected references for this episode

Nathaniel Philbrick, Mayflower: Voyage, Community, War

John G. Turner, They Knew They Were Pilgrims: Plymouth Colony and the Contest for American Liberty

William Bradford and Edmund Winslow (presumed), Mourt’s Relation: A Journal of the Pilgrims at Plymouth