How did Americans get from that celebration to the Thanksgiving raditions we observe today?
By Elizabeth Armstrong | Special to The Christian Science Monitor PLYMOUTH, MASS. – Everyone knows about the Pilgrims and the Indians, right? How the two groups gathered peacefully in Plymouth, Mass., to feast on juicy turkeys and colorful pumpkin pies. The trouble is, almost everything we’ve been taught about the first Thanksgiving in 1621 is a myth. The holiday has two distinct histories – the actual one and a romanticized portrayal. Today, Americans celebrate a holiday based largely on the latter, whose details of turkey and cranberry sauce decorating one long table stem from the creative musings of a magazine editor in the mid-1800s. The true history has been a difficult one to uncover. Staff at Plimoth Plantation, which occupies several acres on the outskirts of the city of Plymouth, just north of Cape Cod, have been in the vanguard of researching the event. But a big obstacle remains: Everything historians know today is based on two passages written by colonists.Participants’ acc
