What we know about Thanksgiving, is that it is a day filled with family, football, and food. A lot of people don’t know a lot of the true history behind Thanksgiving, so I am here to tell you a few myths about it.

Myth #1: The pilgrims held the first Thanksgiving.                                                                                                                   Texans claimed the first Thanksgiving was held in a little town called San Elizario in 1598 which was 23 years before the Pilgrims’ festival. If you go to Virginia at the Berkeley Plantation they claim that the first Thanksgiving was on December 3rd, 1619 which was two years before the Pilgrims’ festival.

Myth #2: Thanksgiving was about family.                                                                                                                                                Although Thanksgiving is now mainly spending the day with family and friends, Thanksgiving is actually supposed to be a multicultural community event. If it was just about family the pilgrims wouldn’t have asked others to join them.

Myth #3: Thanksgiving was about religion.                                                                                                                                              Kind of like I stated above if Thanksgiving was about religion the pilgrims wouldn’t have asked others to join them. To the pilgrims Thanksgiving wasn’t about praying and things related to that it was about joy.

Myth #4: The pilgrims ate turkey.                                                                                                                                                               The pilgrims actually had deer. They never ate things like turkey, corn on the cob, potatoes, or cranberries. We eat turkey because the Victorians prepared Thanksgiving that way. They are also the ones that make Thanksgiving a holiday after Abraham Lincoln issued his presidential Thanksgiving proclamations.

Myth #5: The pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock.                                                                                                                                 They actually first anchored in Provincetown Harbor. They couldn’t get to Plymouth Rock because of dangerous shoals trying to make it around Cape Cod.

Myth #6 The pilgrims dressed in black and white with buckle shoes.                                                                                               You have all been lied to, there were no buckles. Women dressed in various colors including red, green, blue and violet. Men wore a lot of the same colors and did not have shoes with buckles.

Myth #7: Thanksgiving was happy and healthy.                                                                                                                                       The pilgrims had a lot of health issues due to poor hygiene and overall illness. A lot of the pilgrims couldn’t join the celebration because they were almost all sick and on the Mayflower.

Myth #8: The first Thanksgiving was called “Thanksgiving”.                                                                                                                Pilgrims didn’t think of it as a “Thanksgiving” in a traditional sense, nor did they call it that.

Now that you know a lot of the truths, How do you truly feel about the holiday?

https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/406