Thanksgiving Myth Busters

The Pilgrims and the first Thanksgiving are very popular holiday topics; however, there is one problem. Historical fiction often overshadows historical fact. Below are a list of myth busters that you can spring on family and friends around the dinner table.

Pilgrims’ hats were not full and pointed with buckles at the brims. They wore soft hats with brims or straw hats.

Pilgrims didn’t wear fancy clothes with ruffles and wide cuffs. They wore practical clothes typical of yeoman farmers in England during that era.

Pilgrims did not just wear black. They wore colors such as rust, purple, green, pink, violet, brown, as well as black. Most of the clothing colors came from natural dyes.

Buckles were extravagances and were not worn. Later, when buckles and metal fastenings become more common, they weren’t as frowned on. Usually clothing had ties or possibly buttons.

Pilgrims didn’t eat on plates. A family would often share a community pot in the middle of the table and everyone would eat out of it at the same time. Or food was dipped into a trencher. A trencher could be a kind of trough or a piece of very stale bread with the middle dough out so that it could hold the stew. It was kind of like a bread bowl.

The pilgrims did not use forks for eating. They used their hands, or a knife to spear their food. They might eat the trencher along with their meal. Later, spoons came to be used.

A blunderbuss is a kind of gun that has a muzzle that tapers wider at the end that the bullet comes out of. You see them frequently used in conjunction with Pilgrims and turkey hunting pictures. The Pilgrims didn’t use blunderbusses, they used muskets.

There is no evidence that Pilgrims used fancy cornucopias to decorate their tables.

Popcorn was not part of the Harvest Festival.

The Wampanoag people, the Native Americans who shared the Pilgrims’ Harvest Festival, did not wear feathers in their hair.

Turkeys and pumpkins were only a small part of the Harvest Festival feast.


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