Melanie Kirkpatrick - Thanksgiving: The Holiday at the Heart of the American Experience

ALSO BY MELANIE KIRKPATRICK

Escape from North Korea: The Untold Story of Asias Underground Railroad

2016 by Melanie Kirkpatrick

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of Encounter Books, 900 Broadway, Suite 601, New York, New York, 10003.

First American edition published in 2016 by Encounter Books, an activity of Encounter for Culture and Education, Inc., a nonprofit, tax exempt corporation.

Encounter Books website address: www.encounterbooks.com

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.481992 (R 1997) ( Permanence of Paper).

FIRST AMERICAN EDITION

Design, composition, and illustrations by Katherine Messenger, www.KatherineMessenger.com

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

Names: Kirkpatrick, Melanie, author.

Title: Thanksgiving: the holiday at the heart of the American experience / by Melanie Kirkpatrick.

Description: New York: Encounter Books, 2016. | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2016018851 (print) | LCCN 2016019723 (ebook) | ISBN 9781594038945 (Ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Thanksgiving DayHistory. | HolidaysUnited StatesHistory. | United StatesSocial life and customs.

Classification: LCC GT4975 .K54 2016 (print) | LCC GT4975 (ebook) | DDC 394.2649dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016018851

To my sisters, Holly and Robin,

and the memory of our parents,

Bill and Virginia

CONTENTS

A few days before Thanksgiving, I took the subway from Manhattan to the New York City borough of Queens. It was one of those November mornings that signal Thanksgiving is neara cloudless sky, temperatures bracing enough to warrant diving into the coat closet to locate a scarf and gloves, and the sight of fallen leaves swirling in a neighborhood garden as I walked to the subway station. When my train exited the tunnel under the East River and clattered aboveground into Queens, I could see the sun sparkling on the water down below. A couple of miles south of the bridge I had just crossed, the East River empties into New York Harbor. It mingles there with the Hudson River, which flows into the harbor from its parallel route along the west side of Manhattan.

When the one hundred and two English settlers now known as the Pilgrims sailed on the Mayflowerin the autumn of 1620, they intended to land not far from this very spot. The ships master, Christopher Jones, was steering for the mouth of Hudsons River. The Hudson, as the river would come to be called, formed the northernmost border of the Colony of Virginia, where the English Crown had given the Pilgrims permission to settle. But the turbulent seas and fierce winds of the Atlantic pushed the Mayfloweroff course. The ship overshot its destination, ending up off the tip of Cape Cod in what is now Massachusetts. It was November. Winter was coming. The Mayflowerhad been in transit for two months, and provisions were running dangerously low.

Master Jones informed the Pilgrim leaders that his ship could go no farther and told them to choose a spot to land. The Pilgrims selected a location with a deep harbor, an abundant source of fresh water, and a hill on which they could build a defensible fort. They named their new home Plymouth, after the English port city from which they had embarked on their journey to the New World. It became the first permanent European settlement in New England.

My destination in Queens that autumn morning was a public high school for recent immigrants. Newcomers High School was founded in 1995 for the purpose of providing new arrivals with intensive instruction in the English language and an introduction to American culture, along with the standard high school curriculum.