Historians' gobble squabble

Historians' gobble squabble
Feathers ruffled by book claiming to debunk 'myths' of first Thanksgiving

The British writer who tried to steal the turkey from Thanksgiving might have bitten off more than he can chew.

The provocative claim that there was no turkey in the Pilgrims' first harvest feast in 1621 comes from a newly published history of Thanksgiving by British journalist and historian Godfrey Hodgson.

But devotees of holiday authenticity need not kiss the gobbler goodbye. Hodgson's claim is more tosh than truth, according to scholars and Pilgrim experts.

"There were turkeys there," declared the president of the Organization of American Historians, Richard White, who is the Margaret Byrne Professor of American History at Stanford University.

"Do whatever you can do to lay this scurrilous rumor aside," pleaded Kathleen Curtin, food historian at the Plimoth Plantation living-history museum in Plymouth, Mass., recoiling from a gaggle of inquiries prompted by the book.

"We had a film crew from 'CBS Sunday Morning' -- they had it on 'good authority' that there were no turkeys," she said. "It's so frustrating."

The "authority" is Hodgson's book, "A Great and Godly Adventure: The Pilgrims and the Myth of the First Thanksgiving." His account -- featured Nov. 12 in The Chronicle's Sunday Book Review -- tackles several alleged myths about the Pilgrims.

"There were, however, no turkeys at Plymouth," he writes, describing this revelation as the "most shocking of all, given the central part played by turkey in the modern mystique of the holiday."

The publisher, PublicAffairs Books of New York, touts the purported revelation as a key selling point. The book's Web page description begins with the absence of turkey, and the book's dust jacket declares, "There was, for a start, no turkey."

One shocked reader, were he alive, might be William Bradford, the famous governor of Plymouth Colony whose account -- "Bradford's History 'Of Plimoth Plantation' " -- includes what the Pilgrims gathered in their first harvest in 1621: "And besids water foule, ther was great store of wild Turkies, of which they tooke many."

Another new book on the Pilgrims, the best-selling "Mayflower" by Nathaniel Philbrick, devotes a chapter to Thanksgiving that accepts Bradford's account of the "great store of wild Turkies" among the food that was gathered.

In a telephone interview, Hodgson said Bradford does not mention any harvest feast and therefore his account cannot be taken as proof that turkey was served at the 1621 harvest gathering that is commonly viewed as the first Thanksgiving.

Instead, Hodgson's book cites the only other eyewitness account of the Pilgrims' harvest, generally attributed to Edward Winslow, which notes a three-day feast at which Pilgrims and Indians partook of "much foule" without mentioning which fowl.

Hodgson acknowledged in the interview that he took Winslow's report from a book edited by Brown University anthropologist Dwight Heath, who introduced Winslow's account by saying, "The following is the earliest description of the first Thanksgiving. The dates are not specified, nor is there specific mention of turkeys as comprising part of the feast, although they doubtless did."

As for Heath's judgment that turkeys were undoubtedly served at the feast, Hodgson responded, "He is entitled to his opinion."

Hodgson's book also quotes the late archaeologist James Deetz, who did 20th-century excavations near the original Pilgrims' colony. "We finally found some turkey bone after ten years of digging," Deetz says in the book. "The circumstantial evidence is that it wouldn't be very likely. Turkeys are very hard to kill and the matchlocks of the period weren't very good for hunting."

The Pilgrims, however, used lighter "fowling pieces" to shoot birds, and the scarcity of turkey bones where Deetz dug is unsurprising because hollow turkey bones could easily decay over four centuries, said Carolyn Travers, a Plimoth Plantation historian. And none of the excavations occurred in the area occupied by the original Pilgrims, she added.

Moreover, Deetz's last book, published in 2000, the year he died, says the presence of turkey on the Pilgrims' table was "less likely" than that of other fowl such as ducks or geese, "but not impossible."

University of Colorado at Boulder historian Virginia Anderson, an expert on domestic animals of early America, said, "Because they (turkeys) were so numerous in early New England, it seems unlikely that they were not among the 'fowl' consumed."

Matthew Dennis, a history professor at the University of Oregon who specializes in colonial America and American holidays, said it's impossible to be "completely definitive" about turkey being eaten at the Pilgrims' first harvest feast but that Hodgson is "probably wrong."

Curtin, the Pilgrims' food historian, cites a 1637 account from a colony 30 miles north of Plymouth by Thomas Morton:

"Turkies there are, which divers times in great flocks have sallied by our doores, and then a gunne, being commonly in redinesse, salutes them with such a courtesie, as makes them take a turne in the Cooke roome."

"Mr. Hodgson is incorrect," said Travers, of the Plimoth Plantation. "I wouldn't say he did the most thorough job he can do, certainly not the most scholarly. I gather this was a commercial decision on the part of the publisher."

His publisher did not respond to requests for comments.

Hodgson stuck to his claim, or close to it: "As to the availability of turkey at that time, I think there's room for some argument."

Despite the attention given to his assertion about turkeys, he said his main point was that the first real Thanksgiving feast came some years later than 1621.

But it's his turkey tale that has peppered the Plimoth Plantation with queries. Said Curtin: "It's becoming the bane of my existence."