Thanksgiving Reading Comprehension Lesson

Reading Passage

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is one of the most widely celebrated holidays in the United States, observed on the fourth Thursday of November each year. It is a time for family gatherings, festive meals featuring turkey, stuffing, and pie, and a moment of reflection on what people are grateful for. The holiday has deep historical roots going back to the early 17th century, though the Thanksgiving we celebrate today is shaped by centuries of tradition, mythology, and national storytelling. The full history of Thanksgiving is both a story of survival and cooperation — and a complicated chapter in the relationship between European settlers and the indigenous peoples of North America.

The event most commonly called ‘the first Thanksgiving’ took place in autumn 1621 in Plymouth, in what is now Massachusetts. The Pilgrims — a group of English Separatists (a Protestant sect that had separated from the Church of England) — had crossed the Atlantic on the Mayflower in 1620, arriving at Plymouth in November. Their first winter was brutal: nearly half of the 102 passengers died from cold, disease, and starvation. In the spring of 1621, the Wampanoag people — who had lived in the region for thousands of years — provided crucial assistance. A Wampanoag man named Squanto (Tisquantum), who had previously been kidnapped by English explorers and spoke English, helped the Pilgrims learn to plant corn, catch fish, and navigate the land. Massasoit, the Wampanoag leader (sachem), negotiated a peace agreement with the Plymouth colony.

After a successful harvest in autumn 1621, the Plymouth colonists held a three-day celebration — the ‘first Thanksgiving.’ Governor William Bradford invited Massasoit, who arrived with about 90 Wampanoag men. The celebration included feasting, games, and military exercises. The menu was very different from modern Thanksgiving: waterfowl, venison (deer), fish, shellfish, corn (in various forms), nuts, and fruit were likely served. There is no historical record of turkey, pumpkin pie, or the other foods associated with modern Thanksgiving. Primary sources for the event are limited to two brief accounts — one by colonist Edward Winslow and one in Bradford’s history ‘Of Plymouth Plantation.’

Thanksgiving celebrations were held sporadically in various American colonies and states over the following two centuries, often as days of prayer and fasting as much as feasting. During the Revolutionary War, the Continental Congress declared days of thanksgiving to celebrate American victories. George Washington proclaimed the first national Thanksgiving in 1789. However, it was writer and editor Sarah Josepha Hale who campaigned most persistently for a national Thanksgiving holiday — she wrote to every president for 17 years until Abraham Lincoln, in 1863 (in the middle of the Civil War), officially proclaimed the last Thursday in November as a national day of Thanksgiving. In 1941, Congress officially established the fourth Thursday in November as the federal Thanksgiving holiday.

The historical relationship between the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag was far more complex than the traditional Thanksgiving story suggests. Relations between the Plymouth colony and Native peoples deteriorated over the following decades, culminating in King Philip’s War (1675–1676) — one of the bloodiest conflicts in colonial American history, in which thousands of Native Americans and colonists died. Many Indigenous Americans and their allies observe the fourth Thursday of November as the ‘National Day of Mourning,’ honoring Native ancestors who died as a result of colonization. In recent years, schools and historians have worked to present a more complete and accurate picture of Thanksgiving history — one that acknowledges both the 1621 harvest celebration and the painful history that followed, and that honors the perspective of the Wampanoag and other Indigenous peoples.

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