Four hundred years ago, in 1621, the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag, a Native people, feasted at what later became known as the first Thanksgiving. That fall in Plymouth, Massachusetts, the Pilgrims wanted to express gratitude for their first successful harvest since arriving on the Mayflower in 1620.
At the time, New England’s woods and waters teemed with life such as white-tailed deer, Atlantic cod, passenger pigeons, and lobster. Many of these species were likely on the feast menu.
“We were here for thousands of years before the Pilgrims landed, and these things were plentiful,” says Darius Coombs, a cultural outreach coordinator with the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe, a federally recognized tribe whose territory included what is now Massachusetts and
