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Winslow Saves Massasoit When they arrived at the village, Massasoit was being tended by his wives and shamans and seemed close to death, but Winslow, through the use of Native American medicine and his own knowledge of healing, saved Massasoit's life and then tended to others who were also sick.

Antiquarian Alexander Young rediscovered Winslow's letter in Philadelphia around 1820, and published it in full in his 1841 history Chronicles of the Pilgrim Fathers, while Bradford's manuscript Of Plymouth Plantation was recovered in the 1850s.

The only eyewitness account of the first Thanksgiving comes from a letter written by Edward Winslow on Dec. 11, 1621. In it, he describes how the Puritans, after utilizing fertilization methods imparted by Tisquantum (also known as "Squanto"), had their first successful harvest.

In late 1621, remembering the first Thanksgiving gathering, Edward Winslow expressed a sentiment similar to Mills's call for sharing and giving thanks:"And although it be not always so plentiful as it was at this time with us, yet by the goodness of God, we are so far from want that we often wish you partakers of our ...

Nearly all of what historians have learned about one of the first Thanksgiving featscomes from a single eyewitness report: a letter written in December 1621 by Edward Winslow, one of the 100 or so people who sailed from England aboard the Mayflower in 1620 and founded Plymouth Colony in Massachusetts.

The celebration that we now regard as the 'First Thanksgiving' was the Pilgrims' 3-day feast celebrated in November of 1621. Bradford helped organize the celebration. This feast was a celebration for their first rich harvest as well as a way to thank the local Indians who helped teach them important survival skills.

Colonists in New England and Canada regularly observed “thanksgivings,” days of prayer for such blessings as safe journeys, military victories, or abundant harvests. Americans model their holiday on a 1621 harvest feast shared between the Wampanoag people and the English colonists known as Pilgrims.