USA Stage 6 The First Thanksgiving Comprehension PDF

STAGE 6 Unit focus: USA Text focus: Information Text The First Thanksgiving Each November, Americans come together to celebrate one of their most important national holidays: Thanksgiving. Behind the obligatory gorging on turkey and pumpkin pie and the annual parades and football games, is the comme...

STAGE 6 Unit focus: USA Text focus: Information Text The First Thanksgiving Each November, Americans come together to celebrate one of their most important national holidays: Thanksgiving. Behind the obligatory gorging on turkey and pumpkin pie and the annual parades and football games, is the commemoration of a historic feast which took place in Plymouth, Massachusetts, in 1621. Though the event has become the stuff of legend, it is based on fact and takes us back to a time in history when European settlers were first establishing themselves in the new world and encountering the native people as they did so. If you take the story of Christopher Columbus ‘discovering’ America too literally, you might be compelled to believe that the history of the USA only began once the Europeans arrived and made a home there. Of course, this is not true. Long before Columbus laid eyes on the American continent in 1492, people were living there and had their own vibrant cultures, rich traditions and long history. There are believed to have been around 600 diverse tribes across America, one of which was the Wampanoag tribe of present-day Massachusetts. The Wampanoag lived an agricultural lifestyle in the summer, farming crops such as corn, beans and squash and fishing off the coast. In the winter, they retreated inland for hunting. They had an intimate connection with nature, recognising that they needed to give as well as take from the world around them. They practised ceremonies where they gave thanks to nature for providing for them. These involved feasting and dancing as well as giving gi s to families in need. The Wampanoag were impacted by European explorers in the most devastating of ways: between 1616-1619, around three quarters of the tribe were decimated by diseases brought to their lands from overseas. They had no natural defences to these imported diseases and so many lost their lives. As such, as they watched the arrival of The Mayflower in 1620, a ship carrying men and women from England, they may well have felt some trepidation about what these new arrivals had in store for them. The Mayflower passengers, now known as Pilgrims, were different from those who had come before because they intended to settle. However, they arrived unprepared and they had all resources ©2022 Literacy Shed http://www.literacyshedplus.com none of the skills and understanding of the Wampanoag who had a relationship with the area that went back thousands of years. The Wampanoag however were also facing problems: neighbouring tribes sensed their vulnerability and now outnumbered them putting them in a precarious position. The pilgrims needed the Wampanoag’s know-how and the Wampanoag needed the pilgrim’s weapons. As a result, the tribe welcomed the new arrivals and a treaty was made. With the help of the Wampanoag, the Europeans survived their first year in the New World and achieved their first harvest. To celebrate, they held a feast – looked upon as the first Thanksgiving. Although modern Thanksgiving celebrations look back nostalgically at this event as the friendly welcome that the peaceful pilgrims received as they started their new life in America, the story does not quite finish there. Though the treaty lasted many years, tensions grew and a deadly war broke out in 1675 as the native Americans attempted to keep hold of their lands from the growing European advances. The Wampanoag were defeated and the resistance was over allowing European expansion to continue. Today, the tribe continues to exist though in far smaller numbers. They too look back to 1621 but perhaps with a sense of sorrow rather than thanks as they do. VOCABULARY FOCUS 1. Find and copy a word that means compulsory. 2. What does decimated mean? 3. Find a word that is close in meaning to fear or anxiety. 4. What is meant by saying that the Wampanoag were in a ‘precarious position’? 5. What does nostalgically mean? R R I S E VIPERS QUESTIONS What crops did the Wampanoag grow? When did the Mayflower arrive in Massachusetts? Why were the Wampanoag vulnerable to the neighbouring tribe? Summarise the reasons for the peace treaty. Native American culture has sometimes been dismissed as primitive and not very advanced. How has the writer challenged this view? all resources ©2022 Literacy Shed http://www.literacyshedplus.com