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what native american tribe celebrated the first thanksgiving with the pilgrims?

The Native American tribe that shared the 1621 harvest feast with the Pilgrims at Plymouth was the Wampanoag.

Who Were They?

  • The Wampanoag are an Indigenous people whose homeland is in what is now southeastern Massachusetts and parts of Rhode Island, including the area the English called Plymouth.
  • Their name is often translated as “People of the First Light,” reflecting their location along the eastern coast where the sun first rises.

What Happened In 1621?

  • In the autumn of 1621, after a difficult first year, the Pilgrims held a three-day harvest gathering in Patuxet/Plymouth, which was attended by Wampanoag leader Massasoit and around 90 of his men.
  • The Wampanoag brought deer and other food to the feast, and the event later became mythologized as the “First Thanksgiving,” even though harvest ceremonies had long existed in Native cultures.

Beyond The Simple Story

  • The familiar school-pageant image of friendly Pilgrims and “Indians” hides the reality that the Wampanoag had already suffered devastating epidemics and later faced land loss and violence from English expansion.
  • Many Wampanoag people today mark the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday as a time of remembrance or mourning rather than simple celebration, even as they continue to share their own history and perspective.

TL;DR: The answer to “what Native American tribe celebrated the first Thanksgiving with the Pilgrims?” is the Wampanoag tribe, led at the time by Massasoit, at a three-day 1621 harvest gathering in Plymouth.

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