The event that Americans commonly call the "First Thanksgiving" was celebrated to give thanks to God for guiding them safely to the New World.
The first Thanksgiving feast lasted three days, providing enough food for 13 Pilgrims and 90 Native Americans.
The feast consisted of fish (cod, eels, and bass) and shellfish (clams, lobster, and mussels), wild fowl (ducks, geese, swans, and turkey), venison, berries and fruit, vegetables (peas, pumpkin, beetroot and possibly, wild or cultivated onion), harvest grains (barley and wheat), and the Three Sisters: beans, dried Indian maize or corn, and squash.
The New England colonists were accustomed to regularly celebrating "thanksgivings"—days of prayer thanking God for blessings such as military victory or the end of a drought.
