Indigenous Values shaped Thanksgiving celebrations held for thousands of years across the Americas. A profound reverence for nature and gratitude for all she provides remained at the core of these events, as they do with today’s Native Americans.

Scholars estimate the number of people living in North America prior to 1492 between 8 and 112 million, with hundreds to thousands of unique tribes. While their cultures, religious beliefs, languages and lifestyles varied, most shared Indigenous values that shaped Thanksgiving celebrations.

The Images In This Post

The photographs and paintings in this post represent the work of several nineteenth-century artists who were inspired by Indigenous values of North American tribal people and recognized that their numbers were rapidly diminishing.

By 1800, there was an estimated 600,000 Native Americans. In 1830, Andrew Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act. According to the 1860 census, the number declined to approximately 340,000 as the result of disease and conflict with European settlers. (National Archives)

Indigenous Values: Hand-painted lantern slide by Walter McClintock; c. late 1800s. Image: Yale Collection of Western Americana, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.

Indigenous Values: Hand-painted lantern slide by Walter McClintock; c. late 1800s. Image: Yale Collection of Western Americana, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.

Indigenous Values: Piegan men giving prayer to the Thunderbird near a river in Montana. c, 1912. Photo by Roland W. Reed.. Image: Rare Historical Photos.

Indigenous Values: Hand-painted lantern slide by Walter McClintock; c. late 1800s. Image: Yale Collection of Western Americana, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.

Indigenous Values: A medicine man. Taos Pueblo, New Mexico. c. 1905. Photo by Carl Moon. Image: Rare Historical Photos.

Indigenous Values: Minnehaha. c. 1904. Photochrom print by the Detroit Photographic Co.. Image: Rare Historical Photos.

Indigenous Values: Walks-in-the-water (soya-wa-awachkai) And Her Baby Koumiski (round Face). Siksika. Montana.. Image: BoredPanda.

Native American Tribes Were Deeply Connected To Nature

Central to Indigenous values was their deep reverence for the natural world. They believed that humans must be stewards of the land, preserving her for future generations. They lived in close connection to the natural world.

According to Native Hope:

“They had a very holistic idea of health, which included a concern for the total harmony between every aspect of the person and the environment…

From the Native understanding, human beings and all other things come forth from the life of Mother Earth. Their sense of generosity and respect toward others and toward the earth comes from an original sense of gratitude to the common mother of all creatures.” (Native Hope)

Indigenous Values: Hand-painted lantern slide by Walter McClintock; c. late 1800s. Image: Yale Collection of Western Americana, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.

Indigenous Values: Northern Plains man on an overlook. Montana. Early 1900s. Hand-colored photo by Roland W. Reed. Image: Rare Historical Photos.

Indigenous Values: Hand-painted lantern slide by Walter McClintock; c. late 1800s. Image: Yale Collection of Western Americana, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.

Indigenous Values: Hand-painted lantern slide by Walter McClintock; c. late 1800s. Image: Yale Collection of Western Americana, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.

Indigenous Values: Ringing Bell, Minnesota, c. 1908 by Hand painted Photo Print By Roland W. Reed. Image: BoredPanda.

Native North Americans Celebrated Many Thanksgivings

With nature at the center of Indigenous Values, tribes gave thanks many times throughout the year.

Patti English writes in Owlcation:

“In America, First Nations and Native Americans marked time by the sun and the moon, a moon being a month, with the Full Moon being the most important night/day of each month.

Feast Days (festivals) were held at each Full Moon around North America, the type of celebration led by the customs of the Indigenous Nation involved.” (Owlcation)

While all Thanksgiving celebrations were important, those held in autumn after the harvest and before winter arrived were particularly profound. These were the Green Corn Moon, The Harvest Moon and The Hunters Moon.

“Thus, there were three thanksgiving feast days (holidays) every fall before the “white men” came to the Western Hemisphere. The whites had their own commemorative festivals in The New World, and sometimes, there was a joining of Native Americans and Whites.” (Owlcation)

Honoring Indigenous Values, many Native Americans gave thanks to every animal whose life they took for food and clothing. They also gave thanks to the Great Spirit for crops, from seeding to harvest.

“It is the Harvest Feast Days that some non-Native persons may recognize as a type of Thanksgiving ceremony …

Harvest festivals were maintained in North America and probably in Mexico and the Americas in August, September, and October of every year, from around 10,000 BC or earlier. This predates anything by the earliest explorers coming to The New World from Scandinavia and Western Europe” (Owlcation)

Indigenous Values: Piegan Couple, Glacier National Park Montana, c. 1890-1910. Image: BoredPanda.

Indigenous Values: Chief Mad Wolf. Blackfeet. Montana. Early 1900s. Glass Lantern Slide By Walter McClintock. Image” Bored Panda.

Indigenous Values: Blackfeet Woman With Children. Montana, c. early 1900s. Image: BoredPanda.

Indigenous Values: Arrowmaker, an Ojibwe man. c, 1903. Photochrom print. Image: Rare Historical Photos.

Indigenous Values: Thunder Tipi of Brings-Down-The-Sun. Blackfoot camp. Early 1900s. Hand-painted lantern slide by Walter McClintock. Image: Yale Collection of Western Americana, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.

Indigenous Values: Blackfeet Girl. Montana. Early 1900s. Glass Lantern Slide By Walter McClintock. Image: BoredPanda.

Indigenous Values: Ojibwe Woman, c. Early 1900s. Photo By Roland Reed. Image: BoredPanda.

Indigenous Values: Strong Left Hand and family. Northern Cheyenne Reservation. c, 1906. Photo by Julia Tuell. Image: Rare Historical Photos.

Indigenous Tribes Influenced Diets Worldwide With Many Important Crops

Working with nature was central to Indigenous Values. Highly successful at agriculture, Native American tribes domesticated many of the crops we eat today. Among them are potatoes, squash, beans, corn and tomatoes.
In Pre-Colonial Foodways, Christina Gish of Iowa State University writes:

“By the time Europeans reached the shores of the Americas, the Indigenous peoples of the northern continent had developed food systems that efficiently utilized their abundant landscape to provide a relatively nutritious diet ….

One method still used today with great success was called Three Sisters agriculture in which the crops are planted to nurture each other like family when they are planted together in harmony. 

“These agriculturalists placed corn in small hills planting beans around them and interspersing squash throughout of the field. Beans naturally absorb nitrogen from the air and convert it to nitrates, fertilizing the soil for the corn and squash. In return, they are supported by winding around the corn stalks. The squash leaves provide ground cover between the corn and beans, preventing weeds from taking over the field. These three plants thrive together better than when they are planted alone.” (Pre-Colonial Foodways)

Microsoft’s Regenerative Agriculture Investment is currently utilizing some of the early planting methods that developed from Indigenous Values and wisdom that sustained communities for millennia.

“These traditional methods, which focused on working in harmony with nature rather than against it, laid the groundwork for what we now call regenerative agriculture, or what the old timers just called “farming.” (HappyEcoNews)

Indigenous Values: A Crow dancer. Early 1900s. Photo by Richard Throssel. Image: Rare Historical Photos.

Indigenous Values: Si Wa Wata Wa. A Zuni Elder. New Mexico, c. 1903. Photo By Edward S. Curtis. Image: BoredPanda.

Indigenous Values: Hand-painted lantern slide by Walter McClintock; c. late 1800s. Image: Yale Collection of Western Americana, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.

Indigenous Values: Mrs. Bad Gun, c, 1879. Cheyenne. Photo By L.a.huffman. Image: BoredPanda.

Indigenous Values: Blackfeet Tribal Camp With Grazing Horses. Montana, early 1900s. Glass Lantern Slide By Walter McClintock. Image: BoredPanda.

Indigenous Values: Vapore. Maricopa. c. 1899. Photo By F.A. Rinehart. Image: BoredPanda.

Indigenous Values: Broken Arm. Oglala Lakota, c.. 1899. Photo By F.a. Rinehart. Image: BoredPanda.

Indigenous Values: She Who Travels In The Sky. Ojibwe, c. 1908. Photo By Roland Reed. Image: BoredPanda.

Indigenous Values: Hiawatha’s Return, c. 1904. Image: BoredPanda.

The Wampanoag Shared Knowledge With Europeans

Much of our origin story for the first Thanksgiving comes from Mourt’s Relation: A Journal of the Pilgrims at Plymouth, 1622. Edward Winslow penned most of the journal between November 1620 and November 1621. 

This account offers a first-hand detailed account of events from the Pilgrims landing at Cape Cod, to their exploration of the area and eventual settlement at Plymouth. The accounts are slanted in a positive light to persuade investors and other Pilgrims to journey to America.

Yes, the Pilgrims celebrated their first successful harvest with a feast. And yes, the Wampanoags broke bread with their new neighbors. But it is likely that the feast dripped with tension and an undercurrent of treacherous implications for their future. (First Thanksgiving Mourners Reject Myths)

According to the National Archives, the Pilgrims from the “first Thanksgiving” owed a great debt to the Wampanoag.

“They also shared knowledge about hunting and planting that saved the Pilgrims from starvation and made the 1621 harvest celebration possible.” (National Archives)

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