There can be countless recordings of the same event, and while many times each recording is different, there are also incidents where you need to know each recording to reconstruct what really happened. The story of the first Thanksgiving takes place in 1621 and is generally known as a meal shared between the Pilgrims and the Indians. For the Pilgrims, this was a harvest festival, much like the one they would have had in England. To the Indians it was a display of hospitality on the part of the pilgrims, similar to what they would expect when visiting another Indian tribe. Just saying that, you can already see that two very different stories of the same event are already recorded. Of more interest, perhaps, are the separate eyewitness accounts of two Pilgrims and a History Channel documentary on the same events. The first eyewitness we were interested in was a man named Edward Winslow. Winslow was perhaps best known for his diplomatic work among the Pilgrims and many Indian tribes. Winslow's description of the first Thanksgiving tells of a joyous time, when the Pilgrims and Indians feasted and hunted together. In his description it is mentioned that there was a large amount of food, in contrast to the harshness of the previous year. He takes particular note of the presence of Massasoit, the chief of the Indians, who, together with his ninety-odd men, were hosted by the Pilgrims for three days. William Bradford, another eyewitness to the first Thanksgiving, was the governor of Plymouth Colony. He had been elected previously in 1621, after the sudden death of the previous governor. Bradford's account tells that, after a terrible disease destroyed nearly half the Pilgrims the previous winter and spring, t... half of the document... taken from a mixture of the Winslow and Bradford records of the time, and that Desperate Crossing also shows the tension that would actually exist between the English and the Indians at the time. Winslow is the one who mentions Massasoit and his Indians, while Bradford goes into detail about the various tasks performed by the Pilgrims. Each account of the first Thanksgiving offers a slightly different view - perhaps covering up their respective flaws - which, taken together, give us a much better picture of what 1621 was really like. In many cases of multiple accounts, people tend to choose one over the others, based on which source seems the most credible. The overlap between Bradford and Winslow's accounts, along with the visual details provided by Desperate Crossing, give what I believe is the most accurate depiction of the first Thanksgiving..