Their prayers were answered; Captain Smith’s life, destined to

Their prayers were answered; Captain Smith’s life, destined to be vital to the colony, was preserved by the intercession of Chief Powhatan’s daughter, Pocahontas. Smith’s arrival back in Jamestown on Jan. 8, 1608, coincided with the arrival of the long looked for supply ship with men and provisions.

Following a truce with the Powhatans in 1608, the settlers had thenfirst real Christmas feast, courtesy of the Indians. They enjoyed richer fare than they had seen for a long time. As one pilgrim said, they were “never more merrie, nor fedde on more plentie of good oysters, fish, flesh, wild foule and good bread; nor never had better fires in England than warm smokie houses.”

The earliest Christmases, when celebrated, were very simple as food, etc., was scarce. Christmas was not celebrated at all in the Puritan colonies of New England. The proscription against Christmas celebrations held sway even in England during the apex of Puritan power under Oliver Cromwell. They read their Bibles literally. Nowhere did it positively state that there should be a celebration of the Birth of Christ. These dour people worked six days a week and worshipped one day for that was the rule of the Bible.

Possibly the Puritans hated Christmas because it reminded them of the Tory establishment which opposed them - they unconsciously identified the Church of England with royal officials.

There were other sects that did not celebrate Christmas. Included here were the Plain Dutch (Mennonites, Amish, Brethren), Presbyterians, Methodists, Baptists, and Congregationalists - all of whom had an aversion to waste and exalted the Sabbath to the exclusion of all other days. The Quakers believed all days were holy days and of equal importance.

But nowhere was Christmas so condemned as in Massachusetts, where the public celebration of Christmas led to arrests and whippings. Anyone suspected of celebrat