The History of the Thanksgiving Holiday
in America
Recorded celebrations
of a thanksgiving service in early America
begin in 1541. The Thanksgiving Day celebration
as we know it in 21st century America
is based primarily on a series of events
that occurred between September 21 and
November 11, 1621 at Plymouth. To understand
the development of this day of gratitude,
it is useful to look at the earlier recorded
events.
The British
The next thanksgiving event occurred on
August 9, 1607, when Captain George Popham's
English settlers were accompanied by the
Abnaki Indians along the Kennebec River
in Maine. The English and the Indians celebrated
the harvest with a feast and a prayer service.
These colonists named that location Fort
St. George, but the site did not continue
to develop, and only a year later the colonists
abandoned this location.
In 1619 English settlers at Berkeley Plantation
formed a charter that required that December
4 be a day of thanksgiving to God; the charter
reads in part: "Wee ordaine that the
day of our ships arrival at the place assigned
for plantacon in the land of Virginia shall
be yearly and perpetually keept holy as
a day of thanksgiving to Almighty god."
Captain John Woodleaf officiated at that
service. This settlement continued its thanksgiving
services for the next two years, but by
1622 this community had vanished.
The Pilgrims
William Bradford, second governor of the
Plymouth Settlement, affirms the purpose
of the pilgrimage to the new world in these
words: "a great hope for advancing
the kingdom of Christ."
After arriving at Plymouth Rock on December
11, 1620, the Mayflower Pilgrims experienced
a disastrous first winter. The journey across
the Atlantic had taken seven weeks and had
weakened the determined travelers. During
that arduous winter many died of pneumonia.
They lacked housing and the strength and
ability to build fast enough to accommodate
the group. Many remained housed on the Mayflower.
By spring their number of 102 persons had
dwindled to 56.
The Pilgrims were saved by an Indian, an
English-speaking member of the Wampanoag
Nation named Squanto. Squanto, who had learned
English from earlier English-speaking explorers,
taught these Pilgrims how to grow vegetables,
how to build houses, how to recognize poisonous
plants, how to use fertilizer, and how to
tap maple trees. Through this generous native
and his tribe, the immigrants learned valuable
skills for living in a place that was severe
and utterly foreign to them. The Wampanoags
shared their food and gave the Pilgrims
clothing while they taught them how to acquire
their own.
By autumn of the next year, 1621, the Pilgrims
harvested a bounty of crops for which they
were truly thankful. One of the Pilgrims,
Edwin Winslow, wrote a letter back home
to England, and that letter gives us clear
picture of the events that led to what we
now treasure as the first Thanksgiving:
Our corn did prove well, and, God be praised,
we had a good increase of Indian corn, and
our barley indifferent good, but our peas
not worth the gathering, for we feared they
were too late sown. They came up very well,
and blossomed, but the sun parched them
in the blossom.
Our harvest being gotten in, our governor
sent four men on fowling, that so we might
after a special manner rejoice together
after we had gathered the fruit of our labors.
They four in one day killed as much fowl
as, with a little help beside, served the
company almost a week. At which time, among
other recreations, we exercised our arms,
many of the Indians coming amongst us, and
among the rest their greatest king Massasoit,
with some ninety men, whom for three days
we entertained and feasted, and they went
out and killed five deer, which they brought
to the plantation and bestowed upon our
governor, and upon the captain, and others.
And although it be not always so plentiful
as it was at this time with us, yet by the
goodness of God, we are so far from want
that we often wish you partakers of our
plenty.
Historians have suggested that this three-day
event probably included September 29, which
is the traditional English celebration of
Michaelmas, a Christian feast held to honor
the archangel, Michael. It is thought that
the Pilgrims in gratitude to Squanto and
the Wampanoag leader Massasoit for their
help invited them to bring their families
to help them celebrate their harvest, and
the families turned out to include around
ninety individuals
The Plimoth Plantation has suggested that
the feast is likely to have included lobster,
goose, boiled turkey, pudding of Indian
corn meal with dried whortleberries, cod,
duck, stewed pumpkin, venison brought by
the Indians, savory pudding of hominy, fruit
and Holland cheese.
http://www.pilgrimhall.org/whopilg.htm |
