Nov 19 2007
Week of November 19th, 2007
The History of Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving Day in the United States is an annual day of thanksgiving for the blessings of the past year, observed on the fourth Thursday in November.
It is a historical, national, and religious holiday that began at the turn of the seventeenth century with a small group of people now known as the Pilgrims. They were English separatists who sought to practice their religion free of persecution and mockery and sailed from Plymouth, England, aboard the Mayflower on September 16, 1620.
Their destination? The New World. Although filled with uncertainty and peril, it offered both civil and religious liberty. For over two months, the 102 passengers braved the harsh elements and storms of the sea. Finally, they saw land and reached the New World.
Arriving in Massachusetts Bay on November 21, 1620, the settlers soon decided to land in neighboring Plymouth Harbor. On December 11, just before disembarking at Plymouth Rock, they signed the “Mayflower Compact”—America’s first declaration of civil self-government. After a prayer service, they began building hasty shelters. However, unprepared for a harsh New England winter, and without proper supplies, nearly half of the settlers sickened and died before spring.
They became indebted to Squanto, a Native American of the Wampanoag tribe of Massachusetts, as well as a former British slave, who knew English and befriended them. Squanto helped them survive by teaching them how to catch fish and eel as well as how to plant and grow corn. He also served as their native interpreter to other Native American Indian tribes, helping ease tensions. Without Squanto’s assistance, the settlers might not have survived in the New World.
The grateful settlers of Plymouth Colony, who came thereafter to be called “Pilgrims”, survived the bitter winter and harvested their first crops in 1621. Governor William Bradford issued a thanksgiving proclamation and declared a three-day autumn harvest feast in the fall of 1621, to praise and thank God. He invited Grand Sachem Massasoit and the Wampanoag people to join them in the feast, during which the Pilgrims feasted on wild turkey and venison with their Indian guests. Evidence to support this is proven in the diaries of the Plymouth settlers.
This harvest meal has become a symbol of cooperation and interaction between English colonists and Native Americans. While this was not the first Thanksgiving in America, it was America’s first Thanksgiving Feast.
Days of thanksgiving were celebrated sporadically in America until, on November 26, 1789, President George Washington issued a proclamation of a nationwide Day of Thanksgiving. He made it clear that the day should be one of prayer and giving thanks to God. It was to be celebrated by all religious denominations, a circumstance that helped to promote a spirit of common heritage among the new citizens of the United States of America.
That same year, the Protestant Episcopal Church, of which President Washington was a member, announced that the first Thursday in November would become its regular day for giving thanks, “unless another day be appointed by the civil authorities.” Yet, despite these early national proclamations, official Thanksgiving observances usually occurred only at the State level.
Much of the credit for establishing this day as an annual national holiday is usually given to Sarah Joseph Hale, editor and founder of the Godey’s Lady’s Book and Ladies Magazine in Boston. For thirty years, her editorials in the magazine and letters to president after president promoted the idea of annual celebration. Finally, in 1863, President Abraham Lincoln responded by issuing a proclamation establishing a formal national holiday of thanksgiving, designating the last Thursday in November as a national Thanksgiving Day.
Over the next seventy-five years, succeeding presidents annually followed his example, except for President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who in 1939 proclaimed Thanksgiving Day a week earlier—on the fourth but not the last Thursday—to encourage holiday shopping. In 1941, Congress adopted a joint resolution permanently establishing the fourth Thursday of each November as a national holiday.
Whether at Plymouth, or elsewhere in colonial America, celebrations of thanksgiving held great meaning and importance to people—for religious reasons, a growing sense of nationalism and as tradition. The legacy of giving thanksgiving for blessings, and of the thanksgiving feast with family and friends, have survived the centuries as people throughout the United States gather family, friends and large amounts of delicious food for their yearly Thanksgiving meal.
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