THE PLYMOUTH THANKSGIVING STORY - The Real Deal
The Plymouth Thanksgiving Story - A very informative collection of information, including some challenging observations from a Native American viewpoint. Recommended reading!
The First Thanksgiving Proclamation - On June 20, 1676, the governing council of Charlestown, Massachusetts instructed Edward Rawson, the clerk, to proclaim June 29 as a day of thanksgiving, our first. That proclamation is reproduced here in the same language and spelling as the original.
Introduction by:
Chuck Larsen
Tacoma School District
Printed: September, 1986
Reprinted: May, 1987
AN INTRODUCTION FOR TEACHERS
This is a particularly difficult introduction to
write. I have been a public schools teacher for twelve
years, and I am also a historian and have written several
books on American and Native American history. I also just
happen to be Quebeque French, Metis, Ojibwa, and Iroquois.
Because my Indian ancestors were on both sides of the
struggle between the Puritans and the New England Indians
and I am well versed in my cultural heritage and history
both as an Anishnabeg (Algokin) and Hodenosione (Iroquois),
it was felt that I could bring a unique insight to the
project.
For an Indian, who is also a school teacher,
Thanksgiving was never an easy holiday for me to deal with
in class. I sometimes have felt like I learned too much
about "the Pilgrims and the Indians." Every year I have
been faced with the professional and moral dilemma of just
how to be honest and informative with my children at
Thanksgiving without passing on historical distortions, and
racial and cultural stereotypes.
The problem is that part of what you and I learned in
our own childhood about the "Pilgrims" and "Squanto" and
the "First Thanksgiving" is a mixture of both history and
myth. But the THEME of Thanksgiving has truth and integrity
far above and beyond what we and our forebearers have made
of it. Thanksgiving is a bigger concept than just the story
of the founding of the Plymouth Plantation.
So what do we teach to our children? We usually pass
on unquestioned what we all received in our own childhood
classrooms. I have come to know both the truths and the
myths about our "First Thanksgiving," and I feel we need to
try to reach beyond the myths to some degree of historic
truth. This text is an attempt to do this.
At this point you are probably asking, "What is the
big deal about Thanksgiving and the Pilgrims?" "What does
this guy mean by a mixture of truths and myth?" That is
just what this introduction is all about. I propose that
there may be a good deal that many of us do not know about
our Thanksgiving holiday and also about the "First
Thanksgiving" story. I also propose that what most of us
have learned about the Pilgrims and the Indians who were at
the first Thanksgiving at Plymouth Plantation is only part
of the truth. When you build a lesson on only half of the
information, then you are not teaching the whole truth.
That is why I used the word myth. So where do you start to
find out more about the holiday and our modern stories
about how it began?
A good place to start is with a very important book,
"The Invasion of America," by Francis Jennings. It is a
very authoritative text on the settlement of New England
and the evolution of Indian/White relations in the New
England colonies. I also recommend looking up any good text
on British history. Check out the British Civil War of
1621-1642, Oliver Cromwell, and the Puritan uprising of
1653 which ended parliamentary government in England until
1660. The history of the Puritan experience in New England
really should not be separated from the history of the
Puritan experience in England. You should also realize that
the "Pilgrims" were a sub sect, or splinter group, of the
Puritan movement. They came to America to achieve on this
continent what their Puritan brethren continued to strive
for in England; and when the Puritans were forced from
England, they came to New England and soon absorbed the
original "Pilgrims."
As the editor, I have read all the texts listed in our
bibliography, and many more, in preparing this material for
you. I want you to read some of these books. So let me use
my editorial license to deliberately provoke you a little.
When comparing the events stirred on by the Puritans in
England with accounts of Puritan/Pilgrim activities in New
England in the same era, several provocative things suggest
themselves:
1. The Puritans were not just simple religious
conservatives persecuted by the King and the Church of
England for their unorthodox beliefs. They were
political revolutionaries who not only intended to
overthrow the government of England, but who actually
did so in 1649.
2. The Puritan "Pilgrims" who came to New England were not
simply refugees who decided to "put their fate in God's
hands" in the "empty wilderness" of North America, as a
generation of Hollywood movies taught us. In any culture
at any time, settlers on a frontier are most often
outcasts and fugitives who, in some way or other, do not
fit into the mainstream of their society. This is not to
imply that people who settle on frontiers have no
redeeming qualities such as bravery, etc., but that the
images of nobility that we associate with the Puritans
are at least in part the good "P.R." efforts of later
writers who have romanticized them.(1) It is also very
plausible that this unnaturally noble image of the
Puritans is all wrapped up with the mythology of "Noble
Civilization" vs. "Savagery."(2) At any rate, mainstream
Englishmen considered the Pilgrims to be deliberate
religious dropouts who intended to found a new nation
completely independent from non-Puritan England. In 1643
the Puritan/Pilgrims declared themselves an independent
confederacy, one hundred and forty-three years before
the American Revolution. They believed in the imminent
occurrence of Armegeddon in Europe and hoped to
establish here in the new world the "Kingdom of God"
foretold in the book of Revelation. They diverged from
their Puritan brethren who remained in England only in
that they held little real hope of ever being able to
successfully overthrow the King and Parliament and,
thereby, impose their "Rule of Saints" (strict Puritan
orthodoxy) on the rest of the British people. So they
came to America not just in one ship (the Mayflower) but
in a hundred others as well, with every intention of
taking the land away from its native people to build
their prophesied "Holy Kingdom."(3)
3. The Pilgrims were not just innocent refugees from
religious persecution. They were victims of bigotry in
England, but some of them were themselves religious
bigots by our modern standards. The Puritans and the
Pilgrims saw themselves as the "Chosen Elect" mentioned
in the book of Revelation. They strove to "purify" first
themselves and then everyone else of everything they did
not accept in their own interpretation of scripture.
Later New England Puritans used any means, including
deceptions, treachery, torture, war, and genocide to
achieve that end.(4) They saw themselves as fighting a
holy war against Satan, and everyone who disagreed with
them was the enemy. This rigid fundamentalism was
transmitted to America by the Plymouth colonists, and it
sheds a very different light on the "Pilgrim" image we
have of them. This is best illustrated in the written
text of the Thanksgiving sermon delivered at Plymouth in
1623 by "Mather the Elder." In it, Mather the Elder gave
special thanks to God for the devastating plague of
smallpox which wiped out the majority of the Wampanoag
Indians who had been their benefactors. He praised God
for destroying "chiefly young men and children, the very
seeds of increase, thus clearing the forests to make way
for a better growth", i.e., the Pilgrims.(5) In as much
as these Indians were the Pilgrim's benefactors, and
Squanto, in particular, was the instrument of their
salvation that first year, how are we to interpret this
apparent callousness towards their misfortune?
4. The Wampanoag Indians were not the "friendly savages"
some of us were told about when we were in the primary
grades. Nor were they invited out of the goodness of the
Pilgrims' hearts to share the fruits of the Pilgrims'
harvest in a demonstration of Christian charity and
interracial brotherhood. The Wampanoag were members of a
widespread confederacy of Algonkian-speaking peoples
known as the League of the Delaware. For six hundred
years they had been defending themselves from my other
ancestors, the Iroquois, and for the last hundred years
they had also had encounters with European fishermen and
explorers but especially with European slavers, who had
been raiding their coastal villages.(6) They knew
something of the power of the white people, and they did
not fully trust them. But their religion taught that
they were to give charity to the helpless and
hospitality to anyone who came to them with empty
hands.(7) Also, Squanto, the Indian hero of the
Thanksgiving story, had a very real love for a British
explorer named John Weymouth, who had become a second
father to him several years before the Pilgrims arrived
at Plymouth. Clearly, Squanto saw these Pilgrims as
Weymouth's people.(8) To the Pilgrims the Indians were
heathens and, therefore, the natural instruments of the
Devil. Squanto, as the only educated and baptized
Christian among the Wampanoag, was seen as merely an
instrument of God, set in the wilderness to provide for
the survival of His chosen people, the Pilgrims. The
Indians were comparatively powerful and, therefore,
dangerous; and they were to be courted until the next
ships arrived with more Pilgrim colonists and the
balance of power shifted. The Wampanoag were actually
invited to that Thanksgiving feast for the purpose of
negotiating a treaty that would secure the lands of the
Plymouth Plantation for the Pilgrims. It should also be
noted that the INDIANS, possibly out of a sense of
charity toward their hosts, ended up bringing the
majority of the food for the feast.(9)
5. A generation later, after the balance of power had
indeed shifted, the Indian and White children of that
Thanksgiving were striving to kill each other in the
genocidal conflict known as King Philip's War. At the
end of that conflict most of the New England Indians
were either exterminated or refugees among the French in
Canada, or they were sold into slavery in the Carolinas
by the Puritans. So successful was this early trade in
Indian slaves that several Puritan ship owners in Boston
began the practice of raiding the Ivory Coast of Africa
for black slaves to sell to the proprietary colonies of
the South, thus founding the American-based slave
trade.(10)
Obviously there is a lot more to the story of
Indian/Puritan relations in New England than in the
thanksgiving stories we heard as children. Our contemporary
mix of myth and history about the "First" Thanksgiving at
Plymouth developed in the 1890s and early 1900s. Our
country was desperately trying to pull together its many
diverse peoples into a common national identity. To many
writers and educators at the end of the last century and
the beginning of this one, this also meant having a common
national history. This was the era of the "melting pot"
theory of social progress, and public education was a major
tool for social unity. It was with this in mind that the
federal government declared the last Thursday in November
as the legal holiday of Thanksgiving in 1898.
In consequence, what started as an inspirational bit
of New England folklore, soon grew into the full-fledged
American Thanksgiving we now know. It emerged complete with
stereotyped Indians and stereotyped Whites, incomplete
history, and a mythical significance as our "First
Thanksgiving." But was it really our FIRST American
Thanksgiving?
Now that I have deliberately provoked you with some
new information and different opinions, please take the
time to read some of the texts in our bibliography. I want
to encourage you to read further and form your own
opinions. There really is a TRUE Thanksgiving story of
Plymouth Plantation. But I strongly suggest that there
always has been a Thanksgiving story of some kind or other
for as long as there have been human beings. There was also
a "First" Thanksgiving in America, but it was celebrated
thirty thousand years ago.(11) At some time during the New
Stone Age (beginning about ten thousand years ago)
Thanksgiving became associated with giving thanks to God
for the harvests of the land. Thanksgiving has always been
a time of people coming together, so thanks has also been
offered for that gift of fellowship between us all. Every
last Thursday in November we now partake in one of the
OLDEST and most UNIVERSAL of human celebrations, and THERE
ARE MANY THANKSGIVING STORIES TO TELL.
As for Thanksgiving week at Plymouth Plantation in
1621, the friendship was guarded and not always sincere,
and the peace was very soon abused. But for three days in
New England's history, peace and friendship were there.
So here is a story for your children. It is as kind
and gentle a balance of historic truth and positive
inspiration as its writers and this editor can make it out
to be. I hope it will adequately serve its purpose both for
you and your students, and I also hope this work will
encourage you to look both deeper and farther, for
Thanksgiving is Thanksgiving all around the world.
Chuck Larsen
Tacoma Public Schools
September, 1986
FOOTNOTES FOR TEACHER INTRODUCTION
(1) See Berkhofer, Jr., R.F., "The White Man's
Indian," references to Puritans, pp. 27, 80-85, 90, 104, &
130.
(2) See Berkhofer, Jr., R.F., "The White Man's
Indian," references to frontier concepts of savagery in
index. Also see Jennings, Francis, "The Invasion of
America," the myth of savagery, pp. 6-12, 15-16, & 109-110.
(3) See Blitzer, Charles, "Age of Kings," Great Ages
of Man series, references to Puritanism, pp. 141, 144 &
145-46. Also see Jennings, Francis, "The Invasion of
America," references to Puritan human motives, pp. 4-6, 43-
44 and 53.
(4) See "Chronicles of American Indian Protest," pp.
6-10. Also see Armstrong, Virginia I., "I Have Spoken,"
reference to Cannonchet and his village, p. 6. Also see
Jennings, Francis, "The Invasion of America," Chapter 9
"Savage War," Chapter 13 "We must Burn Them," and Chapter
17 "Outrage Bloody and Barbarous."
(5) See "Chronicles of American Indian Protest," pp.
6-9. Also see Berkhofer, Jr., R.F., "The White Man's
Indian," the comments of Cotton Mather, pp. 37 & 82-83.
(6) See Larsen, Charles M., "The Real Thanksgiving,"
pp. 3-4. Also see Graff, Steward and Polly Ann, "Squanto,
Indian Adventurer." Also see "Handbook of North American
Indians," Vol. 15, the reference to Squanto on p. 82.
(7) See Benton-Banai, Edward, "The Mishomis Book," as
a reference on general "Anishinabe" (the Algonkin speaking
peoples) religious beliefs and practices. Also see Larsen,
Charles M., "The Real Thanksgiving," reference to religious
life on p. 1.
(8) See Graff, Stewart and Polly Ann, "Squanto, Indian
Adventurer." Also see Larsen, Charles M., "The Real
Thanksgiving." Also see Bradford, Sir William, "Of Plymouth
Plantation," and "Mourt's Relation."
(9) See Larsen, Charles M., "The Real Thanksgiving,"
the letter of Edward Winslow dated 1622, pp. 5-6.
(10) See "Handbook of North American Indians," Vol.
15, pp. 177-78. Also see "Chronicles of American Indian
Protest," p. 9, the reference to the enslavement of King
Philip's family. Also see Larsen, Charles, M., "The Real
Thanksgiving," pp. 8-11, "Destruction of the Massachusetts
Indians."
(11) Best current estimate of the first entry of
people into the Americas confirmed by archaeological
evidence that is datable.
THE PLYMOUTH THANKSGIVING STORY
When the Pilgrims crossed the Atlantic Ocean in 1620,
they landed on the rocky shores of a territory that was
inhabited by the Wampanoag (Wam pa NO ag) Indians. The
Wampanoags were part of the Algonkian-speaking peoples, a
large group that was part of the Woodland Culture area.
These Indians lived in villages along the coast of what is
now Massachusetts and Rhode Island. They lived in round-
roofed houses called wigwams. These were made of poles
covered with flat sheets of elm or birch bark. Wigwams
differ in construction from tipis that were used by Indians
of the Great Plains.
The Wampanoags moved several times during each year in
order to get food. In the spring they would fish in the
rivers for salmon and herring. In the planting season they
moved to the forest to hunt deer and other animals. After
the end of the hunting season people moved inland where
there was greater protection from the weather. From
December to April they lived on food that they stored
during the earlier months.
The basic dress for men was the breech clout, a length
of deerskin looped over a belt in back and in front. Women
wore deerskin wrap-around skirts. Deerskin leggings and fur
capes made from deer, beaver, otter, and bear skins gave
protection during the colder seasons, and deerskin
moccasins were worn on the feet. Both men and women usually
braided their hair and a single feather was often worn in
the back of the hair by men. They did not have the large
feathered headdresses worn by people in the Plains Culture
area.
There were two language groups of Indians in New
England at this time. The Iroquois were neighbors to the
Algonkian-speaking people. Leaders of the Algonquin and
Iroquois people were called "sachems" (SAY chems). Each
village had its own sachem and tribal council. Political
power flowed upward from the people. Any individual, man or
woman, could participate, but among the Algonquins more
political power was held by men. Among the Iroquois,
however, women held the deciding vote in the final
selection of who would represent the group. Both men and
women enforced the laws of the village and helped solve
problems. The details of their democratic system were so
impressive that about 150 years later Benjamin Franklin
invited the Iroquois to Albany, New York, to explain their
system to a delegation who then developed the "Albany Plan
of Union." This document later served as a model for the
Articles of Confederation and the Constitution of the
United States.
These Indians of the Eastern Woodlands called the
turtle, the deer and the fish their brothers. They
respected the forest and everything in it as equals.
Whenever a hunter made a kill, he was careful to leave
behind some bones or meat as a spiritual offering, to help
other animals survive. Not to do so would be considered
greedy. The Wampanoags also treated each other with
respect. Any visitor to a Wampanoag home was provided with
a share of whatever food the family had, even if the supply
was low. This same courtesy was extended to the Pilgrims
when they met.
We can only guess what the Wampanoags must have
thought when they first saw the strange ships of the
Pilgrims arriving on their shores. But their custom was to
help visitors, and they treated the newcomers with
courtesy. It was mainly because of their kindness that the
Pilgrims survived at all. The wheat the Pilgrims had
brought with them to plant would not grow in the rocky
soil. They needed to learn new ways for a new world, and
the man who came to help them was called "Tisquantum" (Tis
SKWAN tum) or "Squanto" (SKWAN toe).
Squanto was originally from the village of Patuxet (Pa
TUK et) and a member of the Pokanokit Wampanoag nation.
Patuxet once stood on the exact site where the Pilgrims
built Plymouth. In 1605, fifteen years before the Pilgrims
came, Squanto went to England with a friendly English
explorer named John Weymouth. He had many adventures and
learned to speak English. Squanto came back to New England
with Captain Weymouth. Later Squanto was captured by a
British slaver who raided the village and sold Squanto to
the Spanish in the Caribbean Islands. A Spanish Franciscan
priest befriended Squanto and helped him to get to Spain
and later on a ship to England. Squanto then found Captain
Weymouth, who paid his way back to his homeland. In England
Squanto met Samoset of the Wabanake (Wab NAH key) Tribe,
who had also left his native home with an English explorer.
They both returned together to Patuxet in 1620. When they
arrived, the village was deserted and there were skeletons
everywhere. Everyone in the village had died from an
illness the English slavers had left behind. Squanto and
Samoset went to stay with a neighboring village of
Wampanoags.
One year later, in the spring, Squanto and Samoset
were hunting along the beach near Patuxet. They were
startled to see people from England in their deserted
village. For several days, they stayed nearby observing the
newcomers. Finally they decided to approach them. Samoset
walked into the village and said "welcome," Squanto soon
joined him. The Pilgrims were very surprised to meet two
Indians who spoke English.
The Pilgrims were not in good condition. They were
living in dirt-covered shelters, there was a shortage of
food, and nearly half of them had died during the winter.
They obviously needed help and the two men were a welcome
sight. Squanto, who probably knew more English than any
other Indian in North America at that time, decided to stay
with the Pilgrims for the next few months and teach them
how to survive in this new place. He brought them deer meat
and beaver skins. He taught them how to cultivate corn and
other new vegetables and how to build Indian-style houses.
He pointed out poisonous plants and showed how other plants
could be used as medicine. He explained how to dig and cook
clams, how to get sap from the maple trees, use fish for
fertilizer, and dozens of other skills needed for their
survival.
By the time fall arrived things were going much better
for the Pilgrims, thanks to the help they had received. The
corn they planted had grown well. There was enough food to
last the winter. They were living comfortably in their
Indian-style wigwams and had also managed to build one
European-style building out of squared logs. This was their
church. They were now in better health, and they knew more
about surviving in this new land. The Pilgrims decided to
have a thanksgiving feast to celebrate their good fortune.
They had observed thanksgiving feasts in November as
religious obligations in England for many years before
coming to the New World.
The Algonkian tribes held six thanksgiving festivals
during the year. The beginning of the Algonkian year was
marked by the Maple Dance which gave thanks to the Creator
for the maple tree and its syrup. This ceremony occurred
when the weather was warm enough for the sap to run in the
maple trees, sometimes as early as February. Second was the
planting feast, where the seeds were blessed. The
strawberry festival was next, celebrating the first fruits
of the season. Summer brought the green corn festival to
give thanks for the ripening corn. In late fall, the
harvest festival gave thanks for the food they had grown.
Mid-winter was the last ceremony of the old year. When the
Indians sat down to the "first Thanksgiving" with the
Pilgrims, it was really the fifth thanksgiving of the year
for them!
Captain Miles Standish, the leader of the Pilgrims,
invited Squanto, Samoset, Massasoit (the leader of the
Wampanoags), and their immediate families to join them for
a celebration, but they had no idea how big Indian families
could be. As the Thanksgiving feast began, the Pilgrims
were overwhelmed at the large turnout of ninety relatives
that Squanto and Samoset brought with them. The Pilgrims
were not prepared to feed a gathering of people that large
for three days. Seeing this, Massasoit gave orders to his
men within the first hour of his arrival to go home and get
more food. Thus it happened that the Indians supplied the
majority of the food: Five deer, many wild turkeys, fish,
beans, squash, corn soup, corn bread, and berries. Captain
Standish sat at one end of a long table and the Clan Chief
Massasoit sat at the other end. For the first time the
Wampanoag people were sitting at a table to eat instead of
on mats or furs spread on the ground. The Indian women sat
together with the Indian men to eat. The Pilgrim women,
however, stood quietly behind the table and waited until
after their men had eaten, since that was their custom.
For three days the Wampanoags feasted with the
Pilgrims. It was a special time of friendship between two
very different groups of people. A peace and friendship
agreement was made between Massasoit and Miles Standish
giving the Pilgrims the clearing in the forest where the
old Patuxet village once stood to build their new town of
Plymouth.
It would be very good to say that this friendship
lasted a long time; but, unfortunately, that was not to be.
More English people came to America, and they were not in
need of help from the Indians as were the original
Pilgrims. Many of the newcomers forgot the help the Indians
had given them. Mistrust started to grow and the friendship
weakened. The Pilgrims started telling their Indian
neighbors that their Indian religion and Indian customs
were wrong. The Pilgrims displayed an intolerance toward
the Indian religion similar to the intolerance displayed
toward the less popular religions in Europe. The
relationship deteriorated and within a few years the
children of the people who ate together at the first
Thanksgiving were killing one another in what came to be
called King Phillip's War.
It is sad to think that this happened, but it is
important to understand all of the story and not just the
happy part. Today the town of Plymouth Rock has a
Thanksgiving ceremony each year in remembrance of the first
Thanksgiving. There are still Wampanoag people living in
Massachusetts. In 1970, they asked one of them to speak at
the ceremony to mark the 350th anniversary of the Pilgrim's
arrival. Here is part of what was said:
"Today is a time of celebrating for you -- a time of
looking back to the first days of white people in America.
But it is not a time of celebrating for me. It is with a
heavy heart that I look back upon what happened to my
People. When the Pilgrims arrived, we, the Wampanoags,
welcomed them with open arms, little knowing that it was
the beginning of the end. That before 50 years were to
pass, the Wampanoag would no longer be a tribe. That we and
other Indians living near the settlers would be killed by
their guns or dead from diseases that we caught from them.
Let us always remember, the Indian is and was just as human
as the white people.
Although our way of life is almost gone, we, the
Wampanoags, still walk the lands of Massachusetts. What has
happened cannot be changed. But today we work toward a
better America, a more Indian America where people and
nature once again are important."
Thanksgiving, or Thanksgiving Day, is a traditional North American holiday, and is a form of harvest festival. The date and whereabouts of the first Thanksgiving celebration is a topic of modest contention. Though the earliest attested Thanksgiving celebration was on September 8, 1565 in what is now Saint Augustine, Florida[1][2], the traditional "first Thanksgiving" is venerated as having occurred at the site of Plymouth Plantation, in 1621.
Today, Thanksgiving is celebrated on the second Monday of October in Canada and on the fourth Thursday of November in the United States. Thanksgiving dinner is held on this day, usually as a gathering of family members.
References
- ^ USA Today article reporting research into the purportedly first Thanksgiving in St. Augustine, FL
- ^ See also NYTimes article of Nov 27, 2008
Spaniards
The first recorded Thanksgiving ceremony took place on September 8, 1565, when 600 Spanish settlers, under the leadership of Pedro Menéndez de Avilés, landed at what is now St. Augustine, Florida, and immediately held a Mass of Thanksgiving for their safe delivery to the New World; there followed a feast and celebration. As the La Florida colony did become part of the United States, this can be classified as the first Thanksgiving.
El Paso, Texas, has also been said to be the site of the first Thanksgiving to be held in what is now known as the United States, though that was not a harvest festival. Spaniard Don Juan de Oñate ordered his expedition party to rest and conducted a mass in celebration of thanksgiving on April 30, 1598.
1619 thanksgiving, the Virginia colony
On December 4, 1619, 38 English settlers arrived at Berkeley Hundred, which comprised about 8,000 acres (32 km²) on the north bank of the James River, near Herring Creek, in an area then known as Charles Cittie (sic), about 20 miles (32 km) upstream from Jamestown, where the first permanent settlement of the Colony of Virginia had been established on May 14, 1607.
The group's charter required that the day of arrival be observed yearly as a "day of thanksgiving" to God. On that first day, Captain John Woodleaf held the service of thanksgiving. As quoted from the section of the Charter of Berkeley Hundred specifying the thanksgiving service: "We 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."
During the Indian Massacre of 1622, nine of the settlers at Berkeley Hundred were killed, as well as about a third of the entire population of the Virginia Colony. The Berkeley Hundred site and other outlying locations were abandoned as the colonists withdrew to Jamestown and other more secure points. Historians dispute the cause of this massacre.
After several years, the site became Berkeley Plantation, and was long the traditional home of the Harrison family, one of the First Families of Virginia. In 1634, it became part of the first eight shires of Virginia, as Charles City County, one of the oldest in the United States, and is located along Virginia State Route 5, which runs parallel to the river's northern borders past sites of many of the James River Plantations between the colonial capital city of Williamsburg (now the site of Colonial Williamsburg) and the capital of the Commonwealth of Virginia at Richmond.
Berkeley Plantation continues to be the site of an annual Thanksgiving event to this day. President George W. Bush gave his official Thanksgiving address in 2007 at Berkeley saying:
“ In the four centuries since the founders of Berkeley first knelt on these grounds, our nation has changed in many ways. Our people have prospered, our nation has grown, our Thanksgiving traditions have evolved -- after all, they didn't have football back then. Yet the source of all our blessings remains the same: We give thanks to the Author of Life who granted our forefathers safe passage to this land, who gives every man, woman, and child on the face of the Earth the gift of freedom, and who watches over our nation every day. ”
Squanto, a Patuxet Native American who resided with the Wampanoag tribe, taught the Pilgrims how to catch eel and grow corn and served as an interpreter for them (Squanto had learned English as a slave in Europe and travels in England). The Pilgrims set apart a day to celebrate at Plymouth immediately after their first harvest, in 1621. At the time, this was not regarded as a Thanksgiving observance; harvest festivals were existing parts of English and Wampanoag tradition alike. Several colonists have personal accounts of the 1621 feast in Plymouth, Massachusetts: Pilgrims are not to be confused with Puritans who established their own Massachusetts Bay Colony nearby (current day Boston) in 1628 and had very different religious beliefs.
William Bradford, in Of Plymouth Plantation:
| “ | They began now to gather in the small harvest they had, and to fit up their houses and dwellings against winter, being all well recovered in health and strength and had all things in good plenty. For as some were thus employed in affairs abroad, others were exercised in fishing, about cod and bass and other fish, of which they took good store, of which every family had their portion. All the summer there was no want; and now began to come in store of fowl, as winter approached, of which this place did abound when they came first (but afterward decreased by degrees). And besides waterfowl there was great store of wild turkeys, of which they took many, besides venison, etc. Besides, they had about a peck a meal a week to a person, or now since harvest, Indian corn to the proportion. Which made many afterwards write so largely of their plenty here to their friends in England, which were not feigned but true reports. | ” |
Edward Winslow, in Mourt's Relation:
| “ | 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 fruits of our labor. They four in one day killed as much fowl as, with a little help beside, served the company almost a week. At which time, amongst 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 we brought to the plantation and bestowed on 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. | ” |
The Pilgrims did not hold a true Thanksgiving until 1623, when it followed a drought, prayers for rain, and a subsequent rain shower. Irregular Thanksgivings continued after favorable events and days of fasting after unfavorable ones. In the Plymouth tradition, a thanksgiving day was a church observance, rather than a feast day.
Gradually, an annual Thanksgiving after the harvest developed in the mid-17th century. This did not occur on any set day or necessarily on the same day in different colonies in America.
The Massachusetts Bay Colony (consisting mainly of Puritan Christians) celebrated Thanksgiving for the first time in 1630, and frequently thereafter until about 1680, when it became an annual festival in that colony; and Connecticut as early as 1639 and annually after 1647, except in 1675. The Dutch in New Netherland appointed a day for giving thanks in 1644 and occasionally thereafter.
Charlestown, Massachusetts held the first recorded Thanksgiving observance June 29, 1671 by proclamation of the town's governing council.
During the 18th century individual colonies commonly observed days of thanksgiving throughout each year. We might not recognize a traditional Thanksgiving Day from that period, as it was not a day marked by plentiful food and drink as is today's custom, but rather a day set aside for prayer and fasting.
Later in the 1700s individual colonies would periodically designate a day of thanksgiving in honor of a military victory, an adoption of a state constitution or an exceptionally bountiful crop. Such a Thanksgiving Day celebration was held in December 1777 by the colonies nationwide, commemorating the surrender of British General Burgoyne at Saratoga.
During the American Revolutionary War the Continental Congress appointed one or more thanksgiving days each year, each time recommending to the executives of the various states the observance of these days in their states. The First National Proclamation of Thanksgiving was given by the Continental Congress in 1777:
| “ | FOR AS MUCH as it is the indispensable Duty of all Men to adore the superintending Providence of Almighty God; to acknowledge with Gratitude their Obligation to him for Benefits received, and to implore such farther Blessings as they stand in Need of: And it having pleased him in his abundant Mercy, not only to continue to us the innumerable Bounties of his common Providence; but also to smile upon us in the Prosecution of a just and necessary War, for the Defense and Establishment of our unalienable Rights and Liberties; particularly in that he hath been pleased, in so great a Measure, to prosper the Means used for the Support of our Troops, and to crown our Arms with most signal success: It is therefore recommended to the legislative or executive Powers of these UNITED STATES to set apart THURSDAY, the eighteenth Day of December next, for SOLEMN THANKSGIVING and PRAISE: That at one Time and with one Voice, the good People may express the grateful Feelings of their Hearts, and consecrate themselves to the Service of their Divine Benefactor; and that, together with their sincere Acknowledgments and Offerings, they may join the penitent Confession of their manifold Sins, whereby they had forfeited every Favor; and their humble and earnest Supplication that it may please GOD through the Merits of JESUS CHRIST, mercifully to forgive and blot them out of Remembrance; That it may please him graciously to afford his Blessing on the Governments of these States respectively, and prosper the public Council of the whole: To inspire our Commanders, both by Land and Sea, and all under them, with that Wisdom and Fortitude which may render them fit Instruments, under the Providence of Almighty GOD, to secure for these United States, the greatest of all human Blessings, INDEPENDENCE and PEACE: That it may please him, to prosper the Trade and Manufactures of the People, and the Labor of the Husbandman, that our Land may yield its Increase: To take Schools and Seminaries of Education, so necessary for cultivating the Principles of true Liberty, Virtue and Piety, under his nurturing Hand; and to prosper the Means of Religion, for the promotion and enlargement of that Kingdom, which consisteth "in Righteousness, Peace and Joy in the Holy Ghost. And it is further recommended, That servile Labor, and such Recreation, as, though at other Times innocent, may be unbecoming the Purpose of this Appointment, be omitted on so solemn an Occasion. | ” |
Thanksgiving proclamations in the first thirty years of nationhood
As President, on October 3, 1789, George Washington made the following proclamation and created the first Thanksgiving Day designated by the national government of the United States of America:
President John Adams declared Thanksgivings in 1798 and 1799. No Thanksgiving proclamations were issued by Thomas Jefferson but James Madison renewed the tradition in 1814, in response to resolutions of Congress, at the close of the War of 1812. Madison also declared the holiday twice in 1815; however, none of these were celebrated in autumn. In 1816, Governor Plamer of New Hampshire appointed Thursday, November 14 to be observed as a day of Public Thanksgiving and Governor Brooks of Massachusetts appointed Thursday, November 28 to be "observed throughout that State as a day of Thanksgiving."
A thanksgiving day was annually appointed by the governor of New York from 1817. In some of the Southern states there was opposition to the observance of such a day on the ground that it was a relic of Puritanic bigotry, but by 1858 proclamations appointing a day of thanksgiving were issued by the governors of 25 states and two territories.
Lincoln and the Civil War
In the middle of the American Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln, prompted by a series of editorials written by Sarah Josepha Hale, proclaimed a national Thanksgiving Day, to be celebrated on the final Thursday in November 1863:
| “ | The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God. In the midst of a civil war of unequalled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign States to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict; while that theatre has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union. Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defence, have not arrested the plough, the shuttle, or the ship; the axe had enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege and the battle-field; and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years, with large increase of freedom. No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy. It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and voice by the whole American people. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to his tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility and Union. In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand, and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed. Done at the city of Washington, this third day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the independence of the United States the eighty-eighth." | ” |
Since 1863, Thanksgiving has been observed annually in the United States.
1939 to 1940
Abraham Lincoln's successors as president followed his example of annually declaring the final Thursday in November to be Thanksgiving. But in 1939, President Franklin D. Roosevelt broke with this tradition. November had five Thursdays that year, and Roosevelt declared the fourth Thursday as Thanksgiving rather than the fifth one. In 1940, in which November had four Thursdays, he declared the third one as Thanksgiving. Although many popular histories state otherwise, he made clear that his plan was to establish it on the next-to-last Thursday in the month instead of the last one. With the country still in the midst of The Great Depression, Roosevelt thought an earlier Thanksgiving would give merchants a longer period to sell goods before Christmas. Increasing profits and spending during this period, Roosevelt hoped, would help bring the country out of the Depression. At the time, advertising goods for Christmas before Thanksgiving was considered inappropriate.
However, many localities had made a tradition of celebrating on the last Thursday, and since a presidential declaration of Thanksgiving Day was not legally binding, it was widely disregarded. Twenty-three states went along with Roosevelt's recommendation, 22 did not, and some, like Texas, could not decide and took both weeks as government holidays. Critics termed Roosevelt's dating of the holiday as "Franksgiving."
1941 to present
The U.S. Congress in 1941 split the difference and passed a bill requiring that Thanksgiving be observed annually on the fourth Thursday of November, which was sometimes the last Thursday and sometimes (less frequently) the next to last. On December 26 of that year President Roosevelt signed this bill, for the first time making the date of Thanksgiving a matter of federal law. See 55 Stat. 862 (1941).
Since 1947, or possibly earlier, the National Turkey Federation has presented the President of the United States with one live turkey and two dressed turkeys, in a ceremony known as the National Thanksgiving Turkey Presentation. The live turkey is pardoned and lives out the rest of its days on a peaceful farm. While it is commonly held that this pardoning tradition began with Harry Truman in 1947, the Truman Library has been unable to find any evidence for this. The earliest on record is with George H. W. Bush in 1989. Still others claim that the tradition dates back to Abraham Lincoln pardoning his son's pet turkey. Both stories have been quoted in more recent presidential speeches.
In more recent years, two turkeys have been pardoned, in case the original turkey becomes unavailable for presidential pardoning. Since 2003 the public has been invited to vote for the two turkeys' names. They were named Stars and Stripes in 2003 and 2004's turkeys were called Biscuit and Gravy. In 2005 the public decided on Marshmallow and Yam, in 2006 on Flyer and Fryer, and in 2007 on May and Flower. Since 2005, the two turkeys have been flown first class on United Airlines from Washington, D.C. to the Los Angeles area where they become the Grand Marshals of Disneyland's annual Thanksgiving Day parade down Main Street. The two turkeys then live out the rest of their relatively short lives in Disneyland's Frontierland ranch.
Since 1970, a group of Native Americans and other assorted protesters (mostly of progressive political persuasion) have held a National Day of Mourning protest on Thanksgiving at Plymouth Rock in Plymouth, Massachusetts in the name of social equality and in honor of political prisoners.
Traditional celebrations
Foods of the season
U.S. tradition compares the holiday with a meal held in 1621 by the Wampanoag and the Puritans who settled in Plymouth, Massachusetts. This element continues in modern times with the Thanksgiving dinner, often featuring turkey, playing a large role in the celebration of Thanksgiving. Some of the details of the American Thanksgiving story are myths that developed in the 1890s and early 1900s as part of the effort to forge a common national identity in the aftermath of the Civil War and in the melting pot of new immigrants.
In the United States, certain kinds of food are traditionally served at Thanksgiving meals. First and foremost, baked or roasted turkey is usually the featured item on any Thanksgiving feast table (so much so that Thanksgiving is sometimes referred to as "Turkey Day"). Stuffing, mashed potatoes with gravy, sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce, sweet corn, other fall vegetables, and pumpkin pie are commonly associated with Thanksgiving dinner. All of these primary dishes are actually native to the Americas or were introduced as a new food source to the Europeans when they arrived.
To feed the needy at Thanksgiving time, most communities have annual food drives that collect non-perishable packaged and canned foods, and corporations sponsor charitable distributions of staple foods and Thanksgiving dinners.
Giving thanks
Thanksgiving was originally a religious observance for all the members of the community to give thanks to God for a common purpose. Historic reasons for community thanksgivings include the 1541 thanksgiving mass after the expedition of Coronado safely crossing part of Texas and finding game, and the 1777 thanksgiving after the victory in the revolutionary battle of Saratoga. In his 1789 Proclamation, President Washington gave many noble reasons for a national Thanksgiving, including “for the civil and religious liberty,” for “useful knowledge,” and for God’s “kind care” and "his providence." The only presidents to inject a specifically Christian focus to their proclamation have been Grover Cleveland in 1896, and William McKinley in 1900. Several other presidents have cited the Judeo-Christian tradition. Gerald Ford's 1975 declaration made no clear reference to any divinity.
The tradition of giving thanks to God is continued today in various forms. Religious and spiritual organizations offer services and events on Thanksgiving themes the week-end before, the day of, or the week-end after Thanksgiving. Bishop Ryan observed about Thanksgiving Day, "It is the only day we have that consistently finds Catholics at Mass in extraordinary numbers...even though it is not a holy day of obligation.."
In celebrations at home, it is a holiday tradition in many families to begin the Thanksgiving dinner by saying grace. Found in diverse religious traditions, grace is a prayer before or after a meal to express appreciation to God, to ask for God’s blessing, or in some philosophies, to express an altruistic wish or dedication. The custom is portrayed in the photograph “Family Holding Hands and Praying Before a Thanksgiving Meal.” The grace may be led by the hostess or host, as has been traditional, or, in contemporary fashion, each person may contribute words of blessing or thanks. According to a 1998 Gallup poll, an estimated 64 percent of Americans say grace.
Vacation and travel
On Thanksgiving Day, families and friends usually gather for a large meal or dinner, the result being that the Thanksgiving holiday weekend is one of the busiest travel periods of the year. In the United States, Thanksgiving is a four-day or five-day weekend vacation in school and college calendars. Most business and government workers (78% in 2007) are also given both Thanksgiving and the day after as paid holidays. Thanksgiving Eve, on the Wednesday night before, has been one of the busiest nights of the year for bars and clubs, both in terms of sales and volume of patrons, as many students have returned to their hometowns from college.
Black Friday (shopping)
The American winter holiday season (generally the Christmas shopping season in the U.S.) traditionally begins the day after Thanksgiving, known as "Black Friday", although most stores actually start to stock for and promote the December holidays immediately after Halloween, and sometimes even before. Opponents of consumerism in some places protest this behavior by declaring the day after Thanksgiving Buy Nothing Day.
Television and radio
While not as prolific as Christmas specials, which usually begin right after Thanksgiving, there are many special television programs that air on or around Thanksgiving.
Most special programming airs during daytime on Thanksgiving. NBC currently carries the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade nationwide by official license from Macy's; NBC also carries the National Dog Show immediately after the Macy's Parade, followed by Miracle on 34th Street. CBS carries unofficial coverage of the Macy's parade and an NFL game; on odd-numbered years when CBS has the Dallas Cowboys game, the East Coast sees repeats of its daytime programs during the afternoons (on even-numbered when they have the Detroit Lions game, the West Coast programming is shuffled so that the extra time airs in late night hours). ABC has no daytime Thanksgiving specials; neither does FOX, although Fox also carries an NFL game. In syndication, The Oprah Winfrey Show carries its annual Oprah's Favorite Things some time around Thanksgiving, while syndicators will air Thanksgiving-themed episodes of sitcom reruns. WGN America carries the McDonald's Thanksgiving Parade and a special entitled Bozo, Gar and Ray: WGN TV Classics. Local television stations will occasionally preempt these programs in favor of local parades and events.
In prime time, ABC currently airs A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving and "The Mayflower Voyagers" from This is America, Charlie Brown; until 2005 and again in 2008, A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving aired on Thanksgiving night (though in 2006 and 2007, the network moved this to the Monday before so that they could compete head-to-head with CBS, who airs regularly scheduled programming, in a ratings war, as Thanksgiving lies within the November sweeps period). On Thanksgiving night, Fox usually carries a feature film. NBC's programming varies each year, but appears to have settled on replaying the 2004 Disney/Pixar film The Incredibles.
Cable stations usually carry marathons of their popular shows on Thanksgiving day. The 1939 film version of The Wizard of Oz is often aired on Thanksgiving Day on Turner Broadcasting owned outlets (either TBS or Turner Classic Movies).
On the radio, the Friday before Thanksgiving has, in recent years, been the benchmark and standard date for adult contemporary music stations to switch over to full-time Christmas music. There are a few Thanksgiving-themed specials and songs for various formats; many classic rock stations, for example, have a tradition of playing Arlo Guthrie's 1967 song "Alice's Restaurant" on Thanksgiving, as the song's lyrics are about an event that takes place on the holiday, while many other stations will air Adam Sandler's "The Thanksgiving Song." In talk radio, The Rush Limbaugh Show has a tradition known as "The Real Story of Thanksgiving," in which Limbaugh argues (based upon texts such as Of Plymouth Plantation) that the early Puritans were proto-Communists who, upon near starvation in the winter of 1621, switched to a free enterprise system and prospered. Westwood One carries all of the NFL Thanksgiving games, while the Sports USA Radio Network carries several of the Friday rivalry games.
Date
Since being fixed at the fourth Thursday in November by law in 1941, the holiday in the United States can occur as early as November 22 to as late as November 28. When it falls on November 22 or 23, it is not the last Thursday, but the second to last Thursday in November. As it is a Federal holiday, all United States government offices are closed and employees are paid for that day. It is also a holiday for the New York Stock Exchange, and also for most other financial markets and financial services companies.
Friday after Thanksgiving
The Friday after Thanksgiving, although not a Federal holiday, is often a company holiday for many in the U.S. workforce, except for those in retail. It is also a day off for most schools. The Friday after Thanksgiving, colloquially known as Black Friday, is usually the start of the Christmas shopping season.
Advent (Christmas) season
The secular Thanksgiving holiday also coincides with the start of the four week Advent season before Christmas in the Western Christian church calendars. Advent starts on the 4th Sunday before Christmas Day on December 25; in other words, the Sunday between November 27 and December 3 inclusive.
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