One of the most well-known and one of the earliest Thanksgiving feasts was that of the Pilgrims at the Plymouth Colony on November 22, 1621. It had been a difficult year for the English settlers who had arrived in Massachusetts the previous November. The Wampanoag tribe, which controlled most of Massachusetts and Rhode Island, made offers of friendship to the Pilgrims, sharing their food as the colonists struggled through the winter and then taught them about farming in the completely new environment.
After a bountiful harvest that fall, the Pilgrims decided to organize a feast to give thanks to God for their good fortune. In the spirit of gratitude, the Wampanoags were invited to join them in what became a three-day feast. The meal was quite different than the usual fare seen on American tables today. Using what was available locally, they ate swans, seals, deer, fish, and lobsters.
Such celebrations to give thanks to God were not unusual among Europeans in general during that time period. By the time of the famous 1621 Thanksgiving at the Plymouth Colony, other feasts to give thanks had occurred already in other parts of the nation. In 1565, Spanish conquistadores led by Pedro Menendez de Avile at the settlement of St. Augustine, Florida, held a special Roman Catholic mass and later a feast to give thanks to God for their safe arrival. They invited members of the local Timucua tribe to join them. In 1598, more than 500 Spanish colonists led by Don Juan de Onate arrived at San Elizario, near modern-day El Paso, and had a special day to give thanks for their own good fortune. On December 4, 1619, English settlers arriving in eastern Virginia at Berkeley Hundred had a feast to give thanks to God for their safe passage. However, regular Thanksgiving observances did not continue in these areas. Though each community claims to be the site of the first Thanksgiving, the modern holiday stems from the tradition that began at Plymouth.
The Plymouth colonists and the tribes did not repeat the occasion in 1622. In 1623, after a difficult year of droughts that threatened the crops, late rains rescued the harvest. As it proved to be much more bountiful than expected, the colonists again had a celebration to give thanks that November. Tragically, relations with the Wampanoag tribe deteriorated in the ensuing decades with the initial gestures of friendship forgotten and the tribe shattered by war. Nevertheless, New England residents would continue to have periodic Thanksgiving observances in the years afterward, often organized by the local churches.
In spite of a few instances of Thanksgiving observances in the South, it did not catch on as an annual observance as it did in New England. The tradition, however, spread northward into the British colonies in Canada, where observances remained mostly local until the late 1800s. It was established as an official national holiday in Canada in 1957, and because of Canada’s shorter growing season, on the second Monday in October.
New York became the first state to declare Thanksgiving a holiday, starting in 1817. Efforts were made to make it a national holiday in the 1820s, led by noted writer and educator Sarah Josepha Hale of New Hampshire. Up until the Civil War, the date of Thanksgiving was left to the states and made more of a local observance. Dates for Thanksgiving ranged from early October through the end of December. In 1863, Secretary of State William H. Seward convinced President Abraham Lincoln to make it a national holiday on the last Thursday in November.
Lincoln announced the holiday as a day to give thanks to God for the blessings the nation had and added that all Americans should remember the widows and orphans the war created. In 1941, the holiday officially became the fourth Thursday in November from that point onward. President Harry Truman started the tradition of pardoning one turkey for Thanksgiving in 1947.
Other nations have also adopted Thanksgiving, inspired by the American example. Liberia, which was founded by former American slaves, marks Thanksgiving as the first Thursday in November, dating back to 1821. Brazil made the fourth Thursday in November its Thanksgiving holiday in 1966 after their ambassador to the United States saw the American holiday firsthand. In honor of the Pilgrims, who had come to The Netherlands before embarking on their voyage to Plymouth, many churches have Thanksgiving celebrations in that same spirit of thanks.
Turkey sales have topped $1 billion annually in the past few years with tens of millions traveling to meet friends and loved ones. Many churches and communities still continue with the initial spirit of Thanksgiving by reaching out to the poor and homeless with food drives and community Thanksgiving meals prepared and served by volunteers. Though the coronavirus pandemic may dampen many travel plans and gatherings out of precautions for public health, millions of Americans, wherever they are, will still pause to consider what they are thankful for.
