By Valentina Garcia Lorenzo
Every year, a lot of families meet to celebrate Thanksgiving. We eat turkey, we say what we are thankful for, and a lot of other family traditions that are passed from generation to generation. But do you really know where the origin of Thanksgiving comes from?
Well, it all started out in September 1620, when a small ship called Mayflower left Plymouth, England, carrying 102 passengers. An assortment of religious separatists seeking a new home where they could freely practice their faith, and other individuals lured by the promise of prosperity and land ownership in the New World. After a 66 day trip, they settled in a place near the tip of Cape Cod, which was much farther north than their intended destination.
One month later, they crossed Massachusetts Bay, where the pilgrims began the work of establishing a village at Plymouth.
In March, the remaining settlers moved ashore, where they received an astonishing visit from an Abenaki Native American whose name was Squanto, who greeted them in English. Squanto taught the Pilgrims how to cultivate corn, extract sap from maple trees, catch fish in the rivers, and avoid poisonous plants.
In November 1621, after the pilgrims’ first corn harvest proved successful, Governor William Bradford organized a celebratory feast and invited a group of the fledgling colony’s Native American allies, including the Wampanoag chief Massasoit. Now remembered as American’s “First Thanksgiving”. For more than two centuries, days of thanksgiving were celebrated by individual colonies and states.
In 1817, New York became the first of several states to officially adopt an annual Thanksgiving holiday; each celebrated it on a different day. It wasn’t until 1863, in the midst of the Civil War, that President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed a national Thanksgiving Day to be held each November. However, the American South remained largely unfamiliar with the tradition.
So before you celebrate thanksgiving this year, take a moment to remember and share with others the origin of this celebration.
Resources:
https://www.history.com/topics/thanksgiving/history-of-thanksgiving#:~:text=Thanksgiving%20Day%20is%20a%20national,Thanksgiving%20celebrations%20in%20the%20colonies.
