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The History of Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is the holiday for celebrating our roots and being thankful for all that we have. Do you really know what Thanksgiving is all about? Do you know the history of Thanksgiving? The truth is that while many people celebrate it each year, many Americans don’t actually know the history of it or the significance behind this holiday. Some also do not know that it almost wasn’t even a holiday at all and that many felt no need to celebrate the hardships of a few pilgrims long ago.

But Thanksgiving has become about even more than that these days. Today, we use this holiday to celebrate and be thankful for things in our own lives as well. We use it to remember where we have come from, where we are going and where we will be. It is a time for family, friends and being grateful. The more you learn about this holiday and why we celebrate, the more appreciative you will be each time you need to celebrate it.

Thanksgiving: The Beginning

To understand Thanksgiving, we need to rewind to the beginning and understand how it came to be. What series of events took place to cause this holiday to come around? Who were the pilgrims and how did it come to be that the turkey represents the holiday? Here is a brief run-down of the story.

The history of Thanksgiving usually starts with the story of the Pilgrims who sailed to our country as part of the English Separatist Church. This was a Puritan sect that wanted to be free of the religious binds that held them in their old homeland. They fled their homes in England to head for Holland to escape persecution. However, they felt the Dutch way of life was ungodly and they later left the Netherlands as well, seeking a better place to call home.

They left for the Americas on a pilgrimage (which is why they were referred to as pilgrims). They landed at Plymouth Rock on December 11, 1620 and the first winter was very difficult for them. They were unprepared for the weather and conditions and by fall, they lost 46 of the original 102 that came over on the Mayflower. However, they overcome these hardships and by harvest time of 1621, they were doing well, much thanks to the help of the natives in the area.

They decided to have a big feast to celebrate and they invited the Native Americans, or Indians, to celebrate with them. They would not have made it through their first year without the help of these natives. This harvest festival lasted 3 days and they had turkey to eat.

How Thanksgiving is Different Today

Thanksgiving as we know it today was nothing like that first celebration. They had to “live off the land” and they took what they had or what they grew for food. “Turkey” was a term that they called any wild fowl of the land, not necessarily turkey as we know it today. It was unlikely that they had pumpkin pie since flour was not easily come by and they had used up any that they brought with them from England. There were only 91 Native Americans at that first feast. They were invited by the pilgrims to say thank you. Later feasts or celebrations for thanksgiving likely did not have any Native Americans at them at all. In fact, later the pilgrims wanted to separate themselves from the natives which they sometimes referred to as “heathens”.

Many of the foods we celebrate in today’s Thanksgiving dinners happened to develop over the years. The original feast did not have access to all of these foods. The next year, there was no feast or celebration at all and history says that there was a drought that severely hurt the success of the pilgrims.  The next official day of “Thanksgiving” came in 1623 and not again until 1676.

This still didn’t mark an official holiday. Many other things would have to take place first but as a general rule, history shows us that many people still celebrated a day of thanks in honor of those early pilgrims that paved the way.

Thanksgiving Becomes An Official Holiday

October in 1777 would mark the first year that all 13 colonies of America would join together for a Thanksgiving celebration. In 1789, George Washington created the National Day of Thanksgiving as we know it today. Many back then, however, many scoffed at the idea and found it silly to have a national holiday for giving thanks. The idea really didn’t catch on until a magazine editor named Sarah Jospeha Hale pushed the issue, publishing many articles on her plight in support of Thanksgiving Day. Finally, in 1863, President Lincoln made the holiday official and said that it would be celebrated every last Thursday in November.

Now we are still celebrating this holiday each year. When you celebrate Thanksgiving this year, give thanks not only for your own life and your own family and what you have achieved but also to those from our past histories and what they sacrificed and gave so that we might have a better life today. Remember the natives that chose to help those early colonists when they came to this native land searching for a better place. Remember their kindness in helping the pilgrims instead of allowing them to die.