The History of Thanksgiving

As I worked to layout my post schedule before launching Life & Lit, I saw Thanksgiving on my calendar and tried to think of what to share about the holiday. Suddenly, I remembered a brief history of Thanksgiving that my Mawmaw, my mom’s mom, asked me to write for our family Thanksgiving dinner back in 2015 (can you believe that was already four years ago?!). I thought, what better way to celebrate the holiday on my blog than by revisiting that work! I dug through Facebook and managed to find the story, which I’d posted, on the insistence of my family, after reading it at dinner that day.

So here from the archives of my writing is the revised and updated version of…

The History of Thanksgiving

After the hard winter of 1620, which cost the lives of over half the colony of Plymouth on the Massachusetts Bay, the small band of Pilgrims feared total extinction. But hope came one early spring day in the form a Native American named Samoset. He walked boldly into their settlement and wished them a friendly welcome—in English! Originally from Monhegan Island, a five days journey from the Pilgrim settlement, he had learned the language from English fishermen and traders visiting his home region. He told the settlers of his friend Squanto, another English-speaking native with an even better command of the language. Captured by European explorers years before, Squanto had managed to escape them and then lived in England before returning to his home—only to find his tribe wiped out by plague. After staying with the Pilgrims for several days, Samoset left the settlement to bring Squanto back with him.

Squanto joined the colony, serving as an ambassador between the English and the surrounding Indian tribes, namely the Wampanoag and their chief, Massasoit. He taught the colonists how to fish in the rivers and hunt beaver, introduced them to the vegetable “corn” and other native crops, showed them how to fertilize the crops using fish carcasses, and instructed them on which naturally growing plants were poisonous and which were useful for food or medicine.

Come the autumn of 1621, the colony was gaining its feet at last. Full of thanks to God for His many blessings and provisions, and full of gratitude towards their Indian friends for their assistance, the governor of Plymouth, William Bradford, called for a time of feasting, celebration, and thanksgiving. The event was to last three days. 

Governor Bradford sent four men on a fowling expedition, who returned bearing countless turkeys, ducks, geese, and swans. When the Wampanoag Indians arrived, including Squanto and Chief Massasoit, they brought with them five freshly killed deer ready for cooking. The women of Plymouth spent hours preparing the feast that, aside from the fowl and venison, included: fish and shellfish, a variety of nuts, corn, squashes, beans, and other vegetables, and wildly growing berries such as raspberries, grapes, cranberries, and gooseberries. A total of fifty-three colonists and ninety Wampanoag Indians gathered for this three-day celebration now commonly referred to as The First Thanksgiving.

Surprisingly enough, the Plymouth colonists never shared a “Thanksgiving” with the Indians again. However, Governor Bradford did call for another day of thanks after a long, perilous drought in 1623. Over a hundred years later, in 1777, the Continental Congress declared the first national Thanksgiving, a time where they instructed labor and recreations to be put aside for the purpose of rest, reflection, and giving of thanks to God. Presidents Washington, Adams, and Monroe each proclaimed their own national Thanksgivings during their time in office, but by 1815 the practice fell out of use. A few individual states continued to observe Thanksgiving on their own at various times, and by the middle of the century, almost every state and territory celebrated Thanksgiving annually.

There were many who advocated the establishment of Thanksgiving as a national holiday, the most notable of which was Sarah Josepha Hale, editor of the woman’s magazine Godey’s Ladies Book and author of the nursery rhyme “Mary Had a Little Lamb”. For thirty-six years, she petitioned presidents to declare the holiday a national one, and in 1863, one finally listened to her. President Abraham Lincoln decided a national Thanksgiving might serve to unite the country that was then deeply embroiled in the Civil War. That year, there were actually two Thanksgivings: one in August after the battle of Gettysburg, and one on the last Thursday of November.

Even though neither Lincoln nor his successors declared Thanksgiving an official holiday, presidents continued to proclaim a national Thanksgiving every year, with the fourth Thursday in November becoming the usual date. In 1939, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt proclaimed his national Thanksgiving on the second-to-last Thursday of November instead of the fourth, in an effort to boost retail sales during the Great Depression. When this was met with public opposition, Roosevelt heeded the wishes of the nation and in 1941 he signed a bill decreeing Thanksgiving to be forever celebrated on the fourth Thursday of November. At last, the holiday our country had celebrated unofficially for over three-hundred years became an American national holiday.

Now, every year, all over the nation, people gather around their dining tables on the fourth Thursday of November to eat themselves sick and share what they are thankful for. However, it is so easy for us to skim over the thankful part and care more about the amount of food we can eat and what kind of great deals we can get at midnight than about reflecting on our blessings. As with the coming holiday, Christmas, we soon lose sight of the true meaning of the day. Our world is much changed from the one the Pilgrims knew, but there are still so many people out there who don’t have food to eat, a warm place to sleep, or a family to surround them. We as Americans are more fortunate than we know to have all of these things and more and more and more!

So today, on this Thanksgiving, let us be like the Pilgrims of old and stop to think back over all God has done for us this past year. Let our hearts be filled with gratitude to the Lord, and praise and thank Him for His blessings. Let us look to those around us that helped us get to where we are. Let us hold on to one another and treasure the privilege it is to be together on this day. Let us never take our lives and the things we have for granted, because one day, we may look up and find them gone. Let this be a true Thanksgiving, and let us live every day with the spirit of this holiday in our hearts.

God’s richest blessings to you all!