thanksgiving history

thanksgiving history

Exploring the History and Evolution of Thanksgiving: From Ancient Rituals to Modern Celebrations

1. Introduction to Thanksgiving: A Brief Overview

The pilgrims struggled in 1621 due to a number of reasons including long sea voyages, malnutrition, and disease. Mortality rates were high, and Richard Brush Harlow, in his 1928 article “The Season of Death: and Ribboned with Golden Corn,” wrote that people faced “a most larger mortality from various causes and a comparative scarcity of real fruits that autumn.” To combat the shortage, instead of conserving soil and place, each colonist relied instead too much on private property rather than communal standing farmland, and despite flourished flowers on valley walls, some towns still utilized shelly shores to meet their nutritional needs. They were left “in want and distress,” as reported by Governor Bradford in a journal, in good times colonists had been expanding and forming segregated clusters on the outskirts of town, (common for an English village) in order to assert independence and show self-ownership. This pursuit of freedom from the controlling and dominating hand of the British (especially when it came to religion) and subsequent settlement on other people’s land truly solidified the concept of Thanksgiving as a day of freedom.

As you bite into that juicy Thanksgiving turkey, there’s a good chance that its origins are not far away – it has been the centerpiece of the rich Thanksgiving feast for generations. This tradition has been repeated every year and has its roots in ancient times. How did this annual event come to have such a legendary place in American culture? Our present holiday dates back to the early 17th century, when English settlers as stated at Plimoth Plantation in present-day Massachusetts, sharing a communal feast held with the Wampanoag Indians. (It is said that the Virginians held similar feasts with their Indian allies twenty years before the Mayflower.) That event became a symbol of coexistence between the communities, perpetuated through a holiday first officially proclaimed as the day to give thanks by Governor John Winthrop of the Plymouth Colony in 1637. This act was followed by land parties engaging in religious services prior to centered around sermons, and feasting on common grounds. In time it became a national holiday in 1863, when President Abraham Lincoln finally proclaimed it to be celebrated on the last Thursday of November.

2. Ancient Harvest Festivals and Rituals: The Predecessors of Thanksgiving

Ancient peoples of many cultures shared the origins and customs of Thanksgiving in their ritual celebrations honoring various deities for the bountiful harvest and the very act of survival through the winter. These festivals or feasts honored both the god(s) and their twelve-month cycle of rebirth. The earliest celebrations are some of the earliest recorded human ceremonies, and over time the feasting associated with these festivals has increased their importance. In fact, the origins of feasting date back more than seven centuries before the first Thanksgiving celebration in the colonies of Plymouth and Virginia. Agents of this activity are reflected in the principle archaic ceremonial sites on the islands of Malta and Gozo and a number of other European and Near Eastern sites. False assumptions about the presence of feasting at these places have prompted some investigators to ignore a feast as a social, political, mythological, and especially religious act between the people of the past and those of the future.

3. The First Thanksgiving in America: Myths and Realities

Myths and reality are intertwined and blurred beyond recognition in the popular image of American Indians and Pilgrims wearing somber clothing and large white collars, their mouths watering at the sight and smell of a table groaning with piles of food—corn, turkey, apple cider, gingerbread, pumpkin pie. The traditional picture is one of peace, pleasure, and goodwill between the Indians and the Pilgrims, who had come to the New World as religious refugees. The popular image suggests that they were strictly peaceful religious folk who came together for a sumptuous meal. But the historical record notes that the Pilgrims’ religious beliefs were not generous, encompassing loving thoughts and charity toward others. The reality also undermines the image of an Indian feast, complete with roast turkey and homemade pumpkin pie.

Whether faced with losing their land and their lives or simply giving thanks for the fruits of their labor, two very different groups of people have celebrated Thanksgiving with similar intentions: peace and thanksgiving for the harvest. As people come together on Thanksgiving Day for border football games, parades, and family feasts, or as others sit quietly in prayer or meditation, all Americans observe the day with the same commemorative intention. Our Thanksgiving holiday carries in symbol and in action these simple intentions of thanksgiving and peace with a variety of customs and meanings. These customs have grown from the beliefs of the American Indian, the Pilgrims, the English of the North and the South, the later settlers, and immigrants who all contributed their unique customs to create a feast commemorating the bounty of the land and their survival.

4. Thanksgiving Traditions Through the Centuries: From the 17th Century to Today

Thanksgiving began to evolve into its current form in the early 19th century. While calls for days of thanks continued throughout the century, it wasn’t until the 1880s that the concept of a single, national Thanksgiving Day became pervasive. Some states still stubbornly refused to join in the celebration. It wasn’t until President Harry S. Truman suggested that Congress finally make this day a legal national holiday. In 1941, after 14 years of vehement debate, Congress and President Franklin D. Roosevelt finally made Thanksgiving an official national holiday, to be observed on the fourth Thursday of November. Although Americans have traditionally celebrated Thanksgiving since the arrival of the 102 Pilgrims in 1620 in Plymouth, Massachusetts, the holiday was only officially recognized in 1863 when President Abraham Lincoln declared it a national day of thanksgiving.

Over 30 years before the Pilgrims arrived in New England, Spanish settlers had already celebrated the harvest feast of “San Elizario” in present-day west Texas. During the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries, “days of thanksgiving” were celebrated in the colonies for a variety of reasons, from military victory to the arrival of a new royal governor. But it was a three-day feast in 1621 that we now consider “The First Thanksgiving” in Colonial America, and it belonged specifically to the Pilgrims of Plymouth, Massachusetts. Downeast, “Forefathers Day” took place on December 22 to honor the Pilgrims and their first landing at Provincetown, Massachusetts. A service was held to thank the Pilgrim forefathers who had come ashore.

5. Thanksgiving Around the World: Different Cultural Interpretations and Celebrations

After the native population nearly gets erased from the popular script of 1621, very few attempts at shared narratives exist for the role participants of different cultural backgrounds play in the Thanksgiving tradition. While at my own Thanksgiving celebration one hears the customary bread-buttering gratitude expressed when Brittany and Jeremy both clear the table of used serving dishes, discussion surrounding this task and the others that arise evoked little comment. Despite the familiar load, the postprandial capacity to enjoy spending many hours learning to save our own seeds fires little wonder and provokes few questions. The probability of the existence of participants directly affected by the history referenced in celebratory activities day after Thanksgiving thus stands fairly high. Central and South American native populations should worry instead most about Eucharist. United Nations law-of-the-sea meeting participants likely raise dangerous Day of Discovery worshipping or surprised tree cast statues nearby because maybe before actions permissible under the Law of the Sea Treaty come to pass, ships cook special Thanksgiving-like meals of artisanal pumpkin pie and Atlantic salmon for Savorwenniate diners.

As of now, we have debunked the myth associated with Thanksgiving’s origins, exposed the lesser-told story of the century-of-coexistence, and discussed the modern celebrations. While initiating the revisionist process of understanding Thanksgiving’s progression transcends simply unveiling hidden historical happenings, illuminating the wedding cake-worthy alternate decades packed with what seem like far more natural and personal narratives also breeds understanding in just the broadest of terms. For the post-concentric circle secular Thanksgiving ideals suggest the zenith, guiding “us upwards to a state of international society where there would be little reason (and no good reason) for war or for the organized threat of war.”

5.1. The importance in recognizing disparate practices