In 1621, after a hard and devastating first year in the New
World the Pilgrim's fall harvest was very successful and
plentiful. There was corn, fruits, vegetables, along with fish
which was
packed in salt, and meat that was smoke cured over fires. They
found they had enough food to put away for the winter.
The Pilgrims had beaten the odds. They built homes in the
wilderness, they raised enough crops to keep them alive during
the long coming winter, and they were at peace with their Indian
neighbors. Their Governor, William Bradford, proclaimed a day of
thanksgiving that was to be shared by all the colonists and the
neighboring Native American Indians.
The custom of an annually celebrated thanksgiving, held after the
harvest, continued through the years. During the American
Revolution (late 1770's) a day of national thanksgiving was
suggested by the Continental Congress.
In 1817 New York State adopted Thanksgiving Day as an annual
custom. By the middle of the 19th century many other states also
celebrated a Thanksgiving Day. In 1863 President Abraham Lincoln
appointed a national day of thanksgiving. Since then each
president has issued a Thanksgiving Day proclamation, usually
designating the fourth Thursday of each November as the holiday.
The tradition of the Pilgrims' first Thanksgiving is steeped in
myth and legend. Few people realize that the Pilgrims did not
celebrate Thanksgiving the next year, or any year thereafter,
though some of their descendants later made a "Forefather's
Day" that usually occurred on December 21 or 22. Several
Presidents, including George Washington, made one-time
Thanksgiving holidays. In 1827, Mrs. Sarah Josepha Hale began
lobbying several Presidents for the instatement of Thanksgiving
as a
national holiday, but her lobbying was unsuccessful until 1863
when Abraham Lincoln finally made it a national holiday with his
1863 Thanksgiving Proclamation.
Today, our Thanksgiving is the fourth Thursday of November. This
was set by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1939 (approved by
Congress in 1941), who changed it from Abraham Lincoln's
designation as the last Thursday in November (which could
occasionally end up being the fifth Thursday and hence too close
to Christmas for businesses). But the Pilgrims' first
Thanksgiving began at some unknown date between September 21 and
November 9, most likely in very early October. The date of
Thanksgiving was probably set by Lincoln to somewhat correlate
with the anchoring of the Mayflower at Cape Cod, which occurred
on November 21, 1620 (by our modern Gregorian calendar--it was
November 11 to the Pilgrims who used the Julian calendar).
There are only two contemporary accounts of the 1621
Thanksgiving: First is Edward Winslow's account, which he wrote
in a letter dated December 12, 1621. The complete letter was
first published in 1622, and is chapter 6 of Mourt's Relation: A
Journal of the Pilgrims at Plymouth.
Our corn [i.e. wheat] did prove well, and God be praised, we had
a good increase of Indian corn, and our barley indifferent good,
but our peas not worth the gathering, for we feared they were too
late sown. They came up very well, and blossomed, but the sun
parched them in the blossom. Our harvest being gotten in, our
governor sent four men on fowling, that so we might after a
special manner rejoice together after we had gathered the fruit
of our labors. They four in one day killed as much fowl as, with
a little help beside, served the company almost a week. At which
time, amongst other recreations, we exercised our arms, many of
the Indians coming amongst us, and among
the rest their greatest king Massasoit, with some ninety men,
whom for three days we entertained and feasted, and they went out
and killed five deer, which they brought to the plantation and
bestowed on our governor, and upon the captain and others. And
although it be not always so plentiful as it was at this time
with us, yet by the goodness of God, we are so far from want that
we often wish you partakers of our plenty.
The second description was written about twenty years after the
fact by William Bradford in his History Of Plymouth Plantation.
Bradford's History was rediscovered in 1854 after having been
taken by British looters during the Revolutionary War. Its
discovery prompted a greater American interest in the history of
the Pilgrims, which eventually led to Lincoln's decision to make
Thanksgiving a holiday. It is also in this account that the
Thanksgiving turkey tradition is founded.
They began now to gather in the small harvest they had, and to
fit up their houses and dwellings against winter, being all well
recovered in health and strength and had all things in good
plenty. For as some were thus employed in affairs abroad, others
were exercising in fishing, about cod and bass and other fish, of
which they took good store, of which every family had their
portion. All the summer there was no want; and now began to come
in store of fowl, as winter approached, of which this place did
abound when they came first (but afterward decreased by degrees).
And besides waterfowl there was great store of wild turkeys, of
which they took many, besides venison, etc. Besides they had
about a peck of meal a week to a person, or now since harvest,
Indian corn to that proportion. Which made many afterwards write
so largely of their plenty here to their friends in England,
which were not feigned but true reports.
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