Thanksgiving History: A Fall Festival Turned National Holiday

We all look forward to Thanksgiving each year the family gatherings, the food, the football on television. How much does the average American really know about Thanksgiving History? Many people believe Thanksgiving began when the pilgrims were at Plymouth Rock and the native Americans there brought food and a great feast was had…entertaining but not quite true. 

Thanksgiving more than likely originated from harvest home ceremonies originally held in England to thank God for bountiful crops and a plentiful harvest late in the fall season after crops were gathered they celebrated. The actual first Thanksgiving in America was really a religious event and had little or nothing to do with feasting. It was celebrated by a group of 38 settlers arrived at Berkeley Plantation on the James River, now known as Charles City, Virginia. The leader of the group pronounced that the day they arrived be observed as a Day of Thanksgiving to God. 

Many people still believe Plymouth Rock was the site of the original colony. The pilgrims did land at Plymouth Rock on December 11, 1620 in search of fresh provisions; the natives in the area greeted them with hostility so they got back on the boat and went back out to sea. Just a small distance further south they landed around the Cape Cod area where they set up their settlement at Berkeley Plantation on the James River, known now as Charles City, Virginia. 

Thanksgiving actually resulted from the cruel Massachusetts winter, which killed almost half the original 102 colonists. In the spring of 1621 two braves called Samoset (of the Wampanag Tribe) and Squanto (of the Patuxtet Tribe) brought their tribe members and taught the remaining colonists how to plant corn and how to catch alewives (a fish in the herring family) which they used to fertilize to fertilize growing pumpkins, beans and other crops. The pilgrims were also instructed by their new friends the Native Americans how to hunt and fish for food.