Thanksgiving has always been my favorite holiday, but if we had followed the tradition of the First Thanksgiving in Charleston, Massachusetts, we would not be on the roads, in the air, baking pies, stuffing turkeys, or whipping up cranberry sauce this week. No, indeed, we would have done all that back in June. And given the way winter storms always seem to roll across Wyoming in late November, having Thanksgiving in June would have been a whole lot easier for traveling.
For the Pilgrims and other early English settlers on the Atlantic Seaboard at both Plymouth Plantation and Jamestown Settlement – the idea of a day of Thanksgiving was a festival associated with the fall harvest.
The Pilgrims at Plymouth arrived in 1620 and by early 1621 they had crude huts and a common house. They also had received essential assistance from local Indians, including Squanto, a man from the Patexet tribe of Wampanoag who had been kidnapped from his tribe and taken to England where he learned some English. He became an interpreter for them and taught them essential skills, such as using fish as fertilizer on their corn crop.
Wampanoag chief Massasoit signed a treaty with the Pilgrims that summer – joining together in defense against the Narragansett tribe. The benefit to the Pilgrims came when the Wampanoags supplemented the settler food supplies.
William Bradford had been elected governor of the Plymouth Colony soon after settlement and would serve for 30 years. He brought an English tradition to this side of the Atlantic Ocean – celebration of the annual harvest.
By that fall of 1621, the Pilgrims were thankful for many things and once the harvest was completed, they held their first a harvest festival in America. Massasoit and about 90 of his tribespeople joined in the event that lasted several days.
Their menu included venison, fish, turkey, duck, goose and cornbread, one of their staple food items. This harvest festival took place annually for several years and was really a celebration of survival for the Pilgrims.
One early Thanksgiving Proclamation was made June 20, 1679, in Charlestown, Massachusetts when the council met and “set apart the 29th day of this instant June, as a day of Solemn Thanksgiving.”
But most years the idea of a day for thanksgiving took place in the fall and was always associated with the harvest of crops. During the American Revolution in the late 1770s, a day of national thanksgiving was suggested by the Continental Congress.
New York State had adopted Thanksgiving Day as an annual custom in 1817 and by the middle of the 19th century 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 earliest thanksgiving celebrations were rooted in religion – the Pilgrims and the early Massachusetts colonists held thanksgiving to give “praise to God for such his Goodness and Favour,” according to the June 20, 1679, proclamation in Charlestown.
These days with most people removed from the raising and harvest of food – they think it comes from the grocery store – Thanksgiving is not necessarily viewed as thanks for a bountiful harvest. But as you sit down to your table this week to eat some turkey, or fish, perhaps some venison or elk, or even a piece of beef along with potatoes, corn, cranberries, yams, and any other type of food you like, remember that if it wasn’t for someone raising turkeys, crops and other food items, or having a successful hunt, the table would not be so bountiful.
So, give thanks in any way you prefer, but taking a day to enjoy the company of family and friends is a tradition that we can all be thankful the native tribes and the early settlers in this nation started over 400 years ago.
Candy Moulton can be reached at Candy.L.Moulton@gmail.com
