History of thanksgiving
Get ready folks and hold on to your knickers
Last year I realized I didn't know the full scope of Thanksgiven. I knew the Pagan Harvest Home connection and the "Thanksgiving" basics we are taught in school. Natives, (Hell I was never even taught what tribe) and pilgrims, came together, shared food and everyone was happy. Never questioned it much but then I started getting this feeling 5 or 6 years ago like Thanksgiving was a hoax and it was glossing over genocide after I started researching who Christopher Columbus was. So I took a dive down this rabbit hole that I am about to guide you all down.
Each year November rolled around and like the good daughter, granddaughter, soldier I huffed and went along with the holiday. If you have been raised in the States, especially in the South you know how hard it is to get others to talk about stuff much less change how they do things. However, last year I put my foot down perse about I was done celebrating this "Holiday". And have since been vocal about its origins.
It all started
In 1621, with the Plymouth colonists and the Wampanoag people who shared an autumn harvest feast that is acknowledged as one of the first Thanksgiving celebrations in the colonies.
This here is about the extent we are taught in school but it is much deeper than that. Do you know why the colonists were able to settle there? Because they had over the years wiped out the natives of that area with disease. The ones left had to relocate. That is a whole nother blog on its own. So after the first harsh winter, the pilgrims lost a good many of their people and the local tribe chieftain asked Tisquantum (Squanto) to come in and help the pilgrims. Tisquantum had been a slave and learned the English language, he taught the “white man” how to survive, fishing, hunting, and everything they needed including being their interpreter until the colonizer's sickness took him also.
During this first "Thanksgiving" the natives weren't actually invited. They showed up due to gunfire and rowdy people. They thought it was a possible attack only to show up to find a feast was underway.
For millenniums prior to that, there have been harvest festivals and gatherings, spanning continents and cultures. However, leave it to the colonizers to name it as their own. Many of the holidays we celebrate today are Christian bastardizations of pagan holidays but Thanksgiving isn't QUITE as saturated with Christian influence as other holidays. Unfortunately, so many people choose blinders they can't see that “Thanksgiving” isn't really about pilgrims and natives but yet another twisted version of what it once was. After all the natives had a rich history of harvest festivals before the colonizers ever came.
In Ancient Rome there was a holiday of Cerelia, which they honored the Goddess of harvest Ceres. Between Greek and Roman culture there are roughly 100 different Gods and Goddess associated with the harvest. Which was celebrated yearly. Harvest celebrations clearly played an important role in their spiritual practice.
The Chinese held harvest moon celebrations honoring the Gods and Goddess. In hopes of keeping their tummies filled and full.
The Celts and Anglo-Saxon pagans had a harvest festival that was just as important. There was a festival in Britain that evolved into what was called Harvest Home. The exact date tended to fluctuate because it was celebrated once all of the autumn crops were finally harvested and they would parade a cartload of crops through the town and have a huge harvest supper filled with dancing and merry-making, and they made harvest dolls for rain charms to be planted the following year.
In modern paganism, you have what is known as Mabon also known as the Autumn Equinox for us that aren't Wiccan. Where you are being thankful for the food, and family.
In my research the most Christian ties this particular holiday (thanksgiving) has is what was called “days of thanksgiving” and that was practiced by the Church of England. Where people would set aside one religious day of their choice and “give thanks to god”. Because of this. The colonists most likely chose the word “thanksgiving” to use. Though the festivities were and still are pagan.
Another interesting find that my research turned up is some scholars do not agree that the Plymouth Rock feast represented the first Thanksgiving in the US. After all, there have been other recorded events of giving thanks amongst the settlers in North America.
One of these instances is in 1565 when a Spanish explorer Pedro Menéndez de Avilé asked members of the local Timucua tribe to dinner in Florida after holding a gathering to thank god for their safe arrival.
The tradition of thanksgiving was routine in Commonwealth Virginia as early as 1607 and then what became the permanent settlement of James town in 1610
Fast forward to Dec 4th, 1619, there were 38 British settlers that arrived via the Margaret at what was known as Berkeley. On the banks of the James River Virginia. They had a proclamation assigning that date as “a day of thanksgiving to Almighty God.”
So not only did the Pagans, Celts, Greeks, Romans, Chinese, Egyptians, Natives, and more already celebrate a harvest festival the colonizers did also but of course that doesn't fit the pro quo.
Thanksgiving has been celebrated in this sense on and off for years but during the American Revolution (1775-1783) Congress appointed one or more days of Thanksgiving yearly but it wasn't until 1789 that George Washington issued the first Thanksgiving proclamation by the US government. He told the people to give thanks for the conclusion of the War of Independence. His successors John Adams and James Madison continued with his mentality and designated days of thanks during their time.
New York in 1817 was the first of several states to adopt an annual Thanksgiving holiday. The funny thing is the states couldn't settle on a single day so they each celebrated it on different days. The South remained largely unaffected.
In 1801-1809 during Tomas Jefferson's rein, this holiday was intermittent and was not celebrated as fervently since Tomas chose to not celebrate it. Way to go Jefferson.
In 1827 The author of “Mary Had a Little Lamb” Sarah Josepha Hale launched an effort to have Thanksgiving recognized as a national holiday and for 36 years hounded the government with letters and editorials earning her the title “Mother of Thanksgiving.”
During the Civil War In 1862, there was a mass execution in Dakota (Dakoda War of 1862) where corrupt federal agents were not giving the Dakota-Sioux food and provisions and at the brink of death and starvation, the Natives fought back. In the end, Abraham Lincoln had 38 Dakoda men sentenced to death. In hopes of improving relations between northern and southern states as well as tribal nations. In November of 1863, Abraham Lincoln decided to make Thanksgiving an official holiday in the United States. Some sources say old Ab got tired of Sarah and heeded her request.
Making a Proclamation that all Americans to ask God to “commend to his tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife” and to “heal the wounds of the nation.”
Abraham selected this day of thanks to be the final Thursday in November and that is when it was celebrated every year… At least for a time.
On June 28 1870 President Grant signed into law the “Holiday Act” making Thanksgiving forever a yearly” remembered” federal holiday in DC but it wasn’t until 1885 that Congress made Thanksgiving a federal paid holiday.
During the later half of the 19th century thanksgiving celebrations varied but region.
In New England, you may see a raffle held the night before for a goose or turnkey with a shooting match on the morning of Thanksgiving, church then the traditional feast.
In Massachusetts, there were high school football rivalries taking root. Steaming from games played at Thanksgiving.
During the 1890s and to this day football has become quite the staple of thanksgiving and because of this slowly won over the long resisted southern states.
By the start of the 20th century (1901), people of New York roaming the streets dressed in mask merry-making turned into ragamuffin parades
When good ol Franklin D. Roosevelt came on the scene (March 4, 1933 – April 12, 1945) he moved the day of celebration up 1 week to try and spur retail sales during the great depression. Because back then you did not advertise Christmas until after Turkey Day. The whole ordeal even earned the name “Franksgiving” But after 78 years of tradition especially during such a hardship time as you can imagine good ol Roosevelt was met with opposition and in 1941, he resigned to leave Thanksgiving on the 4th Thursday of November.
In October of 1941, Both Houses passed a bill making Thanksgiving the last Thursday in November not realizing some Novembers have 5 weeks. So in December, they had to fix their mistake stating Thanksgiving was to be observed on the 4th Thursday of November, and on December 26 1941 good ol President Rossy signed this and like with all things the US government has taken they had to go and make the date of Thanksgiving a matter of a federal law.
From then till now in the US each year we have a whole herd of events, parades, football, stress, travel, family dinners, and cooking none traditional meals that they call traditional ( did I mention the sugar had run out so pies and sweets weren't on the table), we see imagery around Thanksgiving showing pilgrims and natives sharing a meal and much more but one thing has stayed the same. Our government has done what it has always done it glosses over the genocide the colonists committed upon the Natives and no one talks about the hardships this holiday is built on.
Over the years of being vocal about Thanksgiving being hinky and a cover-up of genocide I have been called a few not-so-pleasant names but Author and humanist J.G. Rodwan, who does not celebrate Thanksgiving, said it best
"If you put forth the interpretation ... that touches on the dishonorable treatment of the native population that lived in what became the United States, then you are likely to be dismissed as some sort of crank".
To my understanding, not all natives have a negative vibe with Thanksgiving and choose to celebrate it. Tim Giago, founder of the Native American Journalists Organization compares thanksgiving to “wopila” a festival celebrated by the great plains natives. He went as far as to say in the Huffington Post "The idea of a day of Thanksgiving has been a part of the Native American landscape for centuries. The fact that it is also a national holiday for all Americans blends in perfectly with Native American traditions.”
Tim also shared a story of Members of the Oneida Indian Nation coming together and marching in the 2010 Macy Days parade with a float named “the True Spirit of Thanksgiving” and has been doing so each year.
If you have ever wondered why "Christmas" (another stolen holiday) is put up so fast right after of even before Samhain (Halloween) like many Americans do? Well now you might understand it is a small and I mean very small way of glossing over Thanksgiving. This view isn't held by a large amount of people but it is still there.
If you are like myself and many others who take issue with how Thanksgiving is portrayed to the American people hiding the genocide and death of tens of thousands of people there is a National Day of Mourning (the same day as their Thanksgiving).
Since 1970 people have gathered at Plymouth Rock to commemorate this day. Similar events are held all over the country.
So whether you choose to celebrate the day as the colonizers have done, going back to more pagan roots, celebrating the way natives do, or not celebrating at all that is your choice. Personally, as the year has changed my feelings have not. However, since here in the state "Thanksgiving" is all that is recognized I choose to not celebrate that said holiday but use the time to celebrate Harvest Home or any of the other many traditions that predate what is called Thanksgiving.
Now you know things are not always what they seem. Even perhaps are more enlightened than when you started this blog,
Originally published 11/10/2023
revised on 11/17/2024
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