Thanksgiving is a federal holiday in the United States,
celebrated on the fourth Thursday of November. It originated as a harvest festival. Thanksgiving has been celebrated nationally on
and off since 1789, with a proclamation by President George Washington after a
request by Congress. President Thomas
Jefferson chose not to observe the holiday, and its celebration was
intermittent until President Abraham Lincoln, in 1863, proclaimed a national
day of "Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in
the Heavens," to be celebrated on the last Thursday in November. Under President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the
date was changed between 1939 and 1941 amid significant controversy. From 1942
onwards, Thanksgiving has been proclaimed by Congress as being on the fourth
Thursday in November. Thanksgiving is
regarded as being the beginning of the fall–winter holiday season, along with
Christmas and the New Year, in American culture.
The event that Americans commonly call the "First Thanksgiving"
was celebrated by the Pilgrims after their first harvest in the New World in
October 1621. This feast lasted three
days, and—as recounted by attendee Edward Winslow—it was attended by 90 Native
Americans and 53 Pilgrims. The New England colonists were accustomed to
regularly celebrating "thanksgivings" days of prayer thanking God for
blessings such as military victory or the end of a drought.
History
Early thanksgiving
observances
Setting aside time to give thanks for one's blessings, along
with holding feasts to celebrate a harvest, are both practices that long
predate the European settlement of North America. The first documented
thanksgiving services in territory currently belonging to the United States were
conducted by Spaniards and the French in
the 16th century.
Thanksgiving services were routine in what became the
Commonwealth of Virginia as early as 1607, with the first permanent settlement
of Jamestown, Virginia holding a thanksgiving in 1610. In 1619, 38 English settlers arrived at
Berkeley Hundred in Charles City County, Virginia. The group's London Company
charter specifically required "that the day of our ships arrival at the
place assigned... in the land of Virginia shall be yearly and perpetually kept
holy as a day of thanksgiving to Almighty God." Three years later, after the Indian massacre
of 1622, the Berkeley Hundred site and other outlying locations were abandoned
and colonists moved their celebration to Jamestown and other more secure spots.
Harvest festival
observed by the Pilgrims at Plymouth
The most prominent historic thanksgiving event in American
popular culture is the 1621 celebration at the Plymouth Plantation, where the
settlers held a harvest feast after a successful growing season. Autumn or
early winter feasts continued sporadically in later years, first as an
impromptu religious observance and later as a civil tradition.
The Plymouth settlers, known as Pilgrims, had settled in
land abandoned when all but one of the Patuxet Indians died in a disease
outbreak. After a harsh winter killed half of the Plymouth settlers, the last
surviving Patuxet, Squanto (who had learned English and avoided the plague as a
slave in Europe), came in at the request of Samoset, the first Native American
to encounter the Pilgrims. Squanto taught the Pilgrims how to catch eel and
grow corn and served as an interpreter for them until he too succumbed to the
disease a year later. The Wampanoag leader Massasoit also gave food to the
colonists during the first winter when supplies brought from England were
insufficient.
The Pilgrims celebrated at Plymouth for three days after
their first harvest in 1621. The exact time is unknown, but James Baker, the Plymouth
Plantation vice president of research, stated in 1996, "The event occurred
between Sept. 21 and Nov. 11, 1621, with the most likely time being around
Michaelmas (Sept. 29), the traditional time." Seventeenth-century accounts do not identify
this as a Thanksgiving observance, rather it followed the harvest. It included
50 people who were on the Mayflower (all who remained of the 100 who had landed)
and 90 Native Americans. The feast was
cooked by the four adult Pilgrim women who survived their first winter in the
New World (Eleanor Billington, Elizabeth Hopkins, Mary Brewster, and Susanna
White), along with young daughters and male and female servants.
The Pilgrim by Augustus St. Gaudens, 1904. The
"buckle hat" atop the sculpture's head, now associated with the
Pilgrims in pop culture, was fictional; Pilgrims never wore such an item, nor
has any such hat ever existed as a serious piece of apparel.
Two colonists gave personal accounts of the 1621 feast in
Plymouth. The Pilgrims, most of whom were Separatists (English Dissenters), are
not to be confused with Puritans, who established their own Massachusetts Bay
Colony on the Shawmut Peninsula (current day Boston) in 1630. Both groups were strict Calvinists, but
differed in their views regarding the Church of England. Puritans wished to
remain in the Anglican Church and reform it, while the Pilgrims wanted complete
separation from the church.
William Bradford, in Of Plymouth Plantation wrote:
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 exercised 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 can be used (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 a meal a
week to a person, or now since harvest, Indian corn to the proportion. Which
made many afterwards write so largely of their plenty here to their friends in
England, which were not feigned but true reports?
Edward Winslow, in Mourt's Relation wrote:
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 fruits of our labor.
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 we
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 Pilgrims held a true Thanksgiving celebration in 1623
following a fast and a refreshing 14-day rain, which resulted in a larger
harvest. William DeLoss Love calculates that this thanksgiving was made on
Wednesday, July 30, 1623, a day before the arrival of a supply ship with more
colonists, but before the fall harvest. In Love's opinion this 1623
thanksgiving was significant because the order to recognize the event was from
civil authority (Governor Bradford), and not from the church, making it likely
the first civil recognition of Thanksgiving in New England.
Referring to the 1623 harvest after the nearly catastrophic
drought, Bradford wrote:
And afterwards the
Lord sent them such seasonable showers, with interchange of fair warm weather
as, through His blessing, caused a fruitful and liberal harvest, to their no
small comfort and rejoicing. For which mercy, in time convenient, they also set
apart a day of thanksgiving… By this time harvest was come, and instead of
famine now God gave them plenty … for which they blessed God. And the effect of
their particular planting was well seen, for all had … pretty well … so as any
general want or famine had not been amongst them since to this day.
These firsthand accounts do not appear to have contributed
to the early development of the holiday. Bradford's "Of Plymouth
Plantation" was not published until the 1850s. The booklet "Mourt's
Relation" was summarized by other publications without the now-familiar
thanksgiving story. By the eighteenth century the original booklet appeared to
be lost or forgotten; a copy was rediscovered in Philadelphia in 1820, with the
first full reprinting in 1841. In a footnote the editor, Alexander Young, was
the first person to identify the 1621 feast as the first Thanksgiving.
According to historian James Baker, debates over where any
"first Thanksgiving" took place on modern American territory are a
"tempest in a beanpot". Jeremy
Bang claims, "Local boosters in Virginia, Florida, and Texas promote their
own colonists, who (like many people getting off a boat) gave thanks for setting
foot again on dry land." Baker
claims, "the American holiday's true origin was the New England Calvinist
Thanksgiving. Never coupled with a Sabbath meeting, the Puritan observances
were special days set aside during the week for thanksgiving and praise in response
to God's providence."
President John F. Kennedy issued Proclamation 3560 on
November 5, 1963 stating, "Over three centuries ago, our forefathers in
Virginia and in Massachusetts, far from home in a lonely wilderness, set aside
a time of thanksgiving. On the appointed day, they gave reverent thanks for
their safety, for the health of their children, for the fertility of their
fields, for the love which bound them together and for the faith which united
them with their God."
The Revolutionary War
The First National Proclamation of Thanksgiving was given by
the Continental Congress in 1777 from its temporary location in York,
Pennsylvania, while the British occupied the national capital at Philadelphia.
Delegate Samuel Adams created the first draft. Congress then adapted the final
version:
For as much as it is
the indispensable Duty of all Men to adore the superintending Providence of
Almighty God; to acknowledge with Gratitude their Obligation to him for
Benefits received, and to implore such farther Blessings as they stand in Need
of: And it having pleased him in his abundant Mercy, not only to continue to us
the innumerable Bounties of his common Providence; but also to smile upon us in
the Prosecution of a just and necessary War, for the Defense and Establishment
of our unalienable Rights and Liberties; particularly in that he hath been
pleased, in so great a Measure, to prosper the Means used for the Support of
our Troops, and to crown our Arms with most signal success:
It is therefore
recommended to the legislative or executive Powers of these United States to
set apart Thursday, the eighteenth Day of December next, for Solemn
Thanksgiving and Praise: That at one Time and with one Voice, the good People
may express the grateful Feelings of their Hearts, and consecrate themselves to
the Service of their Divine Benefactor; and that, together with their sincere
Acknowledgments and Offerings, they may join the penitent Confession of their
manifold Sins, whereby they had forfeited every Favor; and their humble and
earnest Supplication that it may please God through the Merits of Jesus Christ,
mercifully to forgive and blot them out of Remembrance; That it may please him
graciously to afford his Blessing on the Governments of these States
respectively, and prosper the public Council of the whole: To inspire our
Commanders, both by Land and Sea, and all under them, with that Wisdom and
Fortitude which may render them fit Instruments, under the Providence of
Almighty God, to secure for these United States, the greatest of all human
Blessings, Independence and Peace: That it may please him, to prosper the Trade
and Manufactures of the People, and the Labor of the Husbandman, that our Land
may yield its Increase: To take Schools and Seminaries of Education, so
necessary for cultivating the Principles of true Liberty, Virtue and Piety,
under his nurturing Hand; and to prosper the Means of Religion, for the
promotion and enlargement of that Kingdom, which consisteth "in
Righteousness, Peace and Joy in the Holy Ghost.
And it is further
recommended, That servile Labor, and such Recreation, as, though at other Times
innocent, may be unbecoming the Purpose of this Appointment, be omitted on so
solemn an Occasion.
George Washington, leader of the revolutionary forces in the
American Revolutionary War, proclaimed a Thanksgiving in December 1777 as a
victory celebration honoring the defeat of the British at Saratoga.
Thanksgiving
proclamations in the early Republic
The Continental Congress, the legislative body that governed
the United States from 1774 to 1789, issued several "national days of prayer,
humiliation, and thanksgiving",[34] a practice that was continued by
presidents Washington and Adams under the Constitution, and has manifested
itself in the established American observances of Thanksgiving and the National
Day of Prayer today.[35] This proclamation was published in The Independent
Gazetteer, or the Chronicle of Freedom, on November 5, 1782, the first being
observed on November 28, 1782:
By the United States
in Congress assembled, PROCLAMATION.
It being the
indispensable duty of all nations, not only to offer up their supplications to
Almighty God, the giver of all good, for His gracious assistance in a time of
distress, but also in a solemn and public manner, to give Him praise for His
goodness in general, and especially for great and signal interpositions of His
Providence in their behalf; therefore, the United States in Congress assembled,
taking into their consideration the many instances of Divine goodness to these
States in the course of the important conflict, in which they have been so long
engaged, – the present happy and promising state of public affairs, and the
events of the war in the course of the year now drawing to a close;
particularly the harmony of the public Councils which is so necessary to the
success of the public cause, – the perfect union and good understanding which
has hitherto subsisted between them and their allies, notwithstanding the
artful and unwearied attempts of the common enemy to divide them, – the success
of the arms of the United States and those of their allies, – and the
acknowledgment of their Independence by another European power, whose
friendship and commerce must be of great and lasting advantage to these States;
Do hereby recommend it to the inhabitants of these States in general, to
observe and request the several states to interpose their authority, in
appointing and commanding the observation of THURSDAY the TWENTY-EIGHTH DAY OF
NOVEMBER next as a day of SOLEMN THANKSGIVING to GOD for all His mercies; and
they do further recommend to all ranks to testify their gratitude to God for
His goodness by a cheerful obedience to His laws and by promoting, each in his
station, and by his influence, the practice of true and undefiled religion,
which is the great foundation of public prosperity and national happiness.
On Thursday, September 24, 1789, the first House of
Representatives voted to recommend the First Amendment of the newly drafted
Constitution to the states for ratification. The next day, Congressman Elias
Boudinot from New Jersey proposed that the House and Senate jointly request of
President Washington to proclaim a day of thanksgiving for "the many
signal favors of Almighty God". Boudinot said that he "could not
think of letting the session pass over without offering an opportunity to all
the citizens of the United States of joining, with one voice, in returning to
Almighty God their sincere thanks for the many blessings he had poured down
upon them."
As President, on October 3, 1789, George Washington made the
following proclamation and created the first Thanksgiving Day designated by the
national government of the United States of America:
Whereas it is the duty
of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will,
to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and
favor, and whereas both Houses of Congress have by their joint Committee
requested me "to recommend to the People of the United States a day of
public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful
hearts the many signal favors of Almighty God especially by affording them an
opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and
happiness."
Now therefore I do
recommend and assign Thursday the 26th day of November next to be devoted by
the People of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being, who
is the beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be.
That we may then all unite in rendering unto him our sincere and humble thanks,
for his kind care and protection of the People of this Country previous to
their becoming a Nation, for the signal and manifold mercies, and the favorable
interpositions of his providence, which we experienced in the course and
conclusion of the late war, for the great degree of tranquility, union, and
plenty, which we have since enjoyed, for the peaceable and rational manner, in
which we have been enabled to establish constitutions of government for our
safety and happiness, and particularly the national One now lately instituted,
for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed; and the means we
have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and in general for all the
great and various favors which he hath been pleased to confer upon us.
And also that we may
then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great
Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech him to pardon our national and other
transgressions, to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform
our several and relative duties properly and punctually, to render our national
government a blessing to all the people, by constantly being a Government of
wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and
obeyed, to protect and guide all Sovereigns and Nations (especially such as
have shown kindness unto us) and to bless them with good government, peace, and
concord. To promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and
the increase of science among them and Us, and generally to grant unto all
Mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as he alone knows to be best. --Given under my hand at the City of New York
the third day of October in the year of our Lord 1789
President John Adams declared Thanksgivings in 1798 and
1799. As Thomas Jefferson was a deist and a skeptic of the idea of divine
intervention, he did not declare any thanksgiving days during his presidency.
James Madison renewed the tradition in 1814, in response to resolutions of
Congress, at the close of the War of 1812. Caleb Strong, Governor of the
Commonwealth of Massachusetts, declared the holiday in 1813, "for a day of
public thanksgiving and prayer" for Thursday, November 25 of that year.
Madison also declared the holiday twice in 1815; however,
neither of these was celebrated in autumn. In 1816, Governor Plumer of New
Hampshire appointed Thursday, November 14 to be observed as a day of Public
Thanksgiving and Governor Brooks of Massachusetts appointed Thursday, November
28 to be "observed throughout that State as a day of Thanksgiving".
A thanksgiving day was annually appointed by the governor of
New York from 1817. By 1858
proclamations appointing a day of thanksgiving were issued by the governors of
25 states and two territories.
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