First published Thanksgiving 2008
One of the most popular stories ever told is about the first Thanksgiving. School children are taught time and time again of how in the Autumn of 1621, the pilgrims ate alongside the Indians in celebration of a successful harvest. Although they did have a three-day feast in celebration of such bounty, this "first Thanksgiving" was not a holiday but simply a gathering. There is little evidence that this feast of thanks led directly to our modern Thanksgiving Day holiday. Thanksgiving can, however, be traced back to 1863 when President Lincoln became the first president to proclaim Thanksgiving Day. The holiday has been a fixture of late November ever since.
Let us take a closer look at just what took place leading up to that event and then what happened in the centuries afterward that finally gave us our modern Thanksgiving.
The Pilgrims who sailed to this country aboard the Mayflower were originally members of the English Separatist Church. They were NOT the Puritans that we read so much about. Puritans did not believe in separating themselves from society, as the Pilgrims did. They had earlier fled their home in England and sailed to Holland (The Netherlands) to escape religious persecution. There, they enjoyed more religious tolerance, but they eventually became disenchanted with the Dutch way of life, thinking it ungodly. Seeking a better life, the Separatists negotiated with a London stock company to finance a pilgrimage to America. Most of those making the trip aboard the Mayflower were non-Separatists but were hired to protect the company's interests. Only about one-third of the original colonists were Separatists.