https://patriotpost.us/pages/284?ma...ign=all_subscribers&utm_content=bodyThanksgiving, as introduced by European explorers and settlers in the "New World," was a time set aside specifically for the purpose of giving thanks to our Creator for His manifold blessings.
The earliest record of a thanksgiving in America is 1541 by Spanish explorer Coronado at Palo Duro Canyon in what is now Texas. French Protestant colonists at Charlesfort (now Parris Island, South Carolina) held a thanksgiving service in 1564. In 1607, the Jamestown settlers held thanksgiving at Cape Henry, Virginia, and there are many other records of such hallowed observances.
The first call for an annual Thanksgiving was at Berkeley Plantation, Virginia, in 1619, when Captain John Woodlief and 38 settlers aboard the ship Margaret, proclaimed, "Wee ordaine that the day of our ships arrivall at the place assigned for plantacion in the land of Virginia shall be yearly and perpetually keept holy as a day of thanksgiving to Almighty God."
But the contemporary celebration of Thanksgiving across our nation has its roots in the first "harvest feast" celebrated in 1621 by religious refugees, Pilgrims, who established the Plymouth Colony in Massachusetts, in the year 1620. According to the fact that most history books following the War Between the States were written by Northern historians, it is that iconic event which is most directly associated with the current traditions for our national Day of Thanksgiving.
The Pilgrims
Who were these "freedom men"?
They were Puritan "separatists" -- Calvinist Protestants, most under the leadership of pastor John Robinson, church elder William Brewster, and William Bradford. They rejected the institutional Church of England, believing that worshipping God must originate freely in the individual soul, without coercion. Not only were Puritans challenging the church. Because the Church of England was headed by the monarch, they were confronting the government -- a courageous act which helps explain why they had the courage to eventually risk a perilous voyage to America.
Suffering persecution and imprisonment in England for their beliefs, these separatists fled to Holland in 1609. There, they found the spiritual liberty they sought, but it was with a cultural backdrop of a disjointed economy and a dissolute, degraded, corrupt society, which tempted their children to stray from faith. Determined to protect their families from such spiritual and cultural degradation, the Pilgrims returned to Plymouth, England, where they arranged for passage to the New World.
Their long and dangerous voyage was funded by the London Company, the "merchant adventurers" (investors) whose objective was to establish a communal plantation "company" upon which the "planters" would be obligated to work for seven years in order to return the investment with premium. "The adventurers & planters do agree that every person that goeth being aged 16 years & upward ... be accounted a single share.... The persons transported & ye adventurers shall continue their joint stock & partnership together, ye space of 7 years ... during which time, all profits & benefits that are got by trade, traffic, trucking, working, fishing, or any other means of any person or persons, remain still in ye common stock.... That all such persons as are of this colony, are to have their meat, drink, apparel, and all provision out of ye common stock & goods.... That at ye end of ye 7 years, ye capital & profits, viz. the houses, lands, goods and chattels, be equally divided betwixt ye adventurers, and planters."
On September 6th, 1620, aboard a 100 foot ship named Mayflower, 102 Pilgrims and 30 crew members departed for America, a place that offered the promise of both civil and religious liberty. Among those in command of the expedition were Christopher Martin, designated by the Merchant Adventurers to act as Governor, and Myles Standish, who would be the colony's military leader.
After an arduous eight week journey, on November 11 they dropped anchor at Provincetown Harbor off the coast of what is now Massachusetts.
On November 21, 1620, prior to disembarking at Plymouth Rock, they signed the Mayflower Compact, America's original document of civil government. It was the first to introduce self-government, and the foundation on which the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were built. Plymouth Colony's second Governor, William Bradford, described the Compact as "a combination ... that when they came a shore they would use their owne libertie; for none had power to command them."
Bradford kept a journal of the first 30 years of Plimoth (Plymouth) Plantation life, which is today, considered by historians to be the preeminent text on 17th century American History. His 270 page vellum-bound manuscript was well written in plain but vivid language, which Harvard historian Samuel Eliot Morison aptly described as an account of the "spiritual ancestors of all Americans," the first generation of American evangelicals.
Bradford described his fellow Pilgrims thusly: "They shook off the yoke of anti-christian bondage, and as ye Lord's free people, joined themselves (by a covenant of the Lord) into a church estate, in ye fellowship of ye Gospel, to walk in all his ways, made known or to be made known unto them, according to their best endeavors, whatsoever it should cost them, the Lord assisting them."
A Brutal First Winter
Upon making landfall, the Pilgrims conducted a prayer service and quickly turned to building shelters.
William Bradford wrote in the third person as was customary: "Being thus arived in a good harbor and brought safe to land, they fell upon their knees & blessed ye God of heaven, who had brought them over ye vast & furious ocean, and delivered them from all ye periles & miseries therof, againe to set their feete on ye firme and stable earth, their proper elemente. And no marvell if they were thus joyefull, seeing wise Seneca was so affected with sailing a few miles on ye coast of his owne Italy; as he affirmed, that he had rather remaine[d] twentie years on his way by land, then pass by sea to any place in a short time; so tedious & dreadfull was ye same unto him."
He continued: But hear I cannot but stay and make a pause, and stand half amased at this poore peoples presente condition; and so I thinke will the reader too, when he well considers ye same. Being thus passed ye vast ocean, and a sea of troubles before in their preparation (as may be remembered by yt which wente before), they had now no friends to wellcome them, nor inns to entertaine or refresh their weatherbeaten bodys, no houses or much less townes to repaire too, to seeke for succoure. ... Let it also be considered what weake hopes of supply & succoure they left behinde them, yt might bear up their minds in this sade condition and trialls they were under; and they could not but be very smale. It is true, indeed, ye affections & love of their brethren at Leyden was cordiall & entire towards them, but they had little power to help them, or them selves; and how ye case stode betweene them & ye marchants at their coming away, hath already been declared. What could not sustaine them but ye spirite of God & his grace? May not & ought not the children of these fathers rightly say : Our faithers were Englishmen which came over this great ocean, and were ready to perish in this willdernes; but they cried unto ye Lord, and he heard their voyce, and looked on their adversitie, &c. Let them therfore praise ye Lord, because he is good, & his mercies endure for ever."
The Pilgrims and crew committed all their belongings to a "comone wealth." Under harrowing conditions, the colonists persisted through prayer and hard work, but the winter of 1620-21 was devastating and only 47 of the original 102 Pilgrims survived. At one point that winter, only a half dozen were healthy enough to care for the rest. Bradford wrote, "Of these one hundred persons who came over in this first ship together, the greatest half died in the general mortality, and most of them in two or three months' time."
However, with the help of indigenous "Indians" in the region, who had themselves suffered enormous losses due to plagues introduced by European fishermen who came ashore on Cape Code two years earlier, the growing season of 1621 was productive.
In the Spring, the Patuxet tribe native Tisquantum (known by the diminutive variant Squanto) came among the Pilgrims, and showed them how to catch fish, plant corn, trap beaver, and was their interpreter with the other Indian tribes. Squanto had been captured and taken by English explorer Thomas Hunt to Europe five years earlier, where among other things, he learned to speak English before returning to America in 1619.
Bradford described Squanto as "a special instrument sent of God for their good beyond their expectation." He added: "The settlers ... began to plant their corn, in which service Squanto stood them in good stead, showing them how to plant it and cultivate it. He also told them that unless they got fish to manure this exhausted old soil, it would come to nothing... In the middle of April plenty of fish would come up the brook ... and (he) taught them how to catch it."
By summer, Bradford 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 came first (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."
The First Harvest Thanksgiving Feast
In addition to their regular expressions of reverence and thanksgiving to God, by the Autumn of 1621 the surviving Pilgrims had enough produce to hold a three day "harvest feast." That feast was described in the journal of Edward Winslow: "God be praised we had a good increase. 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 fruit of our labors. 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 they 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."
(Notably, a year later Chief Massasoit became ill and Winslow visited and tended to his illness. Massasoit thankfully regained health, which contributed to a peace which lasted over 50 years. Winslow was especially grateful, because the Indian tradition was, if a person doctored a chief and the chief died, that person died too.)
Bradford likewise described the Thanksgiving feast, noting, "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 that proportion."...
The remainder can be read at the link posted above.
