History of Thanksgiving.

Jonathan Richard Roy: In September 1620, a small ship called the Mayflower left Plymouth, England, carrying 102 passengers of religious separatists seeking a new home where they could freely practice their faith, while other individuals were lured by the promise of prosperity and land ownership in the New World. After a treacherous and uncomfortable crossing that lasted 66 days, they arrived at the tip of Cape Cod, far north of their intended destination at the mouth of the Hudson River. One month later, the Mayflower crossed Massachusetts Bay, where the Pilgrims, as they are now commonly known, began the work of establishing a village at Plymouth.

 Squanto, a member of the Pawtuxet tribe who had been kidnapped by an English sea captain and sold into slavery, taught the Pilgrims how to cultivate corn, extract sap from maple trees, catch fish in the rivers and avoid poisonous plants. He also helped the settlers forge an alliance with the Wampanoag, a local tribe.

In November 1621, after the Pilgrims’ first corn harvest proved successful, Governor William Bradford organized a celebratory feast which is now remembered as American’s “First Thanksgiving”, even though the Pilgrims themselves may not have used the term at the time. While no record exists of the historic banquet’s exact menu, the Pilgrim chronicler Edward Winslow wrote in his journal that Governor Bradford sent men to find animals fit for the planned feast.

Pilgrims held their second Thanksgiving celebration in 1623 to mark the end of a long drought that had threatened the year’s harvest and prompted Governor Bradford to call for a religious fast. Days of fasting and thanksgiving on an annual or occasional basis became common practice in other New England settlements as well. During the American Revolution, the Continental Congress designated one or more days of thanksgiving a year, and in 1789 George Washington issued the first Thanksgiving proclamation by the national government of the United States

In 1817,  become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife” and to “heal the wounds of the nation.” He scheduled Thanksgiving for the final Thursday in November, and it was celebrated on that day every year until 1939, when Franklin D. RoNew York became the first of several states to officially adopt an annual Thanksgiving holiday. Each state celebrated Thanksgiving on a different day, while the American South remained largely unfamiliar with the tradition. Abraham Lincoln finally proclaimed in 1863 that all Americans should ask God to “commend to his tender care all those who have osevelt moved the holiday up a week in an attempt to spur retail sales during the Great Depression.