Thanksgiving Day | Meaning, History, & Facts (2024)

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Thanksgiving Day | Meaning, History, & Facts? ›

Thanksgiving Day, annual national holiday in the United States and Canada celebrating the harvest and other blessings of the past year. Americans generally believe that their Thanksgiving is modeled on a 1621 harvest feast shared by the English colonists (Pilgrims

In 1621, the Plymouth colonists from England and the Native American Wampanoag people shared an autumn harvest feast that is acknowledged as one of the first Thanksgiving celebrations in the colonies. For more than two centuries, days of thanksgiving were celebrated by individual colonies and states.

In this version o]f the Thanksgiving story, the holiday commemorates the peaceful, friendly meeting of English settlers and the Wampanoag tribe for three days of feasting and Thanksgiving in 1621. Every year, news outlets and social media are a-buzz with Thanksgiving themes.

Re-informing the history of Thanksgiving

James wrote a scathing indictment of the Pilgrims. He described how they desecrated Native American graves, stealing food and land and decimating the population with disease. The speech was deemed inappropriate and inflammatory and James was given a revised speech.

Celebrated on the fourth Thursday in November, Thanksgiving traces its origins to harvest festivals. It was customary to express gratitude for a bountiful harvest in the cultures of both the Pilgrims who sailed from England in 1620 and the Native Americans they encountered.

While turkey wasn't likely present in 1621, annual autumnal harvest dinners continued as turkey gained popularity as a source of protein. Indigenous to the area and plentiful, turkeys were larger than chickens, ducks, and geese, making them economical to serve to a crowd.

A Harvest Celebration

During the autumn of 1621, at least 90 Wampanoag joined 52 English people at what is now Plymouth, Massachusetts, to mark a successful harvest. It is remembered today as the “First Thanksgiving,” although no one back then used that term.

Thanksgiving is a way of entering the presence of God, as seen in Psalm 100:4: “Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise! Give thanks to him; bless his name.” God says that thanksgiving is the equivalent of an Old Testament sacrifice. See Psalm 116:17 above.

Why does everyone celebrate Thanksgiving? ›

The modern day Thanksgiving Day in the U.S. is a federal holiday for Americans to give thanks as the Pilgrims did with their Native American neighbors after their first harvest in Plymouth (now in Massachusetts) in November 1621.

It is perceived as an act of worship, expressing gratitude for all things as part of God's provision, often with the sentiment “God bless”. Thanksgiving has both historical and spiritual origins in Christianity, emphasizing appreciation and adoration for God, who is the source of every good and perfect gift.

For many Native Americans Thanksgiving is not a heartwarming holiday marked by gathering with family and serving others, but rather “a reminder of genocide, colonialism, and oppression, it's a symbol of smallpox blankets, Christianity, land grabs and manifest destiny,” artist Tony Abeyta says.

The pilgrims celebrated their successful harvest in 1621 by shooting their guns into the air, which caused Massasoit to bring together warriors and prepare for battle. Instead of fighting, the Wampanoag and pilgrims worked together to prepare a feast.

The first Thanksgiving was celebrated in 1621 over a three day harvest festival. It included 50 Pilgrims, 90 Wampanoag Indians, and lasted three days. It is believed by historians that only five women were present. Turkey wasn't on the menu at the first Thanksgiving.

A pilgrim is a person who goes on a long journey often with a religious or moral purpose, and especially to a foreign land. After the Mayflower arrived, the first baby born was a boy. His parents (William and Susannah White) named him Peregrine - a word which means travelling from far away and also means pilgrim.

Massasoit sent some of his own men to hunt deer for the feast and for three days, the English and native men, women, and children ate together. The meal consisted of deer, corn, shellfish, and roasted meat, different from today's traditional Thanksgiving feast. They played ball games, sang, and danced.

They held many of the same Calvinist religious beliefs as Puritans, but unlike Puritans (who wanted a purified established church), Pilgrims maintained that their congregations should separate from the English state church, which led to them being labeled Separatists.

From 1615 to 1619, a leptospirosis epidemic caused by rodent reservoirs from European ships dramatically reduced the population of the Wampanoag and neighboring tribes. Indigenous deaths from the epidemic facilitated the European invasion and colonization of the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

The Great Falls Tribune surveyed more than 40 Indigenous people across 12 tribes. For some, Thanksgiving is a day to honor ancestors and be with family; for others, it's a stark reminder of oppression.

What actually happened at the first Thanksgiving? ›

They played ball games, sang, and danced. Although prayers and thanks were probably offered at the 1621 harvest gathering, the first recorded religious Thanksgiving Day in Plymouth happened two years later in 1623. On this occasion, the colonists gave thanks to God for rain after a two-month drought.

According to Strong's definitions, the Hebrew word thanksgiving is tôwdâh (to-daw') and it means confession, praise, and offering. When we give thanks in the truest sense of the biblical word, we offer God our praises and acknowledge to Him that He is the Giver of all good gifts.

In the 1950s, '60s, and '70s, the game brought in hordes of people, most of whom arrived on Friday. This caused a major headache for the police, who had to deal with all kinds of mischief and mayhem. It was such a pain, they began referring to the day as Black Friday.