Thanksgiving Day

In the United States

The First Thanksgiving at Plymouth by Jennie A. Brownscombe (1914). Pilgrim Hall Museum.

In the United States, the modern tradition of Thanksgiving has its origins in 1621, at a celebration in Plymouth, in the present state of Massachusetts. There is also evidence that Spanish explorers in Texas celebrated the continent earlier in 1598, and thanksgiving in the colony of Virginia.7 The feast in 1621 was celebrated in thanksgiving for a good harvest. In later years, tradition continued with such civilian leaders as Governor William Bradford, who planned to celebrate the day and help in 1623.8 9 10 Since at first the Plymouth colony did not have enough food to feed half of the 102 Colonists, the natives of the Wampanoag tribe helped the pilgrims by giving them seeds and teaching them how to fish. The practice of holding a harvest festival like this did not become a regular tradition in New England until the late 1660s.

 

According to historian Jeremy Bangs, director of the Leiden American Pilgrim Museum, pilgrims may have been inspired by annual Thanksgiving services for the relief of the siege of Leiden in 1574, when they lived in Leiden.12

Controversy over the origin 

The site of the first day of Thanksgiving in the United States, and even on the continent, is a subject of constant debate. Writers and professors Robyn Gioia and Michael Gannon of the University of Florida have pointed out that the first celebration of this day in what is currently the United States was carried out by the Spanish on September 8, 1565, in what today Is St. Augustine, Florida.13 14