Thanksgiving Day Tradition in the U.S.
Pilgrim Story, Turkeys, Pumpkin Pies on the Table and Squanto
Nov 23, 2008
Thanksgiving is celebrated in the US on the 4th Thursday of November to offer thanks and be grateful, a special time for family, friends and loved ones. Certainly, it is a time of turkeys and pumpkin pies, and not to be overlooked, for holiday parades.
History of Thanksgiving Day Remembered
It is easy to overlook the significance of Thanksgiving from the fun and the sumptuous meals. Looking back and on reflection, Thanksgiving Day is being observed by Americans to commemorate the English Puritan separatists who crossed the Atlantic Ocean and landed at Plymouth, Massachusetts, sometime in December of 1620.
The Pilgrims
"Pilgrim" is the name commonly applied to the early settlers of the Plymouth Colony. Their leadership came from a religious congregation who had fled a political situation in the East Midlands of England for the relatively peaceful Holland in the Netherlands. Concerned with losing their cultural identity, the group later arranged with English investors to establish a new colony in North America.
North American Colony
The colonists faced a lengthy series of challenges, from bureaucracy, impatient investors and internal conflicts to sabotage, along with bureaucracy, storms, disease and even uncertain relations with the indigenous people. Eventually, the colony was successfully established in 1620 after several attempts. Their story has become a focal theme in American cultural identity.
The first official Thanksgiving was held in the Virginia Colony on December 4, 1619 near the current site of Berkeley Plantation. It was a solemn occasion when Captain John Woodlief led the English colonists along the James River and instructed them to kneel and pray in thanksgiving for their safe arrival to a new world, new life. Celebrations at Berkeley Plantation are still held each year in November.
Thanksgiving and Turkeys
How about the relationship of the turkey to thanksgiving? Turkeys on the table during Thanksgiving Day serve as a reminder of the four wild turkeys that were served the following year at the Pilgrims' first feast of Thanksgiving for the harvest reaped by Plymouth Colony members. Nowadays Americans celebrate thanksgiving as a happy reunion of family, relatives and friends.
Squanto
The Pilgrims were particularly thankful to Squanto, an English-speaking American Indian who taught them how to grow corn and catch eel, as well as served as their interpreter. Without Squanto's help the Pilgrims might not have survived in their new world. Squanto had learned English on a previous trip to Europe.
In 1621, the Pilgrims set apart a day to celebrate at Plymouth immediately after their first harvest. At the time, this was not regarded as a Thanksgiving observance as harvest festivals were existing parts of English tradition.
Related Thanksgiving Links:
 |
