It's only a day before America celebrates one of its most awaiting traditions, Thanksgiving. This custom has been commemorated for about five centuries until today. For many years, it was believed that Pilgrims were the first people to gather together on a Thanksgiving eve.
However, new findings revealed that the very first Thanksgiving celebration happened 50 years earlier from that time. So before Americans cut their turkeys and eat their pies, here are some facts about where it originates and the reason why it's still being celebrated up to this time.
According to Kathleen Deagan, research curator emerita of historical archaeology at the Florida Museum of Natural History, at the University of Florida, the Thanksgiving observance began on 1571, near Matanzas River in St. Augustine, Florida, fifty years before the Pilgrims remembered this special occasion.
The feast was led by Spanish voyager Pedro Menéndez de Avilés with the presence of 800 soldiers, sailors, and settlers who dined together with the Native Americans in a dinner accompanied by a Thanksgiving Mass after. Spanish conquerors sported explorer clothes with armors in contrast with flat-top hats and oversized buckles that the Pilgrims were reported to wear.
The meal prepared was very different from what is served on a 21st American home during Thanksgiving. There was neither pie nor turkey but a variety of food consisting of salted pork, garbanzo beans, olives, hard sea biscuits and red wine.
"The holiday we celebrate today is really something that was invented in a sense. By the time the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth, the people who settled America's first colony with Menéndez probably had children and grandchildren living there," Deagan stated.
The second celebration instituted by the Pilgrims and Indians was done to offer gratitude to the Native Americans whom the Pilgrims believe had contributed to a fruitful harvest succeeding a tragic one which happened a year before when they lost 46 from the group who cruised on the Mayflower.
On June 20 of 1676, after a long time of not celebrating Thanksgiving, the governing council of Charlestown, Massachusetts, declared June 29 as Thanksgiving Day to remember the prosperity that the nation experience. On 1789, George Washington announced a National Day of Thanksgiving regardless of those who contradict.
The Thanksgiving tradition became official when President Abraham Lincoln pronounced the last Thursday in November as a national day of Thanksgiving and had been celebrated yearly until today and in 1941, the Congress certified the fourth Thursday of November as a legal holiday to show appreciation and give praises to God.
