A post by Maynard (bumped from last Thanksgiving)
How did we get Thanksgiving?
After their first harvest, the colonists of the Plymouth Plantation (the Mayflower people) held a celebration of food and feasting in the fall of 1621. The local Indian chiefs and ninety Indians joined in the three-day affair.
The first official Thanksgiving proclamation was made by the governing council of Charlestown, Massachusetts (adjacent to Boston, where Bunker Hill is) on June 20, 1676:
The Holy God having by a long and Continual Series of his Afflictive dispensations in and by the present Warr with the Heathen Natives of this land, written and brought to pass bitter things against his own Covenant people in this wilderness, yet so that we evidently discern that in the midst of his judgements he hath remembered mercy, having remembered his Footstool in the day of his sore displeasure against us for our sins, with many singular Intimations of his Fatherly Compassion, and regard; reserving many of our Towns from Desolation Threatened, and attempted by the Enemy, and giving us especially of late with many of our Confederates many signal Advantages against them, without such Disadvantage to ourselves as formerly we have been sensible of, if it be the Lord’s mercy that we are not consumed, It certainly bespeaks our positive Thankfulness, when our Enemies are in any measure disappointed or destroyed; and fearing the Lord should take notice under so many Intimations of his returning mercy, we should be found an Insensible people, as not standing before Him with Thanksgiving, as well as lading him with our Complaints in the time of pressing Afflictions
The Council has thought meet to appoint and set apart the 29th day of this instant June, as a day of Solemn Thanksgiving and praise to God for such his Goodness and Favour, many Particulars of which mercy might be Instanced, but we doubt not those who are sensible of God’s Afflictions, have been as diligent to espy him returning to us; and that the Lord may behold us as a People offering Praise and thereby glorifying Him; the Council doth commend it to the Respective Ministers, Elders and people of this Jurisdiction; Solemnly and seriously to keep the same Beseeching that being perswaded by the mercies of God we may all, even this whole people offer up our bodies and soulds as a living and acceptable Service unto God by Jesus Christ.
George Washington, during his first year as President, proclaimed Thursday, November 26 as “A Day of Publick Thanksgiving anf Prayer.”. Signed by Washington on October 3, 1789 and entitled “General Thanksgiving,” the decree appointed the day “to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God.”
Abraham Lincoln, in the midst of the Civil War, established the modern Thanksgiving Day in his declaration dated October 3, 1863. A portion of this:
It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and voice by the whole American people. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to his tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility and Union.
In a word, take a moment from stuffing yourself to be thankful to your Creator and His merry little band of American helpers. And you have my explicit permission to throttle anyone that refers to this glorious holiday as “turkey day”.
What a wonderful post Maynard. Thank you so much! That’s what Thanksgiving is all about. Gratitude in the soul equals capacity for life. And even with all the problems we have right now, I’m still so grateful to the Lord that I was born in the greatest country in the world. I’m going to print this out and read it to my family tommorrow.
Instead of football, everyone should try to watch “Desperate Crossing: The Untold Story of the Mayflower” on the History Channel tommorrow night (8pm eastern). I saw it premiere 3 nights ago and it is a fantastic piece of work that takes you there and makes you meditate on what those brave people were like and what they endured.
Greatly appreciated this post. You consistantly, and eloquently, deliver the goods Maynard. Happiest of Thanksgivings to you.
And Tink, thanks for the info. I’ll be watching.
The first Thanksgiving was a celebration by the KKK, Nazis and Free Masons who used space aliens to launch an illegal war-for-oil against Native Americans while firing cruise missiles filled with the HIV virus developed in Area 51 at Gitmo into the levees in New Orleans to cover up the involvement of Richard Nixon, George W. Bush and Elmo from Sesame Street to assassinate Martin Luther King.
Or something like that. Keeping up with the latest trendy theories about Thanksgiving pushed by colleges and public schools is a daunting prospect…
Happy Thanksgiving Maynard, Tammy, and Pat!
DAUDI! I thought at first that you were smokin’ some wacky tabacky!!! Wheww!!! You did scare me! However, you’re totally right that this is the stuff being taught in schools as of lately. What a shame. The dumbing down of America. If we do not know history, we’re bound to repeat the same mistakes. God help us all.
“The first official Thanksgiving proclamation was made by the governing council of Charlestown, Massachusetts (adjacent to Boston, where Bunker Hill is)…”
To clarify, Bunker Hill is in Charlestown. Charlestown was, at the time, a separate municipality; part of it was annexed by Boston in the 19th century, while the rest became parts of Arlington and Cambridge, and the new cities of Somerville, Medford, Malden, Everett, Woburn and Burlington.
Daudi – You should have seen the chain e-mail that was forwarded to me by someone who has now been deleted from my friends list. He used to be OK until he got involved with a new-agey type and they got married. Now he’s totally nuts.
Apparently we should NOT celebrate Thanksgiving because of the atrocities bestowed upon the Native Americans, er, “indigenous people” by the evil white man.
My reply was to remind him that I was 50% Iroquois (just in case he’d forgotten) that seeing as it was 2008 that I was “over it” and not to e-mail me again.
Then I ate turkey.