The official first Thanksgiving

This year marks the 235th anniversary of the first Thanksgiving under Presidential Proclamation in the United States. In the first year of our nation as a democratic republic under the leadership of a duly elected and sworn in Chief Executive, President George Washington, on Oct. 3, 1789, issued a Presidential Proclamation declaring the last Thursday of November to be “a day of thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts, the many signal favors of Almighty God … that we may then all unite in rendering unto Him sincere and humble thanks for His kind care and protection of the people of this country.”

The concept of a day of thanksgiving had begun long before that, however, when the North American continent was but a colony shared by the British, French, Dutch, and Spaniards. In 1620, the Mayflower, carrying Puritans, arrived a Plymouth Rock, Mass. under the command of William Bradford after a two month voyage.

Wading ashore in early November, they were unprepared for the harsh, cold, snowy winter of the New England coast and by the Spring of the following year, food was rationed and at a minimum and nearly half the pilgrims in the newly established village had died of exposure or disease.

Familiar with their plight, two decades earlier, previous British voyages had landed in Massachusetts and rounded up members of the native Wampanoag tribe to carry back to Europe, selling them as slaves. One captive was Tisquantum, a young 20-year old hunter from the tribe.

Tisquantum was sold at market in Spain, then escaped and befriended a British trader who named him an agent with the Newfoundland Trading Company. In 1619, Tisquantum boarded one of the shipping firm’s cassocks, or cargo vessels, and returned to his native land. Upon finding his tribe, he discovered that two thirds of them had died from smallpox, a disease carried over by the British on the voyage from which he had been captured.

A year and a half later, understanding the suffering and loss the Puritans were undergoing, Tisquantum, a fluent speaker of English after his time in Europe, taught the frail colonists how to plant maize (corn) and then fertilize it to assure a bountiful crop that saved the lives of the Puritan settlement.

Gov. Bradford was elated and declared that there be a “harvest feast” to give thanks to divine providence for the food they would enjoy. The Puritans gathered together for their feast and fired their muskets to open the celebration’s festivities.

When the Wampanoag, including Tisquantum, heard the gunfire, they interpreted it as the opening of warfare against them and donned their Mohawk headdresses of porcupine quills, ready to defend themselves.

Instead of hostile volleys being fired toward them, the tribe learned of the feast, and finding a celebration instead of war, brought deer and waterfowl and joined the party. Given the coastal location, there was most likely no turkey that day.

Nonetheless, a feast was shared between the two peoples and all were pleased at the cooperation and plentiful harvest both societies had enjoyed. In 1622, the Spring after the Thanksgiving, Tisquantum, whose name was changed by the British to Squanto, was designated the official translator for Bradford and the former slave was awarded gifts by the British settlers.

Feeling that he was betraying his own people, Tisquantum was said to have been poisoned by members of his tribe and died at around age 35, although his precise birth date is unknown.

One hundred seventy years later, after the American Revolution, George Washington was elected President under the Constitution, and revived the idea of a national day of thanksgiving. The day of reflection, prayer, and appreciation was held, as the original of 1621, in November 1789.

Subsequent presidents, respecting the separation of church and state, periodically issued similar proclamations or avoided the subject altogether. It was not until the ravages of another war that the concept would become a staple observance every year. In 1862, Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederate States of America, and its leaders, issued a declaration for a day of thanksgiving for the citizens of the newly created southern country.

Sarah Hale, editor of the prominent Godey’s Magazine in Boston, then wrote a letter to President Lincoln, urging him to issue an equal proclamation for the United States. Hale and her magazines were influential, so Lincoln responded.

On Oct. 3, 1863, he issued a Presidential Proclamation in which he invited “my fellow citizens in every part of the United States to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November as a day of Thanksgiving.” Every President since has done so, giving Lincoln credit as the founding father of the Thanksgiving holiday in the U.S.

The annual November observance, however, was not an official federal holiday, as it had not been sanctioned by Congressional declaration. As such, during the administration of Franklin Roosevelt, faced with the Great Depression, changed the observance to the fourth Thursday of November instead of the last Thursday of the month. A longer holiday shopping season would bring a needed economic boost.

The 1939 Proclamation, produced a national outcry, accusing the president of putting money in priority over the traditions of the revered date. In response, Congress gathered in 1941, and on Oct. 6, formally declared the fourth Thursday of November as the federal holiday of Thanksgiving and the Act was made permanent by President Roosevelt on the day after Christmas.

Little opposition was voiced after the Japanese Navy attacked the United States’ Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor just three weeks before.

That wartime Act by Congress, and affirmation by the president, has remained in effect ever since. Each year, the President issues a proclamation, usually the third week of November, formally urging the citizens of the country to observe the fourth Thursday as an observance of thanksgiving.

In 2023, President Joe Biden issued the most recent, stating, “I encourage the people of the United States to join together and give thanks for the friends, neighbors, family members, and strangers, who have supported each other over the past year in a reflection of goodwill and unity.”

Regardless of which side of the political fence you’re on, the sentiments expressed in the statement is one thing we can all agree on and unites us all as a people.

David V. Wendell is a Marion historian, author and special events coordinator specializing in American history.