American Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving! to ALL our American friends. 🙂

In modern times, Thanksgiving is a special time to share the day with family and friends, then enjoying a bountiful meal with turkey as the main attraction.

Whole Food Plant Based folks may dress up a bright orange pumpkin or Butternut squash as their main attraction with lots of healthy fruit and veggies.

The Puritans and Mayflower Pilgrims (Calvinists) which wanted to start afresh in a new land America. They had much to be grateful for thanks to Tisquantum, of the Patuxet tribe of the Wampanoag Confederation who aided them with food such as corn, cranberries, Venison and Turkey. The Christian settlers arrived just before the winter snow and had very little food left. They came across the store-houses of food by the Wampanoag tribe and used the food since no one was around due to illness that had struck many of the Wampanoag people.

The Colonists resettled from England to”New England”1620 to 1630’s continued their Christian custom of fasting, topping it off with a grand feast of Thanksgiving. There are two major events that took place at this time.

The first Thanksgiving Feast was in Virginia in 1619 and the second event was in 1621 in Plymouth, Massachusetts. According to history records and of the Virginia thanksgiving. thirty-eight Colonists at Berkeley Hundred in Charles City County Virginia held their Christian service from the congregation’s charter from the London Company that specified “That the day of our ships arrival at the place assigned…in the land of Virginia shall be yearly and perpetually kept Holy as a day of Thanksgiving to Almighty God.”

The second Thanksgiving celebration in 1621 at Plymouth, Massachusetts attended by William Winslow was determined from a bountiful harvest shared from the generous Wampanoag tribes. Edward Winslow was a known healer that allegedly helped heal a chief.

The Patuxet tribe of the Wampanoag Confederation taught the Mayflower Colonists their unique farming techniques which helped them survive through the cold winter months.

1911 Illustration of Tisquantum, teaching the Plymouth Pilgrims how to farm corn with fish by Aaron Walden in Public Domain.