Thanksgiving
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Thanksgiving, or Thanksgiving Day, is a traditional North American holiday. Thanksgiving is celebrated on the fourth Thursday of November in the United States and on the second Monday of October in Canada.
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United States
A long weekend
In the United States, Thanksgiving Day, always a Thursday, is a national celebration during which most Americans gather to give thanks to God for their blessings. This is a tradition that started when the first European settlers arrived in America, in search for freedom. Nowadays Thanksgiving is part of four- or five-day long weekend which usually marks a pause in school and college calendars. Many workers (78% in 2007) are given both Thanksgiving and the day after as paid holidays, and others with leave benefits are allowed to take a vacation day.<ref>BNA Holiday Report</ref>
Traditional celebration
Thanksgiving meals are traditionally family events where certain kinds of food are served. As is evidenced by the tremendous level of travel, significant effort is made by family members to gather for the Thanksgiving celebration. Family participation is notably inclusive ranging from the very youngest to the most senior. First and foremost, turkey is the featured item in most Thanksgiving feasts (so much so that Thanksgiving is sometimes facetiously referred to as "Turkey Day"). Stuffing, mashed potatoes with gravy, sweet potatoes topped with marshmallows, cranberry sauce, green bean casserole, corn, turnips, rolls, pecan pie, and pumpkin pie are commonly associated with Thanksgiving dinner, although it was quite probable that many of these culinary items did not feature in the first Thanksgiving in 1621.<ref>[1]</ref>. Often guests bring food items or help with cooking in the kitchen as part of a communal meal.
Thanksgiving, Berkeley Hundred in Virginia
On Wednesday, December 4, 1619, a group of 38 English settlers arrived at Berkeley Hundred, about eight thousand acres (32 km²) on the north bank of the James River near Herring Creek in an area then known as Charles Cittie (sic) about Modèle:Convert/mi upstream from Jamestown, where the first permanent settlement of the Colony of Virginia was established on May 14, 1607.
The group's charter required that the day of arrival be observed yearly as a "day of thanksgiving" to God. On that first day, Captain John Woodleaf held the service of thanksgiving. Here is the section of the Charter of Berkeley Hundred which specifies the thanksgiving service:
"Wee ordaine that the day of our ships arrival at the place assigned for plantacon in the land of Virginia shall be yearly and perpetually keept holy as a day of thanksgiving to Almighty God." <ref> [2]</ref>
During the Indian Massacre of 1622, nine of the settlers at Berkeley Hundred were killed, as well as about a third of the entire population of the Virginia Colony. The Berkeley Hundred site and other outlying locations were abandoned as the colonists withdrew to Jamestown and other more secure points.
After several years, the site became Berkeley Plantation, and was long the traditional home of the Harrison family, one of the First Families of Virginia. In 1634, it became part of the first eight shires of Virginia, as Charles City County, one of the oldest in the United States, and is located along Virginia State Route 5, which runs parallel to the river's northern borders past sites of many of the James River Plantations between the colonial capital city of Williamsburg (now the site of Colonial Williamsburg) and the the capital of the Commonwealth of Virginia at Richmond.
Berkeley Plantation continues to be the site of an annual Thanksgiving event to this day. President George W. Bush gave his official Thanksgiving address in 2007 at Berkeley saying "In the four centuries since the founders of Berkeley first knelt on these grounds, our nation has changed in many ways. Our people have prospered, our nation has grown, our Thanksgiving traditions have evolved -- after all, they didn't have football back then. Yet the source of all our blessings remains the same: We give thanks to the Author of Life who granted our forefathers safe passage to this land, who gives every man, woman, and child on the face of the Earth the gift of freedom, and who watches over our nation every day."<ref>[3]</ref>
1621 Thanksgiving, The Pilgrims in Massachusetts
The early settlers of Plymouth Colony in Massachusetts were particularly grateful to Squanto, the Native American and former British slave who taught them how to both catch eel and grow corn and also served as their native interpreter. Without Squanto's assistance, the settlers might not have survived in the New World.
The Plymouth settlers (who came to be called "Pilgrims") set apart a holiday immediately after their first harvest in 1621. They held an autumn celebration of food, feasting, and praising God. The Governor of Plymouth invited Grand Sachem Massasoit and the Wampanoag people to join them in the feast. Evidence to support that claim came from diaries of Plymouth. The settlers fed and entertained the Native Americans for three days, at which point some of the Native Americans went into the forest, killed 5 deer, and gave them to the Governor as a gift.
The Pilgrims' Thanksgiving festivals were made successful not only by the generosity of local Native Americans, but by incentives, private property and enlightened self-interest.
Quoting from Plymouth Bay Colony governor William Bradford's Of Plimoth Plantation, author and Bloomberg News columnist Caroline Baum notes that after arriving in North America, the Pilgrims had continued the English agricultural practice of "farming in common." All producers' harvest was put into a common pool, and rationed according to need. The first three harvests from 1621-3 were poor. Despite their religious beliefs, the Pilgrims began to steal from each other to avoid starvation.
Bradford abolished "farming in common," and assigned each family a plot of land of their own. Motivated by Adam Smith's "invisible hand" of capitalism and self interest (over 100 years before Smith wrote those words), the Pilgrims enjoyed a bountiful harvest. Settlers who had previously claimed to be too old or sick added to the economic output, eventually producing enough to allow trading of surplus corn for furs or other goods. With the proper incentives in place, the Pilgrims had successful harvests from 1623 until at least 1647, the end of Bradford's colonial history.
Baum quotes Governor Bradford's history in her Nov. 21, 2007 Bloomberg.com column:
Finally, in the spring of 1623, Governor Bradford and the others "begane to thinke how they might raise as much corne as they could, and obtaine a better crop than they had done, that they might not still thus languish in misery," according to Bradford's history. They had thought "that the taking away of property, and bringing in community into a common wealth, would make them happy and flourishing," Bradford recounts. They were wrong. "For this community (so far as it was) was found to breed much confusion and discontent, and retard much imployment that would have been to their benefite and comforte," Bradford writes. After the Pilgrims had endured near-starvation for three winters, Bradford decided to experiment when it came time to plant in the spring of 1623. He set aside a plot of land for each family, that "they should set corne every man for his owne perticuler, and in that regard trust to themselves." The results were nothing short of miraculous. Bradford writes: "This had very good success; for it made all hands very industrious, so as much more corne was planted than other waise would have bene by any means the Govr or any other could use, and saved him a great deall of trouble, and gave far better content." With proper incentives in place, the Pilgrims produced and enjoyed a bountiful harvest in the fall of 1623 and set aside "a day of thanksgiving" to thank God for their good fortune. "Any generall wante or famine hath not been amongst them since to this day," Bradford writes in an entry from 1647, the last year covered by his history.
The National Thanksgiving Proclamations
Modèle:Original research National Thanksgiving Proclamations proclaim thanks for God’s providence in the events of the nation and, as President Washington explained in his Thanksgiving Proclamation, "for the many signal favors of Almighty God" in the lives of the people.
As Congress recognized the importance of Thanksgiving observance, President George Washington issued a national Thanksgiving Proclamation in 1789<ref>Thanksgiving Day Proclamation</ref>. He wrote, "Now therefore I do recommend and assign Thursday the 26th day of November next to be devoted by the People of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being, who is the beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be—That we may then all unite in rendering unto Him our sincere and humble thanks—for His kind care and protection of the People of this Country...for the signal and manifold mercies, and the favorable interpositions of His Providence which we experienced in the tranquility, union, and plenty, which we have since enjoyed...and also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech Him to pardon our national and other transgressions—to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually...To promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the increase of science among them and us—and generally to grant unto all Mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as He alone knows to be best."
In 1789 Washington designated a national thanksgiving holiday for the newly ratified Constitution, specifically so that the people may thank God for "affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness" and for having "been enabled to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national One now lately instituted, for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed... "
The first official Thanksgiving Proclamation made in America was issued by Henry Laurens as President of the Continental Congress of the United States on December 18 1777. However, the precursor to the Thanksgiving Proclamation was issued by John Hancock as President of the Continental Congress of the United Colonies and was entitled "Fast Day Proclamation" on March 16 1776. Six national Proclamations of Thanksgiving were issued in the first thirty years after the founding of the United States of America as an independent federation of States. President George Washington issued two, President John Adams issued two, President Thomas Jefferson made none and President James Madison issued two. After 1815 there were no more Thanksgiving Proclamations.
If it weren’t for Sarah Josepha Hale, the editor of Godey’s Lady’s Book, the popular women’s journal of the 19th century, Thanksgiving Day would not have existed beyond that.
She wrote editorials and lobbied “that the LAST THURSDAY IN NOVEMBER shall be the DAY OF NATIONAL THANKSGIVING for the American people.”
President Lincoln succumbed to her pressure and proclaimed the last Thursday in November a "prayerful day of Thanksgiving."
Since then every U.S. President has always made an official Thanksgiving Proclamation on behalf of the nation.
"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, tranquillity and Union." The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume VI, "Proclamation of Thanksgiving" (October 3, 1863), p. 497.
From Lincoln's time, fixing the date for Thanksgiving was by Presidential proclamation. In the first year of the Franklin D. Roosevelt presidency, 1933, during the Great Depression, the last Thursday of November fell very close to the end of the month. At that time, there were calls from many business owners for the President to move Thanksgiving one week earlier, in order to allow for a greater number of shopping days between Thanksgiving and Christmas, which they argued, might possibly offset the difficult economic times. Roosevelt did not change the date at the time. However, when the last Thursday in November again fell very late in the month in 1939, he did institute a change, by proclaiming Thanksgiving to be the 4th Thursday in November. The decision sparked wide-spread public discussion, with some Americans following the old "last Thursday in November" scheduling pattern. However, Congress agreed with the President, and by Congressional action in 1941, Thanksgiving is now always celebrated on the fourth Thursday of November.
Canada
Traditional celebration
In Canada, Thanksgiving is a three-day weekend (although some provinces observe a four-day weekend, Friday–Monday[citation needed]). Traditional Thanksgiving meals prominently feature turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce and mashed potatoes,as in the USA, though Canada's multicultural heritage has seen some families infuse this traditional meal with elements of their traditional ethnic foods. Many Canadians also consume pumpkin pie after their meal.
As a liturgical festival, the Canadian Thanksgiving corresponds to the European harvest festival, during which churches are adorned with cornucopias, pumpkins, corn, wheat sheaves and other harvest bounty. English and other European harvest hymns are customarily sung on the Sunday of Thanksgiving weekend, along with scriptural lections derived from biblical stories relating to the Jewish harvest festival of Sukkot.
History of Thanksgiving in Canada
The history of Thanksgiving in Canada goes back to an English explorer, Martin Frobisher, who had been futilely attempting to find a northern passage to the Orient. He did, however, establish a settlement in Canada. In the year 1578, Frobisher held a formal ceremony in what is now the province of Newfoundland and Labrador, to give thanks for surviving the long journey. This event is widely considered to be the first Canadian Thanksgiving, and the first Thanksgiving celebrated by Europeans in North America. More settlers arrived and continued the ceremonial tradition initiated by Frobisher, who was eventually knighted and had an inlet of the Atlantic Ocean in northern Canada named after him—Frobisher Bay. The innermost point of the inlet of Frobisher Bay is the location of the Nunavut capital, formerly itself called Frobisher Bay, and now called Iqaluit.
It should be noted that the 1578 ceremony was not the first Thanksgiving as defined by First Nations tradition. Long before the time of Martin Frobisher, it was traditional in many First Nations cultures to offer an official giving of thanks during autumnal gatherings. In Haudenosaunee culture, Thanksgiving is a prayer recited to honor "The Three Sisters" (i.e., beans, corn, and squash) during the fall harvest.
In 1957, the Canadian Parliament declared Thanksgiving to be "a Day of General Thanksgiving to Almighty God for the bountiful harvest with which Canada has been blessed," and officially decided that the holiday take place on the second Monday in October.
Grenada
In Grenada there is a national holiday of Thanksgiving Day on October 25. It is unrelated to holidays in the United States and Canada even though it bears the same name. It marks the anniversary of the US led invasion of the island in 1983, in which Grenada's former militaristic government was overthrown. <ref>[4] Grenada Board of Tourism official website</ref>
See also
References
- Thanksgiving: An American Holiday, An American History, by Diana Karter Appelbaum. New York: Facts On File, 1984
The Thanksgiving Proclamation by Pres. George Washington, on http://gwpapers.virginia.edu/documents/thanksgiving/transcript.html
Footnote References:
2. Proclamation of Thanksgiving by Abraham Lincoln and William Seward, on http://showcase.netins.net/web/creative/lincoln/speeches/thanks.htm
3. Thanksgiving, defined by the Merriam-Webster On-line Dictionary, on http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/thanksgiving
4. Saying Grace a Reminder of Responsibilities by Keith Lawrence, on http://www.dukenews.duke.edu/2003/11/gracetip1119.html
5. Grace Remains a Universal Tradition by Ellen Creager, Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service, 11/19/1993, on http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G1-14664047.html
6. Amazing Grace by Olivia Wu, San Francisco Chronicle, 6/4/2003, on http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2003/06/04/FD103622.DTL]
7. Many Blessings by Gary Warth, North County Times, 11/15/2007, on http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2007/11/15/faith/18_23_5911_15_07.txt
8. Faith + Values = Your Grace by Jeff Strickler, Star Tribune, 11/16/2007, on http://www.startribune.com/614/story/1555487.html
External links
- Eyewitness accounts of first American Thanksgiving
- Canadian Heritage: Thanksgiving and Remembrance Day
- Thanksgiving: The Jewish Perspective on Chabad.org
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