MOST of us think of America's first Thanksgiving as the feast that took place in the autumn of 1621 at Plymouth Colony. That's the one where the Pilgrims and 90 friendly Indians celebrated together - eating turkey, venison, corn, beans, berries, nuts and furmenty (a wheat pudding). But there are other claimants for America's "first Thanksgiving."
No. 1. Sept. 8, 1565, when Spanish explorer Don Pedro Menendez de Aviles, founder of St. Augustine, Florida, held a service, including a large feast, to give thanks for the blessings of God on their venture.
No. 2. In 1586, the first thanksgiving held by Englishmen on the North American continent took place on Roanoke Island, North Carolina. This celebration was by the company of 100 men from Cornwall, England that Sir Walter Raleigh had brought to America to found a colony. After a year when the relief ship arrived, they held a thanksgiving dinner, and fed-up with the hardships and perils, they all went home.
No. 3. Juan de Onate, a gallant conquistador, was the first successful colonizer of the Southwest. He took an expedition into what is now New Mexico in 1598. This expedition consisted of 600 people of all types -- families, soldiers, priests, Africans and Indians. Onate’s caravan was four miles with 83 wagons, and 7000 animals. Three long weary months later they were greeted by friendly Manso Indians of the southwest region. These indigenous people guided them across the desert to the river crossing. Juan Onate and his procession arrived at the Rio Grande on April 20, 1598. To celebrate their safe arrival, they held a huge feast and mass. Some claim this is the first Thanksgiving in America.
No. 4. In 1609, at Jamestown, Virginia, the starving remnants of the first settlers held a thanksgiving dinner while awaiting the arrival of their relief ship.
No. 5. In 1612, also at Jamestown, Virginia, a dinner was held after the arrival of Governor Dale with a ship-load of girls intended to become the wives of the settlers.
No. 6. In 1619, a dinner of thanks was held at Berkley Plantation on the James River in Virginia.
No. 7. In 1621, at Plymouth Plantation, a great dinner of thanks was held. Pilgrim Edward Winslow in a letter of December 11, 1621, to a friend in England, described their First Thanksgiving (as printed in Mourt's Relation) as follows.
"Our harvest being gotten in our Governor sent four men on fowling, so we might after a more special manner rejoice together, after we had gathered the fruit of our labors. They, four, in one day killed as much fowl as with a little beside, served the company almost a week. At which time amongst other recreations, we exercised our arms, many of the Indians coming amongst us, and amongst the rest their greatest King Massasoit with some 90 men, whom for three days we entertained and feasted. And they went out and killed five deer which they brought to the Plantation, and bestowed on our Governor, and upon the Captain and others."
This latter Thanksgiving dinner is the one that has survived in our history books, and claims to be the origins of the National Holiday. However, if one wants to find the origin for the Thanksgiving tradition in the roots of what would become the United States of America, you would have to look to the beginnings of the colonies that produced the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution. Doing this, there is no doubt that Dixie is the home of the original ‘American’ Thanksgiving, as there were at least four officially declared Thanksgiving feasts held in the South before the Pilgrims in Plymouth Colony ever thought of it.
Note 1: This information specifically addresses Thanksgiving in the United States, as Canada has it’s own Thanksgiving tradition dating back to year 1578, when the English navigator Martin Frobisher held a formal ceremony, in what is now called Newfoundland, to give thanks for surviving the long journey. He was later knighted and had an inlet of the Atlantic Ocean in northern Canada named after him - Frobisher Bay. Other settlers arrived and continued these ceremonies, eventually becoming Canadian Thanksgiving.
Note 2: In 1789, President George Washington proclaimed the first National Day of Thanksgiving. He wrote: "Whereas it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the Providence of Almighty God, to obey His will... I do recommend... Thursday, the twenty-sixth day of November... to be devoted by the People of these United 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." Washington continued: "that we may... humbly offer our prayers... to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations, and beseech Him to pardon our national... transgressions."