The First Thanksgiving
We always believe the first Thanksgiving was in 1621 when fifty colonists (Pilgrims) had a shin-ding with ninety members of the Wampanoag tribe. Well, what if I told you that was not the first Thanksgiving? The very first Thanksgiving in North America was observed on May 23, 1541 at the Palo Duro Canon in Texas. The Spanish nobleman Francisco Vasquez de Coronado and a group of Native Americans, which he called “tejas,” (where Texas gets its name) got together to celebrate his expedition’s discovery of food.
The Texas Society Daughters of the American Colonists commemorated this event in 1959 as the first Thanksgiving. Also, The Ford County Historical Society erected a permanent cross outside Fort Dodge, Kansas some 200 miles northeast of Palo Duro Canyon to mark the spot Vasquez supposedly held a Thanksgiving service or first “Christian Service” on June 29, 1541.
After this first Thanksgiving celebration, there were others predating the Pilgrim one. The second one is said to have been in 1565 in St Augustine, Florida. This one held by Pedro Menendez de Aviles and the Native people of St Augustine. The third was celebrated in 1598 near the site of San Elizario, Texas, by Don Juan de Onate and some Manso Indians from present day El Paso.
After 1621 Thanksgiving was celebrated randomly, no specific day or time of the year. Individual communities would often give thanks after the harvest, but Thanksgiving did not become a national holiday until the 19th century. And in the 20th century, On November 26, 1941 President Roosevelt passed a bill establishing the fourth Thursday in November as the national Thanksgiving holiday.
We can say that since the 1500’s people in America have set aside a day or even a couple of days a year to give thanks to God for harvests, blessings, health, and peace. No Thanksgiving prayer better said than James Madison’s at the end of the War of 1812 for “devout acknowledgments to Almighty God for His great goodness manifested in restoring to them the blessing of peace.”
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