On October 3, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln announced “that the nation will celebrate an official Thanksgiving holiday on November 26, 1863.”[1] In a speech, “which was actually written by Secretary of State William Seward, Lincoln “declared that the fourth Thursday of every November thereafter would be considered an official U.S. holiday of Thanksgiving.”[2]
But where did this idea of setting apart a day of thanksgiving originate? Most Americans know of the story of English Puritan pilgrims who came over aboard the Mayflower to present-day Massachusetts to establish a settlement at Plymouth in late 1620. We are aware of the hardships they endured but they persevered and they were blessed with a bountiful harvest in the fall of 1621. It was at this time that they paused for a harvest celebration of feast of fowl and venison and various other foods to give thanks to the Christian God for the blessings of their new country.
Though most of what we “know” about the first Thanksgiving is nothing more than historical fiction, a good book on the true first Thanksgiving is The First Thanksgiving: What the Real Story Tells Us About Loving God and Learning from History by Robert Tracy McKenzie. Here we find the only known account of “The First Thanksgiving” — a three-day feast and celebration in the fall of 1621, which account was written by Edward Winslow, William Bradford’s assistant, which reads as follows:
“Our harvest being gotten in, our governor sent four men on fowling, that 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 help 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 among the rest their greatest king Massasoit, with some ninety 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.“[3]
“It seems to have been entirely forgotten until the above paragraph was rediscovered in 1841, when a Unitarian minister in New England published a collection of writings from the Plymouth Pilgrims with his own explanatory notes. In these notes, he speculated that the paragraph described the “first Thanksgiving.”[4]
The world today works to remove God from our schools, our government, our recreation, our holidays and even our history. But these efforts don’t change history, they merely revise it. And just whom does the world thank on Thanksgiving Day, anyway?
The word of God tells us to “Pray without ceasing.” (1 Thess. 5:17) and “whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him.” (Col. 3:17). The pilgrims understood this well. We should thank God for our blessings connected with this country of ours on Thanksgiving Day. It’s okay to recognize our founders and the military and national leaders for their efforts but like the Plymouth pilgrims, our thanksgiving and praise should go first to God who foreordains everything and “who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will” (Eph. 1:11).
[1] Lincoln proclaims official Thanksgiving holiday, History. Com, A&E Television Networks, LLC. (2019), https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/lincoln-proclaims-official-thanksgiving-holiday.
[2] Lincoln proclaims official Thanksgiving holiday, History. Com, A&E Television Networks, LLC. (2019), https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/lincoln-proclaims-official-thanksgiving-holiday.
[3] Robert Tracy McKenzie, The First Thanksgiving, p. 35. Intervarsity Press (2013).
[4] Alexander Young, Chronicles of the Pilgrim Fathers of the Colony of Plymouth (Boston: Little, Brown, 1841), p. 231.
