Why Give Thanks?

Part Two

Giving thanks to God, whatever the religion or belief system, has been part of every culture since time immemorial: for health, for victory over rivals and for plentiful harvests. Special dates are set for these Festivals and most are celebrated on an annual basis.

The tradition of Thanksgiving in the United States has its roots in English history. In 1536, during the reign of King Henry Ⅷ, there were 95 Church holidays and 52 Sundays, when no work was allowed and attending Church services was mandatory. After the Reformation, this number was reduced to 27, with some Puritans wishing to eliminate Christmas and Easter festivities, too!

The 'Holy Days' became Days of Fasting and Days of Thanksgiving. Fasting Days were to mark disasters and threats and Thanksgiving Days to celebrate special blessings coming from God.

Puritans and Pilgrims who emigrated from England took these traditions with them to New England. Pilgrim holidays in Plymouth, Massachusetts in 1621 and 1623 and the Puritan holiday in Boston in 1631 are among the first Thanksgiving Days recognised in American history.

Harvest festivals did not become an annual affair in New England until the late 1660's, when Dutch-held territories in the New World were seized by the English. Thanksgiving proclamations were declared by both State and Church until after the American Revolution and were invariably on differing dates. An annual nationwide Thanksgiving date was announced by George Washington in 1789 and it was to be known as “a day of public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favours of Almighty God.”

In 1863, President Lincoln proclaimed that the last Thursday in November was to be a day when all Americans, from Northern and Southern States, joined together in unity to celebrate Thanksgiving. Unfortunately the Confederacy refused to recognise Lincoln's authority and it was not implemented until the Reconstruction in the 1870's.

On 26^th December 1941, President Franklin D Roosevelt signed a joint resolution in Congress citing the fourth Thursday In November as the national Thanksgiving Day.

It is always with a sense of envy that I watch reports of Americans celebrating this very important festival. People travel for hundreds, sometimes thousands of miles to be reunited with their relatives on this special day and reaffirm their love and care for one another and their country.

In England, we do not have any comparable occasion. The Scots have Burn's Night, the Irish celebrate St.Patrick's Day and the Welsh have St. David. St. George's Day, honouring our English Saint, is a lukewarm, recently revived attempt at recognising England, but somehow it only seems to be drunks and fanatics who enjoy it, nor do our harvest festivals have quite the importance or relevance they once had with the advent of supermarkets and all-year-round imported foodstuffs. In a way it's very sad and not having our Day of Thanksgiving doesn't allow us to embrace our past and acknowledge those that built our country.

America – your ancestors survived unimaginable hardships in crossing the Atlantic, starvation, hostile environments, adversities we can only wonder at, but your adventurous spirit and sense of nationality prevailed - you should always give thanks for that!

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Why Give Thanks?

Part One

It wasn't a great journey - 3,000 miles in a leaky, wooden galleon, at the mercy of all the elements: thunderstorms, howling gales, freezing snowstorms, maggoty meat, weevil-infested biscuits, soured beer, no water, all within an atmosphere of stinking animal ordure, human vomit and Death on constant call with his life-ending scythe.

Then, imagine stepping onto stable ground, the churning sea behind you, ahead green meadows, flowers, fully clothed trees, the sweet smell of brine-less air and tinkling streams of pure mountain water.

Yes, this is your first first day in the New World. Here you can worship your God without fear of persecution, you can build a cabin to house your growing family, till the land and grow your grain and vegetables and live in freedom and happiness..

Paradise Arrived!

No, not really!

Where's your first meal coming from? Where is your shelter for the first night? What do you do with your worldly possessions? Your seed crops are spoiled from exposure to seawater on board ship. What plants are poisonous? What wild animals are lurking in the forests ready to kill you?

Henry Hudson described the island of Manhattan as “The land is the finest for cultivation that I have ever in my life set foot upon, and it also abounds in trees of every description.”

This account, along with glowing reports from the French explorer, Samuel de Champlain, had enticed all manner of people to the New World: Pilgrims, Puritans and Calvinists, who sought religious freedom of worship and settlers, who wanted a life away from the strictures of poverty, punitive laws, robbing nobles and European wars.

The truth of this new land, though, was not what the colonists had expected - it was an alien territory of disease, the unbearable cold of a mini Ice Age, no food and very little shelter. There was, however, God's love, hope, a gritty determination to succeed and the local natives, the Wampanoag.

The Mayflower's Pilgrims landed on December 16^th, 1620 and set up home in a deserted Wampanoag village, Patuxet. It had been abandoned four years earlier after an outbreak of the plague, brought by earlier Europeans, had wiped out two-thirds of the tribe in the region, which, pre-pestilence, had numbered between 50,000 and 100,000.

Although the Wampanoag had noted the arrival of strangers, they had not regarded the newcomers as a warlike threat as they were accompanied by woman and children. The natives observed them through their first winter, but kept their distance.

On March 16^th, 1621, Samoset, a member of the Moneghan tribe from Maine, visited Patuxet. He returned the following day accompanied by a Wampanoag native called Tisquantum or Squanto. It was this kindly man who showed the Pilgrims how to plant corn, where and how to fish and what nuts and berries were safe to eat. That same month the Pilgrims and Ousamequin or Massasoit, the Pokanoket Wampanoag Chief, agreed a treaty of mutual protection.

In the Autumn of 1621, the Pilgrims harvested their first crop, and it was a fine yield. The Pilgrims sent four men 'on fowling' and, according to an account by Pilgrim Edward Winslow, one of only two sources of this historical event, they used guns to capture their prey. On hearing the gunfire, Massasoit believed his settler friends were under attack and showed up at Patuxet ready to give support.

The natives were invited to join in the harvest festivities, but there were 90 natives and there wasn't enough food for all. Massasoit sent his men out to hunt and they brought back five deer which they presented to William Bradford, the English leader.

The ensuing feast lasted for three days. There was venison, seafood, water-fowl, maize bread, pumpkin, squashes of all description and possibly 'fowl' or turkey.

How did this small feast of sharing and giving thanks at Patuxet become Thanksgiving, one of the greatest annual events in American history? See Part Two of 'Why Give Thanks?' tomorrow, on the Eve of Thanksgiving.

For more on 17th century Manhattan life read my novel, Manhattan Legacy, available as a print copy or eBook.


Read my novel Manhattan Legacy available on Lulu.com

Read reviews of Manhattan Legacy on Amazon

You can buy Manhattan Legacy in various ebook formats on Smashwords