Why did the Pilgrims celebrate the first Thanksgiving? Know the complete story

Ahead of Thanksgiving 2023, know the complete story of why the Pilgrims celebrated the first Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving falls on the second Monday of October in Canada while it is marked as a national holiday on the fourth Thursday of November in the United States and this year, Americans are all set to give thanks and celebrate Thanksgiving holiday with their families on Thursday, November 23, 2023. Thanksgiving is deeply rooted in the history of America and its religion and cultural traditions where Americans believe that their Thanksgiving is modelled after the 1621 harvest feast shared by the English colonists of Plymouth, Massachusetts, later known as the Pilgrims and the Native American Wampanoag people.

Why did the Pilgrims celebrate the first Thanksgiving? Know the complete story (Photo by Twitter/mike_dahlen)

The festival was observed in the manner of a feast that brought together the two peoples to express gratitude for the assistance provided by the Wampanoag Native Americans and in celebration of the Pilgrims having survived a harsh winter and struggle with disease and lack of food when they arrived in Plymouth, Massachusetts, on the Mayflower in 1620. The history from the perspective of Native Americans predates this feast and is overshadowed by colonisation, disease, violence and land theft while marking a moment of interaction between settlers and indigenous people.

European settlers, carrying diseases that devastated indigenous populations, made it easier for colonisers to seize lands while instances of warfare, massacres and forced displacement further tainted the relations between settlers and Native Americans. Hence, the Thanksgiving feast, although a diplomatic interaction, is still controversial as some do not consider it as a tradition of warmth and harmony but rather an alliance prompted by mutual defense concerns while the holiday remains contentious due to its historical inaccuracies, cultural appropriation and painful associations for indigenous communities.

The conventional story of Thanksgiving, often taught in schools, has it that the Wampanoag, particularly Squanto who had learned English after being captured and taken to Europe, played a crucial role in helping the Pilgrims adapt to their new environment by returning to his homeland and serving as an interpreter and guide for the settlers. He taught the Pilgrims essential skills, such as planting corn, using fish as fertiliser and hunting leading to a successful harvest for the Pilgrims in the fall of 1621.

To celebrate their newfound prosperity and express gratitude for the help received from the Wampanoag, Pilgrims organised a three-day feast and this event is now commonly referred to as the first Thanksgiving where the celebration included feasting on deer, fowl and fish, as well as native fruits and vegetables since it was a communal event that brought together the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag, fostering goodwill and cooperation between the two groups.

The first Thanksgiving is often seen as a symbol of the spirit of gratitude and cooperation between different cultural groups but while it wasn't an annual tradition at that time, the idea of Thanksgiving as ‘a time to give thanks for a good harvest and the blessings of the past year’ eventually evolved into the American Thanksgiving holiday celebrated on the fourth Thursday of November. It wasn’t until 1863, during the American civil war, that President Abraham Lincoln declared a national Thanksgiving Day that was to be held each November and the holiday was annually proclaimed by every President thereafter.

However, after a joint resolution of Congress in 1941, President Franklin D Roosevelt issued a proclamation in 1942, designating the fourth Thursday in November (which is not always the last Thursday) as Thanksgiving Day. Today, Thanksgiving is celebrated to say thanks and recognise the sacrifices and blessings of the past year as with more urbanisation, Thanksgiving became a day for people to get together with their friends and family to celebrate the day with a scrumptious feast.

The holiday moved away from its cultural roots to allow immigrants of every background to participate in a common tradition.