Thanksgiving Reflections

Today, I thought I would go back and do a little fact checking about the history of Thanksgiving. The following are some thoughts and reflections about this holiday.

Many trace the modern history of Thanksgiving to a letter written in 1621 by Edward Winslow, one of the leaders of the Separatists who settled in Plymouth in December 1620. In this letter, Winslow made reference to a three day feast the colonists held with Massasoit – or Great Leader – of the Wampanoag tribal confederacy and approximately 90 Native Americans:

We set last spring some twenty acres of Indian corn, and sowed some six acres of barley and peas; and according to the manner of the Indians, we manured our ground with herrings, or rather shads, which we have in great abundance, and take with great ease at our doors. Our corn did prove well; and, God be praised, we had a good increase of Indian corn, and our barley indifferent good, but our peas not worth the gathering, for we feared they were too late sown. They came up very well, and blossomed; but the sun parched them in the blossom.

Our harvest being gotten in, our governor sent four men on fowling, that so we might, after a 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, among other recreations, we exercised our arms, many of the Indians coming among 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. And although it be not always so plentiful as it was at this time with us, yet by the goodness of God we are so far from want, that we often wish you partakers of our plenty.¹

In 1841, Boston publisher Alexander Young printed Winslow’s letter and referred to this feast as the “First Thanksgiving” even though it is likely that the Pilgrims really celebrated this feast as a “day of harvest” or “thanksgiving”². By the mid-1800s,

. . . Young’s designation caught on—to say the least.

U.S. President Abraham Lincoln declared Thanksgiving Day a national holiday in 1863. He was probably swayed in part by magazine editor Sarah Josepha Hale—the author of the nursery rhyme “Mary Had a Little Lamb”—who had suggested Thanksgiving become a holiday, historians say.

In 1941 President Franklin Roosevelt established the current date for observance, the fourth Thursday of November.³

Some have compared Thanksgiving to the Feast of Tabernacles. According to one writer,

Although Thanksgiving is one of the most popular holidays in the United States, the idea of setting aside a day to express gratitude for good fortune was not original in this country. . . . Since biblical days, Jews have given thanks for abundant harvests with the eight-day Feast of Tabernacles – an observance that continues to the present era.⁴

In this vein, Lenet Hadly Read wrote that one of the first governors of the Plymouth colony, William Bradford, made comparisons in his journal between the Pilgrims and the children of Israel:

They [the puritan Pilgrims]⁵ believed leaving England was leaving a spiritual Babylon.

Being led to a new land was a parallel to them of the new lands promised Father Abraham and finally received by the twelve tribes. In fact, they called their leaders a “New Moses” and a “New Joshua” and the land to which they were brought a “New Canaan.”

Bradford’s description of their first landing cited parallels between themselves and ancient Israel’s entrance into Canaan. Both had been brought by God out of a land where they had been opressed, to a new land. Bradford not only used ideas, but some exact phrasing taken from Deuteronomy 26:5, which described ancient Israel’s similar situation.

Deuteronomy 26:5, 7 says: “A Syrian ready to perish was my father. . . . [the scripture then describes their previous oppression in Egypt]. . . . And when we cried unto the Lord God of our fathers, the Lord heard our voice, and looked on our affliction . . .”

Bradford wrote, “May not and ought not the children of these fathers [the Pilgrims] rightly say: “Our fathers were Englishmen . . . ready to perish in this wilderness; but they cried unto the Lord, and He heard their voice and looked on their adversity . . .”

These parallels Bradford saw between the Pilgrims and ancient Israel are particularly interesting, for in that same chapter from Deuteronomy, the Lord commands Israel that after they reap their first harvest in their new Promised Land, they should remember the Lord as its provider. They are commanded, after gathering the first of their harvest, to “profess this day unto the Lord thy God” (v.3). Furthermore, they should bring “the firstfruits of the land”, acknowledging, “which thou, O lord, has given me. And thou shalt set it before the Lord thy God, and worship before the Lord thy God; And though shalt rejoice in every good thing which the Lord thy God hath given unto thee, and unto thine house, thou and the stranger that is among you” (Deut. 26:10-11, emphasis added).

Most of the elements of the first Thanksgiving are recorded in this chapter. God’s people, after gathering in their first harvest, should dedicate a day of thankfulness to the Lord, acknowledging Him as the source of the harvest. They should rejoice in that harvest, and should invite strangers nearby to partake with them. We know that William Bradford had seen a parallel between themselves and Israel in the same Biblical chapter which contains this commandment.⁶

There is also evidence to suggest that Massasoit and the Wampanoag confederacy also had a history of celebrating a harvest festival.⁷

We hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving. This afternoon we’re off to visit our Jewish neighbors who have invited us as “strangers” in the community.

Sources:

1. Governor Edward Winslow. “How the Pilgrims Lived”. National Center for Public Policy Research. 26 Nov 2009.↩
2. Flores, Micah. “Porter Describes Origins, Myths of Thanksgiving”. 25 Mov 2009. Wicked Local – Marshfield. 26 Nov 2009.↩
3. Handwerk, Brian. “Thanksgiving Day Facts: Pilgrims, Dinner, Parades, More”. 24 Nov 2009. National Geographic. 26 Nov 2009.↩
4. Hatch, Jane M. American Book of Days. Bronx, New York: H. W. Wilson, 1978. 1053.↩
5. Maxwell, Richard Howland. “Pilgrim & Puritan: A Delicate Distinction“. March 2003. Pilgrim Hall Museum. 26 Nov 2009.↩
6. Read. “Thanksgiving: What Are Its Real Roots”. The Lord’s Holy Days: Powerful Witnesses of Truth. Orem, Utah: Granite Publishing, 2002. 122-123.↩
7. For example, see Winslow’s letter above in which he mentions that Massasoit’s men killed and brought five deer to the feast which were subsequently “bestowed” upon local dignitaries; Ibid., 121.↩