The first Thanksgiving was initiated as a three-day feast in the fall of 1621 by the English pilgrims and native Americans in the southeastern Massachusetts and eastern Rhode Island to celebrate a successful harvest. The pilgrims were joined by the local Wampanoag tribe in a celebration of fowl and deer, berries, fish, clams, plums and boiled pumpkin. Henceforth, it has become a local fete, though sporadically, in celebration of events other than the end of harvest, i.e., end of drought, victory in battle, among others.
Traditionally, the Wampanoag daily life is filled with giving thanks to the Creator, both for blessings and favors. The giving of thanks was basically the primary reason for celebrations, such as successful harvests, invocation of a good harvest season in the coming spring, and personal favors as the birth of a child, successful hunting, or victory in war. Even in England and throughout Europe, celebrations complete with merrymaking and feasting follow a bountiful harvest. So in 1621, the joy of giving thanks was blended in the hearts of both the native Americans and the pilgrims for the bountiful harvest after a year of sickness and paucity. To these people who know how to return their gratitude to the source of lief and blessings, the celebration was a total outpouring of gratitude, and merely revelry.
Although thanksgiving and prayers were the focus of the 1621 harvest gathering, the first recorded religious Thanksgiving Day happened in Plymouth, Massachusetts in 1623. During this celebration, the colonists gave thanks to God for rain after a two-month drought.
About 150 years later, thirteen colonies celebrated a day of Thanksgiving. After twelve years, President George Washington proclaimed Thursday , November 26, 1789 as a day of public thanksgiving and prayer to celebrate the formation of a new nation and the establishment of the new Constitution. Although it was officially declared a national day of Thanksgiving, it was celebrated as an annual celebration henceforth.
It was Sarah Josepha Hale, then editor of the Godey's Lady Book and author of the "Mary Had A Little Lamb" nursery rhyme, who spent about 40 years advocating for a national, annual Thanksgiving holiday. While the United States was anticipating for the Civil War, her belief for a needed holiday became a strong source of hope and patriotism. On the other hand, while President Abraham Lincoln was searching for a way to bring the nation together, Hale advocacy for a national celebration hit a perfect timing. Finally in October 3, 1863, President Lincoln declared the last Thursday of November as a day of thanksgiving and praise, becoming a fixed national, annual holiday. Pressured by businessmen and retailers in 1939, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued his own Thanksgiving proclamation to move Thanksgiving from the last Thursday of November to the second-to-the last Thursday of November to give people more time to shop for Christmas. Immersed in controversy and resulting to a national split in the celebration of Thanksgiving, the celebration was finally restored to the original fourth Thursday of November by the US Congress on December 26, 1941. *
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