Posted on 11/21/2006 7:44:10 AM PST by Salvation
** Regardless of how our Thanksgiving tradition was formed — regardless of what is fact and what is myth — we have an incredible abundance of blessings to be thankful for. That's what the day is really about — celebrating our prosperity, our freedoms, and the many young men and women who are serving the rest of us to protect our freedoms."**
In thanks for all the service men and women who actively protect our freedoms! And in thanksgiving for all the veterans who did likewise!
May God bless you all this Thanksgiving and always!
Fellow named Lescarbo wrote a play to entertain his fellows.
That was 1599.
The following year they moved across the Bay of Fundy to what is now Nova Scotia. Eventually several of them (Protestants in fact) ended up in Jamestown ~ just in time to hold another Thanksgiving, and then in Menhoulde (Manhattan) to hold another one. One of their business partners attended the first one in Plymouth Colony.
The Spanish also claim an early Thanksgiving, but they were doing that sort of thing all the time ~ holding big feasts once a week, and really big ones on saint's days, and even bigger ones with full pit barbeque anytime they could find a big enough hole (which is why we don't count theirs, but may explain why we use turkeys instead of bulls).
Thanks for the post.
I read (here at FreeRepublic I think) that the first Thanksgiving was also due to the abandonment of the communal lifestyle. When people were given their own plot of land to farm, instead of a community plot, the yields were much larger due to a sense of ownership.
I don't have the link handy, but that would be another tidbit that was omitted.
Yes, you can hear that story on Rush Limbaugh's show today.
You're pulling our collective legs.
Seriously, Virginia has a claim in for the first Thanksgiving at Jamestown. However, the first Acadian settlers at Bar Harbor, Maine (St. Sauveur) held theirs first (1599) and a number of them were later taken by Samual Argall, Governor of Virginia, back to Jamestown. You can read alla bout it in the histories of the earliest times.
Those guys went into business with The Virginia Company and Captain John Smith to peddle real estate up and down the East Coast.
Think of Thanksgivig being rather like those meals the vacation resort folks hold to convince you to buy more land.
A Thanksgiving Lesson
It's one of the ironies of American history that when the Pilgrims first arrived at Plymouth rock they promptly set about creating a communist society. Of course, they were soon starving to death.
Fortunately, "after much debate of things," Governor William Bradford ended corn collectivism, decreeing that each family should keep the corn that it produced. In one of the most insightful statements of political economy ever penned, Bradford described the results of the new and old systems.
Continued @...
http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2004/11/a_thanksgiving_.html
I'll bet the colonists got just as upset over early Christmas decorations as we do.
FRENCH!?!? That doesn't count. The first English speaking Thanksgiving feast was held by the Jamestown Colonists in Berkley Planation in 1619..." On December 4, 1619 settlers stepped ashore at Berkeley Hundred along the James River and, in accordance with the proprietor's instruction that "the day of our ship's arrival ... shall be yearly and perpetually kept as a day of thanksgiving," Since wild turkey was common here then they probably enjoyed a little turkey or duck or goose along with a bounty of oysters, clams and crabs. YUM!
Pedro Menedez de Aviles celebrated a feast of Thanksgiving upon the founding of St Augustine in August of 1565. The meal consisted of garbonzo beans, ships bread, salt pork and wine. They also invited the Salloy tribe that lived in the area.
I wonder what Sarah Hale would say if she were around to watch Southerners deep fry their turkeys in the backyard.
Sounds like my Texas Thanksgivings growing up. Yet another reason the San Jacinto monument is as tall as the Washington monument and the Texas flag is the only state flag allowed to hang as high as Old Glory.
The History Channel special the other night says the DID eat wild turkey on that first Thanksgiving.
Probably something like "What wondrous bounty! God is surely gracious to you, His southern children, to so bless you that you can immerse these great fowls wholly in rich oil for their cooking."
To which your average redneck backyard chef would reply "D@mn straight!"
Honestly, if people could have fried turkeys whole hundreds of years ago, they would have. Tuck would have had a vat of oil going in Sherwood Forest if he'd thought of it.
Of course, then we'd have to call him the Turkey Friar.
Yes, Great x 10 Grandfather William Bradford was a smart guy !
"Praise God from Whom all blessings flow..."
You should read the book "1491" for insight about the Native American motives and actions before, during, and after the first Thanksgiving. That version does a pretty good job presenting all sides as having their own reasons for their actions, some of which were not so heroic. In any case, giving thanks for our bounty is a good reason for sober consideration of our blessings, no matter what the "real" history of the time might have been.
Someone was kind enough to send me a link to Of Plymouth Plantation 1620-1647, which I would regard as a primary source confirming the veracity of this story or, at minimum, that Governor Bradford saw things that way long before Karl Marx came on the scene. May be a nice book to bring along to a Thanksgiving dinner with liberal relatives.
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