Actually the first Thanksgiving in North America was some miles away, in THE YEAR BEFORE the Spanish settled St. Augustine.
In 1564 a group of French Protestants known as Huguenots settled in Spanish-claimed territory near present-day Jacksonville. They built Fort Caroline on the St. John’s River in Florida, in present-day Jacksonville.
On June 30, 1564, they set a day of Thanksgiving and offered the first Protestant prayer in North America:
“We sang a psalm of Thanksgiving unto God, beseeching Him that it would please Him to continue His accustomed goodness towards us.”
Three small ships carrying 300 Frenchmen led by Rene de Laudonniere anchored in the river known today as the St. Johns. . . On June 30, 1564, construction of a triangular-shaped fort . . . was begun with the help of a local tribe of Timucuan Indians . . . (Fort Caroline was) home for this hardy group of Huguenots . . . their strong religious motivations inspired them.
When the king of Spain discovered this encroachment on what he considered his property, he dispatched an army under Don Pedro Menéndez to drive out the French and to establish a Spanish colony in La Florida. This was the beginning of St. Augustine.
After coming ashore and having his Thanksgiving Mass that you mentioned, Don Pedro Menéndez actually did drive out the French Protestants, murdering most of them in the process....
After taking Fort Caroline in a bloody battle, Menéndez found 111 French Protestant men away from the Fort, and forced them to surrender, which they did.
When they refused to convert to Roman Catholicism Capt. Menéndez murdered all 111 of the disarmed Protestants.
This was the first (and one of the only, that I know of) religious massacres in America—of those who did celebrate the 1st Thanksgiving.
One may want to review the whole history of something before boasting...
Whoops, my numbers were off. First 111 were executed...for refusing to convert to Roman Catholicism.
Then a couple weeks later, another 134 French Huguenots were captured...and then slaughtered by the Spanish, for the same reason...
The inlet and area there is now still named, “Matanzas” which apparently in Spanish means, “Slaughters.”
I was wondering when Fort Caroline would enter the discussion.
The Huguenots were some of the hardest working and industrious settlers to these shores. Their legacy is still felt.
The development of the IBM punch card can be traced to the Jacquard loom which was invented by a Huguenot.
My mom’s maternal side of the family were of Huguenot stock.