On behalf of my Mayflower Ancestors, I will quibble. Spanish Catholics probably did have a feast in North America 50 years before the Pilgrims; on that we can agree.
But if we are talking about America, the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave, the country we know and love and will Make Great Again, then I’m with George on this one.
These United States evolved from that first chartered colony in Plymouth, founded on the principal of religious freedom with thanks to God for their deliverance. That is the Thanksgiving we commemorate today.
Not a feast of conquest for a territory that did not join the Union until 1822.
Really wish at least 2 things would be straightened out about all this historic stuff.
A. Jamestown, VA was the first permanent English settlement, not New England.
B. Thanksgiving is NOT a very specific scheduled concept. Our ancestors declared that God should be publicly and officially thanked in response to MANY occasions, as they happened. Not simply timed every year at the same time. Which I wonder may be better. Washington and Congress declared TGs during the war at various times, e.g.
Another....that everyone somehow links this now-regularly scheduled tradition to New England 400 years ago, when in fact it is only regular since Abe Lincoln.
You’re forgetting Virginia. My forefathers were giving thanks before yours left England. ;)