Faith and Action – By Rev. Rob Schenck

When was the “first Thanksgiving?” Well, there were several of them. You decide which one to call “The First.”

According to the Library of Congress:

In May 1541, Spanish explorer Francisco Vasquez de Coronado and 1,500 men celebrated at the Palo Dur Canyon — located in the modern-day Texas Panhandle — after their expedition from Mexico City in search of gold. In 1959 the Texas Society Daughters of the American Colonists commemorated the event as the “first Thanksgiving.”

Another “first Thanksgiving” occurred on June 30, 1564, when French Huguenot colonists celebrated in a settlement near Jacksonville, Florida. This “first Thanksgiving,” was later commemorated at the Fort Carolina Memorial on the St. Johns River in eastern Jacksonville.

The harsh winter of 1609-1610 generated a famine that caused the deaths of 430 of the 490 settlers. In the spring of 1610, colonists in Jamestown, Virginia, enjoyed a Thanksgiving service after English supply ships arrived with food. This colonial celebration has also been considered the “first Thanksgiving.”

Still, most of us think of the three-day feast held by the Pilgrims at Plymouth in 1621, as the inaugural ritual meal so many Americans celebrate today.

On that occasion, Governor William Bradford invited the chief of the Wampanoag tribe, Massasoit, to join the fifty colonists who had survived the harsh winter. The Native American leader brought ninety of his tribesmen to the feast.

This 1621 celebration included athletic contests, a military review led by Miles Standish, and a feast on foods such as wild turkeys, duck, geese, venison, lobsters, clams, bass, corn, green vegetables, and dried fruits.

Like the preceding Thanksgiving observances, the Pilgrims included prayers in gratitude to God for providing food and safety. All of these occasions had, at their core, an acknowledgment of God and His hand of providence.

In 1841, historian Alexander Young asserted in his Chronicles of the Pilgrims Fathers of the Colony of Plymouth from 1602 to 1625, that the Pilgrim harvest celebration was the “first Thanksgiving,” and the origin of an American tradition. This interpretation gained widespread popularity.

During colonial times, there were several official proclamations issued calling for days of repentance, prayer, and thanksgiving, but the first “officially American” call came from the Continental Congress on October 11, 1782. It deserves a full reading:

By the United States in Congress assembled, a proclamation:

IT being the indispensable duty of all Nations, not only to offer up their supplications to ALMIGHTY GOD, the giver of all good, for his gracious assistance in a time of distress, but also in a solemn and public manner to give him praise for his goodness in general, and especially for great and signal interpositions of his providence in their behalf: Therefore the United States in Congress assembled, taking into their consideration the many instances of divine goodness to these States, in the course of the important conflict in which they have been so long engaged; the present happy and promising state of public affairs; and the events of the war, in the course of the year now drawing to a close; particularly the harmony of the public Councils, which is so necessary to the success of the public cause; the perfect union and good understanding which has hitherto subsisted between them and their Allies, notwithstanding the artful and unwearied attempts of the common enemy to divide them; the success of the arms of the United States, and those of their Allies, and the acknowledgment of their independence by another European power, whose friendship and commerce must be of great and lasting advantage to these States:—– Do hereby recommend to the inhabitants of these States in general, to observe, and request the several States to interpose their authority in appointing and commanding the observation of THURSDAY the twenty-eight day of NOVEMBER next, as a day of solemn THANKSGIVING to GOD for all his mercies: and they do further recommend to all ranks, to testify to their gratitude to GOD for his goodness, by a cheerful obedience of his laws, and by promoting, each in his station, and by his influence, the practice of true and undefiled religion, which is the great foundation of public prosperity and national happiness.

Done in Congress, at Philadelphia, the eleventh day of October, in the year of our LORD one thousand seven hundred and eighty-two, and of our Sovereignty and Independence, the seventh.

JOHN HANSON, President.

Charles Thomson, Secretary.

Over ensuing decades, local, state, and federal officials, including, most notably, George Washington, issued similar summonses. On October 3, 1789, the Father of our Country began his decree with this paragraph,

“Whereas it is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favor– and whereas both Houses of Congress have by their joint Committee requested me to recommend to the People of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many signal favors of Almighty God especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness.”

He closed the document with, “Given under my hand at the City of New York the third day of October in the year of our Lord 1789.”

The unapologetically religious context surroundings these early proclamations set the tone for all future Thanksgiving Days. Abraham Lincoln is credited with establishing the first official national day of Thanksgiving in 1863. As the civil war raged he wrote, in part, that citizens should pause to give thanks for,

[T]he gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy. It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American People. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility and Union.

It wouldn’t be until the presidency of Franklin Roosevelt that a modern, legal Thanksgiving Day law was passed fixing the holiday on the nation’s calendar. On December 9, 1941, the U.S. Senate amended an earlier House Joint Resolution, indicating Thanksgiving would be made “a legal public holiday to all intents and purposes and in the same manner as the 1^st of January . . . “ Roosevelt signed the measure into law, declaring (again, as a war raged),

“We are grateful to the Father of us all for the innumerable daily manifestations of His beneficent mercy in affairs both public and private, for the bounties of the harvest, for opportunities to labor and to serve, and for the continuance of those homely joys and satisfactions which enrich our lives.

Let us ask the Divine Blessing on our decision and determination to protect our way of life against the forces of evil and slavery which seek in these days to encompass us.

On the day appointed for this purpose, let us reflect at our homes or places of worship on the goodness of God and, in giving thanks, let us pray for a speedy end to strife and the establishment on earth of freedom, brotherhood, and justice for enduring time.”

The whole history and nature of Thanksgiving since it’s inception has been as a spiritual exercise. Regardless of how one expresses it exactly, the call to Thanksgiving includes expressing heartfelt gratitude to a source much larger than us. Our Thanksgiving Day federal holiday reminds us that we are not a fundamentally secular, non-believing culture and civilization, but, instead, a deeply believing one. Thanksgiving is a reminder that it is, as our Founders memorialized permanently in the Declaration of Independence, our Creator who endows us with unalienable rights; that it is God, and not the government, who is the source of the liberties our Constitution preserves and protects.

Happy Thanksgiving to you and all yours!