Thanksgiving is a time of celebration of family and all that is good in America. It is a time that Americans give thanks to God for the blessings in their lives, but did you know that Thanksgiving is also a day of mourning for Native Americans?
     Every year on Thanksgiving, a group of Native Americans and their supporters observe the day on Cole’s Hill in Plymouth to recognize a “National Day of Mourning” and since 1975 “Unthanksgiving Day” is held on Alcatraz Island to celebrate the survival of Native Americans after the arrival of Europeans in America.
     Thanksgiving conjures up images of the Pilgrims and the Indians eating turkey and toasting each other and living in harmony and friendship, but actually the traditional Indian and Pilgrim story was not part of the early thanksgiving stories because of the tension between the Native Americans and the Colonists. Moreover, turkey was not the main course at the first Thanksgiving in 1621. The menu included many native food items including berries, shellfish and boiled pumpkin. One native food served at the first Thanksgiving that the Pilgrims really loved was popcorn.
     According to “36 Little Known Facts About Thanksgiving” on randomhistory.com, the Plymouth colony in Massachusetts may not even be where the first Thanksgiving was held.  There are actually twelve claims as to where the first Thanksgiving took place, two of them in Florida and one in, of all states, Texas.
     According to the website, the first Thanksgiving actually took place in 1541 in the Texas Panhandle when Francisco Vasquez de Coronado and his expedition held a thanksgiving celebration in Palo Duro Canon. 
     The traditional Pilgrim Thanksgiving feast occurred sometime between September 21 and November 1 in 1621. The three-day celebration included 50 Pilgrims that survived the previous year and about 90 Wampanoag Indians, including their chief, Massasoit. The Pilgrim settlement where the celebration was held was actually the remains of a Wampanoag village that had been decimated several years earlier by a plague brought by the Europeans.
     While the traditional Thanksgiving has been remembered as a time of cooperation between the white colonists and Native Americans, it is often considered the site of the first cultural war because it celebrates the birth of freedom and democracy on the one hand and an account of racism and mistreatment of Native Americans on the other.
     Thanksgiving has been a national holiday since 1863. During the days of the Civil War when brother was fighting against brother and Americans were reading about the horrendous casualties of the bloody battles fought on American soil, President Abraham Lincoln called for a national day of prayer. Other presidents had endorsed the idea of Thanksgiving, in the form of a day of prayer, but did you know that Thomas Jefferson called the idea of a Federal proclamation of a day of prayer as “the most ridiculous idea ever conceived.”
     The state of Michigan was actually the first Midwestern territory to proclaim an annual Thanksgiving. Proclaimed by New Hampshire-born governor Lewis Cass, it was first called to be held on the last Thursday in November in 1824. Michigan became a state in 1837. Not all the states were quick to adopt Thanksgiving thinking that it was the government exercising too much power. The Southern states did not want to celebrate a largely Northern practice and the date that Thanksgiving was held varied from state to state.
     Sara Josepha Hale (1788-1879) was Thanksgiving’s greatest advocate. She campaigned tirelessly to make the holiday a nationwide celebration. She proclaimed in 1860 that the governors of 29 states and 2 territories recognized the last Thursday in November as the official Thanksgiving Day and urged President Lincoln to declare the national day of thanksgiving.
     During President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s term in office, he moved to have the Thanksgiving moved to the third Thursday in November to prolong the holiday shopping season. The Republicans promptly rebelled and the holiday was temporarily celebrated on two different dates. For the Republicans, Thanksgiving was held on November 30^th and the democrats kept the day on November 23^rd. Later the controversy was remedied and Thanksgiving once again was declared to be held on the last Thursday in November.
     Thanksgiving today for most Americans is indeed a time for family and giving thanks for all of the blessings that God has bestowed upon this great nation of America. In spite of some of the negative history of the holiday, Thanksgiving is a day set aside for us to reflect and give thanks for our prosperity. It is a time when all peoples who live under the umbrella of freedom that this nation provides can rejoice and remember that we are all very blessed to live here.

From the back roads,

Tim