Thanksgiving Day traces its origins to a celebration in 1621 at the Plimoth Plantation, in Plymouth, Massachusetts, where the Plymouth settlers celebrated the harvest party after a period of successful growth. This was continued in recent years, first as an impromptu religious practice, and later as a civil tradition.
The first Thanksgiving feast lasted three days with enough food for 53 pilgrims and 90 Native Americans. The menu consisted of poultry, venison, fish, lobster, clams, berries, fruits, pumpkin, beetroot and turkey.
After the United States gained its independence, Congress recommended an annual day of common thanksgiving for the entire nation to celebrate and show gratitude, setting the day of Thanksgiving on the fourth Thursday of the month of November of each year.
According to Hispanic News, published by JonGarrido.com, the Thanksgiving legacy belongs to Americans of Hispanic origin.
In an article published on November 23, 2005 by St. Augustine Catholic, a publication of the Catholic Diocese of St. Augustine, Florida and reproduced by Hispanic News says that, “In Massachusetts, Michael Gannon said that he is known as The Grinch who stole Thanksgiving.”
Gannon, a history professor at the University of Florida, insists that it was a group of Spanish explorers and not pilgrims who celebrated Thanksgiving in the New World for the first time. “The date was September 8, 1565, in St. Augustine, Florida, when Pedro Menendez de Aviles and 800 Spanish settlers held a mass of thanksgiving and invited the native Seloy tribe that occupied the site,” he said.
“It was the first religious community act of Thanksgiving in the first permanent European settlement on earth,” Gannon wrote in his 1965 book, “The Cross in the Sand.” The pilgrims did not have their first Thanksgiving dinner until 1621, 56 years later.
Menendez and his followers probably dined cocido – a stew of salted pork and chickpeas and mixed with garlic-based condiments – hard sea biscuits and red wine,” said Gannon.
This year, we celebrate one more Thanksgiving Day. It does not matter if there was turkey or cocido on your table. The important thing is that you all had a happy day, together surrounded by family.
