History of Thanksgiving

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Thanksgiving is a very important holiday in present-day American culture. People all throughout America take extra care to make this day a memorable and happy celebration. This tradition has been in the American lifestyle since 1621 when it first started. Even though this tradition has been altered and changed the significance and meaning remains the same. The first Thanksgiving was an important landmark and made a huge imprint in the American culture today.

The first Thanksgiving was celebrated by the English Separatists who had come to the new world. They came traveling on the mayflower to escape England for religious freedom. Many of the Separatists, often called pilgrims, suffered many hardships on the way to the new world. Even when they finally reached their destination they found things to be difficult. Separatists should not to be taken lightly, though the journey was hard they stuck with it. Richard Hakluyt said, ‘“We are well weaned from the delicate milk of our mother country, and inured the difficulties of a strange and hard land, which yet in a great part we have by patience overcome . . .’” (qtd. in Philbrick 6). After the Pilgrims arrived they picked land by rivers with good planting area and called it Plymouth. A harsh winter came quickly upon the Pilgrims where they faced many hardships before spring relieved them. Now was their time to plant and prepare for the oncoming year. They did not know the land well and many people say that the only reason they survived was because a local Indian, named Squanto, helped them and taught them the ways of his people. Soon the settlers had much of their planting done.

Harvest Time was here and was changing the face of the Separatist attitude. After such a hard winter the ...

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...ed time is still found on the fourth Thursday of every November to have a day of Thanksgiving. A small group of English Separatists made the big difference today, changing the lifestyle of Americans just by one little Harvest Festival. That little festival is the reason why today millions go and buy huge turkeys and gather with their families to celebrate and give thanks.

Works Cited

Conforti, Joseph. Saints and Strangers. Baltimore: JHU Press, 2006.

Nielsen, Arthur. "1789 Two Hundred Years Ago." American Heritage 01 Nov 1989: 153.

Philbrick, Nathaniel. Mayflower. New York: The Viking Press, 2006.

Schwarz, Fredric. "The First Thanksgiving, Sort Of." American Heritage 01 Nov 1996: 157.

Winslow, Edward. Journal of the Plantation at Plymouth. Cambridge: J. K. Wiggin, 1865.

Brownscombe, Jennie A. The First Thanksgiving at Plymoth. 1914. Pilgrim Hall, New York.

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