“Thanksgiving: As a special day of prayers and thanksgiving, it was first initiated by Governor Bradford of the Plymouth colony in 1621 after the first successful harvest.” Encyclopedia of Religion page 608
The story has it that in July of 1621, the European settlers of the Plymouth
Bay Colony, under the leadership of Governor Bradford, set aside a special day to celebrate their first successful harvest. There is more to the story, and I urge you to read the late great ancestor Rev. Ishakamusa Barashango’s enlightening books Afrikan People and European Holidays: A Mental Genocide. The Europeans had it hard; they barely survived. According to Rev. Barashango, the indigenous people regarded the settlers as helpless chil- dren, so three members of the Wampanoag tribe took it upon themselves to be “missionaries” and befriend the whites. A Native man named Squanto, who had been captured, enslaved, and taken to Spain, miraculously escaped and made his way back to America. He served as the interpreter between the indigenous people and the settlers.
The settlers barely made it through the first winter, and as a result, when they did have a harvest, the Governor of the colony proclaimed a day of thanksgiving. They had a celebration that lasted three days! Their Native friends (whom the settlers later turned on, stole their land, and tried to exterminate) provided turkey and venison for that first celebration, and the colonists kept the tradition going. It eventually became a regional and then a national holiday in 1939.
Thank you for reading an excerpt of Junious Stanton’s article on scoopusamedia.com. To read more of the article, “You don’t need a special day to be Thankful.” Please subscribe to Scoop USA Media. Print subscriptions are $75.00 and online subscriptions (Print, Digital and Vizion) are $90. (52 weeks/1 year)
