The History and Origin of Thanksgiving Day


Almost every culture in the world has held celebrations of thanks for a
plentiful harvest. The American Thanksgiving holiday began as a feast of
thanksgiving in the early days of the American colonies almost four hundred
years ago.

In 1620, a boat filled with more than one hundred people sailed across the
Atlantic Ocean to settle in the New World. This religious group had begun to
question the beliefs of the Church of England and they wanted to separate
from it. The Pilgrims settled in what is now the state of Massachusetts.
Their first winter in the New World was difficult. They had arrived too late
to grow many crops, and without fresh food, half the colony died from
disease. The following spring the Iroquois Indians taught them how to grow
corn (maize), a new food for the colonists.




<http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/iclk?sa=l&ai=BWrTIipwGR8iiNpS64
QGAovWZCMHB3h2Bu9O9AsCNtwGwkB8QAxgDIKil9wEoCDgAUPLdg5f5_____wFgyfa2h9yjzBCqA
RZwcmltZWRpYV9ob21lc2Nob29saW5nsgEXaG9tZXNjaG9vbGluZy5hYm91dC5jb23IAQHaAT5od
HRwOi8vaG9tZXNjaG9vbGluZy5hYm91dC5jb20vY3MvdW5pdHNzdWJqaG9sL2EvdGhhbmtzZGF5L
mh0bagDAbgDAegDpgXoA7ED6AO8BfUDAAQAAA&num=3&ggladgrp=326394929&gglcreat=5817
75989&adurl=http://www.picks-finder.com/search.php%3Fsearchname%3Dhomeschool
ing&client=ca-primedia-premium_js>

They showed them other crops to grow in the unfamiliar soil and how to hunt
and fish.


In the autumn of 1621, bountiful crops of corn, barley, beans and pumpkins
were harvested. The colonists had much to be thankful for, so a feast was
planned. They invited the local Indian chief and 90 Indians. The Indians
brought deer to roast with the turkeys and other wild game offered by the
colonists. The colonists had learned how to cook cranberries and different
kinds of corn and squash dishes from the Indians. To this first
Thanksgiving, the Indians had even brought popcorn.

In following years, many of the original colonists celebrated the autumn
harvest with a feast of thanks. After the United States became an
independent country, Congress recommended one yearly day of thanksgiving for
the whole nation to celebrate. George Washington suggested the date November
26 as Thanksgiving Day. Then in 1863, at the end of a long and bloody civil
war, Abraham Lincoln asked all Americans to set aside the last Thursday in
November as a day of thanksgiving*.


<http://geo.yahoo.com/serv?s=97359714/grpId=5057056/grpspId=1705370304/msgId
=2684/stime=1191606361/nc1=4767086/nc2=3858795/nc3=3848618>




[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]