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In the United States, the holiday is indelibly linked to the so-called “First Thanksgiving”, which occurred in Plymouth, Massachusetts, in 1621. As the popular story goes, the settlers (usually called “Pilgrims”) had only barely survived a terrible winter thanks to the assistance of the Native Wampanoag people. In gratitude, they shared their first harvest with their Wampanoag allies in a three-day feast of friendship.
However, the Plymouth celebration was not actually the first “Thanksgiving” in the United States, much less North America. (In fact, it was not even called a day of thanksgiving at the time.) Other thanksgiving celebrations were recorded earlier in Virginia and other American colonies; and in Canada, the English explorer Sir Martin Frobisher celebrated a thanksgiving dinner as early as 1578, to give thanks for his arrival in Newfoundland. It should be noted that many Native people also object to the prominence of the romanticized “First Thanksgiving” narrative, which they argue whitewashes the relationship between Native peoples and early American colonists.
Nevertheless, the story persisted. In the 18th and early 19th century, Thanksgiving remained a regional celebration mostly confined to New England. Following the American Revolution, Loyalist refugees spread their Thanksgiving customs into Canada, among them the Thanksgiving turkey. But the holiday remained largely unknown outside the Northeast until the 1840s, when the writer Sarah Josepha Hale began a 17-year campaign to make Thanksgiving a national holiday, in the belief that it would strengthen a common American identity. Her campaign succeeded in 1863, when President Lincoln declared a National Day of Thanksgiving in commemoration of the Union victory at Gettysburg, to be celebrated annually. Lincoln fixed the date on the last Thursday of November, where it has remained (more or less) ever since.
In Canada, the same tradition was revived by the newly-confederated government. The first federal Thanksgiving was declared in 1872 to celebrate the recovery of the Prince of Wales. It was made an annual holiday in 1879; however, Parliament did not set a date for the celebration, as it was intended that a unique theme would be chosen each year. In 1908, railway companies successfully lobbied the government to observe Thanksgiving on a Monday, presuming that more people would travel if they had a three-day weekend. It was not until 1957 that Parliament finally fixed the date on the second Monday in October.
Today, Thanksgiving remains a highly popular holiday on both sides of the US-Canada border and a cultural touchstone for both countries. Regional differences persist (do you eat pumpkin, apple, or pecan pie? Butter tarts or Nanaimo bars?), yet much as Sarah Hale intended, a common appreciation for family and friends continues to unite people across the continent in gratitude and friendship.
Images: 1) Thanksgiving turkey by Freepik, freepik.com. 2) The First Thanksgiving, 1621 by Jean Leon Gerome Ferris. |
Royal Canadian Legion, US Branch #25 