Guide Note

The American holiday of Thanksgiving is celebrated on the fourth Thursday of November, and was inaugurated in 1621, when the Pilgrims and a group of Wampanoag people gathered for a feast to celebrate a successful harvest season.

Fast Facts

1. Tradition developed gradually in 17th Century
2. First declared an official holiday in 1671, by the town of Charlestown, Massachusetts
3. Declared a national holiday in 1863
4. Key figures: Massasoit, Governor William Bradford, John Alden, Myles Standish
5. Earlier claims to the tradition include a 1619 harvest festival in Jamestown
6. Also claimed: a 1598 celebration in El Paso

The harvest of 1621 followed the brutal winter of 1620, the first for the Pilgrims in the New World, in which they incurred heavy losses to disease and starvation. Initial good relations with the Wampanoag and with Tisquantum (or Squanto), a visiting, English-speaking Patuxet, brought the Pilgrims vital survival skills and comparative plenty, such that they were able to host their benefactors at a traditional harvest festival. The attendance was 50 Pilgrims and roughly 90 Native Americans. While relations between the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag would soon grow more competitive, there is no truth to the tale that a thanksgiving feast was held the following year in which Indians were ambushed and massacred. Turkey, cranberry sauce, and other such traditional Thanksgiving dishes were a Victorian innovation: The main course in 1621 was venison.