The Religious Origins of Thanksgiving

In the spring of 1610, in what many consider the “first American Thanksgiving,” colonists in Jamestown, Virginia, held a thanksgiving prayer service after English supply ships arrived with much-needed food. Pilgrims at Plymouth Colony celebrated the autumn harvest with a three-day feast. Governor William Bradford invited the chief of the Wampanoag tribe, Massasoit, and his tribesmen to join the colonists and feast on wild turkeys, duck, geese, venison, lobsters, clams, bass, corn, green vegetables, and dried fruits. That harvest celebration is given the distinction of shaping many of America’s Thanksgiving traditions.

In November 1775, the Boston Gazette and Country Journal published a proclamation for a public thanksgiving, asking citizens “...to offer up humble and fervent Prayers to Almighty GOD, for the whole British Empire; especially for the UNITED AMERICAN COLONIES ...” Two years later, the Continental Congress recommended that the colonies observe a day of thanksgiving after the colonists’ October victory over British forces in the Battle of Saratoga. The commander-in-chief of the Continental forces, George Washington, set aside Thursday, December 18 “for Solemn Thanksgiving and Praise.”

Two years later, as the president of the United States, George Washington proclaimed November 26 a day of national thanksgiving and prayer, but Thanksgiving failed to become an annual tradition at this time. Only Presidents Washington, Adams, and Madison declared national days of thanks. Thomas Jefferson and John Quincy Adams considered the practice to infringe upon the separation of church and state.

Source: The Library of Congress