Happy Thanksgiving and May We All Grow in Gratitude to God and Our Neighbors!
There's a bit of a dispute as to where the first Thanksgiving actually took place. The pilgrims and the Plymouth colony always get the credit, but their thanksgiving was held in 1621 in Massachusetts. My own home state hosted an earlier Thanksgiving in 1619 at Berkley Plantation near Williamsburg. The Thanksgiving event was written into the charter. This fact doesn't diminish the importance or fascination with the Thanksgiving in Plymouth, but it illustrates the attitude of gratitude our forefathers had. May we imitate them in that.
There's a bit of a dispute as to where the first Thanksgiving actually took place. The pilgrims and the Plymouth colony always get the credit, but their thanksgiving was held in 1621 in Massachusetts. My own home state hosted an earlier Thanksgiving in 1619 at Berkley Plantation near Williamsburg. The Thanksgiving event was written into the charter. This fact doesn't diminish the importance or fascination with the Thanksgiving in Plymouth, but it illustrates the attitude of gratitude our forefathers had. May we imitate them in that. 
And an even earlier Thanksgiving occurred in Spanish Florida on our Lady's birthday, September 8, 1585:
ReplyDelete"On September 8, 1565, Pedro Menéndez de Avilés landed with about 800 settlers on the coast of what is now St. Augustine, Florida. Contemporary accounts and later work by historian Michael Gannon agree on the essential sequence: a cross was planted; Father Francisco López de Mendoza Grajales vested for Mass; the feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary was celebrated in thanksgiving for safe arrival; afterwards, the Spaniards and Timucua shared a meal." Check out the rest of the post at:
https://bigmodernism.substack.com/p/americas-first-thanksgiving-was-the?publication_id=4940692&post_id=180091797&isFreemail=true&r=f3jel&triedRedirect=true