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The first Thanksgiving Day was in a different language and at a different place

Year after year children at schools all over the country learn about the first Thanksgiving Day in what is today the territory of the United States. They are told the celebration took place in 1621 in Plymouth, Massachusetts, when pilgrims from Europe gave thanks for a good harvest.

Today, the celebration has become a totally secular event, but in its beginnings, it was a religious ceremony to thank God for his mercies.

If we take into account both criteria, that is, the communal celebration to thank God and the fact that it has to be in what is now the United States, then it is undisputable the Thanksgiving Day at Plymouth was not the first Thanksgiving Day in this land.

On September 8, 1565, more than 600 Spaniards led by Pedro Menendez de Aviles arrived in what is today St. Augustine, Florida, and soon afterwards the celebrated a mass and a thanksgiving feast for their arrival to the New World.

Even more important, on April 30, 1598, the Spaniard Don Juan de Onate led an expedition to what is today the city of El Paso, Texas, and there he and hundreds of soldiers and their families celebrated a mass and a thanksgiving feast, because they have just took possession of the land (since then called New Mexico) in the name of God and the King (Phillip II).

In other words, the first thanksgiving in American land was not in English, but in Spanish; it was not in the fall, but in the spring; it was not in the northeast, but in the southwest; it was not with the Wampanoag tribe, but with the Acoma tribe; and it was not with fowl and venison, but with fish, ducks, and geese.

In addition, it was not a celebration done by Protestants (or Separatists, as the Pilgrims were called), but by Catholics. And not of the subsequent interaction between the newcomers and the native tribes was as pacific as it is usually presented at schools.

We can then say that the European colonization did not go from east to west, but from south to north, and the movement was only interrupted by the war fought in the southwest of the country from 1846 to 1848.

These observations are not motivated by any desire of rewriting history. We don’t want to create any controversy, nor to diminish the importance of having one day each year to remember with gratitude all the blessings received.

We simply want to emphasize that one of those blessings is being part of a tradition, and we need to recognize and celebrate that tradition. We can’t allow the tradition to disappear, not because of any false sense of cultural pride, and certainly not because of any kind of “who was the first” competition, but just to celebrate our own roots.

True thanksgiving means to expand the horizon of thanks to several historical and transcendental dimensions without excluding any dimension, be it Catholic or Protestant, European or Native, English or Spanish.

 

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