Thanksgiving: The Real History of the Misunderstood Holiday of Gratitude

I personally love Thanksgiving - if you’ve ever read my blog, Paprika Angel you will see my love of food and travel but also the time and energy I have spent preparing this meal for friends and loved ones and sometimes strangers for years.  With minor exception I pull together 10 or more people to feast extravagantly every year, even if my funds are short.  I always have found a way because I love to prepare and feed and make offerings at this time of year from a place of love. 

At one of my in person legal educational events last year, my door prize included a Turkey Day kit and the who won it said.  “Oh, I don’t celebrate Thanksgiving.” and was offended by my gift.  I stopped in my tracks, not to apologize, but for my naivety and surprise - as some still believe and or are wholly ignorant of what Thanksgiving as a National Holiday is about.  So we are going to go down a little gobbler day history less here to reclaim any misconceptions of Thanksgiving back into the light. 

There were no docile aboriginals showing up at some saintly puritan pilgrims' feet offering them maize and turkeys. Our mythological buckled hat pilgrims straight off the Mayflower likely did not sit down at any table anywhere, let alone with the natives of the region we now call New England.  

There is however a 1st hand account in a letter form from around that time of the first English settlements of Prospectors (not religious pilgrims but gold hunters seeking riches in the new lands) that a “harvest festival” of sorts occurred over the course of weeks involving the hunting of wild game (deer, wild turkeys, bear) and the sharing of cranberries, gourds and tubers by the local native friendlies.  Likely, the “settlers” were starving to death on their own with no knowledge of what was edible in the inhospitable places they chose to set up camp, and having no supplies from England left over, the aboriginals may have felt sorry for some of them and shown them what to do.  Or for the sake of trading for weapons to gain strength over another nation, they brought the prospectors food.   

The original table is a myth taught to school children.  Just as the belief that the original settlors came in the name of religious freedom and that Columbus discovered America.  The actual first settlements in what is now the United States America were all about gold and riches.  The actual first settlement in the United States in St. Augustine - and that was under the guise of saving souls by the Catholic church but it really was about the protection of Spanish gold from South America.  But if there was truly to be a first North American Thanksgiving it would be the priests and Spanish military landing at what is now called St. Augustine and meeting The Timucuans, a truly kind and docile native people of Northeastern Florida, who took immediately to the prayers and symbols of the Catholic priests, and all of them celebrated together the mass and feast of St. Mary at El Nombre Dias (there is still in a cross in the ground today where this happened).  They all prayed together, Timucuan, Spanish sailors and soldiers, Catholic priests - and they offered thanks and praise to god and the great mother, and they shared in a feast of shellfish provided to them by the friendly natives.  But as England and Spain were rivals in the prospecting of North America for gold and riches, this story of a true first Thanksgiving (coming together in gratitude and prayer to the universal force that loves and protects us) is not in the common mythology of the United States.  In fact it is buried in the annuls of Florida history as Florida did not become a state released from Spain until just before the US Civil War. 

So, let’s move forward in time a bit to when we have a thriving New England after the Revolutionary war when we are an independent nation open to those seeking freedom of religion, opportunity to farm, and asylum from persecution. It was during these times that we have huge influxes of Puritans who had Thanksgiving as a time of prayer.  Entire days devoted only to giving thanks to God for everything in creation.  For a long time this day of prayer and observance was the equivalent of our modern day Christmas celebrations because in puritanical christian practice the giving of gifts and worshiping saints like the Catholics and Lutherans was looked down upon. Puritans were very austere and labeled any festivals as negative, wasteful, and involving satanic invitations.  So instead they prayed and gave thanks and this holy time generally occurred around the beginning of November - the early parts of winter and the late stages of Autumn when it was important to count your blessings and prepare for the meager months ahead by working hard to fill your stores.  Pigs and Poultry would be slaughtered and salted and prepped for winter storage.  So there would be a time of feasting as things that couldn’t be stored had to be used up to prevent waste.  It was out of necessity and practicality in a pre-electricity society.  

People today can barely imagine going without the internet for a couple of hours let alone not having running water and electricity.  Something we take for granted with the evolution of humanity and technology, is how fragile we are without the  technology tools we have built.  

This time of year it was necessary to feast so we did not waste.  The last hurrah before the lean times when people died of exposure and diseases of malnutrition and lack of sanitation. But they still paused to give thanks and pray and embody gratitude.  In Viking society even before our young country of the United States this concept of gratitude, prayer and nourishment was built into the bedrock of the culture (as Vikings were farmers and life was not easy).  You see it in the Rune stones - Fehu translates to cattle which is the rune of abundance and mobile property. Wunjo translates to winning and joy - and it is the rune of gratitude i.e. having/having enough.  And finally Algiz which translates to Elk Sedge or stage is a run of protection, boundaries and prayer because the man who prays and acknowledges what he has is protected by the Gods.  

Alright, back to the US and our Thanksgiving story.  I’m writing this on the eve of the 2024 U.S. Presidential election so I think it is poignant in this time of massive emotional divisiveness  to explain  when and how Thanksgiving, the National holiday of gratitude, unity, and celebration of shared blessings came to be.

Civil War. 

Can you even imagine if war was outside your backdoor?  Cities burning, young men across the entire country dead and maimed by the millions.  Families lost their homes, their means of making any income, there was no usable farmland, just fields of blood.  People are starving and grieving. 

Any issue we are facing today, pales in comparison to the aftermath of the United States civil war.  And it was then that the Federal Government and Abraham Lincoln declared the need for a Great Healing.  A coming together to give thanks for what we had been given by God and together as families and a hurting nation. 

Gratitude is the foundation upon which the United States was rebuilt upon.  

Gratitude is the strong foundation  that allows us to build in spite of the  greatest atrocities and destruction..  This is what saved Holocaust survivors.  And Thanksgiving as a holiday is the core of our nation's gratitude practice and abundance mindset.  It was initiated as a National holiday to create healing and to mend the divide between neighbors, so we could all come together as Americans again.  Not as Northerners nor Southerns, not based in color or creed, or economies, not separated by ideologies , but together, as Americans - united in the spirit of acknowledging blessings  and breaking bread. 

Every thought is acted upon.  By you or someone else.  This is a Hermetic principle and a truth of the universe.  How many people today have said death to Trump!  Or Kill Kamala!  Or some version of hate directed at those who hold differing views?   Where are we going with this?  Hate begets Hate and is acted upon.  We can see this in our Nations history.  I bring this up not because I hold any political viewpoint but because I am on the side of humanity, love, unity and reason for us to come together. Let us come together to solve our challenges. Let us come together and hear differing perspectives. Let us find nourishing common ground and stop  playing the blame game.  

How do we come together? With the greatest healers of all time - prayer and gratitude.  Gratitude and prayer.  Whatever that looks like to you.  Whatever God, Gods or forces of universality you choose to worship.  Look at your fellow person, your family friends, neighbors, city dwellers, statesman, countrymen and country women.  And give gratitude for this country  of opportunity of freedom and abundance we live in. 

War is not at our back door.  Our daughters can go to school.  We have running water and electricity and almost everyone can have a cell phone and access to the Internet.  YES there are problems but we have the technology, the infrastructure, and the resources to fix them!  There is no lack.  Lack is a fiction built by ideologies that come from hurt,shadow and negative ego.  As within so without.  If we are victims internally, we are victims externally.  If we choose abundance and healing internally we will create healing and abundance for ourselves and others externally.  

So. this is why Thanksgiving is such a special day and such an opportunity for us all.  It is a day in our collective consciousness dedicated to the GREAT HEALING energy of gratitude.  The power of gratitude is phenomenal. An action of gratitude has a rippling effect on the collective. . Like thoughts attract like thoughts.  By us all coming together in gratitude we can create an enormous  healing force of magnifying love.  We can collectively create a shift in the consciousness to healing—and not just others but ourselves!.  

Overcome the divide created by elections and propaganda  language that is made to trigger our most egocentric emotions.  We can be better than the propaganda counsels. We can unite in love.  We can give thanks together in the bounty we have. We can propel humanity  forward by choosing to raise everyone up.  We can forgive the past hurts and grow as a result.  We can truly be a land of opportunity.  We just have to acknowledge in rich and beautiful gratitude everything we already have, and everything gratitude will allow us to create together.  

In the true spirit of this misunderstood holiday, I wish you all— including those with differing politics, ideologies, geographies and beliefs— Happy Thanksgiving!