The First Thanksgiving
As a Southerner, I am aware that it was not the yankees, but my Southern forebears who first celebrated a Thanksgiving in America. Christopher M. Sullivan, Former Commander-in-Chief, Sons of Confederate Veterans reminds us:
Modern pundits often credit U.S. President Abraham Lincoln with proclaiming the first Thanksgiving Day. Or, even more prominently, we see the first Thanksgiving Day associated with the Pilgrims who settled at Plymouth Rock, in what is now Massachusetts.
Like so much of what we hear about American history this is simply wrong.
The first Thanksgiving in this country was, in fact, celebrated at Jamestown, Virginia in December 1607. The Berkley Plantation’s charter required that the day of the colonist’s safe arrival, “…shall be yearly and perpetually kept holy as a day of thanksgiving….” The sour-faced Pilgrims were still thirteen years into the future.
Of course, the politically correct love to point to the happy scene of the Pilgrims in their black garb, white collars and stiff hats, sitting at a grand banquet with the ruddy savages, all in all a scene of peace and ethnic tranquility. This joint celebration took place because the Pilgrims’ socialistic economic practices (i.e., a common storehouse) had driven them to the brink of starvation, before the Indians took pity and rescued them. If those Indians had only known . . .
But, despite all the credit incorrectly given to the Pilgrims of New England, it is President Lincoln who is oft credited with the first Thanksgiving proclamation because it began an unbroken string of such acts occurring in late November.
But Lincoln was not even the first president to do so since George Washington had issued such a proclamation in 1789. More to the point for us, Confederate President Jefferson Davis declared Friday, November 15, 1861 as, “…a day of national humiliation and prayer…,” — a full two years before Lincoln’s more famous declaration.
Now, Thanksgiving Day is little more than the opening day of shopping season. In 1861, however, it was a different story.
At the time he issued his proclamation, Pres. Davis understood the enormity of the danger the South was facing and his decision to call upon the, “. . . clergy and the people of these Confederate States to repair on that day to their homes and usual places of public worship, and to implore blessing of Almighty God upon our people, that he may give us victory over our enemies, preserve our homes and altars from pollution, and secure to us the restoration of peace and prosperity” was more than just a platitude.
(condensed)
I pray that y’all have a blessed Thanksgiving and that you are able to do so without venerating our yankee and puritan oppressors and persecutors.
We have much to be thankful for, particularly those of us who were chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world, through no merit of our own -- We who were given life and granted the twin gifts of repentance and faith by the Holy Spirit, with which we were brought to embrace the precious gospel of our salvation in the completed atonement of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Unto Him be all the glory and praise and thanksgiving!
DEO VINDICE!
TRUST GOD!
STAY IN THE FIGHT!
NEVER GIVE UP!
NEVER QUIT!
Your friend,
Greg
The First Thanksgiving
As a Southerner, I am aware that it was not the yankees, but my Southern forebears who first celebrated a Thanksgiving in America. Christopher M. Sullivan, Former Commander-in-Chief, Sons of Confederate Veterans reminds us:
Modern pundits often credit U.S. President Abraham Lincoln with proclaiming the first Thanksgiving Day. Or, even more prominently, we see the first Thanksgiving Day associated with the Pilgrims who settled at Plymouth Rock, in what is now Massachusetts.
Like so much of what we hear about American history this is simply wrong.
The first Thanksgiving in this country was, in fact, celebrated at Jamestown, Virginia in December 1607. The Berkley Plantation’s charter required that the day of the colonist’s safe arrival, “…shall be yearly and perpetually kept holy as a day of thanksgiving….” The sour-faced Pilgrims were still thirteen years into the future.
Of course, the politically correct love to point to the happy scene of the Pilgrims in their black garb, white collars and stiff hats, sitting at a grand banquet with the ruddy savages, all in all a scene of peace and ethnic tranquility. This joint celebration took place because the Pilgrims’ socialistic economic practices (i.e., a common storehouse) had driven them to the brink of starvation, before the Indians took pity and rescued them. If those Indians had only known . . .
But, despite all the credit incorrectly given to the Pilgrims of New England, it is President Lincoln who is oft credited with the first Thanksgiving proclamation because it began an unbroken string of such acts occurring in late November.
But Lincoln was not even the first president to do so since George Washington had issued such a proclamation in 1789. More to the point for us, Confederate President Jefferson Davis declared Friday, November 15, 1861 as, “…a day of national humiliation and prayer…,” — a full two years before Lincoln’s more famous declaration.
Now, Thanksgiving Day is little more than the opening day of shopping season. In 1861, however, it was a different story.
At the time he issued his proclamation, Pres. Davis understood the enormity of the danger the South was facing and his decision to call upon the, “. . . clergy and the people of these Confederate States to repair on that day to their homes and usual places of public worship, and to implore blessing of Almighty God upon our people, that he may give us victory over our enemies, preserve our homes and altars from pollution, and secure to us the restoration of peace and prosperity” was more than just a platitude.
(condensed)
I pray that y’all have a blessed Thanksgiving and that you are able to do so without venerating our yankee and puritan oppressors and persecutors.
We have much to be thankful for, particularly those of us who were chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world, through no merit of our own -- We who were given life and granted the twin gifts of repentance and faith by the Holy Spirit, with which we were brought to embrace the precious gospel of our salvation in the completed atonement of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Unto Him be all the glory and praise and thanksgiving!
DEO VINDICE!
TRUST GOD!
STAY IN THE FIGHT!
NEVER GIVE UP!
NEVER QUIT!
Your friend,
Greg
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