Throughout history mankind has celebrated the bountiful harvest with thanksgiving ceremonies.
Harvest festivals and thanksgiving celebrations were held by the ancient Greeks, the Romans, the Hebrews, the Chinese, and the Egyptians.
The ancient Greeks worshipped many gods and goddesses. Their goddess of grain was Demeter who was honored at the festival of Thesmosphoria held each autumn. Offerings of seed, corn, cakes, fruit, and pigs were made to the goddess Demeter. It was hoped that Demeter's gratitude would grant them a good harvest.
The Romans also celebrated a harvest festival called Cerelia, which honored Ceres their goddess of corn. The festival was held each year and offerings of the fruits of the harvest and pigs were offered to Ceres. Their celebration included music, parades, games and sports and a thanksgiving feast.
The ancient Chinese celebrated their harvest festival, Chung Ch'ui...the families ate a thanksgiving meal of roasted pig and harvested fruits.
Jewish families also celebrate a harvest festival called Sukkoth. Taking place each autumn, Sukkoth has been celebrated for over 3000 years.
The ancient Egyptians celebrated their harvest festival in honor of Min, their god of vegetation and fertility. The festival was held in the springtime, the Egyptian's harvest season.
In the United States...
Text books say that in 1621, after a hard and devastating first year in the New World, the Pilgrim's fall harvest was very successful and plentiful. There was corn, fruits, vegetables, along with fish which was packed in salt, and meat that was smoke cured over fires. The Pilgrims had beaten the odds. They built homes in the wilderness, they raised enough crops to keep them alive during the long coming winter, and they were at peace with their Indian neighbors. Their Governor, William Bradford, proclaimed a day of thanksgiving that was to be shared by all the colonists and the neighboring Native American Indians. We were taught that the custom of an annually celebrated thanksgiving, held after the harvest, continued through the years...but, that's not what really happened.
One of the greatest myths of Thanksgiving concerns the role of the Pilgrims. The colonists who established the Plymouth Colony did not refer to themselves as Pilgrims. Their self-descriptive title was "Separatists," denoting their theological break with the Church of England. The actual use of the word "pilgrim" appears to been a use of literary license by latter day historians who felt the need to romanticize the event.
It was during the American Revolution (late 1770's) that a day of national thanksgiving was suggested by the Continental Congress. In 1817 New York was the first state to adopt Thanksgiving Day as an annual custom. By the middle of the 19th century many other states also celebrated a Thanksgiving Day. In 1863 President Abraham Lincoln issued a proclaimation creating a national Day of Thanksgiving, designating the fourth Thursday of each November as the holiday.
It wasn't until the mid 1800s that writer Alexander Young linked that first harvest celebration with the American Thanksgiving. In the early 1900s, when illustrations of those early settlers (Pilgrims) and their Native American neighbors became commonplace...these images became forever intertwined as icons for Thanksgiving.
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