Thursday, November 24, 2005
Thanksgiving - Florida was first
Good article. Takes me back. Way back, all the way to the 1560's
Florida experts insist first Thanksgiving here:
By Andrew Marra
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Thursday, November 24, 2005
We were first.
Sure, Massachusetts has its pilgrims, its Mayflower, its turkey and corn.
• Our readers tell us why they're thankful
But when it comes to Thanksgiving, Florida historians have been saying the same thing for years: It happened first in the Sunshine State — with salt pork, sea biscuits and garbanzo beans.
In the 1560s, French and Spanish settlers arrived separately on Florida's northern coast, and each celebrated with prayer and a thanksgiving feast. The Spanish gathering at St. Augustine even featured guests from a local American Indian tribe.
"They were thanking God, they had food, they said prayers," said Paul George, a history professor at Miami-Dade College. "They were the first ones to essentially give us a recorded celebration."
It wasn't until 1621, more than 50 years later, that Pilgrims came to Plymouth, Mass., and held the feast that was later dubbed the first Thanksgiving.
But the Florida celebrations didn't become widely known until the second half of the 20h century, long after Abraham Lincoln's 1863 declaration that the last Thursday in November would be the national day of Thanksgiving.
Michael Gannon, a University of Florida professor, upset New Englanders in the 1980s when he started pointing out that a book he wrote decades earlier established that the first Thanksgiving took place in St. Augustine on Sept. 8. 1565.
They called him the Grinch who stole Thanksgiving.
But no one really disputed that Pedro Menendez de Aviles, a Spanish explorer, invited the Timucua Indians to dinner in St. Augustine in 1565 after a thanksgiving Mass celebrating the explorers' safe arrival.
George, the Miami-Dade College professor, says a group of French explorers did more or less the same thing even earlier along the St. Johns River, near what is now Jacksonville.
And historians say other explorers in North America, including Juan Ponce de Leon, undoubtedly held their own thanksgiving celebrations during expeditions years before that.
So how did the earliest South Floridian settlers view the holiday controversy?
They didn't. Like any good Yankee transplant, the first white settlers in South Florida ate their turkey and celebrated Thanksgiving with verve.
Entertainment was scarce. Life was hardscrabble. And no one had told them the shocking truth — that the first Thanksgiving, so to speak, took place not in Massachusetts but here in Florida.
Thanksgiving was not a major event in South Florida in the late 1800s because the region contained so few people. But locals gathered in clusters in their wooden cabins, eating wild turkey and wild boar.
"It was a very simple settler lifestyle," George said. "But a lot of these people were from the north, and they knew the holiday calendar."
And the winners write history — and the holiday calendar.
Florida experts insist first Thanksgiving here:
By Andrew Marra
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Thursday, November 24, 2005
We were first.
Sure, Massachusetts has its pilgrims, its Mayflower, its turkey and corn.
• Our readers tell us why they're thankful
But when it comes to Thanksgiving, Florida historians have been saying the same thing for years: It happened first in the Sunshine State — with salt pork, sea biscuits and garbanzo beans.
In the 1560s, French and Spanish settlers arrived separately on Florida's northern coast, and each celebrated with prayer and a thanksgiving feast. The Spanish gathering at St. Augustine even featured guests from a local American Indian tribe.
"They were thanking God, they had food, they said prayers," said Paul George, a history professor at Miami-Dade College. "They were the first ones to essentially give us a recorded celebration."
It wasn't until 1621, more than 50 years later, that Pilgrims came to Plymouth, Mass., and held the feast that was later dubbed the first Thanksgiving.
But the Florida celebrations didn't become widely known until the second half of the 20h century, long after Abraham Lincoln's 1863 declaration that the last Thursday in November would be the national day of Thanksgiving.
Michael Gannon, a University of Florida professor, upset New Englanders in the 1980s when he started pointing out that a book he wrote decades earlier established that the first Thanksgiving took place in St. Augustine on Sept. 8. 1565.
They called him the Grinch who stole Thanksgiving.
But no one really disputed that Pedro Menendez de Aviles, a Spanish explorer, invited the Timucua Indians to dinner in St. Augustine in 1565 after a thanksgiving Mass celebrating the explorers' safe arrival.
George, the Miami-Dade College professor, says a group of French explorers did more or less the same thing even earlier along the St. Johns River, near what is now Jacksonville.
And historians say other explorers in North America, including Juan Ponce de Leon, undoubtedly held their own thanksgiving celebrations during expeditions years before that.
So how did the earliest South Floridian settlers view the holiday controversy?
They didn't. Like any good Yankee transplant, the first white settlers in South Florida ate their turkey and celebrated Thanksgiving with verve.
Entertainment was scarce. Life was hardscrabble. And no one had told them the shocking truth — that the first Thanksgiving, so to speak, took place not in Massachusetts but here in Florida.
Thanksgiving was not a major event in South Florida in the late 1800s because the region contained so few people. But locals gathered in clusters in their wooden cabins, eating wild turkey and wild boar.
"It was a very simple settler lifestyle," George said. "But a lot of these people were from the north, and they knew the holiday calendar."
And the winners write history — and the holiday calendar.
