The real origin of thanks giving

So many people think that thanksgiving is about gathering around with family and eating,and saying thanks well it is not .In 1621, the Plymouth colonists and Wampanoag Indians shared an autumn harvest feast that is known today as one of the first Thanksgiving celebrations in the colonies. For more than two centuries, days of thanksgiving were celebrated by some colonies and states. It wasn't until 1863, in the middle of the Civil War, that President Abraham Lincoln declared that thanksgiving should be held every November.

In September 1620, a small ship called the mayflower left Plymouth, England, carrying 102 passengers—a group of religious rebels seeking a new home where they could freely use their faith and other people lead on by the promise of prosperity and land ownership in the New World. After a false and awkward crossing that lasted 66 days, they dropped anchor near the tip of Cape Cod, far north of their planed spot at the mouth of the Hudson River. One month later, the Mayflower crossed Massachusetts Bay, where the Pilgrims, as they are now known, began the work of establishing a village at Plymouth.

Throughout that first harsh winter, most of the colonists stayed on board the ship, where they suffered the outbreaks of contagious disease. Only half of the Mayflower’s original passengers and crew lived to see their first New England spring. In March, the rest of the settlers moved ashore, where they received an amazing visit from an Abenaki Indian who greeted them in English. Several days later, he returned with another Native American, Squanto, a member of the Pawtuxet tribe who had been kidnapped by an English sea captain and sold into slavery before escaping to London and returning to his homeland on an exploratory expedition. Squanto taught the Pilgrims, weakened by malnutrition and illness, how to cultivate corn, extract sap from maple trees, catch fish in the rivers and avoid poisonous plants. He also helped the settlers forge an alliance with the Wampanoag, a local tribe, which would endure for more than 50 years and tragically remains one of the sole examples of harmony between European colonists and Native Americans.