Giving Thanks

Giving Thanks :
the Religious Roots of Thanksgiving

November - December 2001
An exhibit by Peggy M. Baker, Director & Librarian, Pilgrim Society

Sponsored by Adelphia

"The First Thanksgiving" by Jennie Augusta Brownscombe, 1914

The Thanksgiving we celebrate today is a combination of two very different New England traditions : the purely religious day of thankful prayer and the harvest feast. The harvest feast is still with us and so, in subtler ways, is the religious spirit.

The Sabbath, days of fasting and days of thanksgiving were the only religious holy days celebrated by the Pilgrims. A religious day of thanksgiving would be called only after the community had benefited from a single significant act of Divine Providence. The event we know as the "First Thanksgiving" was a secular harvest feast and not, as far as we know, an official religious day of thanksgiving. (NOTE: This does NOT mean that the Pilgrims did not give thanks to God; the Pilgrims were a deeply religious people and every activity in which they engaged was influenced by their deep reverence for Scripture.)

As a deeply religious people, the Pilgrims undoubtedly prayed at the 1621 harvest feast. Their prayers were spontaneous, however, and the exact words not known. A typical prayer might be

O Lord our God and heavenly Father, which of Thy unspeakable mercy towards us, hast provided meate and drinke for the nourishment of our weake bodies. Grant us peace to use them reverently, as from Thy hands, with thankful hearts: let Thy blessing rest upon these Thy good creatures, to our comfort and sustentation: and grant we humbly beseech Thee, good Lord, that as we doe hunger and thirst for this food of our bodies, so our soules may earnestly long after the food of eternal life, through Jesus Christ, our Lord and Saviour, Amen.

George Webb, "Short direction for the daily exercise of the Christian," London 1625. Courtesy of Plimoth Plantation


	For the full text of every presidential Thanksgiving proclamation, click HERE.