Americans at a thanksgiving table in the land that became the United States.
Most of the pre-Pilgrim thanksgivings were celebrated by European newcomers in parts of the country far from New England. More often than not, these were religious ceremonies called for the purpose of giving thanks for the Europeans’ safe arrival in North America. The Age of Exploration was also an age of prayer, and the safe conclusion of a dangerous journey was just one of many reasons for a Christian to kneel and give thanks.
The pre-Plymouth thanksgivings were mostly religious observances—Protestant prayer services or Catholic Masses. A couple of them included a festive component, in the form of a meal and perhaps some entertainment. At least one thanksgiving—at Popham Colony in present-day Maine in 1607—was in part a harvest festival.
Several of the early thanksgivings celebrated by Europeans in the New World were shared with Native Americans, who observed the religious ceremonies, contributed food to a meal, or assisted the Europeans in other ways. None apparently took the large role that the Wampanoag played in Plymouth in helping the English to thrive. As in Plymouth, relations between the Europeans and indigenous people would degenerate in the years that followed, but for a moment in time, ties between the two peoples were harmonious, if wary.
The motivation of the modern-day claimants to the title of First Thanksgiving is easy to explain as local pride coupled with an eagerness to highlight local history. But it is also true that success has many friends. San Elizario and other locations with events in their early history that might be deemed Thanksgivings hoped to ride on the coattails of the New England Thanksgiving that Americans know and love. It is easy to smile when a town publicizes itself as a competitor to Plymouth, but there is a serious aspect to such claims. They are reminders that all the newcomers to our shores felt grateful to be here and found ways to express their gratitude.
There are at least seven claimants for the title of “First Thanksgiving”—in Texas, Virginia, Florida, and Maine. The Big Three are San Elizario, Texas (1598); St. Augustine, Florida (1565); and Berkeley Plantation, Virginia (1619).
San Elizario, Texas. On April 30, 1598, an expedition traveling north from Mexico held a Roman Catholic service of thanksgiving along the banks of the Rio Grande. Led by the Spanish explorer Don Juan de Oñate y Salazar, the travelers had set up camp at what is now the dusty town of San Elizario.
Oñate, the son of a Spanish noble family, had been commissioned by King Philip II to seize the land north of the Rio Grande and claim it for the Spanish Empire. His expeditionary force included more than four hundred men, women, and children. Some were soldiers ready to fight to secure the Spanish claims; others were settlers prepared to take up residence in the uncharted territories of Nueva México. The settlers brought with them thousands of sheep, pigs, goats, cattle, mules, and horses for use in their new homes, and the expedition stretched for miles as it wended its way north from Santa Barbara in central Mexico toward the Rio Grande. By the time the travelers reached what is now San Elizario, they had been on the road for three months and had traveled hundreds of miles across the unforgiving terrain of the Chihuahuan Desert.
The expedition’s scribe, Captain Gaspar Pérez de Villagrá, chronicled the journey in an epic poem, Historica de la Nueva México. Villagrá provides vivid descriptions of the San Elizario Thanksgiving and the circumstances leading up to it.2
By the time the expedition reached the Rio Grande, Villagrá writes, the travelers had been without food or water for four days. Their suffering was so intense that they “were almost all wishing for death.”3 Horses staggered into the river, drinking so much that two of the animals died when their full stomachs burst. Two additional horses, blinded by starvation, ventured too far into the rushing water and were swept away. The two-legged travelers also drank their fill. Thirsty men drank so much that they appeared to be drunk. In Villagrá’s evocative words, they were:
Stretched out upon the watery sand,
As swollen, dropsical, gasping,
As they had all been toads . . .4
Having assuaged their thirst, the toad-travelers rested under the cottonwood trees along the river for ten days, gathering strength and preparing to move on.
But before they resumed their journey, Oñate called for a day of thanksgiving, ordering that a makeshift church be created in a clearing in the woods. He commanded that the clearing for the thanksgiving Mass be large enough to hold the entire expeditionary force and an unspecified number of Indians.
When the appointed day arrived, Franciscan missionaries who were traveling with the expedition sang Mass, and Oñate read a proclamation known as La Toma—the Taking—declaring that he was claiming all the land north of the Rio Grande for Spain. Then a play—a “great drama,” writes Villagrá—was performed for the benefit of the Indians, depicting how all of New Mexico welcomed the arrival of the Catholic Church. It was the first play performed in what is now the United States.
Villagrá characterizes the Spaniards’ relations with the Indians as peaceful and friendly. The “great numbers of barbarian warriors” were helpful to the Spanish, and the Spanish were respectful and kind to the warriors, “showing ourselves agreeable friends.”5 The Indians directed the Spanish to a safe place for the expedition to cross the river: “the “passage,” or el paso, which gave its name to the city that grew up there. The poet also describes in colorful detail a feast that took place while Oñate’s expedition was resting at San Elizario—though possibly not on the day of thanksgiving itself. The Spanish shot cranes, ducks, and geese for the meal, and the Indians contributed fish. The meat and fish were cooked on spits and in the coals of a great bonfire. The day after their thanksgiving ceremony, the Spaniards packed up and moved on.
Historica de la Nueva México was published in 1610, but it took almost four centuries for the San Elizario Thanksgiving to become well known. In the late 1980s, local history buffs in San Elizario took up the story and used it to promote their town as a tourist destination. They inaugurated a festival that included re-enactments of La Toma and the Thanksgiving feast; they initiated a friendly competition with Plymouth about which town deserved to call itself the home of the First Thanksgiving; and they drummed up local media coverage, which in turn generated attention in the national press.
State politicians also took up the cause. In 1990, the Texas House of Representatives passed a resolution proclaiming that the First Thanksgiving in the United States had been held at San Elizario, not Plymouth. In 1991, Governor Ann Richards issued a proclamation declaring April 28, 1598 as “the first true Thanksgiving in the United States,”6 and, in what must go down in history as one of the biggest acts of Texas chutzpah, she called upon the governor of Massachusetts to follow suit. In 1995, Governor George W. Bush appointed a commission to plan activities to mark the quadricentennial in 1998 of Oñate’s colonizing mission. In 2001, Governor Rick Perry proclaimed April 30 as the official day of the First Thanksgiving for Texas.
In recent years, Texans have backed off a bit on the idea of San Elizario as the home of the true First Thanksgiving. San Elizarians still host a Thanksgiving festival at the end of April, with a re-enactment of the 1598 ceremony, but the proceedings focus broadly on the early history of the region. A recent festival included a scholarly discussion of the role of Franciscan missionaries, a history of viticulture in the Southwest, and a presentation on seventeenth-century musical instruments.
Al Borrego, president of the local Genealogical and Historical Society, sums up Texans’ new attitude on the First Thanksgiving when he asks: “Are we going to get the president of the United States to change the date of Thanksgiving?” Borrego answers his own question: “I don’t think so.” Besides, he adds, “I like turkey.”7
St. Augustine, Florida. Some years before the San Elizario conquistadores were parading down the streets of Plymouth to promote their 1598 First Thanksgiving, a historian was laboring