page_title: Thanksgiving (United States)
section_title: Early thanksgiving observances
hierarchical_section_title: Thanksgiving (United States) / History / Early thanksgiving observances
caption_attribution_description: English: Berkeley Plantation, Shrine marking spot of 1st Thanksgiving in America, in 1619
context_page_description: Thanksgiving is a federal holiday in the United States, celebrated on the fourth Thursday of November. It originated as a harvest festival, and to this day the centerpiece of Thanksgiving celebrations remains Thanksgiving dinner. The dinner traditionally consists of foods and dishes indigenous to the Americas, namely turkey, potatoes, squash, corn, green beans, cranberries, and pumpkin pie. Thanksgiving is regarded as being the beginning of the fall–winter holiday season, along with Christmas and the New Year, in American culture.
  The event that Americans commonly call the "First Thanksgiving" was celebrated by the Pilgrims after their first harvest in the New World in October 1621. This feast lasted three days, and—as recounted by attendee Edward Winslow—was attended by 90 Native Americans and 53 Pilgrims. The New England colonists were accustomed to regularly celebrating "thanksgivings" days of prayer thanking God for blessings such as military victory or the end of a drought. Thanksgiving has been celebrated nationally on and off since 1789, with a proclamation by President George Washington after a request by Congress.
context_section_description: Setting aside time to give thanks for one's blessings, along with holding feasts to celebrate a harvest, are both practices that long predate the European settlement of North America. The first documented thanksgiving services in territory currently belonging to the United States were conducted by Spaniards and the French in the 16th century.
  Thanksgiving services were routine in what became the Commonwealth of Virginia as early as 1607, with the first permanent settlement of Jamestown, Virginia holding a thanksgiving in 1610. In 1619, 38 English settlers arrived at Berkeley Hundred in Charles City County, Virginia. The group's London Company charter specifically required "that the day of our ships arrival at the place assigned ... in the land of Virginia shall be yearly and perpetually kept holy as a day of thanksgiving to Almighty God." Three years later, after the Indian massacre of 1622, the Berkeley Hundred site and other outlying locations were abandoned and colonists moved their celebration to Jamestown and other more secure spots.
caption: Shrine of the first U.S. Thanksgiving in 1619 at Berkeley Hundred in Charles City County, Virginia
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