Isn't Thanksgiving an anglican holiday?

Doesn't America owe this holiday to John Smith and our colony of Virginia, the first English Pilgrims commissioned by Q. Elizabeth and planted by Sir Francis Drake?

 

No.

 

I thought it finds its roots in the long-standing Anglican tradition of fasts and days of Thanskgiving?

 

No? ..

 

I thought it was started by the masachussetts bay colony.

 

Thanksgiving, as we celebrate it today, is thoroughly American. On October 3, 1789, our first president, George Washington, issued the following proclamation making the last Thursday of November a day of prayer, supplication, and thanksgiving: http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/GW/gw004.html

In 1863, our 16th president, Abraham Lincoln, in a bid to unite the war-torn nation made it a national holiday.

While I agree the inspiration of the national holiday comes, in a general way, from the protestant reformation tradition of observing days of thanksgiving around harvest times, I don't think you can point to the thanksgiving at Jamestown and say that it represents the origin of the Thanksgiving holiday. Given the strong folkloric connection with the Pilgrims' First Thanksgiving at Plymouth in 1621, and the anti-English feeling that existed in 1789, I think that if there was any one event that Washington was trying to memorialize, it would be the one where English dissenters were giving thanks to God for blessing their independent shining city on a hill.

 

It's pretty much just a national holiday established at our Founding. It was traced by different people to different origins, although I don't think there was any anti-English sentiment among the Americans, seeing as they viewed themselves as Englishmen. There was an anti-George III sentiment, but that's about it if I remember my history classes.

People would have no pro-dissenters sentiment because the Puritans were all English, and the Anglican settlements were English, so picking one over the other would've made no sense. I think G Washington & Co. simply picked an event from out of our mutual national folklore, feeding out of a long tradition of Christian fastings and feasts of Thanskgiving.

 

the country switched to coffee because tea seemed too british. the episcopal church removed any vestiges of its english heritage. and the framers took great pains to never avain allow the kind of centralization of oppressive power they had experienced as colonists. oh and they ran off all the loyalists to canada. you really think there was no anti-english feeling,?! what was the revolution??

 

That's overstating it, isn't it. Did they translate the Prayerbook into the Swahili? All they did was take out the references to the King which just feeds into my narrative.

 

is that all they did?? hmmm...

 

I prefer a comfortable cup of tea over coffee. My current tea of choice is an herb tea called Nettle Leaf. Google it and check it out.

Today around the Thanksgiving table, my grandchildren expressed the sentiment that they liked Native Americans (Indians) more than the Pilgrims. So, if the history of the Thanksgiving holiday is to be considered -- why not consider it one of the many contributions from the Native Americans (like corn!). And my grandchildren enjoyed telling us grandparents about the corn and fish planting tip.

 

Well basically the revolution was about a dislike of taxation and a concern that slavery might be abolished. But the stuff about the episcopal church removing any vestiges of its English heritage, where does that come from? Where did the Episcopal Church's apostolic succession come from?

 

If we look at the Episcopal Prayerbook which is about 99% similar to the old English one, if we look at the religion (Anglicanism) and the swarms of dissenters (Presbyterians, Baptists, Methodists) that flourished on the US Continent, these were all English- the religion and the specific subset of dissenters. This was no land swamped with Lutherans and dissenting Pietists and Moravians. It wasnt a land of RCC priests and dissenting Jansenists and Quetists. You know what I mean? It was a quintessentially English world and microcosm, through and through, until a later century immigration patterns changed all that. But it still is today, really. English Common Law was what Jefferson and Madison practiced... Where Thomas Paine was directly born... Whose government Adams idealized above the US Constitution to his dying day... The 1688 Bill of Rights being our beacon... Odd that our English heritage would be denied, but this being a holiday let me make my peace with that and bid adieu to everyone and happy holidays.

 

Not a holiday here, of course, but not so very different from Harvest Festival. And in any case I thank you and wish you peace and a joyful holiday.

 

Am I right in understanding you to mean to class Pilgrims, Puritans, Presbyterians, Methodists, and Baptists to be Anglican? Who is overstating?

 

Thank you all for an enlightening conversation. It shall give me food for thought tonight.

 

please don't take me the wrong way. Must be something in the water today. The dissenters were not anglican of course, but they did represent a purely English subset of Christianity. Of all religious confessions to be found in Colonial America, it just happened to be Anglicanism plus a bunch of English dissenters. The culture of Colonial America was all English through and through and even the Revolution was fought in defense of their rights "as Englishmen" to have representation in Parliament.

Good will and peace to all men so happy holidays, my friend Lowly Layman.

 

Mmm ... No it wasn't.

 

I suppose it depends on where you live. I live in Georgia, which in colonial times was home to a number of non-english related faith groups, especially moravians and lutherans. in fact, the town I currently live in was founded by Salsburger Lutherans who came to GA to escape religious persecution.

 

A happy thanksgiving and a holy advent to you as well, my friend. No matter how the thanksgiving holiday started, it's been 225 years and The Most High God remains steadfast in showering His blessings on us. I pray he continues to do so..."blessed is the nation whose god is the LORD."

Amen.