Most American Catholics grew up with the familiar tale of the origins of Thanksgiving—that around 1621 the Puritan colonists of Plymouth Colony, Massachusetts, celebrated the first Thanksgiving along with Native Americans in the area. In that story, the Puritan “pilgrims” made peace with the Native Americans, who shared their food and taught the pilgrims how to farm, hunt and fish in their new country. In celebration, they had a massive feast together to give thanks for their blessings.
Yet some historians contend that this was not the first Thanksgiving celebrated in what is now the United States. In fact, a group of Spanish colonists—a half-century before the Mayflower—celebrated Mass and feasted with native Timucuans, in what would later become the oldest settlement in the U.S. in St. Augustine, Florida.
Still, Thanksgiving as we know it today in the U.S. has its roots in the 1621 celebration at Plymouth, which also has a Catholic connection. Essential to the survival of the Pilgrim community in Plymouth was Squanto, a member of the Patuxet tribe. Squanto was Catholic. Years earlier, he and others were abducted by English explorers and sold into slavery in Spain. Yet Dominican friars ransomed the captives and educated and evangelized them. Squanto eventually left Spain, traveling first to England and in 1619 to America. His tribe having been wiped out by disease, Squanto lived with the Wampanoag tribe. Squanto and others helped broker peace between the Pilgrims and another local tribe, the Pokanokets.
Despite Thanksgiving’s popular Puritan and even secular associations, American Catholics today have embraced the holiday, seeing gratitude to God as integral to and harmonious with Catholic tradition.
Since 1970, Thanksgiving has been on the U.S. liturgical calendar as an optional celebration. Before gathering for their feast of turkey and the trimmings, many Catholics assemble at their parishes for Eucharist, which means “giving thanks.”
