How Thanksgiving Was Celebrated During The 17th Century

It is usually said that in the year of 1621, in the colony of Plymouth, the English colonists and the Wampanoag Indians got together and shared a fantastic fall harvest banquet to celebrate the bounteousness from the fertile earth. Today this celebratory banquet is considered as one of the first Thanksgiving celebrations in the early days of the colonies.

While this ancient celebration is regarded as the first Thanksgiving feast; it is simply one of the numerous celebrations of the harvest season and human thankfulness for the bounties of Mother nature. Indeed, many Native American groups such as Comanche, Cheyenne, Arapaho, etc. celebrated the end of the harvest season many centuries before the coming of the Europeans.

These festivities included ceremonial dances, races, games and other celebrations of thankfulness.Long before the discovery of the American continent and the colonization by the Europeans, Native Americans, like Apache, Navajo, Huron, Iroquois, Sioux and many others, organized festivals at the end of the harvest season.

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