FROM Traditio:

In America, in the territory later to become known as the United States, the Puritan Pilgrims were not the first to celebrate Thanksgiving at Plymouth Rock in the Massachusetts Colony in 1620. In fact, the first Thanksgiving was celebrated 55 years earlier, on September 8, the Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, in 1565 in St. Augustine, Florida.

Don Pedro Menendez came ashore amid the sounding of trumpets, artillery salutes, and the firing of cannons to claim the land for King Philip II and Spain. The ship chaplain, Fr. Francisco Lopez de Mendoza, Grajales chanted the Te Deum, the Catholic Church’s great hymn of Thanksgiving, traditionally attributed to St. Ambrose of Milan, and presented a crucifix that Menendez ceremoniously kissed. Then the 500 soldiers, 200 sailors and 100 families and artisans, along with the Timucuan Indians celebrated the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass in gratitude to God, after which a thanksgiving feast was shared by the Indians and the Spaniards.

The second American Thanksgiving occurred on April 30, 1598, when Spanish explorer Don Juan de Onate requested the Franciscan friars to offer a Mass of Thanksgiving, after which he formally proclaimed “La Toma” (The Capture), claiming the land north of the Rio Grande for the King of Spain. The men feasted on duck, goose, and fish from the river. Some of the Spaniards dressed in costume and presented a play.

Even at Plymouth Rock in the Massachusetts Colony, where the Puritan Pilgrims later landed in 1620, the Indian Squanto, who organized the first Thanksgiving, was a Catholic. Squanto had been enslaved by the English, but was freed by the Spanish Franciscans, subsequently receiving the Catholic Sacrament of Baptism.

And let us get straight exactly who these Puritan Pilgrims really were. Typically, they are described in U.S. history textbooks as innocent victims of religious persecution, who simply wanted to find a place in which they could freely worship according to their own predilections. Nothing could be further from the truth. The Puritans were English, who hated the Anglican Church of England because they claimed it was “too Catholic.” So much so, in fact, that they became vandals, destroying many of the great churches of England, most of which were Catholic churches stolen by King Henry VIII for his own coffers when Henry had an angry fit because Pope Clement VII confirmed the doctrine of Christ in Scripture that men cannot divorce their legitimate wives.

The Puritans were Calvinists, that is, Protestant extremists, who would put people in the stocks for celebrating the Nativity of Christ, for using musical instruments in church (which is documented in the Bible), and for singing hymns (even though the Bible records that Christ Himself sang hymns). Even as they hated the Anglicans, the Puritans hated Catholics more and persecuted them viciously when they could.

Finally, American Catholics should remember that their true Thanksgiving meal is not turkey, but the Holy Eucharist, the Panis Angelicus, the Bread of Angels, the English word deriving from the Greek Eucharistia, meaning “thanksgiving.”

 — Comments —

Terry Morris writes:

Why would you post that tripe?! Reads to me like a classic case of guilt by association and character assassination regarding the Pilgrims. Judging by this “true history” of the settlement at Plymouth Plantation and the murderous, vandalous, terrorist hyper-Calvinists who founded the colony, one wonders how there is any way under God’s creation they’d have allowed Squanto to live amongst them … or to live at all, for that matter, once he taught them how to fish and grow corn.

One would think, given all the one-sided anti-Christian … crap … that passes off as “history” these days, Catholics would be less inclined to join hands with our common pagan enemies in assassinating the character of the Christian settlers of this continent. But I guess not; I guess the opportunity to shift blame off themselves and onto Christians of another stripe for awhile is just too much a temptation for wounded Catholics to resist. Seems ill-advised to me, but what do I know.

Laura writes:

Why would I post that “tripe?” I guess because I think it is true. There is no Christian Thanksgiving without the Eucharist.

Guilt by association? The Puritans had great enmity toward the Catholic Church and the Anglican Church. While those Puritans who came to America never personally vandalized churches they supported the ideas that motivated the destruction. These few lines were not an entire history of the Plymouth Plantation or of the characters of the people.

There is nothing about this passage that involves “joining hands” with pagan enemies of Christianity, who are hardly going to support putting a 16th-century Mass in the Thanksgiving script.  If there is such a thing as Christians of different “stripes,” then there is no such thing as Christianity. With apologies to Benjamin Franklin: “We must indeed all hang separately or most assuredly we shall all hang together.”

By “shifting blame off themselves” and “wounded Catholics,” I guess you mean Catholics are to blame for the fact that the Mass and the Catholic religion were banned under pain of death and ruinous fines by greedy, atheistic oligarchs in England who personally profited from stealing the lands that once belonged to monasteries and parishes, which sustained an agricultural way of life, fed many of the people in need and prevented England from becoming a country ruled by bankers and socialists. Some Catholics were indeed to blame for not being willing to martyr themselves. As Pope Pius V is said to have said, “All the evils of the world are due to lukewarm Catholics.”

Thomas F. Bertonneau writes:

The cultural continuity of the North American continent after the European advent in the early Seventeenth Century is consistent, even irrepressible.  The ideological descendants of the Puritans, who were also famously the witch-burners so beloved by propagandists of the Left, are modern liberals and Leftists in all their guises, including the incipient feminists of 1848, the eugenicists of the 1920s and 30s, and the deconstructing marxisant Islamophile aschemiolators and ardent Christophobes of our present situation.  In the early Nineteenth Century the Puritan spirit ensconced itself in Western New York State, where, in the “Burned Over District,” it spawned the Gnostic outbreaks of the Latter Day Saints, Seventh Day Adventism, the Oneida Society, and various splinter-groups of Fourierist socialism, as satirized by Nathaniel Hawthorne in The Blithedale Romance.  The most traditional part of North America above the Mexican border until recently was Quebec, French and Catholic in its origins, and largely agricultural in its habits, but even there the new Puritans now have their way.

Mrs. T. writes:

Thank you for the interesting post on Thanksgiving mythology. As a homeschooler, I always struggle with finding true and appropriate history to pass on to my littles. Especially any that include Catholicism.

Buck writes:

The Traditio posting “gets in my face.” I don’t understand why The Fathers throw down the gauntlet over something so inutile. They admit to “intentionally provocative, often bitingly satirical commentary.”

Am I a fraud if I celebrate my traditional Thanksgiving Day, the one proclaimed by George Washington, the one long celebrated by historical Americans and modern U. S. ciitzens of all kinds, the one about which “Happy Thanksgivings” are happily and warmly exchanged between strangers, by eating the traditional turkey with family and friends; rather than by celebrating the Eucharist? Is my Thanksgiving Day illegitimate because I am not a Catholic?

Yesterday, President Obama said that Thanksgiving Day was his favorite holiday because “it is distinctly American.”  For once he is right.

What have the celebrations of earlier safe landings in Florida by Cathlic Spaniards to do with the celebrated celebration in Plymouth Rock? Can there be only one? The Catholic Spaniards celebrated the two noted by Traditio. There were countless landings before that. Most not permanent. What have those celebrations to do with hundreds of other thanks given by celebrating safe-landers and survivors on the shores of our early America, not Spain, but our early America? Why do stories of the earlier landings in St. Augustine de-legitimize the thanksgiving at Plymouth Rock? Because they weren’t Catholic? Are they mutually exclusive? If Catholics hold disdain for what has long been a traditonal American Thanksgiving Day, then why don’t they skip it and ignore it, and devote themselves to specifically Catholic celebrations; on April 30 and September 8?

In your next entry, you wished a warm sounding, seemingly unqualified “Happy Thanksgiving to All!” That’s a serious disconnect from one entry to the next.

This really seems unnecessary. I don’t understand the message.

A simple history lesson is one thing, this is not.

Whose myth is this?

The history is thin. The Fathers and everyone else that I could find, use the same non-primary source for the posted text. It is the single source repeated word-for-word by every search result that I could find. This non-primary source appears to come from The Cross in the Sanda by “famed historian of Florida history” Michael Gannon, written in 1965. In it, what he wrote is what is found, word-for-word, on every web site (all Catholic) that I could find. It’s on the web site of very Cathedral Basilica of St. Augustine that is supposed to be site of the original parish (If I have that correct). Is the Church the source, or Michael Gannon? Where did he find it?

Beyond all of that; Florida was not a part of our America. It was certainly not an original American colony. The Brits got it in trade from Spain and ruled it for twenty years, then gave it back to Spain when America won its independence. Floridians fought against us during the Revolution. Spain owned it until transferring it to the new United States in 1819. Florida became a state in 1845. Let Spain celebrate that thanksgiving.

Laura writes:

The Traditio posting “gets in my face.”

Perhaps you are not used to any disrespect for the Pilgrims, at least not from “conservatives.” That’s understandable, but why? Is it because you accept the religion of the Puritans? Their religion was very important to them and if you are going to hold them above reproach, you should realize that you are also supporting their beliefs.

Am I a fraud if I celebrate my traditional Thanksgiving Day, the one proclaimed by George Washington, the one long celebrated by historical Americans and modern U. S. ciitzens of all kinds, the one about which “Happy Thanksgivings” are happily and warmly exchanged between strangers, by eating the traditional turkey with family and friends; rather than by celebrating the Eucharist?

Of course, you are not a fraud. You believe in the Puritan story. And I am not a fraud for enjoying turkey and family gatherings. I love America. I do not accept the religion of the Puritans and believe it was utterly false and un-Christian.

Is my Thanksgiving Day illegitimate because I am not a Catholic?

Obviously, it is not illegitimate. But it is basically a secular holiday. That’s why Obama so warmly praises it.

What have the celebrations of earlier safe landings in Florida by Cathlic Spaniards to do with the celebrated celebration in Plymouth Rock? Can there be only one?

This is a silly question. There is only one God. Nations and cultures are different. God is one.

The history is thin. The Fathers and everyone else that I could find, use the same non-primary source for the posted text.

So, in other words, you think there there was not a Catholic Mass of Thanksgiving in 16th-century Florida. Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that there was not. That still does not make the Pilgrims’ religious presuppositions, and their rejection of the Bible and Christ’s explicit instructions, right.

Let Spain celebrate that thanksgiving.

Very well. Then that leaves the question of what God, if any, America will thank.

By the way, it is not possible to love one’s country and care nothing for the eternal welfare of its citizens.

Buck writes:

You have selectively parsed my comment, ignoring some and clearly misunderstanding some; and have avoided my central question. I’m not going back through my comment now.

You still have not explained the meaning of your confusing message. What is the POINT of all this?

If you happily celebrate Thanksgiving Day each year, “enjoying turkey and family gatherings,” just like me, and by wishing a “Happy Thanksgiving to all!”, and this same Thanksgiving Day is, as you say, a secular holiday, then what in the world does the schism between the Puritans and Catholics and the question of which is the legitimate Thanksgiving, have to do with it? Why do you partake in the rituals of our historical American celebration of the Pilgrim story if it is, as you say, a secular celebration, and make the forceful argument that others, like me, are celebrating our support of our beliefs, instead of the Catholic Eucharist, even when I have said no such thing? I didn’t discuss my faith or my reasons. Why do you celebrate the same Thanksgiving Day that I and most of the country does if it has been proclaimed in the name of “hateful, extremist, Catholic church destroying vandals”?

That is a disconnect that I don’t understand. Why do you celebrate what you say is secular, and also argue is so repugnant to your faith?

 Laura writes:

I posted your entire comment before I responded to it point by point. I do not think I distorted it in responding to your individual points.

Why would I still celebrate Thanksgiving? For the simple reason that the spirit of the event is good, it clearly has Catholic roots as well and does not require being a Puritan. It obviously does not have to be a secular holiday, but that is its public meaning. That is what is under discussion: its public and social meaning. Most Americans would say that it makes no difference what its current social meaning is as long as we are free to put our own spin on it. But that denies the essence of the holiday, which is about giving public and collective thanks to God as a people. So while I celebrate it and respect it as a tradition, I am also criticizing it and pointing out that the Pilgrims were not the only ones who thanked God hundreds of years ago for the bounty of America.

Lori writes:

As long as we are debunking the traditional story of the first Thanksgiving, it should be noted that the Pilgrims were separatists known as Brownists. They were not Puritans. Both groups were Calvinist in nature, but otherwise quite different. The Brownists were absorbed into the larger, more powerful Puritans – founders of the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

Vatours writes:

Yes indeed, Don Pedro Menendez. He continued the celebration until St Michael’s Day in 1565 at which time he and his loyal Catholics (“enlightened by the Holy Spirit“, according to Father Francisco Lopez, Chaplain to Menendez) massacred the remaining French Huguenots on Mantanzas Inlet near St Augustine.  Mantanzas means slaughtering in Spanish.

 Marissa writes:

Yes indeed, Don Pedro Menendez. He continued the celebration until St Michael’s Day in 1565 at which time he and his loyal Catholics (“enlightened by the Holy Spirit,” according to Father Francisco Lopez, Chaplain to Menendez) massacred the remaining French Huguenots on Mantanzas Inlet near St Augustine.  Mantanzas means slaughtering in Spanish.

From the Wikipedia entry:

In June 1565, Ribault had been released from English custody, and Coligny sent him back to Florida. In late August, Ribault arrived at Fort Caroline, with a large fleet and hundreds of soldiers and settlers, and took command of the settlement. However, the recently appointed Spanish Governor of Florida, Don Pedro Menéndez de Avilés, had simultaneously been dispatched from Spain with orders to remove the French outpost, and arrived within days of Ribault’s landing. After a brief skirmish between Ribault’s ships and Menéndez’s ships, the latter retreated 35 miles (56 km) southward, where they established the settlement of St. Augustine. Ribault pursued the Spanish with several of his ships and most of his troops, but he was surprised at sea by a violent storm lasting several days. Meanwhile, Menéndez launched an assault on Fort Caroline by marching his forces overland during the storm, leading a surprise dawn attack Fort Caroline on September 20. At this time, the garrison contained 200 to 250 people. The only survivors were about 50 women and children who were taken prisoner and a few defenders, including Laudonnière, who managed to escape; the rest were massacred.^[8] 

Laura writes:

Firstly, the attack on Fort Caroline was not part of any celebration.

Secondly, the French fort was a violation of the 1569 Treaty between France and Spain and it presented a threat to Spanish shipping and the safety of the Spanish settlement. The French established the post with hundreds of soldiers.

Thirdly, my point in posting the original entry was not that Fort Caroline and Menendez become a new Thanksgiving story, but that the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is the highest form of praise and thanksgiving and is part of our country’s earliest history.

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