HFM BOCES closed Nov. 25-27 for Thanksgiving recess
HFM BOCES will be closed from Wednesday through Friday,
Nov. 25-27, 2009 for Thanksgiving recess. Classes will
resume on Monday, Nov. 30, 2009.
 While
enjoying your Thanksgiving recess this year, consider the
origins of the
holiday. Many societies
have a day set aside to give thanks for the many blessings they
enjoy. In the United States, Thanksgiving has become a time for
families and friends to get together, eat probably too much, and
give thanks.
Most Americans think
of the Mayflower Pilgrims when they think about the first Thanksgiving in
America, and much of that part of our history has become
distorted by time and the retelling of the tale.
Contrary to popular
opinion, the Pilgrims didn't wear buckles on their shoes or
hats. They weren't teetotalers, either. They smoked tobacco and
drank beer. And their first harvest festival and subsequent
"thanksgivings" weren't held to thank the local natives for
saving their lives.
Pilgrims come to America
The Pilgrims came to
America for one reason – to form a separate community in which
they could worship God as they saw fit. They had fled England
because King James I was persecuting those who did not recognize
the Church of England's absolute civil and spiritual authority.
Those who challenged
the Church of England's ecclesiastical authority and
those who believed strongly in freedom of worship were hunted
down, imprisoned, and sometimes executed for their beliefs. A
group of separatists first fled to Holland and established a
community there. After 11 years, about 40 of them agreed to make
the
perilous journey to the New World, where they would certainly
face hardships, but could live and worship God according to the
dictates of their own consciences.
The Mayflower
set sail with 102 passengers and 30 crew in August of 1620. On the two-month
journey, William Bradford and the other elders wrote an
extraordinary charter – the Mayflower Compact – that established
just and equal laws for all members of their new community –
believers and non-believers alike.
"A cold, barren, and desolate wilderness"
When the Pilgrims
landed in New England in December, they found, according to
Bradford's detailed journal, a cold, barren, desolate
wilderness. There were no friends to greet them, he wrote. There
were no houses to shelter them. There were no inns where they
could refresh themselves. And the sacrifice they had made for
freedom was just beginning. During the first winter, half the
Pilgrims – including Bradford's own wife – died of either
starvation, sickness, or exposure.
"When spring finally
came, local Wampanoag natives taught the settlers how to plant
corn, fish for cod and skin beaver for coats. Life improved for
the Pilgrims, but they did not yet prosper.
 In
the autumn of 1621, the 53 surviving Pilgrims celebrated their
first harvest, as was the English custom. They did not
call this three-day harvest festival a "Thanksgiving," although
they did give thanks to God. To them, a day of Thanksgiving was
purely religious.
A Pilgrim named Edward Winslow wrote
"our harvest being gotten in, our governor sent four men on
fowling, that so we might after a special manner rejoice
together, after we had gathered the fruits of our labors; they
four in one day killed as much fowl, as with a little help
beside, served the Company almost a week, at which time amongst
other Recreations, we exercised our Arms, many of the Indians
coming amongst us, and amongst the rest their greatest king
Massasoit, with some ninety men, whom for three days we
entertained and feasted, and they went out and killed five Deer,
which they brought to the Plantation and bestowed on our
Governor, and upon the Captain and others. And although it be
not always so plentiful, as it was at this time with us, yet by
the goodness of God, we are so far from want, that we often wish
you partakers of our plenty."
Fortune arrives
Immediately
following this first harvest celebration, the ship Fortune
arrived in November of 1621. The Pilgrims were happy
to see this second ship’s passengers, most of them either
friends or relatives that had been left behind in Holland or
England. Yet, this was a mixed blessing. The ship had arrived
laden with few supplies and more mouths to feed. The new
arrivals increased the number of residents in the struggling
colony to 66 men and 16 women.
The Fortune
had been sent by the Merchant Adventurers, the group that
financed the Mayflower voyage. It returned to England
carrying cargo from the New World that was to be credited
against the colony’s debt to its financial backers, but was
captured by the French during the return voyage.
The original
contract the Pilgrims had with their merchant-sponsors in London
called for everything they produced to go into a common store.
Each member of the community was entitled to one common share.
All of the land they cleared and the houses they built belonged
to the community.
Bradford, who had
become the new governor of the colony, recognized that this form
of collectivism was as costly and destructive to the Pilgrims as
that first harsh winter, which had taken so many lives.
"The experience that
was had in this common course and condition, tried sundry years
... that by taking away property, and bringing community into
common wealth, would make them happy and flourishing – as if
they were wiser than God," Bradford wrote. "For this community –
so far as it was – was found to breed much confusion and
discontent, and retard much employment that would have been to
their benefit and comfort. For young men that were most able and
fit for labor and service did repine that they should spend
their time and strength to work for other men's wives and
children without any recompense ... that was thought injustice."
Bradford and his
community found that the most creative and industrious people
did not want to work any harder than anyone else without
incentive. He decided to take bold action. Bradford assigned a
plot of land to each family to work and manage. Whatever they
raised was theirs to keep. Any extra could be sold.
"This had very good
success," wrote Bradford, "for it made all hands industrious, so
as much more corn was planted than otherwise would have been."
A Day of Thanksgiving
The Pilgrims found
they had more food than they could eat themselves. They set up
trading posts and exchanged goods with the Natives. The profits
allowed them to pay off their debts to the merchants in London
much faster than expected.
As a result, three
years after the Mayflower Pilgrims landed at Plymouth, Governor
Bradford proclaimed November 29, 1623 as a Day of Thanksgiving.
"Inasmuch as the
great Father has given us this year an abundant harvest of
Indian corn, wheat, peas, beans, squashes, and garden
vegetables, and has made the forests to abound with game and the
sea with fish and clams,..." Bradford wrote, "Now I, your
magistrate, do proclaim that all ye Pilgrims, with your wives
and ye little ones, do gather at ye meeting house... there to...
render thanksgiving to ye Almighty God for all His blessings."
A national celebration
The first national
celebration of Thanksgiving was declared in 1775 by the
Continental Congress to celebrate the win at Saratoga during the
American Revolution.
 In
1863, 240 years after the first Thanksgiving, President Abraham
Lincoln, with the country mired in a "civil war of unequaled
magnitude and severity" issued a proclamation that would lead
the way to Thanksgiving becoming a national holiday.
"I do therefore
invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States,
and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in
foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of
November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our
beneficent Father who dwells in the Heavens," Lincoln wrote.
"And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions
justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings,
they do also, with humble penitence for our national
perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all
those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in
the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged,
and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to
heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may
be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of
peace, harmony, tranquility and Union."
"Thanksgiving Day
comes, by statute, once a year; to the honest man it comes as
frequently as the heart of gratitude will allow."
- Edward Sandford Martin |
