Thanksgiving is a time when people look back and reflect on the beginnings of American colonial history with the arrival of settlers on the Mayflower in Plymouth in 1620. Most people assume that this was the first permanent English settlement in the New World. However, 13 years prior to the pilgrims landing in Massachusetts, a group of three ships with 144 men landed in Jamestown, Virginia. One hundred and four of them stayed to establish the first permanent English settlement.
In fact, a lot of firsts in American history happened in Virginia even before the first pilgrim set foot in Plymouth. In 1608, the first English women came to the New World with the arrival of Margaret Foster and her maid Ann Burras. Three months after arriving, Burras married John Layton in what would be the first wedding at Jamestown. In 1619, the first representative assembly occurred when the General Assembly, the one that Virginia still has today, met for the first time in the Jamestown church. This was over a year before the Mayflower set sail!
Up the river from Jamestown, Berkeley Plantation has historical evidence of the first Thanksgiving being held there on December 4, 1619 when men from the London Company arrived to start a township in Virginia. As instructed by the London Company, the leader of the voyage, Captain Woodlief proclaimed:
“We ordaine that this day of our ships arrival, at the place assigned for plantacon, (meaning plantation) in the land of Virginia, shall be yearly and perpetually kept holy as a day of Thanksgiving to Almighty God”.
This first Thanksgiving has been noted by historians as a day of prayer and was a religious event and not a food feast as we know now. For the past 63 years, Berkeley Plantation has held their own Thanksgiving Festival in honor of the First Thanksgiving in 1619.
Would you like to learn more about the first permanent English settlement at Jamestown? RPL has you covered with the following titles. Click on each one to see in our catalog!
Sources:
https://research.colonialwilliamsburg.org/Foundation/journal/Winter07/plymouth.cfm
https://www.nps.gov/jame/learn/historyculture/the-indispensible-role-of-women-at-jamestown.htm
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/pilgrims-werent-first-celebrate-thanksgiving-180967310/
