Wiregrass Seniors Magazine November 2016 November 2016 | Page 10

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7 Myths About Thanksgiving

MYTH # 1
The Pilgrims Held the First Thanksgiving
To see what the first Thanksgiving was like you have
to go to: Texas. Texans claim the first Thanksgiving in
America actually took place in little San Elizario, a
community near El Paso, in 1598 -- twenty-three years
before the Pilgrims' festival. For several years they
have staged a reenactment of the event that culminated in the Thanksgiving celebration: the arrival of
Spanish explorer Juan de Onate on the banks of the
Rio Grande. De Onate is said to have held a big
Thanksgiving festival after leading hundreds of settlers on a grueling 350-mile long trek across the Mexican desert.
Then again, you may want to go to Virginia.. At the
Berkeley Plantation on the James River they claim
the first Thanksgiving in America was held there on
December 4th, 1619....two years before the Pilgrims'
festival....and every year since 1958 they have reenacted the event. In their view it's not the Mayflower we
should remember, it's the Margaret, the little ship
which brought 38 English settlers to the plantation in
1619. The story is that the settlers had been ordered
by the London company that sponsored them to commemorate the ship's arrival with an annual day of
Thanksgiving. Hardly anybody outside Virginia has
ever heard of this Thanksgiving, but in 1963 President Kennedy officially recognized the plantation's
claim.
MYTH # 3
Thanksgiving Was About Family
If by Thanksgiving, you have in mind the Pilgrim
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