The REAL first North American Thanksgiving
Happy Thanksgiving to my fellow US-ians. As for the rest of you, get again to paintings.
In light of today's US holiday, I'm going to repeat an article that gets thrown around in my part of the country every year at around this time. Contrary to the popular US imagination, North America was a Spanish colony before it was an English one and the capital of that Spanish colony was right here in good old Florida. For some reason I can only attribute to a 400-year-old grudge England had against Spain, the American myth completely ignores that the Spanish were the first Europeans to set up a permanent base in what would some day become the United States. Maybe I should bid everybody a Feliz Día de Gracias instead of a happy Thanksgiving.
Juan Ponce de Le?N y Figueroa arrived in Florida on 2 April, 1513.
Pedro Men?Ndez de Avil?S became the governor of l. A. Florida whilst the first Thanksgiving become held in 1565.
True or False: The Pilgrims celebrated America?S first Thanksgiving, a harvest competition in Plymouth, Massac- husetts, in 1621.
You may also have responded ?True,? Primarily based on what you learned in simple faculty. But, in step with modern ancient studies, the solution is ?False.? The REAL first thanksgiving party virtually came about 56 years earlier, in St. Augustine, Florida (50 miles south of gift-day Jacksonville).
On Sept. Eight, 1565, Spanish Admiral Pedro Men?Ndez de Avil?S landed in St. Augustine with 500 squaddies, 2 hundred sailors, and 100 civilian farmers and craftsmen, some with better halves and youngsters. After claiming La Florida on behalf of his monarch Philip II, Menendez and his entourage celebrated a Mass of Thanksgiving for the expedition?S safe arrival and then shared a meal with the native Indians.
These stand as the first documented Thanksgiving activities in a permanent settlement everywhere in North America north of Mexico, says Michael Gannon, an eminent Florida historian who holds the title of Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus of History on the University of Florida.
Gannon?S research indicates that the real first Thanksgiving meal likely consisted of ?Cocido,? A stew of garbanzo beans, salted red meat, and garlic, accompanied by way of tough sea biscuits and crimson wine. If the local Indians contributed food to the meal, they might have introduced protein assets inclusive of deer, gopher tortoise, shark, drum, mullet, and sea catfish, and greens inclusive of maize (corn), beans, squash, nuts, culmination, and miscellaneous vegetables.
Gannon?S findings are based on files from the Men?Ndez day trip and on the research of archaeologists who have studied St. Augustine and Indian artifacts.
But despite such irrefutable proof, Gannon says changing the American lore about this conventional excursion hasn?T been smooth.
?It may be very tough to get the powered-wig states to the north of Florida to understand St. Augustine?S precedence among American cities,? He says. ?Even historians and newshounds, specially the ones of an Anglo-American bent, appear reluctant to accord any unique stature to that dark-haired community, which changed into set in area three hundred and sixty five days following the death of Michelangelo and the delivery of William Shakespeare.?
But in recent years, Gannon has made some progress in placing the document straight. In November 2004, he wrote a letter responding to an op-ed piece with the aid of author/historian Charles C. Mann inside the New York Times.
Mann, a Massachusetts-based creator of many books and mag articles, had written: ?Until the advent of the Mayflower, continental float had stored aside North America and Europe for masses of hundreds of thousands of years. Plymouth Colony (and its less a hit predecessor in Jamestown) reunited the continents.?
In his letter to the Times, Gannon stated: ?By the dates Jamestown and Plymouth were founded, St. Augustine, Florida, became up for urban renewal. It was a metropolis with a fort, church, marketplace, college seminary, six-mattress health center, and one hundred twenty stores and houses.?
Mann later conceded this factor by way of writing within the February 2006 Smithsonian magazine: ?In September 1565 Pedro Men?Ndez de Avil?S led approximately 800 Spaniards to colonize St. Augustine. The landing birthday celebration celebrated their arrival, inviting the neighborhood Indians ? An act of religious Thanksgiving in a everlasting settlement that protected both natives and beginners. Sounds like Thanksgiving to me!?
Gannon, pleased through this concession, maintains his efforts to get the real Thanksgiving story out, whilst Americans start this season?S arrangements for a Thanksgiving banquet of turkey, dressing, gravy, cranberry sauce, greens, breads and, of path, pumpkin pie.
?Happy Thanksgiving food to all!? He says. ?And don?T neglect the garbanzo beans.?
The Florida Humanities Council , a nonprofit organization, sponsors public programs exploring Florida’s history and cultural heritage
Article posted on Wednesday, Nov. 22, 2000
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