Page Two
THE STATE
November 23, 1935
The Tuscarora Thanksgiving
IT was in observance of (he Tusca-
rora massacre anil (lie subsequent
revenge of (he white men (hat
Thanksgiving was first observed in
North Carolina. . . . Some other
facts about the holiday.
Til
К
first Thanksgiving Day in
North Carolina lind nothing to
■lo with the .New Knglnnd custom
• if feasting inaugurated by the Pilgrim
fathers in the Plymouth colony in
1021. In fact, the whole South was
slow to follow the Now England custom
and it was not until after the Civil War
that Thanksgiving became in this state
the national holiday that it is today.
Thanksgiving Day was first observed
hv law in North Carolina on Septem¬
ber 22, 1712, and for thirty years
thereafter it was a day of feasting and
prayer. It was the anniversary of the
terrible Tnsenrorn massacre and the
subsequent revenge of the white men
who wiped out the tribe of Indians,
tolling those whom they did not kill,
ns slaves in Now York
Near Bath is an island on the south
side of the Pamlico River known as
Indian Island where the Tuscarora
Indians held their pow-wow on the
night of September 21. 1711, holding a
war dance and making their plans for
the great massacre of the white set¬
tlers which began at sunrise next morn¬
ing and continued three days. They
killed over three hundred white peo¬
ple, burned their homes and destroyed
their stock.
The white settlers, rising up in
revenge, wiped out the Tuscaroras, and
for thirty years thereafter, September
22 was observed by law as a day of
feasting and prayer.
Puritan Bigotry
Following the first Thanksgiving
celebration by the Plymouth colony in
1621, the usage became general in New
England, gradually extending to the
Middle West and later to the West, but
spreading more slowly in the South.
Governor Johns of Virginia, when in
1853 he urged the recognition of the
day by the Legislature, in order that
he might issue a proclamation, was ad¬
vised not to issue it. ns the day was re¬
garded a- a relic of Puritanic bigotry.
1 1 is successor, Governor Wise, however,
in 1857 issued a Thanksgiving procla¬
mation and the day was observed with
в?/
SUSAN I HEN
great feasting and Southern hospitality.
The next year eight Southern States
through the proclamations of their
governors observed the day.
Act of Legislature
The legislature of North Carolina on
January 16. 1849, passed the following
net looking to a State-wide observance
of Thanksgiving Day:
"Resolved by the General Assembly
«>f the State of North Carolina, that
the governor of the State for the time
being
1ю
directed to set apart a day of
solemn and public thanksgiving to
Almighty God for past blessings and of
supplication for His kindness and rare
over ns, as a State and as a nation."
The first national Thanksgiving
proclamation was issued by George
Washington in January. 1795, setting
apart Thursday, February 19. ns a day
of public thanksgiving and prayer.
Some of the reasons set forth by the
first president of the I'nited States for
the observance of Thanksgiving Day
were "possession of a constitution of
government which unites and by that
union establishes liWty with order: for
the preservation of peace, foreign and
domestic; for the reasonable control
which has been given to a spirit of dis¬
order in the suppression of a recent in¬
surrection: and generally for the pros¬
perous condition of affairs, private and
public."
The custom of celebrating the end
of the harvest dates hack to the time
of Alfred the Great in England, and
to the old Roman festival in honor of
Ceres. Before that the Greek women
of Athens went each November in a
gaily bedecked procession to the temple
of Demeter to give thanks for the
bountiful harvest and before the
Greeks the Jewish people celebrated the
feast of the tabernacle in Jerusalem.
But after nil. it is around that first
Thanksgiving Day iu America cele¬
brated in the Plymouth Colony after n
year of sickness and death, of hard¬
ships and fears, that the imagination
likes to play.
Not quite a year had passed since
the Mayflower anchored in the harbor
of that rocky const, a year of hardships
in a new land, the supply of food grow¬
ing leas and less. At one time all but
seven persons in the colony were ill
and forty-six graves had been dug on
the bluff overlooking the hay, left with¬
out markers less the red men discover
how few the colonists had grown in
number.
With spring and the time of sowing
of seed came fresh hope. Twenty acres
of corn were put in. six of barley and
six of peas. With their very lives de¬
pending on a full harvest, the colonists
cared for the fields and watched the
growth of tlm crops anxiously. Spring
and summer days flew by and autumn
came bringing a harvest of golden
shocks of corn and plenty of barley,
though the peas had l>oen withered and
parched in the summer sun.
With plenty of food assured,
Governor Bradford declared a season
•if feasting and thanksgiving to God to
which the Indian Chief Massasoit was
invited.
Then began the work of the women
preparing the feast. There were
turkeys to l*e killed and dressed and
stuffed with beechnuts; fish from the
hay to he cleaned ami broiled: pump¬
kin pics, barley bread, and corn bread
to I>e made and baked. There were
dams and scallops to be prepared and
great bowls of wild grapes and plums
to crown the feast. Among the cooks
was Priscilla Mullins, the Priscilla of
song and story who refused to listen to
a second-handed wooing.
December 13, 1621, is given by some
as the date of that first Thanksgiving
feast. Early in the morning, shortly
after Captain Miles Standish hail fired
off the sunrise gun, a great shout was
heard from the woods and through the
trees was seen n long line of advancing
( Continued on page twenty-two )