George Washington’s 1789 Thanksgiving Proclamation
Whereas it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of
Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly
to implore His protection and favor; and Whereas both Houses of Congress
have, by their joint committee, requested me "to recommend to the people of
the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed
by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of
Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to
establish a form of government for their safety and happiness:"
Now, therefore, I do recommend and assign Thursday, the 26th day of
November next, to be devoted by the people of these States to the service
of that great and glorious Being who is the beneficent author of all the
good that was, that is, or that will be; that we may then all unite in
rendering unto Him our sincere and humble thanks for His kind care and
protection of the people of this country previous to their becoming a
nation; for the signal and manifold mercies and the favorable
interpositions of His providence in the course and conclusion of the late
war; for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty which we have
since enjoyed; for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been
enable to establish constitutions of government for our safety and
happiness, and particularly the national one now lately instituted’ for the
civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed, and the means we
have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and, in general, for all
the great and various favors which He has been pleased to confer upon us.
And also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and
supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech Him to
pardon our national and other transgressions; to enable us all, whether in
public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties
properly and punctually; to render our National Government a blessing to
all the people by constantly being a Government of wise, just, and
constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed; to
protect and guide all sovereigns and nations (especially such as have show
kindness to us), and to bless them with good governments, peace, and
concord; to promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue,
and the increase of science among them and us; and, generally to grant unto
all mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as He alone knows to be
best.
Given under my hand, at the city of New York, the 3d day of October, A.D.
1789.
(signed) G. Washington
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From Spark’s Washington, Vol. XII, p. 119
The following background information was submitted by Wayne Winters of
Pocatello, Idaho.
Shortly after the Thanksgiving Proclamation was written it was lost for
over a hundred years. It was apparently misplaced or attached to some
private papers in the process of moving official records from one city to
another when the capital was changed. However, it happened the original
manuscript was not in the official archives until 1921 when Dr. J. C.
Fitzpatrick, then assistant chief of the manuscripts division of the
Library of Congress “found” the proclamation. It was at an auction sale
being held at an art gallery in New York. It was written in long hand by
Wm. Jackson, secretary to President Washington and was signed by George
Washington. Dr Fitzpatrick purchased the document for $300.00 for the
Library of Congress, where it now resides.
AbG
Yes - pray to God for your Turkey you infidel
Wasn’t thanksgiving as a national holiday initiated by Lincoln - right after some conflict with Native Americans that resulted in their deaths? Something like that…
http://wilstar.com/holidays/thankstr.htm
It’s true, Lincoln officially made it a national day of thanks. Congress, in 1941 officially made it a holiday on the fourth Thursday of November.
Brad
Thanksgiving: A Native American View
By Jacqueline Keeler
Pacific News Service
Saturday 01 January 2000
I celebrate the holiday of Thanksgiving.
This may surprise those people who wonder what Native Americans think of this official U.S. celebration of the survival of early arrivals in a European invasion that culminated in the death of 10 to 30 million native people.
Thanksgiving to me has never been about Pilgrims. When I was six, my mother, a woman of the Dineh nation, told my sister and me not to sing “Land of the Pilgrim’s pride” in “America the Beautiful.” Our people, she said, had been here much longer and taken much better care of the land. We were to sing “Land of the Indian’s pride” instead.
I was proud to sing the new lyrics in school, but I sang softly. It was enough for me to know the difference. At six, I felt I had learned something very important. As a child of a Native American family, you are part of a very select group of survivors, and I learned that my family possessed some “inside” knowledge of what really happened when those poor, tired masses came to our homes.
When the Pilgrims came to Plymouth Rock, they were poor and hungry - half of them died within a few months from disease and hunger. When Squanto, a Wampanoag man, found them, they were in a pitiful state. He spoke English, having traveled to Europe, and took pity on them. Their English crops had failed. The native people fed them through the winter and taught them how to grow their food.
These were not merely “friendly Indians.” They had already experienced European slave traders raiding their villages for a hundred years or so, and they were wary - but it was their way to give freely to those who had nothing. Among many of our peoples, showing that you can give without holding back is the way to earn respect. Among the Dakota, my father’s people, they say, when asked to give, “Are we not Dakota and alive?” It was believed that by giving there would be enough for all - the exact opposite of the system we live in now, which is based on selling, not giving.
To the Pilgrims, and most English and European peoples, the Wampanoags were heathens, and of the Devil. They saw Squanto not as an equal but as an instrument of their God to help his chosen people, themselves.
Since that initial sharing, Native American food has spread around the world. Nearly 70 percent of all crops grown today were originally cultivated by Native American peoples. I sometimes wonder what they ate in Europe before they met us. Spaghetti without tomatoes? Meat and potatoes without potatoes? And at the “first Thanksgiving” the Wampanoags provided most of the food - and signed a treaty granting Pilgrims the right to the land at Plymouth, the real reason for the first Thanksgiving.
What did the Europeans give in return? Within 20 years European disease and treachery had decimated the Wampanoags. Most diseases then came from animals that Europeans had domesticated. Cowpox from cows led to smallpox, one of the great killers of our people, spread through gifts of blankets used by infected Europeans. Some estimate that diseases accounted for a death toll reaching 90 percent in some Native American communities. By 1623, Mather the elder, a Pilgrim leader, was giving thanks to his God for destroying the heathen savages to make way “for a better growth,” meaning his people.
In stories told by the Dakota people, an evil person always keeps his or her heart in a secret place separate from the body. The hero must find that secret place and destroy the heart in order to stop the evil.
I see, in the “First Thanksgiving” story, a hidden Pilgrim heart. The story of that heart is the real tale than needs to be told. What did it hold? Bigotry, hatred, greed, self-righteousness? We have seen the evil that it caused in the 350 years since. Genocide, environmental devastation, poverty, world wars, racism.
Where is the hero who will destroy that heart of evil? I believe it must be each of us. Indeed, when I give thanks this Thursday and I cook my native food, I will be thinking of this hidden heart and how my ancestors survived the evil it caused.
Because if we can survive, with our ability to share and to give intact, then the evil and the good will that met that Thanksgiving day in the land of the Wampanoag will have come full circle.
And the healing can begin.
edited…