Florida says they had the first Thanksgiving in 1565

[Thom Little]

Someone always has to be a party pooper.;)


We were first. Sure, Massachusetts has its pilgrims, its Mayflower, its turkey and corn. But when it comes to Thanksgiving, Florida historians have been saying the same thing for years: It happened first in the Sunshine State — with salt pork, sea biscuits and garbanzo beans.

In the 1560s, French and Spanish settlers arrived separately on Florida's northern coast, and each celebrated with prayer and a thanksgiving feast. The Spanish gathering at St. Augustine even featured guests from a local American Indian tribe.

"They were thanking God, they had food, they said prayers," said Paul George, a history professor at Miami-Dade College. "They were the first ones to essentially give us a recorded celebration."

It wasn't until 1621, more than 50 years later, that Pilgrims came to Plymouth, Mass., and held the feast that was later dubbed the first Thanksgiving. But the Florida celebrations didn't become widely known until the second half of the 20th century, long after Abraham Lincoln's 1863 declaration that the last Thursday in November would be the national day of Thanksgiving.

Michael Gannon, a University of Florida professor, upset New Englanders in the 1980s when he started pointing out that a book he wrote decades earlier established that the first Thanksgiving took place in St. Augustine on Sept. 8. 1565. They called him the Grinch who stole Thanksgiving. But no one really disputed that Pedro Menendez de Aviles, a Spanish explorer, invited the Timucua Indians to dinner in St. Augustine in 1565 after a thanksgiving Mass celebrating the explorers' safe arrival.

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/state/content/local_news/epaper/2005/11/24/m1a_thanks_1124.html

[EFerrari]

1. Garbanzo beans?

:wtf:

LOL! I didn't know that. :)

[ClintonTyree]

2. So I guess all of the blue-blooded jerk-offs.........

who condescendingly crow about their relatives coming over on the Mayflower are nothing more than immigrant squatters who haven't a drop of "blue-blood" within them? ;)
History has once again been successfully re-written. Now the residents of Florida will be fighting to see who the TRUE "blue-bloods" are. That'll be a tough call in Florida. Anyone who's lived there more than 30 years is considered a native and any 7-11 built before 1970 is a State Historical Landmark. :)

[TallahasseeGrannie]

7. As a genealogist with Florida forebears

I can tell you this: NOBODY came to FL in the early days unless they were hiding from somebody else! Now, this wasn't true back in the fifteen hundreds, but if you are blueblood FL you got some black sheep back there! Like me. I have a g-grandfather who fathered three sons by three sisters. Wild times!

[soup]

3. Yep. and after dinner, since there was no television football,

we'd all go out to the casino. Roll a few dice, spin a few wheels, toss back a couple tankards.

Never worried about hangovers back then, either. We'd just head over to Ponce's Fountain and dip a ladle.

*sigh. Those were the good old days.

[FloridaPat]

4. Actually now that I think of it, I imagine every ship that came from Europ

did the same thing. After months at sea sleeping on wooden floors, you can bet that would be the first thing I would do - thank God for a safe journay, land, and fresh water.

[Dudley_DUright]

5. If you have ever visited St. Augustine, FL you would see that

they claim to have "the oldest" practically everything (oldest house,oldest schoolhouse, oldest store...). They do have a point however, since St. Augustine was settled more than 50 years earlier than Plymouth.

[rug]

6. We need a recount.

[HereSince1628]

8. Like who cares? Don'cha think some folks from Asia had the 1st

feast of celebration many thousands of years before that one?

[lpbk2713]

9. Pterodactyl roasted over a campfire?

:shrug:

[USA_1]

10. Another Timucua legend ...

John Smith and Pocahontas:


The Tainos And The Pocahontas Story

Pocahontas is another lie! Many Taino know that Pocahontas was a not even in the picture 200 years, before the original story was being read by some White Man named John Smith. He read the Garcilasco De Vega story, about a captive Spanish man called "Ortiz" and his account of 1528. This account was later published in 1557 in Lisbon, Portugal and later translated into English in 1605. This account by Garcillasco De Vega about Juan (John) Ortiz's encounter with the Taino-Timucua Indigenous Cacique (Chieftist) near Tampa Bay in Bimini (Florida). Her real name was Caciquea Ulele (Chieftist). The use of the word "Barbacoa", a word that survived as "Barbecue" is of the Taino Language, meaning the fire pit.
It seems that the father of Ulele, Cacique Hirrihugua of the Yucayeque (Village) of Ucita, was going to have Juan (John) Ortiz put to death, because the Spaniard Narvaez had cut off his nose and killed his Mother. The daugther Ulele pleaded with her father to spare Ortiz's life. The next day Caciquea Ulele took Ortiz to the nieghboring Guacara Yucayeque (Village) of Cacique (Chief) Moscoso. The rest is nothing but a little white lie told by John Smith or John Ortiz an English manor a Spaniard? The Powhatan people do not have our Taino southern traditions; furthermore we do not speak the Powhatan language of the North-East. We Taino Indigenous Nation of the Caribbean & Florida know the truth of Juan Ortiz. It was not until 500 years later on in November 18th, 1993 that we have made this statement via our supporting evidence of traditional language and customs of the Taino-Timucua people of Bimini (Florida). Please do note that many historians of Florida support these historical facts.