In 1562, French explorers landed on Florida’s northeast coast and traveled up the St. Johns River into present-day Jacksonville.
Two years later, on June 29, 1564, French colonists led by Captain René Goulaine de Laudonnière (1529-74) constructed one of the first European forts in what we know today as the United States of America. This year will mark the 455 year anniversary of the Fort Caroline settlement.
French Captain, René Goulaine de Laudonnière also recorded a Thanksgiving feast on June 30, 1564, which was celebrated with the local indigenous Timucuan people and is considered one of the first Thanksgiving celebrations in America, predating the Plymouth Colony by 57 years.
One year after the French celebrated the first Thanksgiving in America and Fifty-six years before the Pilgrims celebrated their feast, Spanish explorer Don Pedro Menendez de Aviles arrived on the coast of Florida. He came ashore on September 8, 1565, naming the land on which he stepped ‘St. Augustine’ in honor of the saint on whose feast day, Aug. 28, the land was sighted. Members of the Timucua tribe, which had occupied the site for more than 4,000 years, greeted Menéndez and his group of some 800 Catholic colonists peacefully.”
But the Puritan Pilgrim thanksgiving at Plymouth Plantation (Massachusetts) gets all the press. Why?
The National Parks Service notes that the traditional Thanksgiving narrative simply left out the Florida celebrations.
“The thanksgiving at the Fort Caroline settlement was celebrated 57 years before the Puritan Pilgrim thanksgiving at Plymouth Plantation (Massachusetts) and the St. Augustine Thanksgiving was celebrated 56 years before the Puritan Pilgrim thanksgiving at Plymouth Plantation (Massachusetts), but neither become the origin of a national annual tradition. During the 18th century, British forces won out over those of France and Spain for mastery over the continent,” the NPS asserts.
“Thus, British observances, such as the annual reenactment of the Pilgrims’ harvest festival in 1621, became a national practice. After the United States became an independent country, Congress recommended one yearly day of thanksgiving for the whole nation to celebrate. George Washington suggested the date November 26.”
But down here in Florida we know we were first.
The First Thanksgiving was on Florida’s First Coast.
Photograph is a Le Moyne lithograph of Timucua Indians greeting the French
This story was originally published by Jax Examiner June, 2014