The Origins of Abraham Lincoln’s Thanksgiving
Squanto and Sarah Josepha Buel Hale had something to do with it
It is important to note that the Pilgrims were thankful to the American Indians for survival when they arrived in Massachusetts on the Mayflower. They meant to go to Manhattan (apparently that was a hot spot even in 1621) but due to bad weather, they ended up landing on the shores of Cape Cod.
It was a miracle, they tell us. In the midst of rough waves, they were gently deposited on the beach right in front of an empty village. One hundred and six Pilgrims were on the journey to the colonies, but only fifty-three survived.
They moved right in.
Of course, they couldn’t know that the original villagers, the Patuxet Indians, had died of a smallpox epidemic years before.
Another miracle was Tisquantum, a Patuxet Indian, otherwise known as Squanto. Having been kidnapped years earlier, taken to Spain, and sold into slavery, he had escaped and returned to his home village in 1619 only to find it empty.
The village where he grew up? The pilgrims lived there now.
He had escaped the epidemic and was the only Patuxet Indian left.
