Thanksgiving Day is celebrated on the fourth Thursday of
November. This holiday started almost 400 years ago in 1620 when British
colonists gave a feast of thanksgiving for a good harvest and also to
thank the Indians for their help.
Who are the Pilgrims and why do Americans celebrate Thanksgiving Day?
The English had visited America at different times starting from the
15th century. Among them were John Cabot (1498), Sir Francis Drake
(1577), Sir Humphrey Gilbert (1583) and Sir Walter Raleigh (1585).
The first successful English colony was founded in 1607 by a
group of Englishmen who sailed to Virginia. They hoped to find riches.
105 men (there were no women or children at first) landed at a place
they called Jamestown, after England’s King James I. They never found
gold but the settlement survived partly with the help of Indians, partly
because of their strong will and partly because they found tobacco
which they sold to England at a very good price.
When King James I was rulling the country, many Englishmen did
not like him. Many people also did not like the Church of England. That
is why they wanted to leave the country. Puritans wanted to find
religious freedom from the Church of England somewhere far away.
In 1620 some English families (about one hundred people) formed
the group which they called the London Company. They left England from
Plymouth on board the ship called Mayflower and sailed to America. Their harsh journey lasted for seven long weeks.
It was already winter when the ship reached the shores of
America. The weather was terrible with rain and cold wind. First, 16 men
landed and went ashore. They found some corn and brought it to the
ship. The corn was left on that coast by the Indians.
Next day was Sunday. So, all the passengers of the ship had a
rest. On Monday women went ashore to wash their clothes. Now in America
Monday is "a wash-day".
Next five weeks men from the Mayflower left the
ship and looked for a good place where they could live. The weather was
getting colder and more and more people fell ill.
Finally, they found a place that seemed suitable. There was
everything they needed — forests, fields, a small river and a harbour
for ships. They started to build a village there which they later called
New Plymouth.
King James I himself gave the Pilgrims the right to establish their own colony. Why do many American cities have English names?... The first
people who came to America did not try to invent new names for the
settlements and towns they built, and often gave a new place the same
name as the place they had come from. Along the coast of the United
States we can find such English names as Plymouth, Cambridge, London,
Boston etc. English names often appear with the word "new" as a prefix —
New England, New York, New Britain and others. Many places were named
in honour of famous Kings and Queens.