The First U.S. Thanksgiving Was Spanish Catholic, not Pilgrim Protestant Celebrated with a Traditional Latin Mass and a Post-Communion Meal

The First Thanksgiving in What Is Now the United States
By Spanish Catholics at St. Augustine, Florida, in 1565
Not by Protestant Pilgrims at Plymouth Rock in 1620
To Which the Local Seloy Indians Brought Wild Turkey, Corn, and Squash

History books have long portrayed images of the U.S.'s first Thanksgiving in Plymouth, Massachusetts, with Protestant Pilgrims, dressed in black and white, sharing turkey with American Indians. The Pilgrims, who came to America to escape religious persecution from the Anglicans, were themselves the perpetrators of religious persecution. When they had been in power, they had gone around the English countryside destroying Anglican altars and liturgical accoutrements because the Anglican Church was too "papist" for them. No wonder they themselves were persecuted!

Recent research has proven that 55 years before the Pilgrims landed, the Spanish founder of St. Augustine, the oldest city in the United States, Pedro Menindez de Avilis, and 800 Spanish settlers assisted at a Mass of Thanksgiving. Following the Mass, Menindez arranged a post-Communion communal meal to be shared by the Spaniards and the Seloy Indians, who occupied the landing site. The Seloy Indians would have brought wild turkey, maize (corn), and squash, among other native foods.