Transatlantic voyages have been lengthy and threatening for European colonists unfamiliar with the Americas. Engraving by Theodor de Bry, stated to be based mostly on a misplaced authentic portray by Jacques le Moyne.
Thanksgiving has its roots in European traditions. All throughout Europe, it was customary to present because of God after the yearly harvest and different necessary occasions. Within the age of colonization, it grew to become customary for expeditions to present thanks after finishing a profitable voyage. The American vacation of Thanksgiving has its roots in such celebrations held by English settlers in Jamestown, Virginia, in 1610 and in Plymouth, Massachusetts, in 1621, however the custom is much older.
Within the Americas, the custom of celebrating Thanksgiving on the completion of a protracted journey goes all the best way again to Christopher Columbus’s first voyage throughout the Atlantic in 1492. On Sept. twenty fifth of that yr, Martin Alonzo, captain of the Pinta, reported that he noticed land. Columbus “fell on his knees and returned because of God, and Martin Alonzo together with his crew repeated, “Gloria in excelsis Deo.” Comically, it turned out that what Alonzo noticed was only a cloud; the expedition wouldn’t attain land till Oct. twelfth.
Probably the primary identified phrases of Thanksgiving stated by a European in what’s now the continental United States got here from Juan Ponce de León. When his expedition noticed the East Coast of Florida in 1513, Ponce de León stated, “Thanks be to Thee, O Lord, who has permitted me to see one thing new.” A number of later conquistadors are recorded as saying phrases of thanks and holding ceremonies of Thanksgiving in Florida and elsewhere.
Fort Caroline beneath development. Engraving by Theodor de Bry, stated to be based mostly on a misplaced authentic portray by Jacques le Moyne.
In 1564, French colonists beneath René Goulaine de Laudonnière sailed into the St. Johns River, which they referred to as the River of Could. Their aim was to discover a appropriate place to construct a brand new settlement to function a haven for the Huguenots — a French Protestant sect — and declare Florida for France. On June twenty ninth, they selected a spot by the St. Johns Bluff as the location of their settlement, Fort Caroline. The positioning was throughout the territory of the Saturiwa, the Mocama Timucua chiefdom who lived alongside the river and the barrier islands round its mouth. Laudonnière and the principal chief, often known as Saturiwa, solid initially pleasant relations and exchanged presents.
The next day, June thirtieth, 1564, the French rose at daybreak for a ceremony of Thanksgiving earlier than starting work. As Laudonnière wrote in his account of Fort Caroline:
“The following morning at dawn I ordered a trumpet to sound in order that we may assemble and provides because of God for our favorable and joyful arrival. We sang songs of thanksgiving to God and prayed that it could please Him of His holy grace to proceed His accustomed goodness towards us, His poor servants, and to present us assist in all our enterprises so that each one would possibly redound to His nice glory and to the development of our king. The prayers being ended, everybody started to take braveness.”
The fashionable reconstruction of the French fort at Fort Caroline Nationwide Memorial.
Laudonnière doesn’t say which hymns have been sung, however it could have been a variety from the Huguenot Psalter, first revealed by John Calvin in 1539. Laudonnière additionally doesn’t point out a meal going down after the ceremony, but when there was one, it doubtless comprised the ships’ meager rations and native meals that the Saturiwa had earlier given to the French. French ship rations comprised largely dried salted beef, hardtack ship’s biscuit and cider. In response to a member of the expedition, the artist Jaques le Moyne, the provisions gifted by the Saturiwa have been rather more various, together with “grains of maize roasted, or floor into flour, or complete ears of it; smoked lizards or different wild animals, akin to they take into account nice delicacies; and numerous sorts of roots, some for meals, and a few for drugs.”
Baptista Boazio’s 1589 map of St. Augustine. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.
The French presence in Florida sparked a reprisal from the Spanish, who had claimed the land since 1513. A Spanish expedition led by Pedro Menéndez de Avilés had the aim of evicting the French and establishing a everlasting settlement and defenses. In the end, this may result in the seize of Fort Caroline and the execution of a lot of the French settlers.
On August 28, 1565, Menéndez’s expedition sighted land and anchored at what’cs now often known as Matanzas Inlet. After spending the following few days reconnoitering and skirmishing with the French, they returned to the inlet on September 6, touchdown close to the Timucua city of Seloy at what’s now the Fountain of Youth Archaeological Park. The Spanish took over Seloy and fortified it as their base of operations. Menéndez named the settlement St. Augustine, because the day they first noticed land is the feast day of St. Augustine of Hippo.
Artist’s interpretation of the primary Catholic mass held at St. Augustine. Courtesy of Florida Reminiscence.
On September 8, the feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Menéndez organized a proper continuing in honor of the fleet’s arrival. In response to Father Francisco López de Mendoza Grajales, the expedition’s priest, “the final landed with many banners unfold, to the sound of trumpets and salutes of artillery.” López, who was already ashore, took a cross and went to satisfy Menéndez, singing “Te Deum laudamus,” a hymn of thanksgiving. Menéndez and his firm knelt and embraced the cross, and López carried out a solemn mass in honor of the Virgin Mary. López wrote that quite a few the Seloy have been in attendance for the ceremony and adopted together with the unfamiliar proceedings.
After the mass, one of many first within the continental U.S., Menéndez continued with one other ceremony taking formal possession of Florida. One other chronicler of early St. Augustine, Gonzalo Solís de Merás, wrote that after these proceedings, Menéndez hosted a meal for the Spanish colonists and the Seloy. He doesn’t point out what was served, however it could have prominently featured typical Spanish naval provisions akin to hardtack ship biscuits, wine and cocido (a stew of salted pork, garbanzo beans and garlic), and presumably native meals introduced by the Seloy.
The Thanksgivings celebrated by the French and Spanish colonists of Fort Caroline and St. Augustine have been one-time affairs, not repeated just like the English celebrations in Virginia and Massachusetts. As such, they have been largely unknown till the twentieth century. Nonetheless, these accounts supply a glimpse of what a communal celebration was like within the First Coast for a few of its earliest European visitors.
Article by Invoice Delaney. Contact Invoice at wdelaney@moderncities.com.