Thanksgiving 1565 in Florida
Yesterday was Thanksgiving in the U.S., and for those who thought about its history rather than then turkey or the football, it probably involved reflection on the events of 1621 in Plymouth, Massachusetts.
Now, however, the Florida Museum of Natural History is putting in a claim on behalf of Spanish explorer Pedro Menendez de Aviles, 800 Spanish colonists and the Timucua Indians native to the area we now know as Saint Augustine. The meal, including a Mass of Thanksgiving, wouldn’t have included what we think of as Thanksgiving foods, but rather salted pork, ship’s bread and red wine from Spain and garbanzos and yucca grown locally.
Historic eyewitness accounts describe the event as a scene marked by diversity, with colonists and Timucuan people in attendance; more than 400 artifacts are on display at the museum. For a fuller description of the events and the historical view, click HERE for an article prepared by the University of Florida Newsroom.
The debate in Florida too is which city is actually the nations oldest. St Augustine claims it is because it’s the oldest continuously occupied city by European settlers. Some in Pensacola, claim their city is because they were settled before St. Augustine.