Thanksgiving - Our present day celebration is yet another whitewash version of history Our present day celebration is yet another whitewash version of history, here is the narrative of our indigenous people based on the 1st hand accounts of pilgrims:  The Massacre For Which Thanksgiving Is Named Without having the book or being able to see it online, the proclamation appears, according to Richard Drinnon, to have come from William Bradford. I’ll be buying the book. “‘Thanksgiving Day'” was first proclaimed by the Governor of the then Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1637,” as from Newell, which was John Winthrop.  But “William Bradford became the governor of Plymouth after the first governor died in 1621.”  And in “1631, John Winthrop (1588-1649) became the first elected official in America-governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony.”  They were both Puritans, they both probably said it. The following source cites Drinnon in the next paragraph, so I assume the following came from Drinnon as well. The first Official Thanksgiving was gratitude for genocide in 1637, and in 1676 – 1677 “a day was set apart for public thanksgiving,” because nearly all of them were exterminated by then. more at link below:  http://nativeamericannetroots.net/diary/288