President George Washington issued a proclamation naming Thursday, November 26, 1789 as a "Day of Public Thanksgiving". This marked the first national celebration. President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed a National Thanksgiving Day to be held on the last Thursday of November. This was proclaimed during the height of the Civil War in October of 1863. President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed a resolution on December 26, 1941, thus establishing the fourth Thursday in November as the Federal Thanksgiving Day, meaning the holiday could be as early as November 22nd or as late as November 28th. 

Nearly all of what historians have learned about the first Thanksgiving comes from a single eyewitness report: a letter written in December 1621 by Edward Winslow, one of the 100 or so people who sailed from England aboard the Mayflower in 1620 and founded Plymouth Colony in Massachusetts. William Bradford, Plymouth’s governor in 1621, wrote briefly of the event in Of Plymouth Plantation, his history of the colony, but that was more than 20 years after the feast itself. According to this account, the historic event didn’t happen on the fourth Thursday in November, as it does today—and it wasn’t known as Thanksgiving. In fact, it took place over three days sometime between late September and mid-November in 1621, and was considered a harvest celebration. The three-day celebration included feasting, games and military exercises, and there was definitely an amount of diplomacy between the colonists and the native attendees as well. [ 2 ]  

The Wampanoag suggested a mutually beneficial relationship, in which the Pilgrims would exchange European weaponry for Wampanoag for food. With the help of an English-speaking Patuxet Indian named Tisquantum (not Squanto; he spoke English because he was kidnapped and sold in the European slave trade before making his way back to America), the Pilgrims produced a bountiful supply of food that summer. For their part, the Wampanoag were able to defend themselves against the Narragansett. The feast of indigenous foods that took place in October 1621, after the harvest, was one of thanks, but it more notably symbolized the rare, peaceful coexistence of the two groups. [ 3 ] 

Anti-Thanksgiving views typically come from the Left by those who connect Thanksgiving to the slaughter of Native American Indians and the taking of "their land".  However, Thanksgiving highlights the positive experience of two cultures coming together for a meal, not the battles that followed. Native Americans were warring against each other long before the pilgrims arrived. This has always been the nature of man. It makes sense for an Atheist to reject Thanksgiving, (Why would an Atheist thank God?) although that isn't always the case. It is not the case for Americans who haven't been swept away by anti-American views. 

Native American Theology is not rooted in truth. They are thankful to The Great Spirit. Their belief is pantheistic in the sense that god manifests in all things. So they will worship the creation rather than the one true God. A quote is posted on the National Museum of the American Indian website under American Indian Perspectives on Thanksgiving : "We are all thankful to our Mother, the Earth, for she gives us all that we need for life"  (Haudenosaunee Thanksgiving Address. The Haudenosaunee Confederacy is made up of: the Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas, and Senecas).

Video - Trucker Radio 112620 - Thanksgiving 2020 

Video - History of the Holidays: History of Thanksgiving - History Channel 

As you read President Lincoln's Proclamation, ask yourself a couple questions.

1) Who is being thanked? 

2) Why do some people believe America is not a Christian nation? 

We think of India as a Hindu nation, China as a Buddhist nation, Israel as a Jewish nation, Saudi Arabia as an Islamic Nation, although in all cases other religious beliefs are held there, in some countries much to their demise. So why is there so much push back on the founding of our Christian nation? We can hold to this view without rejecting freedom of religion. Christians don't believe America should officially be a Christian nation in the sense that everyone must submit to Christian belief. Christians are citizens of the kingdom of God.  

Washington, D.C.           

October 3, 1863           

By the President of the United States of America         

A Proclamation

The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God. 

In the midst of a civil war of unequalled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign States to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict; while that theatre has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union. Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defence, have not arrested the plough, the shuttle or the ship; the axe has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege and the battle-field; and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom. No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy. 

It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American People. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. 

And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity and Union. In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the Seal of the United States to be affixed. Done at the City of Washington, this Third day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the United States the Eighty-eighth. [ 1 ] 

By the President: Abraham Lincoln

William H. Seward, Secretary of State

Cited Sources: Abraham Lincoln Online . org [ 1 ] ,  UPDATED:NOV 16, 2020 Colonists at the First Thanksgiving Were Mostly Men Because Women Had Perished - History.com [ 2 ] , Americanindian.si.edu [ 3 ] ,