As we all know, Thanksgiving started not with Catholics, but with Protestant English settlers (read Pilgrims) in the New World. Specifically, the day commemorates a somewhat obscure harvest feast in Plymouth, Massachusetts in 1621.
But did you know that the very first feast of Thanksgiving in America took place not in 17th century New England but, actually, in 1565 among the Catholic settlers of Spanish Florida in the settlement of St. Augustine?
And Squanto, the Patuxet Indian who gave assistance to the English settlers of Plymouth during their first winter, was later converted and baptized by Franciscan missionaries? Yep, Squanto was Catholic!
There's more Thanksgiving trivia to be found in an excellent post by Taylor Marshall which you can read here.
