Let's Talk About It with Jenny White/ The History of Thanksgiving

Squanto was the name of a young Indian child who was abducted, carried to Spain and sold. After 10 years, he returned to find his tribe had been wiped out by an epidemic infection and he realized he was the last of his Patuxet tribe. 

He was there when the Mayflower landed and because he spoke English, he was the interpreter between the Pilgrims and another local tribe. He taught the Pilgrims to sow and fertilize crops. Because the crops were so plentiful that year, the Pilgrims decided to invite Squanto and some of the other tribes to join them for a dinner. This became the beginning of a yearly celebration, and in the middle of the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln prompted by a series of editorials written in the local paper, proclaimed a national Thanksgiving Day, to be celebrated on the 26th, the final Thursday of November 1863.