We don’t know the exact date of the celebration we call the First Thanksgiving, but it was probably in late September or early October, soon after the Pilgrims’ crops had been harvested. The term Thanksgiving, first applied in the nineteenth century, was not used by the Pilgrims. Despite what is widely taught in schools today, the “First Thanksgiving” was not a thanks to the Indians for saving the lives of the Pilgrims; but in fact was in reverence to the blessings bestowed upon God and His gift of the abundance of their crops. God had blessed them with so much abundance that they shared it with the Indians thus strengthening their relationship with their new neighbors. This book is their story of how they fled the tyranny and persecution of the Church of England by King James rule over their religious beliefs. Many were being persecuted, imprisoned and in some cases put to death. Men, women and children, who would later be called Pilgrims, prepared themselves for a religious war – and it was at this time, in 1618, they planned their escape. We don’t know the exact date of the celebration we call the First Thanksgiving, but it was probably in late September or early October, soon after the Pilgrims’ crops had been harvested. The term Thanksgiving, first applied in the nineteenth century, was not used by the Pilgrims. Despite what is widely taught in schools today, the “First Thanksgiving” was not a thanks to the Indians for saving the lives of the Pilgrims; but in fact was in reverence to the blessings bestowed upon God and His gift of the abundance of their crops. God had blessed them with so much abundance that they shared it with the Indians thus strengthening their relationship with their new neighbors. This book is their story of how they fled the tyranny and persecution of the Church of England by King James rule over their religious beliefs. Many were being persecuted, imprisoned and in some cases put to death. Men, women and children, who would later be called Pilgrims, prepared themselves for a religious war – and it was at this time, in 1618, they planned their escape.