The question remains, where was the first Thanksgiving?
Like Rome, the Thanksgiving tradition was not built in a day but did develop in colonial Massachusetts. Two like-minded groups played a role.
In 1620 separatists founded the Plymouth Colony, making a complete break with the Church of England. Ten years later “Puritans” established the Massachusetts Bay Colony, In theory, they hoped to “purify” the Anglican Church – from a distance of 3,000 miles. Both groups shared Calvinist beliefs including an aversion to holidays, in part because they began as “holy days” in the Catholic and Anglican churches.