Editorial Board
The First Immigrant Thanksgiving
A modern American debate with deep, familiar roots.
A tradition of coming and going.
Photographer: Andrew Harrer/BloombergThis article was first published in Bloomberg View on Nov. 27, 2013.
There were no Americans at the first Thanksgiving. The newer set of immigrants, recently arrived from England, considered themselves thoroughly English. And so they remained: Almost two decades after the feast, in describing the Pequot War, William Bradford lamented an Indian attack “upon the English at Connecticut.”