Thanksgiving (United States) The most prominent historic thanksgiving event in American popular culture is the 1621 celebration at the Plymouth Plantation, where the settlers held a harvest feast after a successful growing season. Autumn or early winter feasts continued sporadically in later years, first as an impromptu religious observance and later as a civil tradition. The Plymouth settlers, known as Pilgrims, had settled in land abandoned when all but one of the Patuxet Indians died in a plague. After a harsh winter killed half of the Plymouth settlers, the last surviving Patuxet, Squanto (who had learned English and avoided the plague as a
English colonial grants in North America (1621–1639) right to establish colonial settlements within a specified region. Often such patents were granted by The Crown, but at times such patents were granted secondarily, as in the case of the grant of the Province of Maine by the Plymouth Council for New England. Often such grants were overlapping and apparently contradictory. This feature was often by design, resulting in competitive colonization within a certain area by two or more private ventures. English colonial grants in North America (1621–1639) This article provides a listing and map of English colonial grants in North America during the years 1621 to 1639. Grants