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
The Cruelty of the Spaniards in Peru (1609), which was translated into French in 1633. In turn, John Dryden employed "The Cruelty of the Spaniards in Peru" as a source for his 1665 play "The Indian Emperour". The Cruelty of the Spaniards in Peru The Cruelty of the Spaniards in Peru was an innovative 1658 theatrical presentation, a hybrid entertainment or masque or "operatic show", written and produced by Sir William Davenant. The music was composed by Matthew Locke. The work was significant in the evolution of English opera and musical theatre, and also of English drama; Davenant brought into the public theatre the techniques of scenery