On September 8, 1565, Admiral Pedro Menéndez de Avilés and 800 Spanish settlers founded the city of St. Augustine in Spanish La Florida. As soon as they were ashore, the landing party celebrated a Mass of Thanksgiving. Afterward, Don Menéndez set out a meal and invited the native Seloy tribe  to join them in the feast and festival.

The celebrant of the Mass was St. Augustine’s first pastor, Fr. Francisco Lopez de Mendoza Grajales, and the feast day  was that of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary. In his personal chronicle, Fr. Lopez wrote that “the Indians imitated all they saw done.”

What was the meal that followed? From the records of the time, it would have been cocido, a stew made from salted pork and garbanzo beans with garlic seasoning, accompanied by hard sea biscuits and red wine. If the Seloy contributed to the meal, then the menu could have included turkey, venison, gopher tortoise, mullet, drum, sea catfish, maize, beans and squash.

This was the first Mass and public act of thanksgiving in the first permanent European settlement in North America. It took place 56 years before the Puritan Pilgrim thanksgiving at Plymouth Plantation.

Today the site is marked by a 250 foot cross which stands on the original landing site, and reenactments of that first Thanksgiving are made. Just 300 yards away is the Castillo de San Marcos, at what is now the Nombre de Dios Mission.

In commemoration of this historic and epic adventure of the Spanish explorers, TIA wishes our Readers, Supporters and Donors a most blessed Catholic Thanksgiving.

2024

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