A Spanish Thanksgiving in St. Augustine, Florida

"Spaniards also held a thanksgiving, 56 years before the Pilgrims, when they feasted near St. Augustine with Florida Indians, probably on stewed pork and garbanzo beans."

"The early history of Spanish North America is well documented, as is the extensive exploration by the 16th-century French and Portuguese. So why do Americans cling to a creation myth centered on one band of late-arriving English — Pilgrims who weren't even the first English to settle New England or the first Europeans to reach Plymouth Harbor? (There was a short-lived colony in Maine and the French reached Plymouth earlier.)"

In the New York Times in 2008, Tony Horwitz, who visits Thursday 11/17, discusses Thanksgiving in light of the current immigration debate, and in light of what we know of Spanish activity in the North America. More.