San Elizario, Texas. On April 30, 1598, an expedition traveling north from Mexico held a Roman Catholic service of thanksgiving along the banks of the Rio Grande. Led by the Spanish explorer Don Juan de Oñate y Salazar, the travelers had set up camp at what is now the dusty town of San Elizario.

      Oñate, the son of a Spanish noble family, had been commissioned by King Philip II to seize the land north of the Rio Grande and claim it for the Spanish Empire. His expeditionary force included more than four hundred men, women, and children. Some were soldiers ready to fight to secure the Spanish claims; others were settlers prepared to take up residence in the uncharted territories of Nueva México. The settlers brought with them thousands of sheep, pigs, goats, cattle, mules, and horses for use in their new homes, and the expedition stretched for miles as it wended its way north from Santa Barbara in central Mexico toward the Rio Grande. By the time the travelers reached what is now San Elizario, they had been on the road for three months and had traveled hundreds of miles across the unforgiving terrain of the Chihuahuan Desert.

      The expedition’s scribe, Captain Gaspar Pérez de Villagrá, chronicled the journey in an epic poem, Historica de la Nueva México. Villagrá provides vivid descriptions of the San Elizario Thanksgiving and the circumstances leading up to it.²

      By the time the expedition reached the Rio Grande, Villagrá writes, the travelers had been without food or water for four days. Their suffering was so intense that they “were almost all wishing for death.”³ Horses staggered into the river, drinking so much that two of the animals died when their full stomachs burst. Two additional horses, blinded by starvation, ventured too far into the rushing water and were swept away. The two-legged travelers also drank their fill. Thirsty men drank so much that they appeared to be drunk. In Villagrá’s evocative words, they were:

       Stretched out upon the watery sand,

       As swollen, dropsical, gasping,

       As they had all been toads . . .4

      Having assuaged their thirst, the toad-travelers rested under the cottonwood trees along the river for ten days, gathering strength and preparing to move on.

      But before they resumed their journey, Oñate called for a day of thanksgiving, ordering that a makeshift church be created in a clearing in the woods. He commanded that the clearing for the thanksgiving Mass be large enough to hold the entire expeditionary force and an unspecified number of Indians.

      When the appointed day arrived, Franciscan missionaries who were traveling with the expedition sang Mass, and Oñate read a proclamation known as La Toma—the Taking—declaring that he was claiming all the land north of the Rio Grande for Spain. Then a play—a “great drama,” writes Villagrá—was performed for the benefit of the Indians, depicting how all of New Mexico welcomed the arrival of the Catholic Church. It was the first play performed in what is now the United States.

      Villagrá characterizes the Spaniards’ relations with the Indians as peaceful and friendly. The “great numbers of barbarian warriors” were helpful to the Spanish, and the Spanish were respectful and kind to the warriors, “showing ourselves agreeable friends.”⁵ The Indians directed the Spanish to a safe place for the expedition to cross the river: “the “passage,” or el paso, which gave its name to the city that grew up there. The poet also describes in colorful detail a feast that took place while Oñate’s expedition was resting at San Elizario—though possibly not on the day of thanksgiving itself. The Spanish shot cranes, ducks, and geese for the meal, and the Indians contributed fish. The meat and fish were cooked on spits and in the coals of a great bonfire. The day after their thanksgiving ceremony, the Spaniards packed up and moved on.

      Historica de la Nueva México was published in 1610, but it took almost four centuries for the San Elizario Thanksgiving to become well known. In the late 1980s, local history buffs in San Elizario took up the story and used it to promote their town as a tourist destination. They inaugurated a festival that included re-enactments of La Toma and the Thanksgiving feast; they initiated a friendly competition with Plymouth about which town deserved to call itself the home of the First Thanksgiving; and they drummed up local media coverage, which in turn generated attention in the national press.

      State politicians also took up the cause. In 1990, the Texas House of Representatives passed a resolution proclaiming that the First Thanksgiving in the United States had been held at San Elizario, not Plymouth. In 1991, Governor Ann Richards issued a proclamation declaring April 28, 1598 as “the first true Thanksgiving in the United States,”⁶ and, in what must go down in history as one of the biggest acts of Texas chutzpah, she called upon the governor of Massachusetts to follow suit. In 1995, Governor George W. Bush appointed a commission to plan activities to mark the quadricentennial in 1998 of Oñate’s colonizing mission. In 2001, Governor Rick Perry proclaimed April 30 as the official day of the First Thanksgiving for Texas.

      In recent years, Texans have backed off a bit on the idea of San Elizario as the home of the true First Thanksgiving. San Elizarians still host a Thanksgiving festival at the end of April, with a re-enactment of the 1598 ceremony, but the proceedings focus broadly on the early history of the region. A recent festival included a scholarly discussion of the role of Franciscan missionaries, a history of viticulture in the Southwest, and a presentation on seventeenth-century musical instruments.

      Al Borrego, president of the local Genealogical and Historical Society, sums up Texans’ new attitude on the First Thanksgiving when he asks: “Are we going to get the president of the United States to change the date of Thanksgiving?” Borrego answers his own question: “I don’t think so.” Besides, he adds, “I like turkey.”⁷