There are no 17th Century sources that mention landing on a rock, but the Pilgrims called the landing site Plymouth Rock nonetheless. In 1863, President Abraham Lincoln, at the urging of Sarah Josepha Hale, editor of Godey's Lady's Book, set aside the fourth Thursday of November as Thanksgiving Day. In 1941 Congress passed a joint resolution making the fourth Thursday of November the official holiday of Thanksgiving. During the 1960s Indian activists began to gather at Plymouth Rock on Thanksgiving Day to protest the treatment of the indigenous people and to rail against a holiday based on fiction. It is a general belief that the United States government began to visualize Indians as part of the first Thanksgiving at Plymouth Rock in order to demonstrate a move toward diversity.

Source: Huffington Post November 20, 2016 21:05 UTC