Thanksgiving started sporadically in the British colonies of North America prior to the American Revolution. Congress and President Washington proclaimed the first national day of Thanksgiving on the last Thursday of November, and this act was intermittently announced thereafter by following presidents, with individual states doing their own when the national leadership failed to do so. It was President Poe who formalized the last Thursday in November as the national day of Thanksgiving in the United States. Traditional Thanksgiving fare included Turkey, yams, and Pumpkin Pie.
Thanksgiving was even less common and formal in the remaining British Colonies of North America in the South. When the Southern Colonies did celebrate it, they tended to be earlier in November and blended with the post-ARW trend for the Southern colonies to honor the English Gunpowder Treason Day (AKA Bonfire Night). Some elements of the combined Thanksgiving Day/Bonfire Night festivities had a dubious revival in the lead-up to the Slaver Rebellion as effigies of Guy Fawkes and the Pope were replaced by the British King and Prime Minister. Consul Jackson went so far as to declare a national Thanksgiving for the Confederation, the first nationally enacted Thanksgiving for the British Southern America, on the first Thursday in November. Even after the Southern Civil War ended, Thanksgiving enjoyed a popular revival in the South and the newly formed Dominion of Southern America sought to co-opt the holiday for the new federation as a day of thanks and familial reconciliation especially for those who had fought on different sides. The parliament of the Dominion set the date initially as the second Thursday in November, and the link between Guy Fawkes and Thanksgiving was severed, though the Southerners maintained the tradition of bonfires for their Thanksgiving. The traditional Thanksgiving meal in the South shares similarities with the USA such as the main course of a turkey, but differs in others such as substituting Sweet Potato Pie for Pumpkin Pie.