Across U.S. history, November 27 has repeatedly intersected with agriculture and food in ways that shaped the land, the markets that feed the nation, and the traditions that frame the farm and ranch calendar. From a pivotal 19th‑century military strike that accelerated the transformation of the Great Plains, to a New York parade that helped cement Thanksgiving’s role in the food economy, to modern observances that highlight Indigenous stewardship, the date offers a prism on how people, policy, and place have intertwined to produce America’s food system.

1868: The Washita attack and the remaking of the Plains

At dawn on November 27, 1868, the 7th U.S. Cavalry under Lt. Col. George A. Custer struck a Southern Cheyenne village led by Black Kettle along the Washita River in what is now western Oklahoma. Conducted amid snow and subzero temperatures, the attack killed Black Kettle and his wife and resulted in heavy casualties among Cheyenne noncombatants. Troops destroyed lodges and supplies and shot large numbers of horses, dismantling the community’s mobility and food security at the start of winter. Many Indigenous historians and community members remember the event as the Washita Massacre.

The consequences rippled across the Plains. The attack and ensuing winter campaigns hastened forced relocations to reservations, deepened the collapse of bison‑based economies, and cleared a political path for cattle ranching, railroads, and homestead agriculture. Within a few years, commercial bison slaughter surged; Texas cattle drives expanded north along trails that threaded newly militarized and then fenced landscapes; and the prairie’s common grazing lands increasingly gave way to private title, barbed wire, and section lines. Policies later codified this shift, including the Dawes Act of 1887, which fragmented tribal landholdings and opened “surplus” lands to non‑Native settlement, and land runs in the 1889–1893 period that brought waves of farmers to central and western Oklahoma.

Today, the Washita site is preserved as the Washita Battlefield National Historic Site. For agriculture, its legacy is tangible: it marks a turning point between Indigenous stewardship of grassland ecologies and the rise of commodity ranching and wheat farming on the Southern Plains. Current movements in regenerative grazing and tribal bison restoration explicitly reckon with those historical transformations, working to heal soils, restore native grasses, and re‑center Indigenous food systems on lands once upended by that November 27 attack.

1924: A parade that anchored a food holiday

On November 27, 1924, Macy’s staged its first Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York City. Then called the “Macy’s Christmas Parade,” it featured employees, bands, and live animals from the Central Park Zoo (the now‑iconic giant balloons would not arrive until 1927). The spectacle helped nationalize the rhythm of a late‑November, food‑centric holiday that already blended harvest festivals with modern retail seasons.

For agriculture and food marketing, the parade’s popularity coincided with—and amplified—an emerging pattern: the late‑November spike in demand for turkeys, cranberries, sweet potatoes, winter squash, apples, and bakery wheat products. As refrigerated railcars and, later, frozen foods expanded reach and shelf life, the turkey industry shifted from largely seasonal production to year‑round capacity while still planning hatch cycles and feed programs around the holiday peak. Cranberry growers developed cooperatives and brand marketing in the 20th century to stabilize prices and smooth out the high stakes of a crop that leans heavily on Thanksgiving demand. The parade became a cultural signpost that, for farmers, packers, and grocers, also signaled the culmination of a carefully orchestrated supply chain.

1941: Thanksgiving on November 27—and a fixed marketing clock

Thanksgiving has not always been pegged to a single rule, and in the late 1930s the date became a national debate after President Franklin D. Roosevelt tried moving it earlier to lengthen the shopping season. In 1941, the holiday fell on November 27—the fourth Thursday of the month—which Congress soon codified by law on December 26, 1941.

Locking the holiday to the fourth Thursday standardized the late‑fall food calendar. Poultry processors increasingly coordinated grow‑outs and cold‑storage draws to the predictable date; produce shippers timed fall harvests, controlled‑atmosphere storage, and rail car allocations; and bakeries and dairy plants adjusted labor and logistics to the surge in pies, rolls, butter, and cream. The reliability of a fixed national holiday reduced costly mismatches between farm output and retail windows, a small but enduring example of how policy choices reverberate through the food system.

2009: Native American Heritage Day spotlight on food sovereignty

The Friday after Thanksgiving is federally designated as Native American Heritage Day. The first such observance fell on November 27, 2009. For agriculture, the day has become a platform to highlight Indigenous knowledge in land stewardship and foodways—seed keeping, dryland farming, controlled burning, and buffalo, salmon, and corn‑based food systems that long predate the United States.

Many tribes and Native organizations are rebuilding regional food economies through bison herds, traditional varieties of corn, beans, and squash, and investments in processing, markets, and nutrition programs. Observances on this date often draw a direct line from historic dispossession—including events like the Washita attack—to today’s efforts to restore sovereignty, ecological health, and community food security.

Other November 27 intersections with the farm and food world

• Thanksgiving itself has periodically landed on November 27 in various years (including 1941 and 2014), shaping when commodity markets close or run shortened sessions, when holiday fresh and frozen products ship, and when retailers finalize seasonal promotions.
• Public health and food safety alerts have occasionally arrived in the Thanksgiving window in different years, prompting rapid supply chain pivots by growers and grocers—reminders that holiday timing can magnify both upside demand and downside risk.

Why this date still matters

Across centuries, November 27 has been a hinge date for U.S. agriculture because it sits at the nexus of land history, policy timetables, and the country’s most food‑centric holiday. The Plains story underscores how power and policy can rapidly reconfigure landscapes and livelihoods. The parade and fixed holiday underscore how culture and law combine to set a reliable clock for production and logistics. And Native American Heritage Day underscores that the future of American agriculture can be stronger—and more resilient—when it listens to the first stewards of these lands.