lit huge bonfires. Christians would usually light big bonfires, dressed up in Halloween costumes (such as a saint or devil) and have parades, honoring the dead. During the celebrations, poorer residents begged for food. Families would give these residents soul cakes, a type of pastry — but only if they prayed for their family’s dead relatives. The church encouraged families to do this instead of leaving out food during the night. The church wanted to curb non-residents from entering the city and taking advantage of the free food. These were the origins of trick-or-treating.
When Europeans immigrated to colonial America in the 1700s they brought the tradition of Samhain-inspired Halloween. Halloween wasn’t celebrated openly at first because Christians believed it was a pagan holiday, but it was openly celebrated in Maryland. The meshing of different ethnic groups, including the Native Americans, created a new form of Halloween, closely matching modern America’s version of Halloween. The first official celebrations included public events celebrating the last harvest, where people would tell stories of the dead, read each other’s fortunes, and dance. Halloween didn’t truly become a holiday until the 1800s, when an influx of immigrants moved to America.
The celtic custom of Halloween surged into American tradition in the 1840’s by Irish immigrants fleeing their country’s potato famine, transforming into today’s version of this popular holiday. At that time, the favorite pranks in New England included tipping over outhouses and unhinging fence gates. The custom of “trick or treating” is thought to have originated not with the Irish Celts, but with a ninth-century European custom called “Souling”. On November 2, “All Souls Day”,