The Pilgrims Were!
THE “FIRST THANKSGIVING” MAY NOT HAVE BEEN THE FIRST “THANKSGIVING”!
It’s sad that so much of truthful American history is being, or has already been, forgotten, consigned to Big Brother’s “memory hole” of left wing political correctness or “woke” insanity that infests what passes for public “education” in the U.S. A case in point is the story of what for a long time has been considered as the “First Thanksgiving”---the one we’ve always heard about—the one that took place in Plymouth, Massachusetts, not the mostly unknown but probable true “firstThanksgiving” in America that took place in Jamestown, Virginia soon after those settlers arrived around 1608 (of course, the folks in St. Augustine, Florida claim that they celebrated the “first Thanksgiving” service sometime around 1565, long before the Jamestown settlers---but that’s a story for another time).
The coming of the “Saints and Strangers”—the people we call the Pilgrims---to the desolate and bleak shores of North America in the frigid Fall of 1620 should be as well known to our people—both young and old--- as is the story of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, but sadly, Rudolph wins out every time. The coming of these early Pilgrim “Forefathers and Mothers” is one of the most unique chapters in American history. However, a bit of Pilgrim or Christian “Separatist” history is required before proceeding to relate the socialist beginnings of our Pilgrim ancestors and the high price they paid for that mistake. I quote from the booklet, Pilgrims Then And Now, written by Rev. Gary Marks and first published in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania by The Society of Mayflower Descendants in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in 1990:
“The Pilgrim story has its foundations in a few very basic ideas or principles. It is the story of a people of faith and courage who gave historical identity to values which have become extremely influential in the formation of democracy. The Pilgrims themselves were not seeking to establish a “democracy” per se, but it required democratic ideas to establish order in both the religious and civil spheres of their existence.
“The famed “Mayflower Compact” is a civil extension of the COVENANT which was the foundation of their idea of the church. In 1606 in the tiny hamlet of Scrooby, England those who were to come to be known as Pilgrims became a “gathered” community. They did so on the basis of what seems to be a simple and uncontroversial agreement---the “Covenant”. This agreement, or religious ‘compact’, contained ideas which were destined to influence, even if indirectly, the very foundations of modern democracy. It must be remembered that in 1606 in England it was TREASONOUS to join voluntary associations or to form a church outside the (official) Church of England. Yet, that is precisely the risk which these determined people were willing to take in order to live by their convictions. The (original Pilgrim) ‘Covenant’ itself has not survived, but a paraphrase of it has been preserved in William Bradford’s (the long time Governor of Plymouth Plantation) (book) ‘Of Plymouth Plantation’:
A “COVENANT OF THE LORD” WAS THE SEPARATISTS’ FIRST CHURCH GOVERNMENT. IT MADE THEM “LAW BREAKERS” IN THE EYES OF THE ENGLISH KING.
‘So many, therefore, of these professors as saw the evil of these things in these parts, and whose hearts the Lord had touched with heavenly zeal for His truth, they shook off this yoke of antichristian bondage, and as the Lord’s free people joined themselves (by a covenant of the Lord) unto a church estate, in the fellowship of the Gospel, to walk in all His ways made known, or to be made known unto them, according to their best endeavors, whatsoever it should cost them, the Lord assisting them.’
“This Covenant effectually ALIENATED the Scrooby congregation from both (the official) church and state and made of those who would be among the Pilgrims CRIMINALS in the eyes of English law. Their belief in self-determination would cost them plenty, no doubt far more than they ever imagined when they ‘owned’ the Covenant in the sleepy village of Scrooby. The ‘Covenant’ gave rights to every individual who
made up the ‘separating’ church. This meant that the congregation would accept no authority, ecclesiastical or civil, above the decisions at which they had arrived by mutual consent. Their ideas were motivated, not by a desire to create a democracy, but by their interpretation of what church organization should be, as revealed in the New Testament…. The ‘Covenant’ was…the model which the Pilgrims followed in creating the “Mayflower Compact” (in November of 1620) which would eventually become an important document in the development of a free society in New England and beyond.”
The arrival of our Pilgrim Forefathers and Mothers in New England in 1620 is a turning point in the long battle for religious and political freedom that Christians have been waging for many centuries. What today’s Americans ignore, overlook, or more likely are totally unaware of is that the Pilgrim settlement at Plymouth, Massachusetts marked the first SOCIALIST settlement in the new world (European settlers, that is. Some “Native People’s” tribes were run on somewhat socialist principles). The lesson we all need to learn or relearn, and remember, but that has been purged from our cultural memory, is that this early experiment in socialism (communism) failed within the first three years of the colony’s existence, and for their very survival the Pilgrims turned to what we know today as “the free enterprise” system, and they never returned to ‘socialism’!
Rev. Gary Marks, in the booklet, Pilgrims Then And Now, mentioned above, takes up the story of their attempt at “Christian Socialism”, and its dismal failure:
“The colony of what Bradford called “old comers” faced an enormous and unfair debt to be paid (back) to the Merchant Adventurers (in England) who had financed their voyage…. A last minute change in the terms of the agreement forced on the Pilgrims by their London financiers REQUIRED them to be governed by a ‘communal’ system…. (T)he Pilgrims were to have all things in common, each receiving an equal share of food, shelter, etc. This communal arrangement proved disastrous. The young men did not want to work for the wives and children of older men. The good worker received no more that the poor worker. Wives did not relish
washing clothes and dressing meat for others outside their own homes, considering it a kind of slavery.”
THEIR “COMMON COURSE AND CONDITION” ECONOMIC SYSTEM ALMOST DESTROYED THE PILGRIMS!
In other words, the Pilgrim’s financial backers—their ‘bankers’---forced them to set up their new colony as a “share the wealth” communist/socialist community. Nobody owned anything (and they were NOT happy, Klaus Schwab, you disgusting fascist)! That which was grown or produced, including beaver skins trapped or traded with the local Native People, belonged to the community as a whole, supposedly in order to raise the funds to pay back their investors in England. The Pilgrims euphemistically called their system, “common course and condition”, according to Bradford. Those Pilgrims that survived the ‘great sickness’ and ‘the starving time’ of the first brutal year in Plymouth labored under this socialist/communal system from the first winter of 1620-21 until their ‘hungry spring’ of 1623. Then the surviving Pilgrims (of whom half or more had already died), at Governor Bradford’s suggestion, all agreed to change their economy to a system of free enterprise, under which they prospered greatly.
GOV. WILLIAM BRADFORD WAS A TRUE HERO—HIS DECISION PROBABLY SAVED THE LIVES OF ALL THE PILGRIMS WHO WERE STILL ALIVE IN 1623!
William Bradford, the long-time Governor of Plymouth Colony, tells us
why he and his fellow Pilgrims made the change, in a book he wrote, titled “Of Plimouth Plantation” (I’ve substituted modern English for Elizabethan English):
“The Pilgrims weren’t long under this ‘common course and condition until it was found to breed much confusion & discontent, & retard employment that would have been to their benefit and comfort. For young men that were most able and fit for labor and service did repine that they should spend their time & strength to work for other men’s wives and children, without any recompense. The strong…had no more in division of food & clothes than he that was weak. Upon the point all being to have alike, and all to do alike, they thought themselves in the like condition, and one as good as another. And so, if it did not cut off those relations that God has set among men, yet it did at least diminish and take of the mutual respects that should be preserved among them.”
GOD PROVIDED FOOD FOR THEIR 1621 “HARVEST CELEBRATION” VIA THE LOCAL NATIVE PEOPLE, WHO PROVIDED MUCH NEEDED MEAT AND JOINED THE PILGRAMS IN THAT CELEBRATION FOR 3 DAYS.
While there was some sort of a “harvest celebration” sometime in the Fall of 1621 (now always referred inaccurately to as “The First Thanksgiving” celebration). In actuality had it not been for the extra food and game brought to that celebration by the local Native People, (ninety of whom, including Chief Massasoit and his wives, joined in to celebrate with the colonists for three days), the Pilgrims would have been hard-pressed to have much of a ‘celebration’, considering that half of them had died by then. By the Fall of 1621 the surviving Pilgrims gathered in their very small harvest of crops, and in books by both Pilgrims William Bradford and Edward Winslow, it was reported that those who survived the first brutal winter had regained their health, and that all of them had “enough food”, which may have been “stretching the truth” a bit. Hence the reason to have a “Harvest Celebration” or what has long been called, “The First Thanksgiving”. The actual date of this three-day celebration is unknown, but that the Pilgrims did give thanks to God for their survival and at least a modest harvest is certain.
FROM LATE WINTER, 1621 THROUGH 1622 WAS CALLED “THE STARVING TIME” BY THE PILGRIMS. IT WAS TIME TO RID THEMSELVES OF THE FAILED “COMMON COURSE AND CONDITION” (I.E. COMMUNAL SOCIALISM).
However, beginning in the winter of 1621 and through most of 1622 the Pilgrims experienced literal starvation and extremely low morale. Governor Bradford wrote about this situation, and the solution to the problems caused by “communal socialism”:
“So they began to think how they might raise as much corn as they could…that they might not still languish in misery. At last, after much debate…the Governor (Bradford) gave way that they should set corn every man for his own particular…And so assigned to every family a parcel of land…. This had very good success for it made all hands very industrious, so as much more corn was planted than otherwise would have been.”
Finally, in the Fall of 1623, the Pilgrims had another Harvest Celebration, their REAL FIRST THANKSGIVING for being delivered from communal socialism, and THIS is the real forerunner of the Thanksgiving celebration that we participate in to this day. William Bradford has always been one of my heroes, for he was honest and humble enough to admit that the early experiment in socialism was a dismal failure. He wrote:
“The experience that was had in this ‘common course and condition’, tried sundry years, and that amongst Godly and sober men, may well evince the vanity of that conceit of Plato’s and other ancients, applauded by some of later times---that the taking away of property, and bringing in community into a common wealth would make them happy and flourishing---as if they were wiser than God!”
SOCIALISM DID NOT WORK FOR THE PILGRIMS. IT NEVER HAS WORKED ANYWHERE OR ANYTIME, WITH SUCCESS!
This inspiring and sobering story of the difficult first three years of the Pilgrim settlement at Plymouth should be taught in all of our schools, because “that conceit of Plato’s and other ancients” is still being applauded by many in these, our “later” times. Brain damaged members of The Klan of New Bolsheviks, leftists, progressive liberals, and other worshippers of ever-larger government and ever-increasing government power still have the idea that the “taking away of property, and bringing in community” (Marxism/socialism) into a common wealth would make the U.S. a happy and flourishing ‘heaven on earth’. Exactly the opposite would happen, and has always happened. Socialism has been tried many times before the Plymouth Colony and many times since (Russia, China, Vietnam, Cuba, North Korea, Venezuela, Cambodia, various African countries). It has ALWAYS failed to deliver its siren song of a “utopian” society. It is ALWAYS destined to fail because it violates fundamental economic and moral laws that simply will not be violated.
This Thanksgiving, and always, let us first thank God for the gift of his Son, our Savior Jesus the Messiah, and then for the wisdom of Governor William Bradford and the surviving Pilgrims for having the courage to dismantle a system of economic injustice (communism/socialism) and giving us a system (free enterprise) where all can prosper as our skills and our determination lead us.
