Thread: The story of thanks giving!

The story of the Pilgrims begins in the early part of the seventeenth century. The Church of England under King James I was persecuting anyone and everyone who did not recognize its absolute civil and spiritual authority. Those who challenged ecclesiastical authority and those who believed strongly in freedom of worship were hunted down, imprisoned, and sometimes executed for their beliefs.

A group of separatists first fled to Holland and established a community. After eleven years, about forty of them agreed to make a perilous journey to the New World, where they would certainly face hardships, but could live and worship God according to the dictates of their own consciences.

On August 1, 1620, the Mayflower set sail. It carried a total of 102 passengers, including forty Pilgrims led by William Bradford. On the journey, Bradford set up an agreement, a contract, that established just and equal laws for all members of the new community, irrespective of their religious beliefs. Where did the revolutionary ideas expressed in the Mayflower Compact come from? From the Bible.

The Pilgrims were a people completely steeped in the lessons of the Old and New Testaments. They looked to the ancient Israelites for their example. And, because of the biblical precedents set forth in Scripture, they never doubted that their experiment would work.

But this was no pleasure cruise. The journey to the New World was a long and arduous one. And when the Pilgrims landed in New England in November, they found, according to Bradford's detailed journal, a cold, barren, desolate wilderness. There were no friends to greet them, he wrote. There were no houses to shelter them. There were no inns where they could refresh themselves.



And the sacrifice they had made for freedom was just beginning. During the first winter, half the Pilgrims – including Bradford's own wife – died of either starvation, sickness or exposure. When spring finally came, Indians taught the settlers how to plant corn, fish for cod and skin beavers for coats. Life improved for the Pilgrims, but they did not yet prosper!

This is important to understand because this is where modern American history lessons often end. Thanksgiving is actually explained in some textbooks as a holiday for which the Pilgrims gave thanks to the Indians for saving their lives, rather than as a devout expression of gratitude grounded in the tradition of both the Old and New Testaments.

Here is the part that has been omitted: The original contract the Pilgrims had entered into with their merchant-sponsors in London called for everything they produced to go into a common store, and each member of the community was entitled to one common share. All of the land they cleared and the houses they built belong to the community as well.

Bradford, who had become the new governor of the colony, recognized that this form of collectivism was as costly and destructive to the Pilgrims as that first harsh winter, which had taken so many lives. He decided to take bold action. Bradford assigned a plot of land to each family to work and manage, thus turning loose the power of the marketplace.

That's right. Long before Karl Marx was even born, the Pilgrims had discovered and experimented with what could only be described as socialism. And what happened? It didn't work! Surprise, surprise, huh? What Bradford and his community found was that the most creative and industrious people had no incentive to work any harder than anyone else, unless they could utilize the power of personal motivation!



But while most of the rest of the world has been experimenting with socialism for well over a hundred years – trying to refine it, perfect it, and re-invent it – the Pilgrims decided early on to scrap it permanently. What Bradford wrote about this social experiment should be in every schoolchild's history lesson If it were, we might prevent much needless suffering in the future.

"The experience that we had in this common course and condition, tried sundry years...that by taking away property, and bringing community into a common wealth, would make them happy and flourishing – as if they were wiser than God," Bradford wrote. "For this community [so far as it was] was found to breed much confusion and discontent, and retard much 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 and strength to work for other men's wives and children without any recompense...that was thought injustice."

The Pilgrims found that people could not be expected to do their best work without incentive. So what did Bradford's community try next? They unharnessed the power of free enterprise by invoking the undergirding capitalistic principle of private property. Every family was assigned its own plot of land to work and permitted to market its own crops and products. And what was the result?



"This had very good success," wrote Bradford, "for it made all hands industrious, so as much more corn was planted than otherwise would have been." Bradford doesn't sound like much of a Clintonite, does he? Is it possible that supply-side economics could have existed before the 1980s? Yes. Read the story of Joseph and Pharaoh in Genesis 41. Following Joseph's suggestion (Gen 41:34), Pharaoh reduced the tax on Egyptians to 20% during the "seven years of plenty" and the "Earth brought forth in heaps." (Gen. 41:47)

In no time, the Pilgrims found they had more food than they could eat themselves. So they set up trading posts and exchanged goods with the Indians. The profits allowed them to pay off their debts to the merchants in London. And the success and prosperity of the Plymouth settlement attracted more Europeans and began what came to be known as the "Great Puritan Migration."

great post!
i couldnt agree more this is the truth that kids should be learning. If society ran but the things our ans esters already figured out worked best, just like the pilgrims things would run much smoother in this world.

happy thanksgiving,

But what about Squanto?

Originally Posted by JMS

On August 1, 1620, the Mayflower set sail. It carried a total of 102 passengers, including forty Pilgrims led by William Bradford. On the journey, Bradford set up an agreement, a contract, that established just and equal laws for all members of the new community, irrespective of their religious beliefs. Where did the revolutionary ideas expressed in the Mayflower Compact come from? From the Bible.

The Pilgrims were a people completely steeped in the lessons of the Old and New Testaments. They looked to the ancient Israelites for their example. And, because of the biblical precedents set forth in Scripture, they never doubted that their experiment would work.

There is a whole lot more in the bible that talks about how to deal with worshipers of false Gods and other things. They just picked the things that made sense to them, and they supposedly picked the right ones. But their laws don't follow from the bible automatically. Escpecially if they also looked at the OT
Scripture also brought forth the dark ages and religious genocide.

The outcome depends on the pick.

Originally Posted by JMS

Here is the part that has been omitted: The original contract the Pilgrims had entered into with their merchant-sponsors in London called for everything they produced to go into a common store, and each member of the community was entitled to one common share. All of the land they cleared and the houses they built belong to the community as well.

Bradford, who had become the new governor of the colony, recognized that this form of collectivism was as costly and destructive to the Pilgrims as that first harsh winter, which had taken so many lives. He decided to take bold action. Bradford assigned a plot of land to each family to work and manage, thus turning loose the power of the marketplace.

That's right. Long before Karl Marx was even born, the Pilgrims had discovered and experimented with what could only be described as socialism. And what happened? It didn't work! Surprise, surprise, huh? What Bradford and his community found was that the most creative and industrious people had no incentive to work any harder than anyone else, unless they could utilize the power of personal motivation!

That would be communism, not socialism.

Originally Posted by JMS

But while most of the rest of the world has been experimenting with socialism for well over a hundred years – trying to refine it, perfect it, and re-invent it – the Pilgrims decided early on to scrap it permanently. What Bradford wrote about this social experiment should be in every schoolchild's history lesson If it were, we might prevent much needless suffering in the future.

Pure socialism is just as bad as pure capitalism. People left unchecked will ruin the game for everybody.
Making bipolar statements about socialism is as much uncalled for as making bipolar statements about any other political structure.

A good working system makes compromises and ends up somewhere in the middle.
There are god principles in socialism and there are good principles in capitalism.

Originally Posted by JMS

And the success and prosperity of the Plymouth settlement attracted more Europeans and began what came to be known as the "Great Puritan Migration."

But they also became greedy, used capitalism to cheat the natives, then took over the country and committed mass murder on those natives that didn't agree.
So before you hold that model of society up as a beacon for all to come to, you have to realise that in the end, that one didn't work out either. Well, it did for some, but not for all.

Originally Posted by icedog

But what about Squanto?

Who or what is squanto?

Originally Posted by Bruno

Who or what is squanto?

Regardless of the swill Mark is trying to sell, Squanto is the real reason we celebrate Thanksgiving:

Thanksgiving on the Net - The Pilgrims and America's First Thanksgiving

I like turkey.
I like my country.
I like Native Americans. ( I know more Lumbee and Cherokee than any other type)
I like being able to include or exclude my religious beliefs as I see fit with out feeling the need to force them.
I like getting together with my family and counting my blessings, in a private and personal setting.
I even like being reminded that I am fortunate by being reminded that there are less fortunate among us.

I really like respectable source notations where appropriate.


That is all I have to say about that.

Best wishes, dear reader, for your Thanksgiving.

Very Respectfully,

-Rob

Originally Posted by sicboater

Best wishes, dear reader, for your Thanksgiving.

Thank you dear writer, and the same to you!

Yes, fish are good! Most of them anyway, and I'm mostly thankful for those. And for squanto. And swill!

T day is about thanks and turkey.
So even though I don't celebrate it: thank you to all SRP members for making up this fine community, and have a nice T day. May the turkey be juicy and plenty for all.

That is unfortunate because I loved your reply. By the way, nothing about the story is true. First of all William Bradford didn't write like that, here is his actual written comment on the subject

"Thus all were to be cast into single shares according to the order abovesaid; and so every one was to pay his part according to his proportion towards ye purchass, & all other debts, what ye profite of ye trade would not reach too; viz. a single man for a single share, a maister of a famalie for so many as he had. This gave all good contente." [sic]

The actual document also describes how the Pilgrims began to part way from the collective because of over-population of the settlement.

From the Bradford Journal - Dispersion

Any story that includes the Pilgrims having religious tolerance is obviously false because the Pilgrims were a faction of the Puritans. They did not have religious tolerance, they were zealots.

Five minutes of research can diffuse a lot of internet babble.