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And now… the rest of the story.
Good day. It is a very good day.
It was November, 1621. Ninety Wampanoag warriors and their chief, Massasoit, sat down with fifty-one Pilgrims for a three-day feast of deer, wild turkey, and corn the Indians had taught them to grow.
The history books call it “The First Thanksgiving.”
And it was… glorious.
Laughter, gun salutes, archery contests, and tables groaning with food.
What the paintings don’t show is that half the Pilgrims who had arrived the year before were already dead. Starvation had taken them.
And the ones still alive? They were one bad harvest away from joining them.
Why were they starving in a land overflowing with game and fish and fertile soil?
Because of an idea. A very modern idea.
Communal property.
When the Pilgrims stepped off the Mayflower, their contract with the investors back in London required everything they produced (every bushel of corn, every fish, every board they sawed) to go into a common store. Each family got an equal share, no matter how much, or how little, they worked.
Governor William Bradford wrote later that the system was “found to breed much confusion and discontent, and retard much employment.”
The young men asked, “Why should I bust my back all day when the lazy guy next door gets the same ration?”
The women said, “I’m not hauling water and hoeing corn so someone else’s kids can eat it.”
Even the teenage boys refused to work.
Bradford said the result was plain: “much hunger and nakedness.”
So in the spring of 1623, after two winters of famine, Bradford did something radical.
He broke the contract.
He gave every family their own plot of land.
Plant what you want. Keep what you grow. Trade the surplus if you wish.
In other words, he introduced private property and profit motive to the New World.
Bradford recorded what happened next with astonishment:
“This had very good success. It made all hands very industrious, so as much more corn was planted than otherwise would have been. The women now went willingly into the field, and took their little ones with them to set corn, which before they would claim weakness and inability… There was no more talk of stealing from the common store, for there was no common store.”
The harvest of 1623 was so abundant they didn’t just feast; they traded the surplus with the Indians for beaver pelts and other goods.
The colony never starved again.
Ladies and gentlemen, the Pilgrims did not discover turkey and pumpkin pie in 1621.
They discovered something far more important in 1623:
When people own the fruit of their labor, they work.
When they don’t, they don’t.
That single change (from collectivism to private ownership) turned a failing socialist experiment into the foundation of the richest, most generous nation on earth.
So when you sit down to Thanksgiving dinner this year, and the table is piled high with more food than any Pilgrim ever dreamed of…
Remember that the turkey on your platter and the freedom in your heart have the same ancestor:
A quiet decision made four hundred years ago to let people keep what they earn.
That… is the rest of the story.
Good day.
The Pilgrims’ voyage was financed by merchant investors seeking profit, which means the Pilgrims were participants in capitalism, not its inventors. The only reason they reached America at all was because Europe already had a functioning capitalist economy capable of financing such expeditions. Happy Thanksgiving to you all from the other side of the pond!
Interesting if true.
It’s true, but not in the context presented. But even if it were 100% true, its not socialism as people like to imply.
Mr. Housely’s post contends that Americans owe the notion of private ownership of property to the Pilgrims which is patently false.
Happy Thanksgiving!
The People’s Republic of PlymouthThe strange and persistent right-wing myth that Thanksgiving celebrates the pilgrims’ triumph over socialism
https://slate.com/human-interest/2014/11/thanksgiving-socialism-the-strange-and-persistent-right-wing-myth-that-thanksgiving-celebrates-the-pilgrims-discovery-of-capitalism.html#
Slate freely acknowledges their left wing bias. Doesn’t mean they can’t make a valid argument. The same would be true for a right wing publication.
The Slate? Are you serious?
Don’t forget our rules of civility here! Just a gentle caution but your response did make me chuckle!
Thank you. 🙂
I prefer primary sources. Presentism has interesting biases.
The primary source for the quote “The young men that were most able and fit for labour and service did repine that they should spend their time and strength to work for other men’s wives and children without any recompense” (and the surrounding passage describing the communal system’s failures) is William Bradford’s manuscript history Of Plymouth Plantation, written primarily between 1630 and 1651.
This work was first published in full in 1856 (edited by Charles Deane as History of Plymouth Plantation), based on the original manuscript discovered in the Bishop of London’s library. The quote appears in Chapter 10 (“1621–1623”), where Bradford reflects on the colony’s early economic struggles and the shift to private land allotments in 1623. Modern editions (e.g., the 1963 Modern Library version) retain the original spelling and phrasing for fidelity to the 17th-century source.
Correct, but you simply can’t say that is why they starved because it is not true.
He also can’t say that Americans owe private property ownership to Bradford simply because he switched from a collective system to one of private land allotments.
Prior to coming to America, the Pilgrims lived in Leiden, Holland and were freely engaged in private employment and ownership. The collectivist arrangement was imposed on the colonists by the investors who funded their trip to American who misguidedly thought that a collective system would be more profitable than private ownership. It would appear that Bradford’s abandonment of a collective system is best thought of as a necessary reaction to a failed experiment that was imposed on the Pilgrims.
Yes I would also like to know your source of information.
Please list your “primary” source and indicate why you consider it to be a primary source.
This fascinated me so I looked at it more. This is what historians say.
The communal system hurt productivity and contributed to food shortages, but it was not the main reason the Pilgrims starved in the first winters. Disease, timing, lack of skills, and harsh conditions were more central to the high mortality.
Hear! Hear!
The Pilgrims’ collectivist system is more in line with communism than it is with socialism.
OK… 🤔
So they starved themselves? That was one of several factors, but a sad commentary of human behavior nevertheless
Thank you! 😄 Happy Thanksgiving