The REAL Story of Thanksgiving

The Liberator Onlline ^ | Nov. 20, 1997 | Paul Schmidt

[FreeKeys]

The Real Story Behind Thanksgiving Did you know that the first [Plymouth Colony Pilgrim's] Thanksgiving was a celebration of the triumph of private property and individual initiative? William Bradford was the governor of the original Pilgrim colony, founded at Plymouth in 1621. The colony was first organized on a communal basis, as their financiers required. Land was owned in common. The Pilgrims farmed communally, too, following the "from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs" precept. The results were disastrous. Communism didn't work any better 400 years ago than it does today. By 1623, the colony had suffered serious losses. Starvation was imminent. Bradford realized that the communal system encouraged and rewarded waste and laziness and inefficiency, and destroyed individual initiative. Desperate, he abolished it. He distributed private plots of land among the surviving Pilgrims, encouraging them to plant early and farm as individuals, not collectively. The results: a bountiful early harvest that saved the colonies. After the harvest, the Pilgrims celebrated with a day of Thanksgiving -- on August 9th. Unfortunately, William Bradford's diaries -- in which he recorded the failure of the collectivist system and the triumph of private enterprise -- were lost for many years. When Thanksgiving was later made a national holiday, the present November date was chosen. And the lesson the Pilgrims so painfully learned was, alas, not made a part of the holiday. Happily, Bradford's diaries were later rediscovered. They're available today in paperback. They tell the real story of Thanksgiving -- how private property and individual initiative saved the Pilgrims. This Thanksgiving season, one of the many things I'm thankful for is our free market system (imperfectly realized as it is). And I'm also grateful that there are increasing numbers of Americans who are learning the importance of free markets, and who are working to replace government coercion with marketplace cooperation here in America and around the world. Paul Schmidt -- copied from http://FreedomKeys.com/thanksgiving2.htm  which was copied from the Nov. 20, 1997 issue of  THE LIBERATOR ONLINE at http://www.theadvocates.org/liberator/vol-02-num-21.htm for more detailed accounts see:  The Great Thanksgiving Hoax  at-http://mises.org/story/336 The Pilgrims’ Real Thanksgiving Lesson  at  http://snipurl.com/av27 How Capitalism Saved America  at http://tinyurl.com/CapitalismSavedAmerica How Private Property Saved the Pilgrims at http://tinyurl.com/ylc83r The REAL Thanksgiving Story   at   http://tinyurl.com/RealThanksgivingStory Giving Thanks for Lessons Learned at  http://www.goldwaterinstitute.org/article/2281 and The Plymouth Experiment  at http://snipurl.com/12lca Find some more excerpts from Plymouth Colony Governor William Bradford's diary-HERE: http://tinyurl.com/1stThanksgiving Finally, to see how it feels to be caught in a coerced-sharing society check out THIS page: http://tinyurl.com/20thCenturyMotors AND for those of you unfortunate enough to have to deal with fanatical self-righteous altruists, see THIS page:  http://FreedomKeys.com/paradox.htm#pcdt And there are a lot more HERE:  http://search.mises.org/search?q=thanksgiving&site=default_collection Also see: "Private Property Saved Jamestown, And With It, America" HERE: http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=8236 "Property must be secured, or liberty cannot exist." -- President John Adams, direct descendent of Pilgrims John and Priscilla Alden  "The true foundation of republican government is the equal right of every citizen in his person and property and in their management." -- Thomas Jefferson "Private property is the most important guarantee of freedom." -- F.A. Hayek  "No freedom is secure if your property rights are not secure." -- Neal Boortz "It is the institution of private property that protects and implements the right to disagree."-- Ayn Rand "If you can't own (and use) property, you are property." - Wayne Hage Check out: HOW CAPITALISM SAVED AMERICA: The Untold History of Our Country, from the Pilgrims to the Present by Thomas DiLorenzo (paperback) $9.95 >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> HAPPY THANKSGIVING! >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Also see Town Hall Posters here: http://FreedomKeys.com/teapartysigns.htm -- and Please PASS IT ALONG------------> -- -- you can make a cleaner copy by going to this page and copying it or sending it as-is: http://FreedomKeys.com/thanksgiving2.htm -----------> ----------->

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[r9etb]

According to native sources, the Indians provided venison, corn pudding, pumpkin, native birds and fish to the Pilgrims for the feast....

That may well be true. And if so, it's even further from Mr. Schmidt's fanciful "celebration of the triumph of private property and individual initiative" than I thought.

[netmilsmom]

Not really. The “bountiful” wasn’t working yet. Why do you think that is?

[Marine_Uncle]

Happy upcoming Thanksgiving Day RB. I was aware of this a number of years back. Rush Limbaugh had read portions over the air. Interesting. Communism never works. It is against human nature.

[SunkenCiv]

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The Birth of Plenty: How the Prosperity of the Modern World was Created by William Bernstein Paperback Audio Download

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[SunkenCiv]

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	Gods Graves Glyphs	Thanks FreeKeys! Did you know that the first [Plymouth Colony Pilgrim's] Thanksgiving was a celebration of the triumph of private property and individual initiative? To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list. GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother, and Ernest_at_the_Beach
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[r9etb]

Doesn’t matter .. the article is still FOS.

[netmilsmom]

>>FOS<<

I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be stupid. Is that “full of ‘it’”?

[Pelham]

“The first Thanksgiving ceremony in North America took place not in Plymouth in 1621, but near Jamestown, Va., on Dec. 4, 1619. Being a native of Virginia, such distinctions are of vital significance.

Virginia’s event was not a celebration, but a true thanksgiving service held by 38 English settlers who had just survived a perilous winter passage across the stormy Atlantic in a small sailing ship.”

http://spofga.org/flag/2005/nov/more_first_thanksgiving.php

[Pelham]

Doubtful, since those words are written in the Declaration and not the Constitution, and came from the earlier Virginia Declaration of Rights.

[Pelham]

“In fact, my own genealogical research demonstrates that one of the attendees at St. Sauveur certainly was present for the first Thanksgiving at Jamestown, and may well have attended the first Thanksgiving at Plymouth. He’d gone into real estate sales with John Smith. “

Fascinating. What was the name of that First Realtor?

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks Pelham.

[guitarplayer1953]

Historical it was a fact they changed it to pursuit of happiness from security of property. For the reason I gave that slaves were property and that would of given the south the constitutional right to slavery.

[Tired of Taxes]

Here's a nice lesson plan for Thanksgiving.

This ping list is for articles of interest to homeschoolers. Metmom holds both the Homeschool Ping List and the Another Reason to Homeschool Ping List. Please freepmail her to let her know if you would like to be added or removed from either list, or both.

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[metmom]

IIRC, the Common Store system was tried in Jamestown with similar results.

Too bad so many people don’t learn from history.

[r9etb]

Yup. ;-)

[FreeKeys]

Thank you for the link. You might like to try this: http://tinyurl.com/PlymouthPlantation

[TheOldLady]

Should be required reading in all schools, every grade, every year.

We must take back our schools.

[Lee'sGhost]

Of course, you forgot about the one in 1565 in St. Augustine that predates all that.

[Mr. Jazzy]

ping

[muawiyah]

Or the one in 1492 ~ but that wasn't in what is now the United States.

I tend to discount the various "things" that went on at St. Augustine since the records in the "Virginia Room" support the idea that it was a "less than permanent" settlement.

We have several places around Chesapeake Bay that were as old or older ~ with one of them down the coast at Breton Bay that may well date to pre-Columbian times.

St.Sauveur was permanent, although the participants crossed the Bay of Fundy to resettle at Anapolis Royal (from which grew the Nova Scotia colony), and so was Jamestown ~ it grew into Virginia, then America, and so was Plimouth ~ which turned into a Boston suburb!

When the troops left St. Augustine to roll North to wipe out Ribault's colony in Carolana, they took the priests and prostitutes with them. The hurricane pretty nearly wiped them out (hence the ferocious anger they had at the unarmed Huguenots they proceeded to murder).

Few of the survivors returned to St. Augustine preferring, instead, to go someplace else as soon as possible.

BTW, the Texas deal was in an existing permanent community that's still there, so I count it.