Posted on 11/22/2023 3:22:26 PM PST by FreedomPoster
Each year at this time, schoolchildren all over America are taught the official Thanksgiving story, and newspapers, radio, TV, and magazines devote vast amounts of time and space to it. It is all very colorful and fascinating.
It is also very deceiving. This official story is nothing like what really happened. It is a fairy tale, a whitewashed and sanitized collection of half-truths which divert attention away from Thanksgiving's real meaning.
The official story has the Pilgrims boarding the Mayflower, coming to America, and establishing the Plymouth colony in the winter of 1620–21. This first winter is hard, and half the colonists die. But the survivors are hard working and tenacious, and they learn new farming techniques from the Indians. The harvest of 1621 is bountiful. The pilgrims hold a celebration, and give thanks to God. They are grateful for the wonderful new abundant land He has given them.
The official story then has the Pilgrims living more or less happily ever after, each year repeating the first Thanksgiving. Other early colonies also have hard times at first, but they soon prosper and adopt the annual tradition of giving thanks for this prosperous new land called America.
The problem with this official story is that the harvest of 1621 was not bountiful, nor were the colonists hard-working or tenacious. 1621 was a famine year and many of the colonists were lazy thieves.
In his History of Plymouth Plantation, the governor of the colony, William Bradford, reported that the colonists went hungry for years because they refused to work in the field. They preferred instead to steal food. He says the colony was riddled with "corruption," and with "confusion and discontent." The crops were small because "much was stolen both by night and day, before it became scarce eatable."
In the harvest feasts of 1621 and 1622, "all had their hungry bellies filled," but only briefly. The prevailing condition during those years was not the abundance the official story claims, it was famine and death. The first "Thanksgiving" was not so much a celebration as it was the last meal of condemned men.
But in subsequent years something changes. The harvest of 1623 was different. Suddenly, "instead of famine now God gave them plenty," Bradford wrote, "and the face of things was changed, to the rejoicing of the hearts of many, for which they blessed God." Thereafter, he wrote, "any general want or famine hath not been amongst them since to this day." In fact, in 1624, so much food was produced that the colonists were able to begin exporting corn.
What happened? After the poor harvest of 1622, writes Bradford, "they began to think how they might raise as much corn as they could, and obtain a better crop." They began to question their form of economic organization.
This had required that "all profits & benefits that are got by trade, traffic, trucking, working, fishing, or any other means" were to be placed in the common stock of the colony, and that, "all such persons as are of this colony, are to have their meat, drink, apparel, and all provisions out of the common stock." A person was to put into the common stock all he could, and take only what he needed.
This "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need" was an early form of socialism, and it is why the Pilgrims were starving. Bradford writes that "young men that were most able and fit for labor and service" complained about being forced to "spend their time and strength to work for other men's wives and children." Also, "the strong, or man of parts, had no more in division of victuals and clothes, than he that was weak." So the young and strong refused to work and the total amount of food produced was never adequate.
To rectify this situation, in 1623 Bradford abolished socialism. He gave each household a parcel of land and told them they could keep what they produced, or trade it away as they saw fit. In other words, he replaced socialism with markets, and that was the end of the famines.
Many early groups of colonists set up socialist states, all with the same terrible results. At Jamestown, established in 1607, out of every shipload of settlers that arrived, less than half would survive their first twelve months in America. Most of the work was being done by only one-fifth of the men, the other four-fifths choosing to be parasites. In the winter of 1609–10, called "The Starving Time," the population fell from five-hundred to sixty. Then the Jamestown colony was converted to a relatively free market, and the results were every bit as dramatic as those at Plymouth.
I doubt it.
I remember Rush telling a similar story.
Ah ha! That explains present day Massachusetts.
Listen to Dave Barton break down the written history of this. Jamestown was socialists/communists folks who failed. Plymouth Rock was truly committed to God and the true selfless faith that causes people to prosper together in back breaking work, putting others before themselves.
Bradford was lying? What reason would he have to lie?
Pfffft, Next they’ll say Santa Claus isn’t real.
Some people just want to watch the world burn.
Biblical fundamentalism almost did them in.
Human nature does not change.
Anyway, the first Thanksgiving feast was in St. Augustine Florida, by Catholic Spaniards, more than 50 years before Plymouth. But that would endanger the myth of Protestant anglo America, so it must be scrubbed and sanitized to ensure Northeastern hegemony.
November 1621. First Thanksgiving. Three days. Pilgrims and Native Americans together. No hoax about that.
No.
2 Thessalonians 3:6-12 Now we command you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you keep away from any brother who is walking in idleness and not in accord with the tradition that you received from us.
For you yourselves know how you ought to imitate us, because we were not idle when we were with you, nor did we eat anyone's bread without paying for it, but with toil and labor we worked night and day, that we might not be a burden to any of you. It was not because we do not have that right, but to give you in ourselves an example to imitate.
For even when we were with you, we would give you this command: If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat. For we hear that some among you walk in idleness, not busy at work, but busybodies. Now such persons we command and encourage in the Lord Jesus Christ to do their work quietly and to earn their own living.
Every year.
I would wager many Thanksgiving obervations preceded the one you mention, as well as the “first” one on our soil. It has been part and parcel of human history for ages to pause and give thanks. It’s not as if we need a competition in that field, or do we?
“Oh, those were the days”
Yes I miss him.
“...the first Thanksgiving feast was in St. Augustine Florida, by Catholic Spaniards, more than 50 years before Plymouth.”
Could you tell us more about that?
If you want to be literal-the people who were around to celebrate a thankgiving in St. Augustine Florida weren’t Mexicans-they were Spaniards-most were from Spain-not from the part of Spanish territory called Mexico. Pilgrims weren’t American, either unless they were born in America-the only Americans here when the Europeans and the Brits-including pilgrims-arrived were the Native American/Indians-so they were the only Americans at any of the Thanksgiving dinners anywhere on this continent before at least 1776. The American continent was divided into colonies/territories-no countries.
My ancestors were from Spain-they came to Mexico from Spain in the late 1500’s or so-technically speaking, they were not Mexicans because they were not born there-and it was just part of New Spain-not a country yet-they came to Texas and NM around 1780, but none of that was part of the Brit colonies-even Louisiana had not been given back to France by Spain in 1800, and there were only the former colonies to call a country/USA in 1800...
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