For a kid like me, growing up in the 1970s, Thanksgiving was uncomplicated. The main themes were easy to grasp: no school; a big turkey-centric, family feast; ritualistic replication of an old celebration where Pilgrims and Indians got together to give thanks for having enough food to eat. Basically, it was a warm-up holiday for Christmas, with some patriotic overtones.
Nowadays, I worry that most kids have had their heads scrambled to the point where they can’t fully enjoy Thanksgiving for the unassuming holiday it’s meant to be. Sadly, The Man has done a number on them.
To wit: At a Thanksgiving feast/gathering I attended a couple days back, I overheard a mother say to her seven-year-old daughter, as they were scooping mashed potatoes onto paper plates, “You know, it’s important to remember that this is a sad day for a lot of indigenous people who had their land stolen from them.” And then, in almost the next breath, I heard the same mother excitedly announce, jokingly – and maybe apologetically, to those of us nearby in the serving line: “I wouldn’t normally fill up my plate like this, but I’m gonna need some energy for Black Friday shopping tomorrow!”
To the young girl’s credit, she didn’t really seem to register her mother’s Tourette-like, turkey-day comments. Instead, she pointed to a 9 x 13 dish of broccoli casserole and said, “Ew! What’s that?!”
The Way of a Pilgrim
Like the broccoli girl, I’m not immune to all the Thanksgiving-ruining whispers from those around me. I can’t un-hear that stuff. But, I do feel like a half-century of living has at least provided me with some grounding, some ability to recognize themes and patterns and such. I can recognize that there are different Thanksgiving “stories” swirling around nowadays, compared to the stories I grew up hearing. And it makes me wonder.
So, I did what I do. I dug into the historical record to try to make sense of things, in hopes of coming to a deeper, better-informed understanding that might help me reconcile the wild variations in the Thanksgiving storyboard.
I didn’t begin my research by looking for anything in particular. My initial searches were centered around keywords such as Mayflower Compact, Plymouth Colony, Squanto, and the like – just as you might imagine. But, along the way, I discovered a Thanksgiving subtext that I hadn’t known before, something that certainly deserves our “thanks.” I’ll share that with you now.
Giving Thanks
It may very well be that Thanksgiving ought to be – in part, anyway – a celebration of a failed implementation of socialism and a subsequent course-correction / embracement of private enterprise in what we now call America.
Let me explain.
The famed Plymouth Colony was founded by a group of Protestant separatists initially known as the Brownist Emigration, the members of which later came to be known, collectively, as “Pilgrims.” Before emigrating to North America on the Mayflower in 1620 (a voyage financed by a company called Merchant Adventurers of London – which is an entirely different story worthy of a close look!), the “Pilgrims” had already had a serious go at forming a religious-based, separatist colony in the Netherlands where they had hoped to escape the watchful and oppressive eyes of the Church of England. Anyway, the Netherlands thing went bust – still too close to home for their liking, I guess – so they set their sights elsewhere.
The Pilgrims (Brownists) had a vision shared by many religious crackpots of today: They wanted to erect a New Jerusalem, a society that would not only be religiously devout (in a way much closer to Judaism than Christianity, by the way), but would be built on a new foundation of communal sharing and social altruism. Their ideal, socialist utopia was based on Plato’s Republic, wherein all people would work and share, in common, in the absence of private property nor self-interested acquisitiveness, and under the guidance of a small, self-appointed, benevolent group of Intelligentsia (elite, educated “guides.”)
This vision was put forth directly (albeit sublimely) in the Mayflower Compact, the legal agreement signed by 41 male passengers of the Mayflower in 1620, wherein they briefly outlined their core ambitions for establishing a civil society and maintaining order:
In the name of God, Amen. We whose names are underwritten, the loyal subjects of our dread Sovereign Lord King James, by the Grace of God of Great Britain, France, and Ireland King, Defender of the Faith, etc. Having undertaken for the Glory of God and advancement of the Christian Faith and Honour of our King and Country, a Voyage to plant the First Colony in the Northern Parts of Virginia, do by these presents solemnly and mutually in the presence of God and one of another, Covenant and Combine ourselves together in a Civil Body Politic, for our better ordering and preservation and furtherance of the ends aforesaid; and by virtue hereof to enact, constitute and frame such just and equal Laws, Ordinances, Acts, Constitutions and Offices from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the general good of the Colony, unto which we promise all due submission and obedience. In witness whereof we have hereunder subscribed our names at Cape Cod, the 11th of November, in the year of the reign of our Sovereign Lord King James, of England, France and Ireland the eighteenth, and of Scotland the fifty-fourth. Anno Domini 1620.
The key parts in the Compact are the clear, continued allegiance to the British Crown (it was hardly a break-away colony, now was it?), the framing of “just and equal laws” and the “promise [of] all due submission and obedience.”
And here’s how it played out in the first year of the Plymouth Colony, before the first “Thanksgiving” celebration occurred the following year, in the autumn of 1621:
In brief, each member of the Plymouth Colony was “guided” to labor collectively, on behalf of the whole settlement. The whole community – meaning the wise leaders – would decide when and how much to plant, when to harvest, who would do the work, etc. The plan was to create a communal society where everyone would share in the work and the harvest. They held land in common, brought their crops to a central storehouse, and distributed them equally. Specifically, the colony mandate was that “all profits and benefits that are got by trade, traffic, working, fishing, or any other means” would be collected into a common stock, and “all such persons as are of this colony, are to have their meat, drink, apparel, and all provisions out of the common stock.”
In other words: Socialism.
Understandably, in the context of the small, fledgling Plymouth community, this experimental system led to confusion, discontent, and hardship. People soon saw little reason to work hard if they were going to receive an equal share of the harvest, regardless of their individual efforts, and hard-working people became resentful of the redistribution of their efforts to others whom they imagined to be less hard-working than themselves.
The result was an immediate disaster of inefficiency and conflict that nearly wiped out the entire community. About half of the colonists died in the first year.
Pilgrim “leader” and “Colony Governor,” William Bradford, noted the following in his diary: “By the Spring our food stores were used up and people grew weak and thin. Some swelled with hunger . . . So they began to think how . . . they might not still thus languish in misery.” He further noted, with apparent puzzlement, that the strongest and most fit young men had begun to complain about having to spend their time and strength to work for the collective, and that usable fields lay un-tilled and un-planted as people simultaneously starved. He commented (again, in his diary), “For the young men that were 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 recompense. The strong, or men of parts, had no more division of food, clothes, etc. then he that was weak and not able to do a quarter the other could; this was thought injustice.”
To his credit, though, Bradford (and everyone else) quickly recognized that the forced resource distributions and disconnects between individual efforts and rewards – both inherent elements of a socialist model – required swift abandonment. It was a simple matter of survival. So, the Plymouth Colony reorganized itself, divided the land into parcels for individual families to oversee and grow food for themselves – as they saw fit, enabled individuals to trade with Indians, and dismantled the communal storehouse concept.
Surprise, surprise: The community began to flourish. Harvests became bountiful, and new colonists began arriving at the thriving settlement.
Phil’s Two Cents
Lo and behold: It may be that the first Thanksgiving was as much a celebration of abundance after a period of socialism-induced hardship as anything else. Personally speaking: I’m going to remember this specific lesson this year and in years to come, and give specific thanks for it as a part of my personal Thanksgiving tradition.
In the do-or-die environment of the New World, the Pilgrims were quick to abandon the false promises of socialism – religious ideals be damned – and trade up, so to speak, to the practical benefits afforded by capitalism. If they hadn’t done so, it would have been over for them in less than two years.
At a time when it seems that many are embracing the false, utopian visions of on-paper socialism, it may be worth reflecting on the harsh and horrible lessons learned from past attempts to impose socialist schemes upon real people, trying to live, thrive, and survive in the real world.
– “Phil”
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