Dr. Wendy Ghiora – Posting #70 - November 6, 2010

When I read this true account of the Thanksgiving Story, it gave the holiday a whole new meaning for me. Albeit, I will personally still consider the holiday as a day of thanks, I thought it only right to share this new knowledge I have encountered with you:

The Real Story Behind Thanksgiving
Paul Schmidt
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.
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What a great true story to share with your own children or with your students at this time of the year! In a classroom setting, this story would lend itself well to a group discussion about the message of this hard, true lesson learned. It would also be interesting to have partners or small groups of students come up with ways they can apply the knowledge learned here to their own lives and/or to the lives of others.

It sounds like the story is saying, in most cases, when individuals are responsible for putting their own bread on the table, and know they can personally reap the benefits of their own effort (large or small); they step up, and do so with a lot more resolve and enthusiasm.
Much is being said today about the direction our country is headed. When you look at this example with students, they can make up their own minds about government intervention vs. free enterprize.

The purpose of history is to avoid repeating the same mistakes and to emulate great successes of the past. Has this story of our forefathers suggested any possible applications to you?