The True Lesson of Thanksgiving

Those of you, who like myself, were educated in the later half of the 20th century, were taught that the poor stupid Pilgrims didn't know how to grow food. Even though many had been farmers in Europe, they must have forgotten how to grow food or that the climate and soil in the New World was so much different than Europe that their old methods didn't work. Never fear, they were rescued by a stone age people, the natives of the New World that were one with nature. These people, who cultivated the ground with sharpened sticks, taught these poor white European imbeciles, whom had already developed a rudimentary animal drawn plow, how to cultivate food.  This saved these wretches from famine and starvation. In gratitude the imbecilic white Europeans held a feast and invited their aboriginal saviors (whom by the way were the first ecologists). These white Europeans, surviving because of the assistance of these benevolent natives ultimately repaid them by giving them blankets infected with small pox, massacring them and stealing their land.

 And they lived happily ever after...

 Excuse me... I always get a little misty after the Blanket part...

Yes this a a beautiful bucolic story (unless you are are Indian). Except that almost none of it is true. OK, there were some massacres and we did take their land.. Other than that, all the rest is fantasy. Even the blanket story.

In fact the true lesson of Thanksgiving is that Socialism/Communism doesn't work.

  Hey Big Fella, we are talking Pilgrims here, not Berkeley college students.


 Yes I know that, but the Pilgrims organized their farm community along Communal  lines. Communal, Communism, sound similar? That is because they are based on the same concept. "From Each according to their ability, to each according to their needs"   The Pilgrims basically lived in a 1960's hippie commune with out the free love (the Scarlet Letter was much later). The ultimate goal was to share the work and produce equally.

That is why they almost starved to death.
When you get fed no matter how hard you work, you work only as hardyou can get by with.

"So as it well appeared that famine must still ensue the next year also, if not some way prevented," wrote Gov. William Bradford in his diary. The colonists, he said, "began to think how they might raise as much corn as they could, and obtain a better crop than they had done, that they might not still thus languish in misery. At length after much debate of things, (I) (with the advice of the chiefest among them) gave way that they should set corn every man for his own particular, and in that regard trust to themselves. And so assigned to every family a parcel of land."

  To quote a great American Icon, Homer Simpson.. "DOH!!".
Everyone was starving, so here is a plot of land, you are responsible for your own crops and food.. I bet you can't guess what happened next..

"This had very good success," Bradford wrote, "for it made all hands very industrious, so as much more corn was planted than otherwise would have been. By this time harvest was come, and instead of famine, now God gave them plenty, and the face of things was changed, to the rejoicing of the hearts of many."

Praise the Lord and Pass the Gravy!! Lets have a feast!!
When individuals own their own property and are allowed the fruits of their labors miracles happen!! Further, working your butt off or starving also is a great incentive..

 Hey Bigman, you mean there were no Indians at the first Thanksgiving?

 No, I didn't say that, yes there probably were. You see, the local tribes had been wiped out by disease introduced by the "randy" rum toting fisherman that had been coming to The Grand Banks for almost 200 years. In fact, the hero of the story that we had been taught, Squanto, was actually taken to Europe by those fishermen, and had lived there for 20 or so years. He came back to his village to find that everyone he knew had died. It just so happens that the Pilgrims landed at the site of the empty village. It obviously had been a good site for a village, so Plymouth was established there. Squanto was homeless and without family, he was able to communicate with the Pilgrims and the Indians so he became an invaluable translator.
 The Wampanoags most likely attended the first Thanksgiving feast in order to cement an alliance with the Pilgrims. They had become outnumbered by inland tribes because of the diseases that they had been exposed to and they saw advantages in befriending the Pilgrims. Especially since the Pilgrims had guns and had participated in some raids against the Narragansett with their Wampanoag neighbors..