The Real Story of Thanksgiving

It's not what we were taught in school

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Today I wanted to talk specifically about Thanksgiving. Growing up, Americans are taught the Thanksgiving story early on in our schooling. This is what I was taught: I was told that pilgrims from Europe sailed to America on the Mayflower. They landed on Plymouth Rock in 1620, and created a settlement there.

I was taught that they were woefully overmatched by the New World, and their colony was on the verge of being wiped out soon after reaching what would later become America.

This is when the Indians found the pilgrims. The pilgrims, starving and on the verge of death, were saved by the Indians. The Indians fed them, nursed them back to health. When they were strong enough, the Indians taught the pilgrims first how to hunt and fish, then how to farm. Over time, the pilgrims, thanks to the Indians, became self-sufficient.

The first Thanksgiving feast was given to give thanks to the Indians. They were invited, and pilgrims and Indians shared a massive feast together. Because without the kindness of the Indians/Native Americans, there would be no America as we know it today.

This was the Thanksgiving story that I was taught in school. I suspect most of you are reading along thinking “Yep, me too!”

What Really Happened When the Pilgrims Reached America

Several years ago during Thanksgiving week I was listening to the Rush Limbaugh show on the radio. He said now he was going to tell us the ‘real’ story of Thanksgiving.

“Oh goodie!”, I thought. I assumed this would be a story where one of the original pilgrims was the great great great grandfather of George Washington, or something like that.

Instead, he told me what really happened when the pilgrims reached America, and the events that led to that first Thanksgiving. And sure enough, it was completely different from the story I had been taught in school.

So I did what most of us do when we encounter new information that challenges long held beliefs: I called bullshit. No way this guy knew what he was talking about! What exactly was his source for this claimed story of his?

It turns out, Rush’s source was the diary of the leader of the pilgrims, William Bradford. In his diary, Bradford explains exactly what happened, and why it happened.

Here’s his story: In the early 17th century, the Church of England and King James were hunting and persecuting pilgrims for their religious beliefs. A few dozen of them escaped to Holland, and in 1620, 40 of them decided to sail to America in order find a new life in a new world, where they could practice their religious beliefs and live the life they wanted in freedom.

The pilgrims knew the journey would be extremely dangerous. But these were deeply religious people, and as such, they put their faith in God to protect them. In addition to being deeply religious, most of the pilgrims were also deeply poor. They couldn’t afford the journey to the new world, so they found sponsors to pay for their voyage to the New World. Representatives from the sponsors would travel to the New World with the pilgrims. Once the pilgrims arrived in the New World and got their feet under them, the pilgrims could pay back their debt to the sponsors, who would then sail back to Europe with the returns on their investment.

On August 1st 1620, The Mayflower set sail with 102 passengers for what would later become America. During the voyage, Bradford set up some ground rules for the pilgrims. First, they set up rules and equal laws for the group. The Bible was relied upon heavily to create the laws that would govern their new society.

When it came to the matter of repaying their debt to the sponsors, the sponsors in Holland required that everything the pilgrims got by whatever means would be put into a community pot. A community bank, if you will. And each member of the party had one share in that bank, and each share was equal. Meaning, if there were 50 people in the party and 50 beaver pelts in the bank, then each member of the party owned one beaver pelt.

According to Bradford, the Mayflower reached Plymouth Rock in November of 1620. Now, a normal winter in New England is bad enough. But the pilgrims weren’t coming to a civilized America, they were coming to a wilderness. There were no roads, no houses, no stores waiting on them. Instead, they got rocks, animals and winter. All in a completely foreign land.

The first winter in the New World was crippling for the pilgrims. Half the party, including Bradford’s own wife, perished. Eventually in the Spring, the pilgrims did meet the Indians, and the Indians did indeed teach the pilgrims how to plant and farm corn, how to hunt and how to fish. This is pretty much where the story ends for many of us.

But the pilgrims, even with the help of the Indians, were barely surviving. Bradford understood that there needed to be drastic changes made if the colony were to go from barely surviving, to thriving.

At the same time, the members of the colony were learning new life skills. Such as farming, hunting and fishing. Along with the carpentry, homesteading and sewing skills that they had been required to learn just to live off the land. Naturally, some would be better carpenters, others would be better hunters, etc.

Bradford took all of this in, the circumstances the colony found itself in, its manpower cut in half, the fact that there was so much that needed to be done just so the colony could reach a point of sustainability. He decided that big changes needed to be made if the colony was to survive.

His first order of business was to rip up the Mayflower Compact. This was the system the sponsors had demanded where the pilgrims had a common bank/store, and each person had one share in that bank/store.

In its place, Bradford gave each member of the group an equal plot of land, and told them they could do whatever they wanted with it. If they wanted to build a large house that covered the entire plot, they could do that. If they wanted to build a small house and have most of the plot be used for farming, they could do that. If they wanted to just have a small shack and spend all day hunting and fishing, they could do that. Or if they wanted to sit under a tree and do absolutely nothing all day, that was their option as well.

Almost immediately, Bradford found that the productivity of the colony was unleashed. He saw quickly that most people will work harder for their own survival, than they will for the survival of a larger group. That’s just human nature.

But perhaps more importantly, by giving everyone the option to be self-reliant, it also let them run with their passions. For instance, let’s say one member of the colony, we’ll call him Dan, was an expert carpenter, and a horrible farmer. Dan could go to other members of the colony, and build a wonderful home for them. In exchange, they could pay him in food that Dan didn’t have the green thumb to grow. Instead of Dan having a great home that he’s starving in due to being a terrible farmer, now everyone had a great home thanks to Dan. And thanks to everyone else, Dan had a full belly.

Bradford found that the original contract the group adopted had killed creativity and incentive to work. The single young man resented the fact that he could generate twice as much food by farming, then have to turn around and give most of it to the older man who had produced half as much. At the same time, if everyone was engaging in the same repetitive tasks every day, they couldn’t unleash their creativity and productivity.

By giving everyone the same opportunity and freedom to do with their plot of land as they saw fit, the colony turned the corner. Soon, it had enough food and shelter to survive.

Over time, the colonists found that they had generated enough food and other goods for their own needs. As they accumulated a surplus, they created trading posts, and sold their extra supplies to the Indians. This money from the indians was then used to pay off their original debt to their sponsors back in Europe.

In 1621, the pilgrims had their first harvest in the New World. And it was a rousing success! The pilgrims invited the Indians to join them, partly to show appreciation for the help the Indians had given them. But mostly because the pilgrims simply had more food than they could eat!

This was the first Thanksgiving feast. And the ‘real’ story is the first Thanksgiving wasn’t about giving thanks to the Indians (who absolutely did help the pilgrims). It was about giving thanks to God for showing the pilgrims how to make it to the New World, adjust course once they arrived here, and eventually thrive.

Why the Disconnect in How the Story of the First Thanksgiving is Told?

If you compare the story we are taught in schools about what happened leading up to that first Thanksgiving versus what Bradford says actually happened, you see two areas were fiction breaks from reality.

First, we are taught that everyone contributed equally to the success of the colony, and everyone was equal. Basically, this was a supposed forerunner to socialism. Bradford tried such a system but had to abandon it due to it not being sustainable.

Second, we are taught that the pilgrims gave thanks to the Indians, instead of giving thanks to God. This not only completely discounts reality (the pilgrims were devoutly religious) but it also isn’t fair to the Indians to misrepresent how they assisted the pilgrims.

Last month’s Marketing and Movies featured V For Vendetta. One of the themes I touched on in that post was how the media can twist and misreport information in order to push a narrative, or to hide the truth. I mentioned how if you google “What year is the movie V For Vendetta set in?”, you will see that the top results say it was NOT set in the year 2020. Even though the movie’s script, and director, both clearly show that it is.

Google ‘William Bradford diary” and you will see the top results focus on what the diary was, and many include the original Mayflower Compact. But none of these top links explain that Bradford later scrapped the Mayflower Compact in order to save the colony. The impression is given that the Mayflower Compact, and its focus on ‘fairness’ and ‘equality’ is what saved the colony. The reality is that these focuses almost damned it.

A few years ago, I first heard the term ‘information warfare’. I didn’t really understand what it meant then, but now I think I do. Every day I see fellow citizens who are in a near state of panic over what they believe is a coming change in the country because of the election. They worry because the media has told them this is what’s coming. When the reality is often something completely different, leading to totally unfounded fears.

The pilgrims not only survived, but grew what would eventually become the greatest country on earth. They did so by believing in God, and themselves.

That worked in 1620, it works just as well in 2024.

Mack