From Socialism To Capitalism - The TRUE Story Of Thanksgiving

As you prepare for Thanksgiving today, hopefully you will remember that the celebration is about Thanking God for all the blessing you've received this year. And you will most likely remember, from your school years, what your teachers taught you about the holiday. That story you were told is the official version of the Thanksgiving story. But there's another one - the TRUE version - that no Hollywood producer and no tax-payer funded school will ever teach you: the Pilgrim's transition from socialism to capitalism.

That's right - the true story of Thanksgiving is the LESSON that the Pilgrims had to learn - the hard way - on how to govern themselves.

The official story of Thanksgiving, the one that is taught in school, says absolutely nothing about socialism. And it should, as socialism is the reason half the Pilgrims died. Socialism was first tried in the American continent by the pilgrims - it was an experiment. And it was a complete disaster. And yet, for reasons I don't understand, this experiment is still being tried today - in this country, by virtue of the massive government expansion over the last 70 years and in the rest of the world.

The official story of thanksgiving simply indicates that in the autumn of 1621, the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag gathered to celebrate the colony's first successful harvest.

Generally, school teachers tell you that this Indian tribe taught the Pilgrims how to catch eel and grow corn, and that the success of the Pilgrims' first harvest was the direct result of Indians teachings.

But this story is not quite accurate - it's missing the most important part: how the Pilgrims dropped socialism and subsequently adopted the free market system that ultimately made America GREAT.

In order to understand the true story of Thanksgiving, we have to go back in history a little.

You see, the Church of England, under King James I, was persecuting everyone who didn't recognize the Church's absolute authority. The punishment for those who challenged its authority was imprisonment and, sometimes, death.

A group of separatists decided to emigrate - landing first in Holland to establish a community.

After 11 years, about 40 of them decided to embark on a dangerous journey to the New World.

We have to remember, these were very religious people, who left their home country so that they could worship God as they pleased, without risking their lives. The main reason they left Europe was to find a place where they could worship God freely.

In their hearts, such long and dangerous journey to America was similar to the Israelites' journey to the Promised Land. Much like the Israelites, the Pilgrims never doubted that they would make it. They trusted God...

Once in the New World, the first winter was devastating - half the Pilgrims died of starvation, including the colony's governor William Bradford's wife.

That's when the Indians came in to help the Pilgrims - and this is the part of the story we've all been taught.

What follows is the part that is omitted from history textbooks - the part that the left doesn't want you to know.

The first economic system implemented in the Colony was what we would now call socialism.

You see, before the Pilgrims left England, they signed a contract which seemed fair and stipulated that they were to pool, for the common benefit 'all profits and benefits that are got by trade, traffic, trucking, working, fishing, or any other means of any person or persons' for 7 years, during which time colonists were to 'have their meat, drink, apparel and all provisions out of the common stock of the said colony'

Once they arrived in the New World, they implemented the system per the contract they had signed - but in the first winter half the people died as a direct result of this system. The problem with it is the same problem we see today in socialist countries: people didn't put too much effort laboring the common land and as a result, output wasn't enough to feed all of them.

Socialism killed half the Pilgrims.

Governor Bradford realized the 'commune' system didn't work - he wrote the experiment 'was found to breed much confusion and discontent and retard much employment that would have been to the benefit and comfort. For the young men, that were most able and fit for labour and service, did repine that they should spend their time and strength to work for other men's wives and children without any recompense'.

He recognized that this form of collectivism was destructive to them - as the first harsh winter had proven. Half the people weren't carrying their weight - they didn't have to.

Bradford realized the system, which we now call Socialism, produced LACK.

What did Bradford do?

He scrapped socialism... permanently.

He assigned a plot of land to each family to manage, thus introducing for the first time what we now know as free enterprise - capitalism.

Now, with the capitalistic principle of private property, there was incentive to work - now there was...abundance.

Bradford and the pilgrims realized it was the new system, which we now call Capitalism, that produced ABUNDANCE

Abundance that the free market system enabled, and that they then shared with the Indians - to give thanks to God for their safety and discovery of the new system, and thanks to the Indians for their help.

Happy Thanksgiving!

2 Corinthians 4:15
'All this is for your benefit, so that the grace that is reaching more and more people, may cause thanksgiving to overflow to the glory of God'

Author: Danielle Cross