What you didn’t learn in school
The story of the
Pilgrims began in the early part of the seventeenth century. The Church of
England under King James I was persecuting anyone who did not recognize its
absolute authority.
Those who demanded freedom of worship were hunted down,
imprisoned, and sometimes executed for their beliefs.
A small group of
separatists fled to Holland, where they established an outpost.
A decade later, about
forty of the separatists decided to embark on a perilous journey to the New
World, where they could live and worship God according to the dictates of their
own consciences.
On August 1, 1620, the Mayflower set sail carrying a total
of 102 passengers, including forty Pilgrims led by William
Bradford.
On the journey,
Bradford set up a contract that established laws that would govern the new
settlement. The values and principles set forth in the Mayflower Compact
were derived from the Bible.
Because of an
unshakable belief in Divine Providence, the Pilgrims never doubted that their
bold experiment would succeed. But their journey to the New World was long and
arduous.
When they landed in America, they found, according to Bradford's
detailed journal, a cold and desolate wilderness.
There were no friends to
greet them, he wrote, or houses to shelter them. There were no inns where they
could find temporary lodging, and no trading posts where they could buy food
and other necessities. The numerous hardships they would encounter in the name of
religious freedom were just beginning.
During the first
winter, half of the Pilgrims – including Bradford's wife – perished from
starvation, sickness or exposure.
When spring came, Indians taught the settlers
how to plant corn, fish for cod and skin beavers for coats. Life improved on
the margins, but the colony was still a long way from assured survival.
The original contract
that the Pilgrims entered into with their merchant sponsors in London called
for everything they produced to go into a common store, with each member
of the settlement entitled to one common share.
All land they cleared and
houses they built belonged to the community.
The plan was to distribute
everything equally.
No colony member owned anything beyond a proportionate
share of the common output.
Under this communal living arrangement, the
colony’s most industrious members lacked incentive to produce as much as they
could.
Soon, it became
obvious that the collectivist system was not yielding enough food.
Faced with
mass starvation, Bradford decided on bold action, and assigned each family its
own plot of land.
With private property rights and personal incentive in play,
food production began to soar.
The Pilgrims scrapped the collectivist system
that almost led to their demise.
What Bradford wrote about the colony’s
near-disastrous experiment in communal living should be taught to every child
in America:
"'…. this community was found to breed
much confusion and discontent, and to retard much employment that would
otherwise have been to its benefit and comfort. Young men that were most able
and fit for labor and service did repine [complain] that they should spend
their time and strength to work for other men's wives and children without
compensation.”
Under the new
arrangement, every family was permitted to sell its excess crops and other
products.
The result?
'This had very good success”, wrote Bradford, “for it
made all hands industrious, so more corn was planted than otherwise would have
been.”
With an abundance of
food at hand, the Pilgrims set up trading posts and began to exchange goods
with the Indians.
The profits they earned enabled them to pay off their debts
to their sponsors. News of the settlement’s prosperity attracted other
Europeans, and precipitated what came to be known as the Great Puritan
Migration.
Many of America’s
schools incorrectly teach that the first Thanksgiving was an occasion where
grateful Pilgrims thanked the Indians for saving them from starvation.
But the
true story of Thanksgiving is that of William Bradford giving thanks not to the
Indians, but to God, for the guidance and inspiration to establish
a thriving colony, one that enabled the Pilgrims to generously share their
plentiful bounty with their Indian neighbors at that first Thanksgiving.
Omitted in many
classrooms is the historical fact that it was not Indians who saved the
Pilgrims. Rather, it was free enterprise capitalism and Scripture, the latter
of which was acknowledged by George Washington in his Thanksgiving Proclamation issued on the 3rd day
of October, 1789.
America was founded on
an unshakable belief in Divine Providence.
Courtesy of the
Excellence in Broadcasting Network, owned and operated by radio commentator
Rush Limbaugh
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Here beginneth the chronicle of
those memorable circumstances of the year 1620, as recorded by Nathaniel
Morton, keeper of the records of Plymouth Colony, based on the account of
William Bradford, sometime governor thereof:
So they left that goodly and
pleasant city of Leyden, which had been their resting-place for above eleven
years, but they knew that they were pilgrims and strangers here below, and
looked not much on these things, but lifted up their eyes to Heaven, their
dearest country, where God hath prepared for them a city (Heb. XI, 16), and
therein quieted their spirits.
When they came to Delfs-Haven they
found the ship and all things ready, and such of their friends as could not
come with them followed after them, and sundry came from Amsterdam to see them
shipt, and to take their leaves of them. One night was spent with little sleep
with the most, but with friendly entertainment and Christian discourse, and
other real expressions of true Christian love.
The next day they went on board, and
their friends with them, where truly doleful was the sight of that sad and
mournful parting, to hear what sighs and sobs and prayers did sound amongst
them; what tears did gush from every eye, and pithy speeches pierced each
other’s heart, that sundry of the Dutch strangers that stood on the Key as
spectators could not refrain from tears. But the tide (which stays for no man)
calling them away, that were thus loath to depart, their Reverend Pastor,
falling down on his knees, and they all with him, with watery cheeks commended
them with the most fervent prayers unto the Lord and His blessing; and then
with mutual embraces and many tears they took their leaves one of another,
which proved to be the last leave to many of them.
Being now passed the vast ocean, and
a sea of troubles before them in expectations, they had now no friends to
welcome them, no inns to entertain or refresh them, no houses, or much less
towns, to repair unto to seek for succour; and for the season it was winter,
and they that know the winters of the country know them to be sharp and
violent, subject to cruel and fierce storms, dangerous to travel to known
places, much more to search unknown coasts.
Besides, what could they see but a
hideous and desolate wilderness, full of wilde beasts and wilde men? and what
multitudes of them there were, they then knew not: for which way soever they
turned their eyes (save upward to Heaven) they could have but little solace or
content in respect of any outward object; for summer being ended, all things
stand in appearance with a weatherbeaten face, and the whole country, full of
woods and thickets, represented a wild and savage hew.
If they looked behind them, there
was a mighty ocean which they had passed, and was now as a main bar or gulph to
separate them from all the civil parts of the world.
This editorial has appeared annually
since 1961. It appeared in the November 22, 2017,
print edition.
We Can Still Learn from the Pilgrims' Gratitude
An
undatged photo showing the shelter that showcases the famous Plymouth Rock
which marks the supposed spot where the first Puritan Pilgrims landed in
America in 1620 in Plymouth, Mass. (Marcio Silva/Dreamstime)
By Jerry Newcombe
With another Thanksgiving holiday upon us, it's good
to consider what the Pilgrims endured and how they thanked God through it all.
I just finished reading a phenomenal book on the group of
dissident Christians who founded the Plymouth Colony in 1620. Historian Rod
Gragg wrote "The Pilgrim Chronicles: An Eyewitness history of the Pilgrims
and the Founding of Plymouth Colony" (Regnery History, 2014).
I thought I knew a lot about the Pilgrims, but this book
added greatly to my knowledge.
The Pilgrims were one congregation that was born in mid-England
around 1606 at a time where church meetings, apart from the Church of England,
were illegal. Their goal was to worship Jesus in the purity of the Gospel as
they understood it. The Bible (Geneva version) was the focus of their
existence.
Because of persecution in England, they decided to
emigrate to Holland; but even leaving the mother country was problematic. A sea
captain betrayed them, and several of their men ended up in an English jail.
About 1609, they were able to finally make it to Holland.
Initially, the Netherlands was a good place for
them. At least they could worship without government interference. But over
time, they saw that some of their children were following the ways of the
worldly Dutch youth. Meanwhile, the permanency of the Jamestown settlement in
the New World allowed them to explore the possibility of coming to America to
stay intact as a congregation and be able to worship Jesus in peace.
They borrowed money, and they received permission from
King James, who was glad to be rid of them, to sail to the "northern parts
of Virginia," which at that time that would have been about where New York
Harbor is today.
The voyage of the Mayflower was treacherous. One storm
was so fierce they almost ended up on the bottom of the Atlantic ocean.
When they finally came to the New World, they were 250
miles north of their target and unable to safely sail south. They made history
by writing up a Christian agreement for self-government that they signed before
disembarking. This "Mayflower Compact" was the first step in the
eventual creation of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution 150
years later.
Then came the hostile winter of 1620-1621, where illness,
cold, and starvation killed about half of them. They slept mostly onboard the
Mayflower, having little opportunity to build houses in the howling winter.
Of the 18 women on board the Mayflower, only four
survived that winter. Half of the married men died. There were 29 unmarried men
— of these, 10 died, 19 survived. The children had the best survival rate.
All seven girls lived. Of the 13 boys, three died, and 10 lived. Yet
through it all, they trusted God, giving him thanks.
The spring came early in 1621, and the deaths stopped.
Two friendly Indians, able to speak English, came and greeted them. They aided
them in making peace with the Indians, and learn how to plant corn and capture
eels for survival food.
The Pilgrims enjoyed a great relationship with the Native
Americans — including making a peace treaty, one lasting for apprximately
55 years. It was brokered by Chief Massasoit.
At harvest time in 1621, the Pilgrims gave thanks to God
and enjoyed a three-day feast with the Indians. This was the beginning of our
Thanksgiving celebration in America.
Gragg quotes John Pory, a scholar from England who had
served in the colony of Virginia, who was on his way back to England. Having
visited Plymouth in 1622, Pory wrote, "the reasons of their continual
plenty for those 7 months in the year may be the continual tranquility of the
place, being guarded on all sides from the fury of the storms, as also the
abundance of food they find at low water. . . . Now as concerning the
quality of the people, how happy were it for our people [in Virginia], if they
were as free from wickedness and vice as these are in this place. . . .
As touching their correspondence with the Indians, they are friends with all
their neighbors."
Gragg also quotes Pilgrim leader Edward Winslow, who
declared, "[N]one will ever be losers by following us so far as we follow
Christ.”
Rod Gragg (at page 288) concludes on the Pilgrims’
settlement, "And they had succeeded. No one in Ameratica would be raiding
their Sunday services to stop their worship. Neither would they be hauled off
to jail because of their beliefs, nor ever again forced to flee their homes
because of their faith. And the way of freedom they had blazed in the wilds of
the New World would eventually become the path of liberty for countless people
from around the world: people yearning for a new life, a new start, a new home
— and who would find it as Americans."
Jerry
Newcombe is co-host/senior TV producer of Kennedy Classics. He has
written/co-written 25 books, including "The Book That Made America,
Doubting Thomas" (with Mark Beliles), "What If Jesus Had Never Been Born?"
(With D. James Kennedy), and "George Washington's Sacred Fire" (with
Peter Lillback).
____________________________
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