"The Great Thanksgiving Hoax" author Mises Daily: Saturday, November 20, 1999 by Richard J. Maybury "In his 'History of Plymouth Plantation,' the governor of the colony, William Bradford, reported that the colonists went hungry for years, because they refused to work in the fields. They preferred instead to steal food. He says the colony was riddled with "corruption," and with "confusion and discontent." The crops were small because "much was stolen both by night and day, before it became scarce eatable." "This had required that "all profits & benefits that are got by trade, working, fishing, or any other means" were to be placed in the common stock of the colony, and that, "all such persons as are of this colony, are to have their meat, drink, apparel, and all provisions out of the common stock." A person was to put into the common stock all he could, and take out only what he needed." "This "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need" was an early form of socialism, and it is why the Pilgrims were starving. Bradford writes that "young men that are most able and fit for labor and service" complained about being forced to "spend their time and strength to work for other men's wives and children." Also, "the strong, or man of parts, had no more in division of victuals and clothes, than he that was weak." So the young and strong refused to work and the total amount of food produced was never adequate." "Then the Jamestown colony was converted to a free market, and the results were every bit as dramatic as those at Plymouth. In 1614, Colony Secretary Ralph Hamor wrote that after the switch there was "plenty of food, which every man by his own industry may easily and doth procure." He said that when the socialist system had prevailed, "we reaped not so much corn from the labors of thirty men as three men have done for themselves now." Long article, these are a few spaced excerpts. Here is the source, The Great Thanksgiving Hoax - Richard J. Maybury - Mises Daily
There has been a myth that the Pilgrims and Jamestown colonists were socialists who, upon realizing that this system did not work, turned to free market capitalism which ended their problems. This tale has been going around for some time in conservative, and now Tea Party, circles, and a version of it is told by Rush Limbaugh every year. The theory has been debunked by experts in a number of journals, books and the NY Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/21/weekinreview/21zernike.html?_r=1
Lotta double-speak, mud-slinging, and party line-drawing in that cute article you linked. Here's another excerpt from your linked article that was by the way written Nov 20, 2010. "Historians say that the settlers in Plymouth, and their supporters in England, did indeed agree to hold their property in common - William Bradford, the governor, referred to it in his writings as the “common course.†But the plan was in the interest of realizing a profit sooner, and was only intended for the short term; historians say the Pilgrims were more like shareholders in an early corporation than subjects of socialism." "The competing versions of the story note Bradford's writings about “confusion and discontent†and accusations of “laziness†among the colonists. But Mr. Pickering said this grumbling had more to do with the fact that the Plymouth colony was bringing together settlers from all over England, at a time when most people never moved more than 10 miles from home. They spoke different dialects and had different methods of farming, and looked upon each other with great wariness. “One man's laziness is another man's industry, based on the agricultural methods they've learned as young people,†he said." Sounds like things are essentially up to interpretations and the words authors choose to use in their biased perspectives. However it is admitted that these colonists did setup a communal pool of their good's and harvest..... I think my article has more actual first hand quotes from colonists as apposed to these "historians" opinions filling the article here.
The colonists ("Pilgrims") in Plymouth had to work very hard, under extremely harsh conditions, to earn money to repay the venture capitalists in England who sponsored their journey to America, and for subsequent expenses for supplies and such. Of course they didn't like it, and grumbled - but it wasn't because they were socialists. They wanted to get out from under debt very badly and sometimes it was best to pool their resources for the first few years after the Mayflower, and the other first ships, arrived. The von Mises Institute is not a reputable source of Pilgrim history, but right wingers and libertarians continue to pull out that same article, first published in 1985, or similar ones, every year around Thanksgiving, with the pretense of a failed collectivist experiment, and the triumph of capitalism and individualism. It's a nice fable, but not accurate.
This is the first I have heard of such a thing... I thought Thanksgiving was all about pilgrims trading food with native Americans. There should be a new philosophical law stating that if something exists, there will always be people to politicize it. I'm not sure if the person who wrote that article has been through a New England winter, but that could possibly be an explanation of why early Pilgrims often starved. They were not prepared for such winter conditions. Crops didn't survive that kind of stuff. It is apparent that socialism is a failure, though. I'm not going to argue that point.
history is written by the dictators of the times not by historians. socialism is not a 'failure' when it is corrupted from within. in it's utopian (fictional) form, all prosper...but add one little thing..people that become greedy and corrupt, and it falls apart. Much like a certain Republic whose name we are all aware of. there has never been a socialist government, just some faux versions of such.
History is written by everyone. The "dictators" can't control everything. Also, the same could be said of capitalism. It could work without corruption and greed. Whether or not there has been legitimate socialist societies, utopian or otherwise, there have been plenty of democratically elected socialist leaders who had tremendous support from many many people.
I thought victors wrote the history books? Lol. Hell, we're taught the holocaust was one of the worst things to happen in the history of mankind, which it was awful and shouldn't have happened.. But When we're talking about killing all the Indians and taking their land though, that was just.. Progess?
The Americas had 50 to 100 million Native Americans before Columbus. They died off because they had no resistance to diseases that the Whites brought from Europe, and their population was reduced to a fraction of what it had previously been. They suffered many injustices, but they were not systematically exterminated.
so basically we should celebrate thanksgiving snuggled up in the small pox blanket, turn off the heater to simulate winter, and steal eachothers food?
The Pilgrims were losers, who couldn't get along with anyone in Europe, so they came to this continent to steal whatever they could, which given enough time, was the whole damn place. They were starving, because they were trying to live like barnyard animals, in a free range environment. Fortunately for the pilgrims, they had acquired european immuno-systems that could resist the many plagues that they brought with them, in a germ warfare campaign against the natives that was in fact, the most successful genocide in history, save the ones going on in the Caribbean islands and South America at that same time. Just because your weapon of choice is disease, doesn't make it any nicer. A germ war can run for hundreds of years, with no real visible effort seen. The pilgrims were a grim pill, all right. I don't celebrate them, they were mean moronic two faced liars who didn't even recognize heaven when they landed there. The natives should have run them into the sea like the lemmings they were.
This post is so full of historical innaccuracies, unreliable claims, and outright lies, never mind the socio-political agenda, that I don't even know where to begin.
There is a very interesting new theory, based upon a massive amount of research, which claims that it was not diseases brought by Europeans that killed off most of the 22 million Aztecs in 16th century Mexico - it was a type of Hemorrhagic virus, which the Natives of Mexico were exposed to but upper-class Spanish there were generally not, and it may still be a lurking theat. http://discovermagazine.com/2006/feb/megadeath-in-mexico
And also correct me if I'm wrong but the vast majority of the Native American population actually lived Mexico, Central and South America where they had advanced civilizations, not North America. I remember reading there were less than 20 million Native Americans in all of North America excluding Mexico.
I think that this is accurate, at least as far as the estimates go. There is a decent summary of information regarding Native American populations, pre and post Columbus, on Wiki. Estimates of non-Mexican North American natives range from a low of two million to a high eighteen million - which wasn't very much compared to Central and South America's native populations.