Nick’s Note: On this Thanksgiving Day, we share an essay on the real story of Thanksgiving… the one that’s been deleted from the history books.

Our friend Richard Maybury—master historian, philosopher, and economist—presents it to you.

By Richard Maybury, publisher, The Early Warning Report

Each year at this time, school children all over America are taught the official Thanksgiving story.

Newspapers, radio, TV, and magazines devote vast amounts of time and space to it. It’s all very colorful and fascinating.

It’s also very deceiving. This official story is nothing like what really happened. It’s a fairy tale, a whitewashed and sanitized collection of half-truths that divert attention away from Thanksgiving’s real meaning.

The official story has the pilgrims boarding the Mayflower, coming to America, and establishing the Plymouth Colony in the winter of 1620–1621. This first winter is hard, and half the colonists die.

But the survivors are hardworking and tenacious, and they learn new farming techniques from the Indians. The harvest of 1621 is bountiful. The Pilgrims hold a celebration and give thanks to God.

They’re grateful for the wonderful new abundant land He has given them.

The official story then has the Pilgrims living more or less happily ever after, repeating the first Thanksgiving each year.

Other early colonies also have hard times at first, but they soon prosper and adopt the annual tradition of giving thanks for this prosperous new land called America.

The problem with this official story is the harvest of 1621 was not bountiful, nor were the colonists hardworking or tenacious. 1621 was a famine year, and many of the colonists were lazy thieves.

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.

Instead, they preferred to steal food. He says the colony was riddled with “corruption” and “confusion and discontent.” The crops were small because “much was stolen both by night and day, before it became scarce eatable.”

In the harvest feasts of 1621 and 1622, “all had their hungry bellies filled,” but only briefly. The prevailing condition during those years was not the abundance the official story claims.

It was famine and death.

The first “Thanksgiving” was not so much a celebration as it was the last meal of condemned men.

But in subsequent years, something changed. The harvest of 1623 was different. Suddenly, “instead of famine, now God gave them plenty,” Bradford wrote, “and the face of things was changed, to the rejoicing of the hearts of many, for which they blessed God.”

Thereafter, he wrote, “any general want or famine hath not been amongst them since to this day.” In fact, in 1624, so much food was produced, the colonists were able to begin exporting corn.

What happened?

After the poor harvest of 1622, writes Bradford, “they began to think how they might raise as much corn as they could, and obtain a better crop.” They began to question their form of economic organization.

This had required “all profits and benefits that are got by trade, working, fishing, or any other means” 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” idea was an early form of socialism, and it’s why the Pilgrims were starving.

Bradford writes “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.

To rectify this situation, Bradford abolished socialism in 1623. He gave each household a parcel of land and told them they could keep what they produced or trade it away as they saw fit.

In other words, he replaced socialism with a free market, and that was the end of famines.

Many early groups of colonists set up socialist states, all with the same terrible results.

At Jamestown, established in 1607, out of every shipload of settlers that arrived, less than half would survive their first 12 months in America. Most of the work was being done by only one-fifth of the men, the other four-fifths choosing to be parasites.

In the winter of 1609–1610, called the “Starving Time,” the population fell from 500 to 60.

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 30 men as three men have done for themselves now.”

Before these free markets were established, the colonists had nothing for which to be thankful. They were in the same situation as Ethiopians are today, and for the same reasons.

But after free markets were established, the resulting abundance was so dramatic, the annual Thanksgiving celebrations became common throughout the colonies.

And in 1863, Thanksgiving became a national holiday.

Thus the real reason for Thanksgiving, deleted from the official story, is: Socialism does not work. The one and only source of abundance is free markets, and we thank God we live in a country where we can have them.

Regards,

Richard Maybury
Publisher, The Early Warning Report

Nick’s Note: Richard Maybury is known as the “2,500-year-old man.” That’s because his deep understanding of history, law, and economics—and their impact on today’s financial markets—spans millennia.

You can learn more about how world events impact your investments in Richard’s newsletter, The U.S. and World Early Warning Report, right here. (It’s required reading around the PBRG offices.)

And to all Palm Beach subscribers, thank you. We’re grateful for your patronage… on this Thanksgiving and every day.

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