Our First Thanksgiving

By Sartell Prentice, Jr.

Mr. Prentice was an economist, lecturer, and writer. This essay, in a slightly longer version, was first published by FEE in 1955, and appeared in The Freeman in November 1959. Governor Bradford’s spelling has been modernized. Readers may also recall Henry Hazlitt’s telling of the story of Pilgrims’ experience, “Private Enterprise Regained.”

On Thanksgiving Day we are asked to remember what Edmund Burke, in one of the most eloquent phrases to be found in all literature, described as “that little speck, scarce visible in the mass of national interest, a small seminal principle, rather than a formed body”–the tiny vessel, more accurately to be described as a “cockleshell,” the Mayflower, and its hundred passengers, men, women, and children, who sailed on her.

Twelve years earlier, in 1608, they had fled from religious persecution in England and established a new home in Holland. Despite the warm welcome extended by the Dutch, as contrasted with the persecutions they had endured in England, their love for their homeland impelled them to seek English soil on which to raise their children, English soil on which they would be free to worship God in their own way.

Finally, the Pilgrims landed, as we all know, on Plymouth Rock in the middle of December 1620, and on Christmas Day, in the words of Governor William Bradford, 1 they “began to erect the first house for common use to receive them and their goods.”

So was established the first English colony in New England.

Three years later, when the plentiful harvest of 1623 had been gathered in, the Pilgrims “set apart a day of thanksgiving.”

Governor Bradford adds, “Any general want or famine has not been among them since to this day.”2

But what of the intervening years? After all, there were harvests gathered in in 1621 and 1622.

Three Kernels of Corn

I know of one family, descended from the Pilgrims, who place beside each plate at their bounteous table on Thanksgiving Day a little paper cup containing just three kernels of corn, as a constant reminder of the all too frequent days during these first years when three kernels of corn represented the daily food ration of their Pilgrim forebears.

Within three months of their landing on Plymouth Rock, “of one hundred and odd persons, scarce fifty remained. And of these in the time of most distress, there was but six or seven sound persons, who, to their great commendations be it spoken, spared no pains, night nor day, but with abundance of toil and hazard of their own health . . . . did all the homely and necessary offices which dainty and queasy stomachs cannot endure to hear named; and all this willingly and cheerfully . . . . showing herein their true love unto their friends and brethren. A rare example and worthy to be remembered.”

One half of the crew of the Mayflower, including “many of their officers and lustiest men, as the boatson, gunner, three quartermasters, the cook, and others,” also perished before the little vessel set sail on her return voyage to England in April 1621.
In the following excerpt from his History, Governor Bradford vividly describes the lot of the Pilgrims during these early years. Writing about conditions in the spring of 1623, after their corn had been planted, he says:

“All ther victuals were spent, and they were only to rest on God’s providence; at night not many times knowing when to have a bit of anything the next day. And so, as one well observed, had need to pray that God would give them their daily bread, above all people in the world . . . ; which makes me remember what Peter Martire writes (in magnifying the Spaniards) in his 5. Decade, page 208. lsquo;They’ (said he) lsquo;led a miserable life for 5. days together, with the parched grain of maize only, and that not to saturitie’; and then concludes, lsquo;that such pains, such labors, and such hunger, he thought none living which is not a Spaniard could have endured.’

“But alas! these [the Pilgrims], when they had maize (that is, Indian corn) they thought it as good as a feast, and wanted not only for 5. days together, but some time 2. or 3. months together, and neither had bread nor any kind of corn.

“Yet let me hear make use of his [Peter Martire's] conclusion, which in some sort may be applied to this people: lsquo;That with their miseries they opened a way to these new-lands; and after these storms, with what ease other men came to inhabit in them, in respect of the calamities these men suffered; so as they seem to go to a bridal feast where all things are provided for them.’ ”

So They Tried Freedom

Yet, following the harvest gathered in the fall of that same year, 1623, and for all the years that followed, Governor Bradford tells us, “any general want or famine has not been among them since to this day.”

Three years of near starvation–and then decades of abundance. Was this a miracle?

Or is there a rational explanation for this sudden change in the fortunes of our Pilgrim forefathers?

Describing events that took place in the spring of 1623, Governor Bradford answers our questions, in eloquent words that should be engraved on the hearts and minds of all Americans:

“All this while no supply was heard of, neither knew they when they might expect any. So they began to think how they might raise as much corn as they could, and obtain a better crop than they had done, that they might not still thus languish in misery. At length, after much debate of things, the Gov. (with the advice of the chiefest amongst them) gave way that they should set corn every man for his own particular [private use], and in that regard trust to themselves . . . . And so assigned to every family a parcel of land, according to the proportion of their number for that end, only for present use (but made no division for inheritance) and ranged all boys and youth under some family. This had very good success; for it made all hands very industrious, so as much more corn was planted than otherwise would have been by any means the Gov. or any other could use, and saved him a great deal of trouble, and gave far better content. The women now went willingly into the field, and took their little ones with them to set corn, which before would allege weakness, and inability; whom to have compelled would have been thought great tyranny and oppression.

“The experience that was had in this common course and condition, tried sundry years, and that among godly and sober men, may well evince the vanity of that conceit of Plato’s and other ancients; that the taking away of property, and bringing into a common wealth, would make them happy and flourishing;–as if they were wiser than God.

“For this community (so far as it was) was found to breed much confusion and discontent, and retard much employment that would have been to their benefit and comfort. For the young men that were most able and fit for labor and service did repine that they should spend their time and strength to work for other men’s wives and children, with out any recompense. The strong, or man of parts, had no more in division of victuals and clothes, than he that was weak and not able to do a quarter the other could; this was thought injustice. The aged and graver men to be ranked and equalized in labors, and victuals, clothes, etc., with the meaner and younger sort, thought it some indignity and disrespect unto them.

“And for men’s wives to be commanded to do service for other men, as dressing their meat, washing their clothes, etc., they deemed it a kind of slavery, neither could many husbands well brook it. Upon the point all being to have alike, and all to do alike, they thought themselves in the like condition, and one as good as another; and so, if it did not cut of those relations that God hath set among men, yet it did at least much diminish and take of the mutual respects that should be preserved among them. And would have been worse if they had been men of another condition.

“Let none object this is men’s corruption, and nothing to the course itself. I answer, seeing all men have this corruption in them, God in his wisdom saw another course fitter for them.”

The Importance of Property Rights

This new policy of allowing each to “plant for his own particular” produced such a harvest that fall that Governor Bradford was able to write:

“By this time harvest was come, and instead of famine, now God gave them plenty, and the face of things was changed, to the rejoicing of the hearts of many, for which they blessed God. And the effect of their particular [private] planting was well seen, for all had, one way and other, pretty well to bring the year about, and some of the abler sort and more industrious had to spare, and sell to others, so as any general want or famine has not been among them since to this day.”

Our first Thanksgiving should, therefore, be interpreted as an expression of gratitude to God, not so much for the great harvest itself, as for granting the grateful Pilgrims the perception to grasp and apply the great universal principle that produced that great harvest: Each individual is entitled to the fruits of his own labor. Property rights are, therefore, inseparable from human rights.

If man abides by this law, he will reap abundance; if he violates this law, suffering, starvation, and death will follow, as night the day.

This is the essential meaning of the two great Commandments, “Thou shalt not covet” and “Thou shalt not steal.”

When it came time for the spring planting in the following year, 1624, the Pilgrims went one step further. In Governor Bradford’s words:

“I must speak of their planting this year; they having found the benefit of their last year’s harvest, and setting corn for their particular, having thereby with a great deal of patience overcome hunger and famine. That they might increase their tillage to better advantage, they made suit to the Governor to have some portion of land given them for continuance, and not by yearly lot, for by that means, that which the more industrious had brought into good culture (by much pains) one year, came to leave it the next, and often another might enjoy it; so as the dressing of their lands were the more slighted over, and to less profit. Which being well considered, their request was granted. And to every person was given only one acre of land, to them and theirs, as near the town as might be, and they had no more till the seven years were expired.”

Describing the results of the application of this policy in the year 1626, Governor Bradford tells us:

“It pleased the Lord to give the plantation peace and health and contented minds, and so to bless their labors, as they had corn sufficient (and some to spare to others) with other food; neither ever had they any supply of food but what they first brought with them. After harvest this year, they sent out a boat’s load of corn some 40. or 50. leagues to the eastward, up a river called Kenibeck . . . . . God preserved them, and gave them good success, for they brought home 700 ti. of beaver, besides some other furs, having little or nothing else but this corn, which themselves had raised out of the earth.”

The discovery and application of this concept of individual property rights, derived from the Creator, was the real “seminal principle” so eloquently phrased by the great English statesman and orator Edmund Burke. As it developed from this tiny seed into a “formed body,” it became the cornerstone of our Declaration of Independence and of our Constitution, and produced the extraordinary explosion of individual human energy that took place in nineteenth-century America.

Famine Persisted in England

In England, meanwhile, farming “in common” continued to be the general practice for another hundred years. Not until the second decade of the 1700s did “setting crops for their particular” begin slowly to be accepted in England–and decades were to pass before the new practice became sufficiently widespread to provide an adequate food supply for the population.

As recently as 1844, an English writer thus describes the conditions which then existed:

“Full one third of our population [in the United Kingdom] subsist entirely, or rather starve, upon potatoes alone, another third have, in addition to this edible, oaten or inferior wheaten bread, with one or two meals of fat pork, or the refuse of the shambles [slaughterhouses], per week; while a considerable majority of the remaining third seldom are able to procure an ample daily supply of good butcher’s meat or obtain the luxury of poultry from year to year.

“On the continent of Europe, population is still in a worse condition . . . ” 3

No country was ever more “underdeveloped” than the wilderness of New England on which our Pilgrim forebears set foot. The majority of those who landed from the Mayflower in December 1620 perished prior to that first great harvest of 1623. For two years they followed the age-old custom prevalent in England of “farming in common”–and they starved.

Through suffering, starvation, and hardship, they learned and applied the fundamentals of freedom–and, instead of starvation, they grew crops sufficient not only for their own needs, but to spare, enabling them to exchange their surplus with the Indians for beaver and other furs.

If Pilgrims Had Had “Foreign Aid”?

But suppose some foreign country, or their mother country, had taken pity on them in their misery and sent them ample food supplies during those first terrible years; this would have been impossible, for England herself was virtually on a starvation diet, as were most of the countries on the continent of Europe. But suppose it had been possible; suppose they had received such “foreign aid”?

Would not the Pilgrims have continued to “farm in common”? Would they not have continued to follow the practice that more than two centuries later was to become a basic tenet of Marxian philosophy, “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need”?

Would the Pilgrims ever have learned and applied the concepts of the dignity of the individual and the sanctity of property–the idea that each individual is entitled to the fruits of his own labor–the Law of Individual Freedom and Individual Responsibility?

Freedom for the individual, with recognition and respect for the right of each individual to his property, is essential to the release of individual human energy, which alone can raise the standard of living.

It is for this reason that aid sent to support socialist governments (which deny the right to private property) and aid sent to help underdeveloped peoples that have not yet learned the lessons taught to the Pilgrims by hard experience–it is for this reason that such “aid” may be likened to attempting to fill a bathtub without first putting the stopper in. 4

Would not America be rendering a greater service to these peoples by teaching them, through precept and example, the real meaning of our first Thanksgiving–and by pointing out to them the truth and applicability of the great ideals of individual freedom and individual responsibility under God?

The young American nation grew and prospered because for more than a century and a quarter the sanctity of property rights was recognized as being indispensable to human rights; because her people were free to “plant for their own particular”; because the resultant “free market economy” invited domestic and foreign capital seeking a profit.

What of Today?

Is America, today, still abiding by these principles? Not only is the answer “No!” but there is evidence on every hand that we are re-enacting the very mistakes our Pilgrim Fathers made during their first years of “farming in common,” mistakes which produced nought but disaster, re-enacting in the New World the age-old miseries of constant hunger and starvation that continued to plague the Old World for some two centuries.

We are not as yet suffering the Pilgrims’ privation, but we are reverting to arbitrary communalization on an enormous scale, resetting the same old-world stage.

Our present tax structure is a case in point. Its aim is not to finance the costs of a strictly limited government, but rather to reform society, to remold our lives, and to redistribute our wealth according to the ideas of economic and social planners dedicated to the socialization, the communization, of our once free America.

As a consequence, we are now supporting vast armies of government bureaucrats who swarm over the land–and over much of the world–devouring our substance like a plague of locusts. Today, one in every six employed Americans is on a government payroll.

As a consequence, we are compelled to contribute from the fruits of our labor billions of dollars for subsidies and handouts granted by politicians in their endless search for votes and personal power.

As a consequence, we have government operating vast businesses–already representing 20 percent of the industrial capacity of the U.S.A.–businesses that ride the backs of the American people as interest free, rent free, cost free, and tax free princes of privilege, in competition with tax-paying enterprises.

In our program of aid to socialist governments and to underdeveloped nationalities and peoples that have not yet learned to apply the great universal truths tested and proved by our Pilgrim forebears, are we not seeking to fill the bathtub without first seeing to it that the stopper is in place–in a fruitless attempt to buy loyal allies with money? Referring to our sixty billion dollar Foreign Aid since World War II, on January 27, 1957, Hon. Spruille Braden said: “It is a sum equal to the assessed valuation of all real and other property in our seventeen biggest cities!”

Each time I accept a government handout, for any reason whatsoever, I am stealing from the only Treasure House any people has–the surplus wealth created by the productive energies of millions of individual men and women, each seeking a better life for himself and for his children.

Each time I produce less, in my work, than enough to earn a profit for my employer, I am stealing from someone else–and contributing toward creating unemployment for others and a higher cost of living for all.

This Thanksgiving Day, let us, each in his own way, humbly ask forgiveness for the degree to which we have all violated the great “seminal principle,” either directly, or through tolerating its violation by others.

Then, this Thanksgiving Day, let us highly resolve to dedicate our lives, as individuals, to “planting for our own particular,” rather than living as parasites on the productive energy of others; let us dedicate our lives to a renewed application of the ideal of individual freedom and individual responsibility, which our Pilgrim forebears learned at such sacrifice, and which they passed down to us as our most precious heritage.

——————————————————————————————–

1. This and subsequent quotations are taken from Bradford’s History “of Plimoth Plantation” from the original manuscript. Printed under the direction of the Secretary of the Commonwealth by order of the General Court. Boston: Wright amp; Potter Printing Company, State Printers, 1898.

2. Presumably 1647, the last year covered in Bradford’s History.

3. “Treatise on Artificial Incubation” by Mr. W. Bucknell, London: p. 36, quoted in Dictionary of the Farm by Mr. W. L. Rham (Charles Knight and Co., 1844), pp. 418-419. I am indebted to my uncle, the late Col. E. Parmalee Prentice, for the vast amount of research he carried out in gathering material such as this for his remarkable book, Hunger and History (Caldwell, Idaho: Caxton Printers, Ltd., 1951), without which this part of the article could not have been written.

4. The distinction between free-market services to individuals and intergovernmental foreign aid may be clarified by this statement by Joseph Stalin in Marxism and the National and Colonial Question (New York: Four Continent Book Corporation, 1940), pages 115 and 116:–”It is essential that the advanced countries should render aid–real and prolonged aid–to the backward nationalities in their cultural and economic development. Otherwise it will be impossible to bring about the peaceful co-existence of the various nations and peoples within a single economic system that is so essential for the final triumph of Socialism.”