November
27, 2002, 8:30 a.m. Pilgrim
Parable
Choosing freedom.
here
are many things I like about Thanksgiving. It brings back memories of
growing up in Ohio, the aroma of the feast being prepared, the chill that
was the harbinger of approaching winter, the bare trees and gray skies
contrasting with the warm hearth and bustle of family. It is a peaceful
holiday, and joyous in a certain way that others are not. It does, as
it was intended to do, evoke reasons to be thankful, to appreciate life
in its many aspects.
The Pilgrims, too,
had a lot to be thankful for in 1621. They were free from religious persecution
in England, and could worship and live in the manner they believed God
ordained. They could also be thankful for their survival. They had established
themselves on the coast of Massachusetts and made it through their first
year in the New World. They had managed to plant enough food to keep them
through the winter, not in luxury certainly, but without the fear of starvation
that had plagued them the year before. The circumstances seemed worthy
of recognition. That fall, after the harvest, Governor William Bradford
"sent four men on fowling, that so we might after a special manner
rejoice together after we had gathered the fruits of our labors."
Edward Winslow, writing on December 12, 1621, described the festivities,
during which the Pilgrims were joined by 90 Indians led by "their
greatest king Massasoit." They enjoyed three days of feasting and
games (such as were permitted) and good fellowship. It was the first Thanksgiving,
and the last for several centuries.
The Pilgrims celebrated
that year in peace and plenty, but there was trouble in their utopia.
Since their arrival, the settlers had practiced communal agriculture,
in a manner that, according to Bradford's
journal, "may well evince the vanity of that conceit of Plato's
and other ancients… that the taking away of property and bringing
in community into a commonwealth would make them happy and flourishing."
The fields were worked in common and their product shared out according
to need. There was ample theological justification — had not Jesus
and his Apostles lived in this manner? Would it not bring the Pilgrims
thereby closer to a state of grace? Robert Cushman, a latecomer to Plymouth
(he landed in November 1621), gave a lengthy sermon to the congregation
about a month after he arrived on the "Sin
and Danger of Self Love." He condemned the self-seeking man,
the worship of the "belly-god," the sins of pride and conceit,
the pursuit of wealth and luxury. He denounced those who had gone to Virginia
full of religious zeal and been reduced to "mere worldlings."
All together, all for the collective, this was the route to righteousness.
He explained,
It wonderfully
encourageth men in their duties, when they see the burthen equally borne;
but when some withdraw themselves and retire to their own particular
ease, pleasure, or profit, what heart can men have to go on in their
business? … Will not a few idle drones spoil the whole stock of
laborious bees so one idle-belly, one murmerer, one complainer, one
self-lover will weaken and dishearten a whole Colony? Great matters
have been brought to pass where men have cheerfully as was one heart,
hand, and shoulder, gone about it, both in wars, buildings, and plantations,
but where every man seeks himself, all cometh to nothing.
This was not the
way of God; rather, to be a goodly man, one must "seek the good,
the wealth, the profit of others."
Yet, the communalism
of the Pilgrims brought out the same elements of human nature that have
led to the failure of other such experiments, before and since, on grand
scale and small. Throughout 1622, the contradictions of communism made
themselves apparent. "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,"
Bradford wrote. "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." Animosities grew between
the Pilgrims; the social fabric of the new colony was unraveling. Bradford
notes that the situation would have grown even worse had the colonists
not been united by their shared beliefs. There was no Thanksgiving feast
that year, and there commenced through the winter a lengthy debate over
how to solve their problems. They pondered how to grow more and better
crops, and "not still thus languish in misery."
In the spring of
1623, the Pilgrims decided to abandon their commonwealth and divide the
land amongst them, to allow private cultivation of crops, to let each
work the land as he saw fit. They could "set corn every man for his
own particular, and in that regard trust to themselves." Each family
was granted a plot according to its size, and those young men not part
of a family were assigned to one. The results were extraordinary. Bradford
wrote, "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 Governor 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." Private property
brought not only increased production, but self-respect, motivation, and
harmony. The community could once again function as a center for worship,
free of the social divisions they had previously suffered. And Bradford
believed that the new arrangement was a much more accurate reflection
of the will of God, He who had made men different, who gave them varying
abilities that they might employ them in the manner He intended.
Twelve score years
later, Abraham Lincoln established the Thanksgiving holiday as we now
know it by proclamation. He
noted that despite the demands of war, the society and economy continue
to expand, and flourish. "Needful diversions of wealth and of strength
from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defense, have not
arrested the plough, the shuttle or the ship; the axe has enlarged the
borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as
of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore."
He adds, "No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand
worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most
High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless
remembered mercy." Lincoln harkens back not to Pilgrim collectivization,
but to the privatization of 1623, that helped lay the foundations of private
ownership in America, the freedom of property that harnesses human energies
and imaginations, pushes forward progress, and builds self respect. The
mercy God granted our sundered republic was the continued flourishing
of this freedom.
This Pilgrim parable
is worth remembering when giving thanks. Our country was not predestined
to prosper; it did so through choices made at its Founding and renewed
every generation since: the choices of freedom over rule, property over
collectivization, the liberty of the individual human spirit over the
dictates of the enlightened few. We should be thankful for the wisdom
of our ancestors in creating this heritage, and mindful of our stewardship
as we are called to carry forward this idea called America.
— James
S. Robbins is a national-security analyst & NRO contributor.
<% dim printurl
printurl = Request.ServerVariables("URL")%>
here
are many things I like about Thanksgiving. It brings back memories of
growing up in Ohio, the aroma of the feast being prepared, the chill that
was the harbinger of approaching winter, the bare trees and gray skies
contrasting with the warm hearth and bustle of family. It is a peaceful
holiday, and joyous in a certain way that others are not. It does, as
it was intended to do, evoke reasons to be thankful, to appreciate life
in its many aspects.
