The First Thanksgiving

      This essay is necessary because a deliberate fraud is being perpetrated by the (inferior but mandatory) US public school system, otherwise known as "government schools." The myth, by now well propogated, is that Thanksgiving celebrates the time when the pilgrims expressed their gratitude for their survival in the new harsh land of America to the Indians of the Eastern seaboard. The facts are different.

The pilgrims arrived on American shores in 1620, all 102 of them, adults and children. During the voyage, the group bound for America agreed to a social contract, called the Mayflower Compact. According to this document, which included several provisions which we would identify as generally democratic, was one provision which was decidedly socialistic: all of the colonists would be treated financially equally in the new land, namely, that each person would hold an equal share in the land and the produce of the colony, despite the variable efforts they would contribute to the project individually. Historical records document many such efforts to homogenize the output of variable talent, brought to its natural culmination by the communists in the Soviet Union: "From each according to his ability, To each, according to his need."

As has been always the case whenever a socialistic scheme such as this is tried, it fails. It always fails for the same reason: individuals discover that their share of the profits is the same whether they work or they don't work, and those most productive soon loose interest in providing their labor for the benefit of the unworking majority.

It is true that following a substantial loss in the colony's population (nearly half) through starvation, illness, and inclement weather, the colonists learned a few lessons about survival from the Indians: how to grow corn, how to trap and hunt in the new land, and other useful things. However, the Major thing they learned was that a society based on equal outcomes for unequal work is doomed. Accordingly, the Mayflower Compact was discarded in favor of private property and the ability of each to keep all that he produced. Only when this was tried did the colony produce surpluses. Only with surpluses could the colonists trade with the Indians to obtain other things they needed for survival.

That first Thanksgiving was not directed at the Indians. It was meant to include them in a worship service to God - prayer and celebration for the harvest. This was not a new event for these settlers, since a harvest-related celebration was a long tradition in England.

The first American Thanksgiving occurred in the fall of 1621. The colonists supplied geese, ducks, and fish. The Indians brought wild turkeys and venison. The women prepared corn meal cakes and succotash. The meal was served outdoors on large tables.

In the politically correct public school classrooms of modern America, the central religious theme of this celebration has been discarded in favor of the notion of an outreach to the Indians. But the settlers and the Indians had already been on friendly terms for the year the English had been there. And that is the truth of the matter.

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