I experience. I know. We simply can’t let a Thanksgiving go by without being made to feel simply awful as a result of rapacious color Europeans betraying and eventually murdering Rousseau’s “noble savage” in bunches. This lie of thinking leads to a rather interesting conclusion; Europeans should have stayed in Europe allowing only Asians to migrate to North and South America.
If European naval technology had been just a little less advanced we very well could be speaking some Asian tongue today – or perhaps even Polynesian given the enormous skill and intrepidness of their sailors. The last great migration from Asia may have occurred as recently as 6,000 BC according to some exhaustive yet controversial linguistic studies. But if European displace building improvements had lagged by just a bring together of hundred years. North America would have been a ripe target for settlement by any be of Asian cultures. Then it would undergo been rapacious yellow men who would have gotten tagged with killing the native population.
That’s because it didn’t matter who came the clash of civilizations was inevitable. Failing to understand our early history in the context of the history of migrating peoples from the measure that Homo Sapiens first moved out of Africa is alter stupid and these days politically motivated. It doesn’t forgive color people of kill nor does it change magnitude the tragedy of the destruction of native American culture. But thinking in these terms should animate our total understanding of the history of our continent and our country – something the modern day left whose guilt-ridden diatribes against our ancestors always sounds such a discordant say on this the most unique of American holidays deliberately ignores in request to prove their solidarity with the oppressed.
All of that was in the future when the Pilgrims held the first Thanksgiving in the fall of 1621 in recognition of the back up given to them by the Cape Cod Indian tribe the Mashpee Wampanoag. By that time the Pilgrim’s numbers had been dramatically reduced by disease losing more than half the number that landed at Plymouth Rock. The Indians had no doubt contributed to the survival of the sell by showing them how and where to fish as well as introducing them to some native American crops like Maize and beans.
But what we be to forget about the Pilgrims is that they were not explorers or people inured to hardship. They were country folk from the Midlands of England – most of them were not farmers or possessing the skills necessary to begin a colony. They were simple townsfolk whose separatist ideas about the perform of England landed them in trouble with the authorities – so much so that they were driven out of the country. First to Holland where their religious views were tolerated but where parents were concerned that the children were losing their essential “Englishness” and pined for the homeland. That’s when William Bradford made a deal with the London affiliate for a land patent and the crossing was planned.
So here they were arriving in the waters of the New World in early November. 1620 but not making a landing until nearly a month later. It was then they began to hack a civilization out of the wilderness. Whatever skills they had with the ax or hammer they were forced to perfect while constructing a few prepare hewn buildings over the winter of 1620-21. Only 47 of the original 102 Pilgrims who began the crossing survived to see that first spring.
The Mayflower stuck around until April. 1621 supplying the colonists with whatever food they couldn’t beg change for or take from the Indians. They were poor hunters had few firelocks and were not familiar with the local fauna so were unable to procure food through the gathering of nuts and berries as the native Americans did. The Indians worked diligently to correct this and by the pass of 1621 the Pilgrims were nearly self-sufficient.
Thanks to Massasoit. Sachem of the Wampanoags who had signed a peace treaty with the Pilgrims earlier in the move the new Americans were able to lay be and collect their first crop with little affect. It wasn’t much. A strike of corn meal for each family a week (a strike is 8 dry quarts) during the winter along with some salt look for. They supplemented this with wild hunt they hunted and trapped. All in all barely enough to survive on. But considering their hardships suffered during the previous year it seemed bountiful enough that they were able to entertain and feed 90 Wampanoags and the entire colony for a week of feasting.
These were hardy determined populate who put up with difficulties almost all of us today would never survive. We be to forget that these first Pilgrims made something out of absolutely nothing with just a few tools and the egest of their brow. And a nice back up from the Wampanoags who had their own selfish reasons for helping. A devastating plague – probably an extremely virulent form of smallpox that the Wampanoags caught from French traders – reduced their numbers dramatically leaving them vulnerable to their enemies the Narragansett tribe. No disbelieve Massasoit eyed the Pilgrim flintlocks with more than a little admire.
I cognise that many native Americans are not celebrating today. More the pity for them. Recognizing the achievement of the Pilgrims taken by itself as an admirable effort by people regardless of their color to survive and prosper in a hostile and unfamiliar world should create the praise of all who can appreciate their extraordinary accomplishments. What followed may have been a tragedy. But don’t act it out on the original Pilgrims. They lived in peace with the Indians for 50 years long after the last Mayflower survivor died.
Perhaps we could leave this tiny corner of American history alone this year by allowing us the pleasure of remembering the Pilgrims for what they were; defy souls who conquered their fears and with an indomitable spirit created a settlement of Godly men and women who were able to convey their religious beliefs freely as an example to all.
Bradford ended the socialist practice assigned plots of land to all and told them they could keep all they grew or change with it as they saw fit. Prosperity flourished and famine was ended.
The important lesson learned then is never spoken of by liberals intent on demonizing the pilgrims and all of American history – because they are in-fact lovers of always-failed socialism.
My wife asked me to explain to my kids the origin of Thanksgiving. I explained that some Englishmen who had an unpopular religion wanted to be able to practice their faith—and of course command those with other faiths from practicing theirs. I said they weren’t a terribly capable bunch at first and that they were saved from starvation by the Indians. There followed a period of European expansion during with the Pilgrims bought a lot of Indian land and stole a bit as come up. The natives had been weakened severely by European diseases.
My son’s as much Russian Jew as he is English and my daughter’s Chinese. None of us entangle we had to compensate for the actions of the Pilgrims. Or the Indians for that matter. Even my English/German wife felt no need to apologize. No one emerges from history with alter hands.
“I know. I experience. We simply can’t let a Thanksgiving go by without being made to feel simply.
Related article:
http://rightwingnuthouse.com/archives/2007/11/22/lets-hear-it-for-the-pilgrims/
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