The Michael Knowles Show - Ep. 63 - Thanksgiving： The Land Was Ours

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00:00:37.580 The land was ours before we were the lands.

00:00:40.460 Those are the words of Robert Frost, but they could have been uttered by the Pilgrims, 0.94

00:00:44.440 who were convinced of a divine providence guiding their voyage on the Mayflower to found a new Canaan in the New World.

00:00:50.760 I'm convinced of it, too.

00:00:51.820 We will explain the true story of the Mayflower, the Pilgrims, Thanksgiving, and our national destiny.

00:00:58.460 And any talk of the American destiny needs to include a little commerce, a little capitalism, a little productivity,

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00:02:29.860 Back to Thanksgiving and the founding of our country.

00:02:31.880 Now that we've got a little capitalism going on.

00:02:33.360 The left today mocks claims of a divine hand in our founding, in the founding of our country.

00:02:39.160 I think the reason they can so easily dismiss providence is because they're almost entirely ignorant of the history.

00:02:45.460 This is why they'll also claim that purely benevolent Indians selflessly saved the pilgrims from starvation, 0.75

00:02:51.940 only to be betrayed by the English ingrates and callously wiped out. 1.00

00:02:57.660 That didn't really happen.

00:02:58.900 Thanksgiving is the cause of much historical myth-making.

00:03:01.860 I don't mean the divine providence of the pilgrims' passage.

00:03:04.920 That part is undeniable.

00:03:06.340 I don't mean the myths of the patriotic variety, that the pilgrims and the natives sat down,

00:03:11.400 they shared food and goods together, they forged bonds of friendship and peace.

00:03:15.460 All of that happened too.

00:03:16.820 I mean the myths of revisionism.

00:03:19.100 War came, no doubt. 0.97

00:03:20.440 But the circumstances under which war came after 55 years of relatively unbroken peace

00:03:25.360 is far more complicated than the revisionists would claim.

00:03:28.580 The pilgrims were not greedy conquistadores, and the Indians weren't helpless innocents.

00:03:34.700 War might have come sooner.

00:03:36.000 Peace might have persisted for longer.

00:03:37.860 But for the actions and decisions of particular men reacting to complex circumstances.

00:03:42.660 I personally have a particular interest in the Mayflower Voyagers because, despite my swarthy 0.80

00:03:48.220 Sicilian skin tone, I descend from four of them.

00:03:51.620 Only one of them was a pilgrim, Dr. Samuel Fuller.

00:03:54.700 He was the only physician in the colony, although his medical training is somewhat doubtful.

00:03:59.220 My credentials are a little doubtful too.

00:04:00.940 Three of them were so-called strangers.

00:04:03.140 These were the non-pilgrim passengers on the Mayflower.

00:04:06.000 They were not religious zealots. 0.78

00:04:07.720 Some of them were downright degenerate.

00:04:09.500 One great-great-great-great-great-grandpappy Knowles is Stephen Hopkins, who 11 years prior

00:04:14.960 to the Mayflower's voyage had already traveled to the New World, and he had shipwrecked in

00:04:19.240 Bermuda, an incident on which Shakespeare's The Tempest is based.

00:04:23.740 Another is Francis Eaton, and the third is John Billington, who Plymouth Governor William

00:04:28.400 Bradford called a knave with a family that was, quote, one of the profanest among them.

00:04:33.900 Great-great-great-great-great-grandpappy Billington appears to have been the biggest degenerate

00:04:38.140 of the Plymouth gang, he was regularly punished for rabble-rousing, and eventually he was executed

00:04:42.820 for murder.

00:04:43.660 His son John wandered off and almost caused a war, and his wife Eleanor was sentenced

00:04:47.920 to sit in the stocks and be whipped for slander.

00:04:51.140 Family memories, they come back to me.

00:04:53.180 Enough about my derelict ancestors.

00:04:55.100 Back to the Providence.

00:04:56.440 Did God ordain the Mayflower Passage and the founding of America?

00:05:00.980 Governor Bradford certainly thought so.

00:05:02.600 In his account of Plymouth Plantation, he wrote of the group, they knew they were pilgrims.

00:05:08.620 That's why we call the Voyagers pilgrims.

00:05:10.660 They wrote of themselves, quote, we verily believe and trust the Lord is with us, and

00:05:15.740 that he will graciously prosper our endeavors according to the simplicity of our hearts therein.

00:05:20.660 It is not with us as with other men, whom small things can discourage, or small discontentments

00:05:26.580 cause to wish themselves home again.

00:05:28.440 That was a good thing, because just about every obstacle imaginable appeared to prevent

00:05:33.640 the Mayflower's voyage.

00:05:36.040 The pilgrims, for those who don't know, they came from a separatist church that thought

00:05:40.380 the Church of England was so corrupt it could not possibly be reformed from within and must

00:05:45.300 be opposed from without.

00:05:46.700 One can only imagine what they would think of my own potpourri, of one of their descendants.

00:05:51.560 In the 16th century, several separatists had been jailed and killed, and since the 1603

00:05:56.880 coronation of King James, pressure to conform began to mount, so the pilgrims left England

00:06:01.640 for Leiden, Holland.

00:06:03.460 After a decade there, the group feared their children were becoming too Dutch, a fate worse 0.95

00:06:07.780 than death, and so they decided to found a new colony in the New World where they could

00:06:11.800 worship God as they saw fit, unmolested by overbearing governments and those decadent 0.99

00:06:16.620 Dutch, those damn decadent Dutch. 1.00

00:06:18.880 But as they prepared to depart, pilgrim William Brewster published a tract critical of King 0.99

00:06:23.980 James and his bishops.

00:06:26.000 Now, as a young man, Brewster had served as an assistant to Queen Elizabeth's Secretary

00:06:29.600 of State, a man named William Davison, and now the king ordered his arrest, which forced

00:06:34.860 Brewster into hiding.

00:06:35.960 Not a good time.

00:06:37.140 Nevertheless, they persisted.

00:06:39.020 The pilgrims contracted Master Christopher Jones and his sweet ship, the Mayflower, along 0.97

00:06:44.560 with another vessel called the Speedwell.

00:06:46.660 The Mayflower was called a sweet ship because it had sailed the English Channel for over a

00:06:50.240 decade, carrying French wine, and the spilt French wine tempered the stench of the bilge

00:06:55.540 on the ship.

00:06:56.700 Some might see the pervading presence of the wine in this first act of departure, the first

00:07:01.940 miracle performed by Christ and a symbol of Christ himself, as an early glimpse of God's

00:07:06.600 plan for the pilgrims.

00:07:08.460 Regardless, more trouble lay ahead.

00:07:10.900 The second ship, the Speedwell, sprang a leak after reaching Southampton, and another at

00:07:15.420 Dartmouth, having decided that the ship was unable to sail, all of the passengers loaded

00:07:20.460 up on the Mayflower.

00:07:21.960 Only later was it learned that the Speedwell's master, Captain Reynolds, had been conspiring

00:07:26.320 against the pilgrims.

00:07:27.220 It was no mistake. 0.99

00:07:28.840 The Dutch, you remember those damn decadent Dutch, they had sought to prevent the English 1.00

00:07:32.680 from settling Manhattan, and so they enlisted Reynolds in their efforts to thwart the trans-Atlantic 0.98

00:07:37.340 voyage.

00:07:38.380 Ironically, this act of sabotage may have saved the colony in its early years.

00:07:42.040 By forcing all of the passengers onto one ship, the separatists and the strangers had 0.83

00:07:46.480 to learn to cooperate with one another.

00:07:48.380 Had the Speedwell survived, there likely would have been very little contact between the two

00:07:52.400 groups.

00:07:53.060 One was drawn to one ship, one to the other.

00:07:55.640 Now the pilgrims saw evidence of God's work in just about everything. 1.00

00:07:59.400 It's an evil generation that looks for signs and wonders, but it's a stupid generation 1.00

00:08:02.600 that ignores signs and wonders. 1.00

00:08:04.380 Almost immediately, a sailor began to mock the pilgrims' seasickness.

00:08:08.200 You can imagine it, a sea-hardened sailor starts making fun of these Christian zealots.

00:08:13.680 As Bradford tells it, quote, a proud and profane young man would always be condemning our poor

00:08:19.080 people in their sickness and cursing them daily with grievous execrations.

00:08:23.560 The young man boasted of hoping, quote, to help to cast half of them overboard before they

00:08:28.220 came to their journey's end.

00:08:30.180 Bradford goes on, though.

00:08:31.140 But it pleased God, before they came half-seas over, to smite this young man with a grievous

00:08:36.580 disease, of which he died in a desperate manner, and so was himself the first that was thrown

00:08:42.120 overboard.

00:08:42.860 Not to put too fine a point on the incident and what it meant for the pilgrims' project,

00:08:47.320 Bradford wrote, quote,

00:08:48.880 It was an astonishment to all his fellows, for they noted it to be the just hand of God

00:08:53.420 upon him.

00:08:54.400 The rest of the sailors kept their mouths shut.

00:08:56.680 Smart guys.

00:08:57.180 After 65 days, the Mayflower made landfall, not at their intended and legally granted

00:09:02.760 destination of New York, but hundreds of miles northeast at Cape Cod, where the settlers

00:09:07.420 had no legal right to the land.

00:09:09.280 They'd been granted land by the Hudson River, but not where they landed.

00:09:12.220 When the passengers learned of this, a group of mutineers, led by not one but two of my ancestors, 1.00

00:09:17.380 rose up to make, quote, discontented and mutinous speeches.

00:09:21.320 Fortunately, few on board listened to them, and the Voyagers signed the Mayflower Compact,

00:09:25.740 a, quote, covenant, to combine ourselves together in a civil body politic for our better ordering

00:09:31.680 and preservation and furtherance of the ends aforesaid.

00:09:35.820 The land was not much to look at.

00:09:37.620 Bradford called it, quote, a hideous and desolate wilderness.

00:09:40.860 Stranger than the environment, however, was its lack of people.

00:09:43.520 There just wasn't anybody around.

00:09:45.260 It was unpeopled because between 1616 and 1619, bubonic plague or some similar disease

00:09:51.200 was introduced by European fishermen in modern Maine.

00:09:54.480 It killed an estimated 90% of the inhabitants of New England.

00:09:58.040 The disease prompted an outbreak of war among various tribes vying for power in the chaos.

00:10:02.900 People died so quickly.

00:10:04.480 No one remained to bury the dead, which left the pilgrims to wonder at the whitened bones

00:10:08.620 lying in cleared fields.

00:10:10.600 The Indians already had some familiarity with Europeans.

00:10:13.080 In 1614, Captain John Smith of Pocahontas fame, that one, the cartoon guy, he led a voyage

00:10:18.560 around the region during which his commander, Thomas Hunt, captured and enslaved a group

00:10:22.840 of natives.

00:10:23.600 This led the Indians to slaughter all but three or four of a later group of French travelers

00:10:28.500 who shipwrecked on Cape Cod the next year in 1615.

00:10:32.360 The men who were spared ended up being tortured and enslaved.

00:10:35.500 But one of them promised an Indian, in the Indians' own language, that God was angry with 0.77

00:10:40.480 them for their wickedness and would destroy them and give their country to another people. 1.00

00:10:45.120 This was a prophecy doubtless fulfilled and another evidence of the Almighty's plan for

00:10:49.260 the pilgrims.

00:10:50.240 By Provincetown Harbor, where the pilgrims first landed, they found a gigantic bushel of

00:10:55.220 corn.

00:10:55.740 They just found it sitting there.

00:10:57.380 It was huge.

00:10:57.960 They were starving.

00:10:58.780 They were worried about their ability to feed themselves.

00:11:01.160 And there was just a huge sack of corn, so much that two men could not carry all of it.

00:11:05.900 And they debated whether or not to take it.

00:11:07.560 But they feared starvation.

00:11:08.580 So they decided to grab the corn and compensate the bushel's owner later on because, as you

00:11:13.340 know, it's easier to ask forgiveness than permission.

00:11:16.340 The pilgrims did, however, refuse to loot what appeared to be Indian burial places, despite

00:11:20.800 finding bows and arrows there.

00:11:22.560 Certainly, they would have been useful to the pilgrims, but they said, quote, it would be

00:11:26.500 odious unto them to ransack their sepulchers.

00:11:29.940 Within a short spell, at least 30 Indians descended on the pilgrims screaming war cries and flinging

00:11:35.740 arrows.

00:11:36.160 Miraculously, not a single Mayflower passenger left the encounter with a scratch.

00:11:41.800 They realized their new neighbors were not exactly well disposed toward them, so Bradford

00:11:45.640 set out to look for a better settlement option.

00:11:47.960 After a month, he discovered Plymouth Bay, where the situation was even stranger.

00:11:52.680 There were whole fields perfectly cleared for agriculture, but there were no people to

00:11:57.200 cultivate them.

00:11:57.800 Bradford saw in this a clear sign from the Lord, a place that they randomly found, apparently

00:12:03.760 randomly found, perfectly cleared and ready for them to plant.

00:12:07.280 He returned to the Mayflower to share his discovery.

00:12:09.640 He was so thankful to God, but upon returning, tragedy struck.

00:12:13.780 Bradford learned that Dorothy May, his wife of seven years and mother of his three-year-old

00:12:18.020 son, had slipped over the side of the Mayflower and drowned.

00:12:20.720 You might be thinking, hmm, it's difficult to slip over the side of an anchored boat.

00:12:25.680 And you would be right.

00:12:26.920 While historian Cotton Mather called the death an accident, many believe it to have been

00:12:30.380 a suicide.

00:12:31.400 The temptation to despair was strong.

00:12:33.400 Dorothy May hadn't seen her son in four months, a seven-year-old child on the ship

00:12:37.400 had just died, and two more children were ill to the point of death.

00:12:40.480 On top of all of that, and on top of the typically cold New England weather, a little ice age had

00:12:45.260 descended on the region.

00:12:46.780 Until Bradford's return, five days after his wife's death, the Mayflower passengers had

00:12:51.260 little reason to expect their lot would improve.

00:12:54.000 Bradford himself then fell ill as the Voyagers settled into Plymouth.

00:12:57.640 He requested some beer from the Mayflower to aid in his recovery.

00:13:01.040 The sailors, fearful that their booze supply would run out before they made it back to England,

00:13:05.400 well, the water at that time was virtually undrinkable, so they needed to drink beer on the

00:13:08.780 way, they responded that if Bradford were their own father, he should have none, quote.

00:13:14.540 Remember what happened to the last sailor who gave Pilgrims lip? 0.97

00:13:17.100 You might remember.

00:13:17.920 In a replay of that incident, they all started to get sick and die.

00:13:21.240 The coincidence even prompted one young officer on the ship to a deathbed conversion.

00:13:25.780 Master Jones, too, had a change of heart, and he gave the Pilgrims their beer.

00:13:30.120 Smart guy.

00:13:31.120 During February and March of that horrible winter, two or three colonists died per day.

00:13:35.620 Two or three per day.

00:13:37.260 By spring, a majority of the settlers who had originally arrived at Provincetown, 52 out

00:13:42.520 of 102, were dead.

00:13:45.000 Here's where things start to get really, really strange.

00:13:48.520 As if they weren't strange enough already, here's where it gets to Occam's razor.

00:13:53.000 On March 16th, just two or three months after settling in at Plymouth, a lone Indian walked

00:13:58.040 boldly out of the woods toward the Pilgrims. 0.98

00:14:00.360 They grabbed their muskets, stood on guard.

00:14:02.920 None of that deterred the Indian.

00:14:04.180 He saluted his new neighbors and said two words.

00:14:07.720 Welcome, Englishman.

00:14:09.920 He was tall.

00:14:10.660 He had long hair, no beard.

00:14:11.940 He was naked as the day he was born.

00:14:13.880 Interestingly, for the racial politics revisionists, the Pilgrims made no mention in their records

00:14:18.800 of his race, of the color of his skin.

00:14:20.880 The man's name was Samoset.

00:14:22.060 He was a sachem visiting from Maine, where he'd learned some English from fishermen, and

00:14:26.580 he just happened to be visiting in precisely the area at precisely the time the English

00:14:31.720 had accidentally landed after they missed New York but didn't know to sail up to the next

00:14:36.060 nicest harbor in Massachusetts Bay.

00:14:38.480 Just right there.

00:14:39.620 Right exactly where they were, apparently by accident.

00:14:42.080 If that weren't coincidental enough, in the following days, Samoset returned with another

00:14:46.080 Indian who spoke virtually perfect English.

00:14:48.500 He chatted with the Pilgrims about his favorite areas of Spain and his favorite neighborhoods

00:14:53.400 in London.

00:14:54.440 That man's name was Squanto.

00:14:56.000 Years earlier, Squanto had been abducted by Thomas Hunt, sold into slavery in Spain, escaped

00:15:01.020 or was possibly rescued by monks, made his way to England somehow, hopped a boat to Newfoundland,

00:15:05.760 and walked all the way down to Plymouth, where the Poconocan Indian chief Massasoit enslaved 0.63

00:15:09.780 him.

00:15:10.560 The Poconocan Indian chief right near where the Pilgrims landed, right at the mark that they

00:15:15.460 happened to land.

00:15:16.240 The Pilgrims, after landing 300 miles off their mark, stumbled on perhaps the only person

00:15:21.180 in the Western Hemisphere with a command of the English language.

00:15:24.820 This is the Occam's Razor part.

00:15:27.160 Occam's Razor says, among competing hypotheses, the one with the fewest assumptions should be

00:15:31.300 selected.

00:15:32.440 So either endless, unique, and impossibly improbable events just happened to occur, or God sent

00:15:38.520 Squanto to help the Pilgrims. 0.98

00:15:40.400 I know which one, I think.

00:15:42.140 Squanto, unsurprisingly, became the liaison between the Pilgrims and their new neighbors.

00:15:45.780 The Poconocans.

00:15:47.240 William Brewster, ever the diplomat, orchestrated a diplomatic reception of the Poconocan Sachem

00:15:52.920 Massasoit, replete with pillows and carpets and trumpets and drums.

00:15:56.660 Within only a few years, Squanto had gone from a slave to the single most powerful person

00:16:01.140 in the region, as only he could communicate between the English and the Indians, and he

00:16:05.420 used his newfound power to his advantage.

00:16:08.580 Squanto was a true friend of the Indians.

00:16:10.200 He helped them plant corn.

00:16:11.740 He was indispensable.

00:16:13.320 Governor Bradford loved him like a family member.

00:16:16.460 He also played the situation to get an upper hand on Massasoit and the Poconocans.

00:16:21.220 There is a bit of strange symbolism in the name Squanto itself.

00:16:25.060 Squanto was named after the Indian spirit of night and darkness and cold wind, the spirit

00:16:29.640 the Pilgrims identified with the devil.

00:16:31.160 There was another one, another indispensable Indian to the Pilgrims, a man by the name

00:16:37.000 of Habamok, was also named after this spirit.

00:16:40.420 Nathaniel Philbrick, in his excellent story, The Mayflower, in his excellent book, he puts

00:16:45.660 it well.

00:16:46.720 A group of people so singularly devoted to serving God that they sailed halfway around

00:16:51.220 the world to do it became entirely dependent on two Indians named Satan. 1.00

00:16:55.460 The surrounding Indian tribes, in turn, became jealous of the Poconocan Indian Alliance, as

00:17:00.720 it greatly strengthened Massasoit's position in the region.

00:17:04.160 The Matapoiset chief, Corbatant, tried to break the alliance by capturing poor little

00:17:08.500 Squanto.

00:17:09.380 He even held a knife to the poor man's neck.

00:17:12.280 But while the Pilgrims were generally peaceful, it is nevertheless and always remains a bad idea 1.00

00:17:16.880 to mess with fire and brimstone zealots who know they have God on their side.

00:17:21.140 Governor Bradford ordered Plymouth's military commander, Miles Standish, to go after Corbatant

00:17:25.280 with guns blazing.

00:17:26.620 Standish was already chomping at the bit to do it, and wouldn't you know, all of this

00:17:30.420 had the effect of making all the petty sachems much friendlier toward the English.

00:17:34.820 Funny how demonstrations of strength work.

00:17:37.720 This brings us to the first Thanksgiving.

00:17:39.800 We wouldn't forget about Thanksgiving.

00:17:41.340 It occurred around Michaelmas, Michaelmas, which is in late September, early October.

00:17:45.960 Contrary to popular revisionism, it actually did resemble not only our 20th century ideas

00:17:50.760 of Thanksgiving, but even the dinners that we have today.

00:17:53.240 It actually was fairly similar.

00:17:54.800 There was a lot of corn, squash, beans, barley, peas.

00:17:58.300 They did eat turkey.

00:17:59.540 They ate ducks and geese.

00:18:00.600 They possibly also ate striped bass and bluefish and cod.

00:18:04.580 Nassasoit and his Indian pals showed up with around 100 people, more than twice the English

00:18:08.880 population of the colony.

00:18:10.580 But he knew his manners, and he didn't show up empty-handed.

00:18:13.140 He brought five freshly killed deer.

00:18:15.380 The entire meal was cooked by the four adult women who survived that awful first winter, 0.96

00:18:19.800 half of whom lead the genetic line all the way down to little old me.

00:18:22.600 This festival, however, was not religious in the way that we would consider Thanksgiving.

00:18:27.300 They didn't even call it Thanksgiving.

00:18:28.880 The real Thanksgiving didn't happen until two years later in 1623 when Governor Bradford

00:18:34.260 officially declared a day of Thanksgiving.

00:18:36.400 This was a civil affair recognized by the civil authority, and it didn't celebrate English-Indian

00:18:42.440 cooperation, as they may have celebrated two years earlier.

00:18:45.680 Rather, the pilgrims were thankful that year that they ditched communism in favor of private

00:18:51.180 property, which had in turn given them abundance.

00:18:54.180 You see, the pilgrims had tried what they called the common course.

00:18:57.180 Not common core, that's also bad, but the common course.

00:18:59.740 Communal ownership of property, land, and wealth.

00:19:01.800 Turns out it made everybody lazy, dishonest, and thieving.

00:19:04.840 Shocking, I know.

00:19:05.900 On the brink of starvation in 1623, Bradford instituted private property.

00:19:10.900 In his words, quote,

00:19:11.820 This had very good success, for it made all hands very industrious, so as much more corn

00:19:17.300 was planted than otherwise would have been by any means the governor or any other could

00:19:21.660 use, and saved him a great deal of trouble and gave far better content.

00:19:25.960 The women now willingly went into the field and took their little ones with them to set 1.00

00:19:30.040 corn, which before would allege weakness and inability, whom to have compelled would

00:19:34.920 have been thought great tyranny and oppression.

00:19:37.600 It's amazing, when you give people a stake in their own abundance and their own work,

00:19:42.360 it turns out they work more.

00:19:44.060 And by the way, this was not just a conclusion about a particular experience.

00:19:47.780 Bradford explicitly condemned communism, in all its forms and all its lies and all its

00:19:52.620 empty promises, as absurd and contrary to God's will.

00:19:56.420 He explained, quote,

00:19:57.420 The experience that was had in this common course and condition, tried sundry years, and

00:20:02.660 that amongst godly and sober men, may well evince the vanity of that conceit of Plato's

00:20:08.460 and other ancients applauded by some of later times, little did he know of even later times,

00:20:14.460 that the taking away of property and bringing in community into a common wealth would make

00:20:18.880 them happy and flourishing, as if they were wiser than God.

00:20:22.600 Within two years of landfall, these earliest Americans already realized that communism is

00:20:28.100 the worst. Anti-communism is as American as apple pie and Thanksgiving.

00:20:34.080 While most local Indian tribes played nice, the Narragansetts refused to abide the Poconocet 0.99

00:20:38.780 English Alliance, and they threatened war by sending arrowheads wrapped in snakeskin to

00:20:43.420 the pilgrims in Squanto.

00:20:44.920 Well, they're not going to take that, so the pilgrims sent bullets and gunpowder wrapped 0.68

00:20:48.420 in snakeskin right back.

00:20:50.320 Another reminder, it is not a good idea to mess with religious zealots who travel around the

00:20:54.820 world to live in freezing, desolate wilderness because God is on their side. Do not mess

00:20:58.860 with those people ever.

00:21:00.300 Now, like any sane society, to protect against threats from without, the pilgrims built a 1.00

00:21:04.860 big, beautiful wall around their settlement. Hundreds, if not thousands of trees were felled,

00:21:09.640 the pilgrims lugged the mass of timber by hand, and it stood more than half a mile in length

00:21:14.040 and over eight feet tall. The wall's construction was met by shrieking protests and stupid pink 0.99

00:21:19.180 hats. I'm just kidding. That wouldn't happen in America for almost 400 more years. 1.00

00:21:23.700 Indian relations continued relatively well, very often with the pilgrims playing peacemakers

00:21:29.380 and intervening on behalf of their Indian friends with other tribes. When Massasoit demanded

00:21:34.140 Squanto's head after an attempted coup, the pilgrims begged for his life. Massasoit agreed, 0.99

00:21:39.920 though likely he later poisoned him anyway. On his deathbed, Squanto asked Bradford to pray

00:21:44.840 for him that he might go to the Englishman's god. Bradford called Squanto, quote,

00:21:49.160 a special instrument sent of God for their good beyond their expectation. It's impossible to argue

00:21:55.440 with that. He clearly was. The pilgrims at Bradford's command later saved Massasoit's life

00:21:59.980 by rushing to his deathbed, cleaning his sores, cooking him food, administering what little medicine

00:22:05.400 they had, doing anything they could, no matter how degrading, no matter how ethereal for Massasoit.

00:22:12.160 To thank them, Massasoit told the English of the Massachusetts, unprovoked plan to attack the colony.

00:22:17.860 The Massachusetts were going to strike. But this put Bradford in a difficult position.

00:22:23.040 The pilgrims didn't want to attack the Massachusetts without provocation. But if they waited for the

00:22:27.500 Massachusetts to strike, they were doomed. The Massachusetts wanted to take care of some

00:22:31.340 Englishmen on their property, and they knew they'd have to hit Plymouth, too. So what happened? 0.63

00:22:36.440 Bradford gave the order, Standish set the trap, and the English averted war by carrying the head of

00:22:41.100 Sachem Wituwamat back to Plymouth. Now, it's funny to think of those Bush-era activists

00:22:46.620 who screaked about how awful and unprecedented preemptive war was for America. Literally,

00:22:52.180 the first major military assault waged by our country was preemptive. Not only that, it worked.

00:22:58.260 War was averted, and the Indians who conspired against the pilgrims apologized profusely,

00:23:03.100 they made amends, and Massasoit consolidated his power even further, creating, thanks to the pilgrims

00:23:09.100 for the first time, the Wampanoag Nation. Peace persisted for decades. As the Massachusetts

00:23:14.800 Bay Colony and other colonies were formed, Harvard College was founded, Indians converted to

00:23:20.200 Christianity by the tribe full, and as a result, Indians ranked among some of the earliest alumni

00:23:25.720 of Harvard. I'm certain they were far better educated than those shrieking snowflakes today.

00:23:31.480 Missionary John Elliott translated the entire Bible into a phonetic version of the Massachusetts

00:23:36.420 language, since the Massachusetts hadn't developed their own written language, both the Old and the

00:23:40.940 New Testament. As happened 1,600 years prior in Europe, the advent of Christianity threatened the 0.97

00:23:46.420 political power of Sachems because Christ's conquest of death on the cross removed political leaders

00:23:52.600 only claimed to authority, and this led to jealousy now among other Indian tribes. Peace endured

00:23:59.220 virtually unbroken for 55 years. It only broke when Massasoit's own son, Philip, wrongly blamed the

00:24:06.280 English for the death of his brother, who more likely died of appendicitis or some other natural

00:24:10.820 ailment. Philip vowed revenge. He began selling off land to raise funds for war, and he thereby

00:24:16.260 exacerbated the need for war. Local Indians, notably the Christian and Harvard alum John Sassaman,

00:24:22.680 warned Plymouth of Philip's plans for war. Many local tribes rebuffed Philip's belligerence and sided

00:24:28.380 with the English. Philip even made an alliance with the French against the English, an offense

00:24:32.840 unforgivable not only to you and me and all right-thinking people, but also to the fierce and

00:24:38.000 not infrequently cannibalistic Mohawk tribe who promptly sided with the English. Looking back, it 0.99

00:24:44.400 seems miraculous that peace endured so long, until tragically the hot-headed child of the pilgrim's 0.96

00:24:50.280 dear friend Massasoit acted on a bad hunch and destroyed more than half a century of mutual benefit

00:24:55.380 and cooperation, setting the English permanently on their course to possess the whole new world.

00:25:00.940 Reflecting on the abject misery the pilgrims endured at the Mayflower's landfall, the miracle

00:25:06.820 of their survival, and their great thanks to God for protecting his people, William Bradford wrote,

00:25:12.160 quote,

00:25:13.400 What could now sustain them but the spirit of God and his grace? May not and ought not the children

00:25:20.000 of these fathers rightly say, Our fathers were Englishmen which came over this great ocean and

00:25:26.040 were ready to perish in this wilderness. But they cried unto the Lord, and he heard their voice and

00:25:31.420 looked on their adversity. The quintessentially American poet Robert Frost looked on the country's

00:25:37.140 destiny with an additional three centuries perspective. He wrote, The land was ours before we

00:25:43.020 were the lands. She was our land more than a hundred years before we were her people. She was ours in

00:25:48.520 Massachusetts, in Virginia, but we were England's still colonials, possessing what we still were

00:25:54.840 unpossessed by, possessed by what we now no more possessed. Something we were withholding made us weak

00:26:01.720 until we found out that it was ourselves we were withholding from our land of living and forthwith found

00:26:07.760 salvation in surrender. Such as we were, we gave ourselves outright. The deed of gift was many deeds of war.

00:26:15.280 To the land vaguely realizing westward, but still unstoried, artless, unenhanced. Such as she was,

00:26:23.660 such as she would become. I'm Michael Knowles. This is The Michael Knowles Show. Happy Thanksgiving.

00:26:34.600 The Michael Knowles Show is produced by Marshall Benson. Executive producer, Jeremy Boring. Senior producer,

00:26:40.600 Jonathan Hay. Supervising producer, Mathis Glover. Our technical producer is Austin Stevens. Edited by

00:26:47.360 Alex Zingaro. Audio is mixed by Mike Coromina. Hair and makeup is by Jesua Olvera. The Michael

00:26:53.920 Knowles Show is a Daily Wire Forward Publishing production. Copyright Forward Publishing 2017.

The Michael Knowles Show - November 22, 2017

Ep. 63 - Thanksgiving： The Land Was Ours

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