The Michael Knowles Show - November 24, 2022


Leftist Thanksgiving Myths DEBUNKED ｜ A Michael Knowles Classic


Episode Stats

Length

26 minutes

Words per Minute

180.96335

Word Count

4,715

Sentence Count

278

Misogynist Sentences

5

Hate Speech Sentences

22


Summary

The story that we are told by the liberal establishment about Thanksgiving is complete bunk. The pilgrims were not greedy conquistadores, and the Indians were not helpless innocents. They were not evil, terrible Englishmen who came and stole the land and were awful, evil, genocidal maniacs.


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Happy Thanksgiving. I hope you're all enjoying a wonderful day, sitting maybe in a nice comfy chair, relaxing.
00:00:07.100 One of the problems with Thanksgiving, though, and we've all experienced it in recent years,
00:00:11.640 is when your purple-haired liberal lesbian niece or nephew these days starts spouting off about how terrible America is
00:00:21.340 and how the people who helped to build this great nation were awful, evil, genocidal maniacs.
00:00:27.240 You know this is going to get a lot worse now that the orange man is back and is declaring he's running for president.
00:00:32.140 They're going to turn the vitriol up to 11.
00:00:34.820 So I want to arm you with some facts for this Thanksgiving season
00:00:40.120 because the story that we are told by the liberal establishment about Thanksgiving is just complete bunk.
00:00:46.340 The evil, terrible Englishmen who came and stole the land and were so terrible to the Indians and blah, blah, blah.
00:00:52.420 It's nonsense.
00:00:52.980 The real history is actually much, much more interesting and edifying than all of that.
00:00:58.740 So without further ado, enjoy the true story of Thanksgiving.
00:01:02.880 The land was ours before we were the lands.
00:01:05.840 Those are the words of Robert Frost, but they could have been uttered by the pilgrims,
00:01:09.800 who were convinced of a divine providence guiding their voyage on the Mayflower to found a new Canaan in the New World.
00:01:16.140 I'm convinced of it, too.
00:01:17.180 We will explain the true story of the Mayflower, the pilgrims' Thanksgiving, and our national destiny.
00:01:23.220 The left today mocks claims of a divine hand in our founding, in the founding of our country.
00:01:28.200 I think the reason they can so easily dismiss providence is because they're almost entirely ignorant of the history.
00:01:34.520 This is why they'll also claim that purely benevolent Indians selflessly saved the pilgrims from starvation,
00:01:41.040 only to be betrayed by the English ingrates and callously wiped out.
00:01:45.700 That didn't really happen.
00:01:47.980 Thanksgiving is the cause of much historical myth-making.
00:01:50.960 I don't mean the divine providence of the pilgrims' passage.
00:01:54.020 That part is undeniable.
00:01:55.440 I don't mean the myths of the patriotic variety, that the pilgrims and the natives sat down,
00:02:00.500 they shared food and goods together, they forged bonds of friendship and peace.
00:02:04.560 All of that happened, too.
00:02:05.820 I mean the myths of revisionism.
00:02:08.200 War came, no doubt, but the circumstances under which war came after 55 years of relatively unbroken peace
00:02:14.460 is far more complicated than the revisionists would claim.
00:02:18.280 The pilgrims were not greedy conquistadores, and the Indians weren't helpless innocents.
00:02:23.780 War might have come sooner, peace might have persisted for longer,
00:02:26.960 but for the actions and decisions of particular men reacting to complex circumstances.
00:02:32.520 I personally have a particular interest in the Mayflower Voyagers,
00:02:35.720 because despite my swarthy Sicilian skin tone, I descend from four of them.
00:02:40.240 Only one of them was a pilgrim, Dr. Samuel Fuller.
00:02:43.900 He was the only physician in the colony, although his medical training is somewhat doubtful.
00:02:48.340 My credentials are a little doubtful, too.
00:02:50.040 Three of them were so-called strangers.
00:02:52.280 These were the non-pilgrim passengers on the Mayflower.
00:02:55.120 They were not religious zealots.
00:02:56.820 Some of them were downright degenerate.
00:02:59.140 One great, great, great, great, great, great grandpappy Knowles is Stephen Hopkins,
00:03:02.480 who, 11 years prior to the Mayflower's voyage, had already traveled to the New World,
00:03:07.240 and he had shipwrecked in Bermuda, an incident on which Shakespeare's The Tempest is based.
00:03:12.920 Another is Francis Eaton, and the third is John Billington,
00:03:15.800 who Plymouth Governor William Bradford called a knave with a family that was, quote,
00:03:20.920 one of the profanest among them.
00:03:23.000 Great, great, great, great grandpappy Billington appears to have been the biggest degenerate of the Plymouth gang.
00:03:28.080 He was regularly punished for rabble-rousing, and eventually he was executed for murder.
00:03:32.820 His son John wandered off and almost caused a war,
00:03:35.520 and his wife Eleanor was sentenced to sit in the stocks and be whipped for slander.
00:03:40.260 Family memories, they come back to me.
00:03:42.300 Enough about my derelict ancestors.
00:03:44.220 Back to the Providence.
00:03:45.540 Did God ordain the Mayflower Passage and the founding of America?
00:03:50.080 Governor Bradford certainly thought so.
00:03:52.100 In his account of Plymouth Plantation, he wrote of the group,
00:03:55.740 they knew they were pilgrims.
00:03:57.240 That's why we call the voyagers pilgrims.
00:03:59.760 They wrote of themselves, quote,
00:04:01.520 We verily believe and trust the Lord is with us,
00:04:04.600 and that he will graciously prosper our endeavors according to the simplicity of our hearts therein.
00:04:09.840 It is not with us as with other men,
00:04:11.800 whom small things can discourage or small discontentments cause to wish themselves home again.
00:04:18.400 That was a good thing, because just about every obstacle imaginable
00:04:21.660 appeared to prevent the Mayflower's voyage.
00:04:24.180 The pilgrims, for those who don't know,
00:04:26.820 they came from a separatist church that thought the Church of England was so corrupt,
00:04:31.360 it could not possibly be reformed from within and must be opposed from without.
00:04:35.880 One can only imagine what they would think of my own potpourri,
00:04:38.780 of one of their descendants.
00:04:40.660 In the 16th century, several separatists had been jailed and killed,
00:04:44.280 and since the 1603 coronation of King James, pressure to conform began to mount,
00:04:49.500 so the pilgrims left England for Leiden, Holland.
00:04:52.560 After a decade there, the group feared their children were becoming too Dutch,
00:04:56.100 a fate worse than death,
00:04:57.600 and so they decided to found a new colony in the New World,
00:05:00.340 where they could worship God as they saw fit,
00:05:02.720 unmolested by overbearing governments,
00:05:04.800 and those decadent Dutch, those damn decadent Dutch.
00:05:07.420 But as they prepared to depart,
00:05:09.940 pilgrim William Brewster published a tract critical of King James and his bishops.
00:05:15.100 Now, as a young man, Brewster had served as an assistant to Queen Elizabeth's secretary of state,
00:05:19.620 a man named William Davison,
00:05:21.020 and now the king ordered his arrest, which forced Brewster into hiding.
00:05:25.060 Not a good time.
00:05:26.240 Nevertheless, they persisted.
00:05:28.140 The pilgrims contracted master Christopher Jones and his sweet ship, the Mayflower,
00:05:33.400 along with another vessel called the Speedwell.
00:05:35.760 The Mayflower was called a sweet ship because it had sailed the English Channel for over a decade,
00:05:40.060 carrying French wine,
00:05:41.300 and the spilt French wine tempered the stench of the bilge on the ship.
00:05:45.840 Some might see the pervading presence of the wine in this first act of departure,
00:05:50.620 the first miracle performed by Christ and a symbol of Christ himself,
00:05:54.340 as an early glimpse of God's plan for the pilgrims.
00:05:57.580 Regardless, more trouble lay ahead.
00:05:59.600 The second ship, the Speedwell, sprang a leak after reaching Southampton,
00:06:03.880 and another at Dartmouth.
00:06:05.520 Having decided that the ship was unable to sail,
00:06:08.240 all of the passengers loaded up on the Mayflower.
00:06:11.060 Only later was it learned that the Speedwell's master, Captain Reynolds,
00:06:14.360 had been conspiring against the pilgrims.
00:06:16.320 It was no mistake.
00:06:18.080 The Dutch, you remember those damn decadent Dutch,
00:06:20.500 they had sought to prevent the English from settling Manhattan,
00:06:23.140 and so they enlisted Reynolds in their efforts to thwart the transatlantic voyage.
00:06:27.520 Ironically, this act of sabotage may have saved the colony in its early years.
00:06:31.640 By forcing all of the passengers onto one ship,
00:06:34.060 the separatists and the strangers had to learn to cooperate with one another.
00:06:37.400 Had the Speedwell survived,
00:06:39.000 there likely would have been very little contact between the two groups.
00:06:42.060 One was drawn to one ship, one to the other.
00:06:43.800 Now the pilgrims saw evidence of God's work in just about everything.
00:06:48.520 It's an evil generation that looks for signs and wonders,
00:06:50.700 but it's a stupid generation that ignores signs and wonders.
00:06:53.480 Almost immediately, a sailor began to mock the pilgrim's seasickness.
00:06:57.300 You can imagine it, a sea-hardened sailor starts making fun of these Christian zealots.
00:07:02.780 As Bradford tells it,
00:07:04.700 A proud and profane young man would always be condemning our poor people in their sickness
00:07:09.200 and cursing them daily with grievous execrations.
00:07:12.660 The young man boasted of hoping,
00:07:14.800 to help to cast half of them overboard before they came to their journey's end.
00:07:19.220 Bradford goes on, though,
00:07:20.240 But it pleased God, before they came half-seas over,
00:07:23.940 to smite this young man with a grievous disease,
00:07:26.180 of which he died in a desperate manner,
00:07:28.700 and so was himself, the first that was thrown overboard.
00:07:31.960 Not to put too fine a point on the incident
00:07:34.040 and what it meant for the pilgrim's project,
00:07:36.420 Bradford wrote,
00:07:37.400 It was an astonishment to all his fellows,
00:07:40.220 for they noted it to be the just hand of God upon him.
00:07:43.540 The rest of the sailors kept their mouths shut.
00:07:45.780 Smart guys.
00:07:47.200 After 65 days, the Mayflower made landfall,
00:07:50.000 not at their intended and legally granted destination of New York,
00:07:53.380 but hundreds of miles northeast at Cape Cod,
00:07:55.680 where the settlers had no legal right to the land.
00:07:58.380 They'd been granted land by the Hudson River,
00:08:00.060 but not where they landed.
00:08:01.340 When the passengers learned of this,
00:08:02.640 a group of mutineers,
00:08:04.000 led by not one, but two of my ancestors,
00:08:06.480 rose up to make, quote,
00:08:07.800 discontented and mutinous speeches.
00:08:10.380 Fortunately, few on board listened to them,
00:08:12.560 and the Voyagers signed the Mayflower Compact,
00:08:15.280 a, quote,
00:08:15.800 covenant to combine ourselves together in a civil body politic,
00:08:19.320 for our better ordering and preservation and furtherance of the ends aforesaid.
00:08:24.940 The land was not much to look at.
00:08:26.740 Bradford called it, quote,
00:08:27.840 a hideous and desolate wilderness.
00:08:29.960 Stranger than the environment, however, was its lack of people.
00:08:32.620 There just wasn't anybody around.
00:08:34.380 It was unpeopled because between 1616 and 1619,
00:08:38.280 bubonic plague, or some similar disease,
00:08:40.560 was introduced by European fishermen in modern Maine.
00:08:43.260 It killed an estimated 90% of the inhabitants of New England.
00:08:47.220 The disease prompted an outbreak of war among various tribes vying for power in the chaos.
00:08:52.020 People died so quickly.
00:08:53.580 No one remained to bury the dead,
00:08:55.280 which left the pilgrims to wonder at the whitened bones lying in cleared fields.
00:08:59.700 The Indians already had some familiarity with Europeans.
00:09:02.440 In 1614, Captain John Smith of Pocahontas fame,
00:09:05.820 that one, the cartoon guy,
00:09:06.960 he led a voyage around the region during which his commander, Thomas Hunt,
00:09:10.540 captured and enslaved a group of natives.
00:09:12.460 This led the Indians to slaughter all but three or four of a later group of
00:09:16.580 French travelers who shipwrecked on Cape Cod the next year in 1615.
00:09:21.240 The men who were spared ended up being tortured and enslaved.
00:09:24.600 But one of them promised an Indian in the Indians' own language
00:09:27.560 that God was angry with them for their wickedness
00:09:30.560 and would destroy them and give their country to another people.
00:09:34.220 This was a prophecy doubtless fulfilled
00:09:36.080 and another evidence of the Almighty's plan for the pilgrims.
00:09:39.340 By Provincetown Harbor, where the pilgrims first landed,
00:09:42.740 they found a gigantic bushel of corn.
00:09:44.840 They just found it sitting there.
00:09:46.420 It was huge.
00:09:47.060 They were starving.
00:09:47.880 They were worried about their ability to feed themselves.
00:09:50.240 And there was just a huge sack of corn,
00:09:52.160 so much that two men could not carry all of it.
00:09:55.020 And they debated whether or not to take it.
00:09:56.640 But they feared starvation,
00:09:57.680 so they decided to grab the corn and compensate the bushel's owner later on,
00:10:01.680 because, as you know,
00:10:02.920 it's easier to ask forgiveness than permission.
00:10:04.760 The pilgrims did, however,
00:10:06.740 refuse to loot what appeared to be Indian burial places,
00:10:09.600 despite finding bows and arrows there.
00:10:11.660 Certainly, they would have been useful to the pilgrims,
00:10:13.600 but they said,
00:10:14.540 quote,
00:10:15.120 it would be odious unto them to ransack their sepulchers.
00:10:19.040 Within a short spell,
00:10:20.120 at least 30 Indians descended on the pilgrims,
00:10:23.560 screaming war cries and flinging arrows.
00:10:25.860 Miraculously,
00:10:26.660 not a single Mayflower passenger left the encounter with a scratch.
00:10:30.840 They realized their new neighbors were not exactly well disposed toward them,
00:10:33.920 so Bradford set out to look for a better settlement option.
00:10:37.060 After a month,
00:10:37.680 he discovered Plymouth Bay,
00:10:39.240 where the situation was even stranger.
00:10:41.780 There were whole fields perfectly cleared for agriculture,
00:10:45.020 but there were no people to cultivate them.
00:10:47.660 Bradford saw in this a clear sign from the Lord,
00:10:50.080 a place that they randomly found,
00:10:52.500 apparently randomly found,
00:10:54.000 perfectly cleared and ready for them to plant.
00:10:56.380 He returned to the Mayflower to share his discovery.
00:10:58.740 He was so thankful to God,
00:10:59.860 but upon returning,
00:11:01.260 tragedy struck.
00:11:02.060 Bradford learned that Dorothy May,
00:11:04.600 his wife of seven years and mother of his three-year-old son,
00:11:07.760 had slipped over the side of the Mayflower and drowned.
00:11:10.560 You might be thinking,
00:11:11.500 hmm,
00:11:12.060 it's difficult to slip over the side of an anchored boat.
00:11:14.780 And you would be right.
00:11:16.020 While historian Cotton Mather called the death an accident,
00:11:18.640 many believe it to have been a suicide.
00:11:20.480 The temptation to despair was strong.
00:11:22.520 Dorothy May hadn't seen her son in four months,
00:11:25.020 a seven-year-old child on the ship had just died,
00:11:27.220 and two more children were ill to the point of death.
00:11:30.020 On top of all of that,
00:11:30.900 and on top of the typically cold New England weather,
00:11:33.240 a little ice age had descended on the region.
00:11:35.880 Until Bradford's return,
00:11:37.240 five days after his wife's death,
00:11:39.180 the Mayflower passengers had little reason
00:11:40.860 to expect their lot would improve.
00:11:43.160 Bradford himself then fell ill
00:11:44.600 as the Voyagers settled into Plymouth.
00:11:46.780 He requested some beer from the Mayflower
00:11:48.580 to aid in his recovery.
00:11:50.140 The sailors,
00:11:50.820 fearful that their booze supply would run out
00:11:52.480 before they made it back to England,
00:11:54.500 well,
00:11:54.680 the water at that time was virtually undrinkable,
00:11:56.480 so they needed to drink beer on the way,
00:11:58.060 they responded that if Bradford were their own father,
00:12:01.280 he should have none.
00:12:02.520 Quote,
00:12:03.040 Remember what happened to the last sailor
00:12:05.140 who gave Pilgrims lip?
00:12:06.180 You might remember.
00:12:07.020 In a replay of that incident,
00:12:08.360 they all started to get sick and die.
00:12:10.340 The coincidence even prompted
00:12:11.540 one young officer on the ship
00:12:12.980 to a deathbed conversion.
00:12:14.880 Master Jones, too,
00:12:16.000 had a change of heart,
00:12:17.180 and he gave the Pilgrims their beer.
00:12:19.220 Smart guy.
00:12:20.120 During February and March of that horrible winter,
00:12:22.440 two or three colonists died per day.
00:12:24.360 Two or three per day.
00:12:26.840 By spring,
00:12:27.540 a majority of the settlers
00:12:28.480 who had originally arrived at Provincetown,
00:12:30.660 52 out of 102,
00:12:32.760 were dead.
00:12:34.120 Here's where things start to get
00:12:35.360 really, really strange.
00:12:37.660 As if they weren't strange enough already,
00:12:39.520 here's where it gets to Occam's razor.
00:12:42.100 On March 16th,
00:12:43.120 just two or three months
00:12:44.060 after settling in at Plymouth,
00:12:45.660 a lone Indian walked boldly out of the woods
00:12:48.200 toward the Pilgrims.
00:12:49.460 They grabbed their muskets,
00:12:50.800 stood on guard.
00:12:52.080 None of that deterred the Indian.
00:12:53.280 He saluted his new neighbors
00:12:55.100 and said two words.
00:12:56.820 Welcome, Englishman.
00:12:59.060 He was tall.
00:12:59.760 He had long hair,
00:13:00.500 no beard.
00:13:01.040 He was naked as the day he was born.
00:13:02.960 Interestingly,
00:13:03.560 for the racial politics revisionists,
00:13:05.700 the Pilgrims made no mention
00:13:07.180 in their records of his race,
00:13:08.660 of the color of his skin.
00:13:10.020 The man's name was Samoset.
00:13:11.580 He was a sachem visiting from Maine
00:13:13.160 where he'd learned some English from fishermen,
00:13:15.280 and he just happened to be visiting
00:13:17.300 in precisely the area
00:13:18.880 at precisely the time
00:13:20.340 the English had accidentally landed
00:13:22.080 after they missed New York
00:13:23.560 but didn't know to sail up
00:13:24.700 to the next nicest harbor
00:13:25.820 in Massachusetts Bay.
00:13:27.580 Just right there,
00:13:28.720 right exactly where they were,
00:13:30.060 apparently by accident.
00:13:31.180 If that weren't coincidental enough,
00:13:33.000 in the following days,
00:13:33.920 Samoset returned with another Indian
00:13:35.480 who spoke virtually perfect English.
00:13:38.020 He chatted with the Pilgrims
00:13:39.160 about his favorite areas of Spain
00:13:40.860 and his favorite neighborhoods in London.
00:13:43.500 That man's name was Squanto.
00:13:45.080 Years earlier,
00:13:45.860 Squanto had been abducted by Thomas Hunt,
00:13:48.000 sold into slavery in Spain,
00:13:49.700 escaped,
00:13:50.120 or was possibly rescued by monks,
00:13:52.040 made his way to England somehow,
00:13:53.580 hopped a boat to Newfoundland,
00:13:54.800 and walked all the way down to Plymouth
00:13:56.160 where the Poconocan Indian chief,
00:13:57.900 Massasoit,
00:13:58.480 enslaved him.
00:13:59.760 The Poconocan Indian chief
00:14:01.100 right near where the Pilgrims landed,
00:14:03.220 right at the mark
00:14:04.040 that they happened to land.
00:14:05.600 The Pilgrims,
00:14:06.220 after landing 300 miles off their mark,
00:14:08.220 stumbled on perhaps
00:14:09.160 the only person
00:14:10.280 in the Western Hemisphere
00:14:11.280 with a command
00:14:12.160 of the English language.
00:14:13.860 This is the Occam's Razor part.
00:14:16.240 Occam's Razor says,
00:14:17.140 among competing hypotheses,
00:14:18.920 the one with the fewest assumptions
00:14:20.000 should be selected.
00:14:21.560 So either endless,
00:14:22.960 unique,
00:14:23.740 and impossibly improbable events
00:14:25.580 just happened to occur,
00:14:26.900 or God sent Squanto
00:14:27.980 to help the Pilgrims.
00:14:29.520 I know which one I think.
00:14:31.280 Squanto, unsurprisingly,
00:14:32.480 became the liaison
00:14:33.180 between the Pilgrims
00:14:34.100 and their new neighbors,
00:14:35.020 the Poconocats.
00:14:36.360 William Brewster,
00:14:37.280 ever the diplomat,
00:14:38.160 orchestrated a diplomatic reception
00:14:39.860 of the Poconocat,
00:14:41.640 Sachem,
00:14:42.100 Massasoit,
00:14:43.020 replete with pillows
00:14:43.780 and carpets
00:14:44.400 and trumpets
00:14:44.880 and drums.
00:14:45.720 Within only a few years,
00:14:47.100 Squanto had gone
00:14:47.740 from a slave
00:14:48.420 to the single
00:14:49.240 most powerful person
00:14:50.240 in the region,
00:14:51.240 as only he could communicate
00:14:52.660 between the English
00:14:53.320 and the Indians,
00:14:54.120 and he used his newfound power
00:14:56.080 to his advantage.
00:14:57.820 Squanto was a true friend
00:14:58.880 of the Indians.
00:14:59.440 He helped them plant corn.
00:15:00.840 He was indispensable.
00:15:02.420 Governor Bradford loved him
00:15:03.780 like a family member.
00:15:05.520 He also played the situation
00:15:06.840 to get an upper hand
00:15:07.680 on Massasoit
00:15:08.480 and the Poconocats.
00:15:10.100 There is a bit of strange symbolism
00:15:11.780 in the name Squanto itself.
00:15:14.160 Squanto was named
00:15:14.840 after the Indian spirit
00:15:15.820 of night and darkness
00:15:16.800 and cold wind,
00:15:18.380 the spirit the pilgrims
00:15:19.280 identified with the devil.
00:15:21.440 There was another one,
00:15:22.340 another indispensable Indian
00:15:23.640 to the pilgrims,
00:15:25.380 a man by the name
00:15:26.100 of Habamuk,
00:15:27.380 was also named
00:15:28.180 after this spirit.
00:15:29.520 Nathaniel Philbrick,
00:15:30.620 in his excellent story,
00:15:32.640 The Mayflower,
00:15:33.720 in his excellent book,
00:15:34.500 he puts it well.
00:15:35.780 A group of people
00:15:36.640 so singularly devoted
00:15:38.000 to serving God
00:15:38.900 that they sailed
00:15:39.720 halfway around the world
00:15:40.640 to do it
00:15:41.180 became entirely dependent
00:15:42.800 on two Indians
00:15:43.800 named Satan.
00:15:45.360 The surrounding Indian tribes
00:15:46.540 in turn became jealous
00:15:47.560 of the Poconocat Indian Alliance
00:15:49.260 as it greatly strengthened
00:15:50.780 Massasoit's position
00:15:51.960 in the region.
00:15:53.280 The Matapoiset chief,
00:15:54.600 Corbatant,
00:15:55.200 tried to break the alliance
00:15:56.200 by capturing
00:15:57.080 poor little Squanto.
00:15:58.540 He even held a knife
00:15:59.460 to the poor man's neck.
00:16:01.400 But while the pilgrims
00:16:02.180 were generally peaceful,
00:16:03.460 it is nevertheless
00:16:04.140 and always remains
00:16:05.160 a bad idea
00:16:05.980 to mess with fire
00:16:07.360 and brimstone zealots
00:16:08.380 who know they have God
00:16:09.100 on their side.
00:16:10.280 Governor Bradford
00:16:10.900 ordered Plymouth's
00:16:11.640 military commander
00:16:12.400 Miles Standish
00:16:13.260 to go after Corbatant
00:16:14.380 with guns blazing.
00:16:15.740 Standish was already
00:16:16.520 chomping at the bit
00:16:17.280 to do it
00:16:17.780 and wouldn't you know
00:16:18.940 all of this
00:16:19.520 had the effect
00:16:20.120 of making all the petty
00:16:21.080 sachems much friendlier
00:16:22.820 toward the English.
00:16:23.940 Funny how demonstrations
00:16:25.120 of strength work.
00:16:26.820 This brings us
00:16:27.580 to the first Thanksgiving.
00:16:28.900 We wouldn't forget
00:16:29.480 about Thanksgiving.
00:16:30.460 It occurred around
00:16:31.140 Michaelmas,
00:16:32.320 Michaelmas,
00:16:32.900 which is in late September,
00:16:34.020 early October.
00:16:35.060 Contrary to popular revisionism,
00:16:36.660 it actually did resemble
00:16:37.980 not only our 20th century
00:16:39.520 ideas of Thanksgiving,
00:16:40.680 but even the dinners
00:16:41.480 that we have today.
00:16:42.340 It actually was
00:16:43.000 fairly similar.
00:16:44.220 There was a lot of corn,
00:16:45.360 squash, beans,
00:16:46.460 barley, peas.
00:16:47.300 They did eat turkey.
00:16:48.620 They ate ducks and geese.
00:16:49.680 They possibly also ate
00:16:50.700 striped bass
00:16:51.740 and bluefish and cod.
00:16:53.480 NASA Soed
00:16:54.120 and his Indian pals
00:16:55.040 showed up with
00:16:55.580 around 100 people,
00:16:56.980 more than twice
00:16:57.580 the English population
00:16:58.540 of the colony,
00:16:59.700 but he knew his manners
00:17:00.900 and he didn't show up
00:17:01.660 empty-handed.
00:17:02.260 He brought five
00:17:02.900 freshly killed deer.
00:17:04.460 The entire meal
00:17:05.140 was cooked by the
00:17:05.860 four adult women
00:17:06.660 who survived
00:17:07.320 that awful first winter,
00:17:08.920 half of whom
00:17:09.460 lead the genetic line
00:17:10.440 all the way down
00:17:11.000 to little old me.
00:17:12.040 This festival,
00:17:12.800 however,
00:17:13.080 was not religious
00:17:13.980 in the way
00:17:14.540 that we would
00:17:15.220 consider Thanksgiving.
00:17:16.420 They didn't even
00:17:16.860 call it Thanksgiving.
00:17:18.060 The real Thanksgiving
00:17:18.840 didn't happen
00:17:19.500 until two years later
00:17:20.680 in 1623
00:17:22.000 when Governor Bradford
00:17:23.380 officially declared
00:17:24.280 a day of Thanksgiving.
00:17:26.360 This was a civil affair
00:17:27.760 recognized by
00:17:28.500 the civil authority
00:17:29.200 and it didn't celebrate
00:17:30.680 English-Indian cooperation
00:17:32.240 as they may have
00:17:33.260 celebrated two years earlier.
00:17:34.800 Rather,
00:17:35.120 the pilgrims
00:17:36.480 were thankful
00:17:37.000 that year
00:17:37.620 that they ditched
00:17:38.400 communism in favor
00:17:39.500 of private property,
00:17:40.960 which had in turn
00:17:41.880 given them abundance.
00:17:43.300 You see,
00:17:43.520 the pilgrims
00:17:44.020 had tried
00:17:44.420 what they called
00:17:44.960 the common course.
00:17:46.300 Not common core,
00:17:47.040 that's also bad,
00:17:47.660 but the common course,
00:17:48.840 communal ownership
00:17:49.540 of property,
00:17:50.260 land,
00:17:50.480 and wealth.
00:17:51.300 Turns out it made
00:17:51.960 everybody lazy,
00:17:52.900 dishonest,
00:17:53.360 and thieving.
00:17:53.940 Shocking, I know.
00:17:54.920 On the brink of starvation
00:17:56.060 in 1623,
00:17:57.680 Bradford instituted
00:17:58.640 private property.
00:17:59.940 In his words,
00:18:00.700 quote,
00:18:00.920 this had very good success
00:18:02.680 for it made all hands
00:18:03.980 very industrious.
00:18:05.340 So as much more corn
00:18:06.400 was planted
00:18:06.960 than otherwise
00:18:07.560 would have been
00:18:08.160 by any means
00:18:09.040 the governor
00:18:09.480 or any other
00:18:10.560 could use
00:18:11.120 and saved him
00:18:12.000 a great deal
00:18:12.480 of trouble
00:18:12.900 and gave far
00:18:13.880 better content.
00:18:15.160 The women now
00:18:15.820 willingly went
00:18:16.680 into the field
00:18:17.300 and took their
00:18:18.060 little ones
00:18:18.560 with them
00:18:18.840 to set corn,
00:18:19.820 which before
00:18:20.440 would allege
00:18:20.960 weakness and inability.
00:18:22.680 Whom to have
00:18:23.260 compelled
00:18:23.740 would have been
00:18:24.380 thought great
00:18:25.160 tyranny
00:18:25.920 and oppression.
00:18:27.320 It's amazing
00:18:27.900 when you give people
00:18:28.780 a stake
00:18:29.300 in their own
00:18:29.680 abundance
00:18:30.400 and their own work,
00:18:31.460 it turns out
00:18:31.800 they work more.
00:18:33.160 And by the way,
00:18:33.880 this was not just
00:18:34.600 a conclusion
00:18:35.100 about a particular
00:18:35.820 experience.
00:18:36.880 Bradford explicitly
00:18:38.000 condemned communism
00:18:39.040 in all its forms
00:18:40.280 and all its lies
00:18:41.260 and all its empty
00:18:41.940 promises
00:18:42.340 as absurd
00:18:43.460 and contrary
00:18:44.120 to God's will.
00:18:45.480 He explained,
00:18:46.360 quote,
00:18:46.960 the experience
00:18:47.800 that was had
00:18:48.480 in this common
00:18:49.080 course and condition
00:18:50.020 tried sundry years
00:18:51.580 and that amongst
00:18:52.160 godly and sober men
00:18:53.500 may well evince
00:18:55.000 the vanity
00:18:55.660 of that conceit
00:18:56.780 of Plato's
00:18:57.560 and other ancients
00:18:58.800 applauded by some
00:19:00.000 of later times.
00:19:01.600 Little did he know
00:19:02.120 of even later times
00:19:03.040 that the taking away
00:19:04.520 of property
00:19:05.180 and bringing in community
00:19:06.320 into a common wealth
00:19:07.380 would make them happy
00:19:08.400 and flourishing
00:19:09.000 as if they were
00:19:09.920 wiser than God.
00:19:12.120 Within two years
00:19:12.800 of landfall,
00:19:13.740 these earliest Americans
00:19:14.960 already realized
00:19:16.040 that communism
00:19:16.720 is the worst.
00:19:18.580 Anticommunism
00:19:19.100 is as American
00:19:19.940 as apple pie
00:19:21.200 and Thanksgiving.
00:19:23.060 While most local
00:19:24.180 Indian tribes
00:19:24.680 played nice,
00:19:25.640 the Narragansetts
00:19:26.340 refused to abide
00:19:27.220 the Poconoc
00:19:27.800 at English Alliance
00:19:28.620 and they threatened
00:19:29.480 war by sending
00:19:30.340 arrowheads
00:19:30.980 wrapped in snakeskin
00:19:32.120 to the pilgrims
00:19:33.060 in Squanto.
00:19:34.040 They're not going
00:19:34.480 to take that,
00:19:35.200 so the pilgrims
00:19:35.840 sent bullets
00:19:36.440 and gunpowder
00:19:37.240 wrapped in snakeskin
00:19:38.180 right back.
00:19:39.420 Another reminder,
00:19:40.680 it is not a good idea
00:19:41.520 to mess with
00:19:42.040 religious zealots
00:19:42.860 who travel around
00:19:43.760 the world
00:19:44.100 to live in freezing
00:19:44.880 desolate wilderness
00:19:45.680 because God
00:19:46.460 is on their side.
00:19:47.420 Do not mess
00:19:47.960 with those people ever.
00:19:49.400 Now,
00:19:49.760 like any sane society,
00:19:51.220 to protect against
00:19:51.940 threats from without,
00:19:53.080 the pilgrims
00:19:53.600 built a big,
00:19:54.400 beautiful wall
00:19:55.020 around their settlement.
00:19:56.360 Hundreds,
00:19:56.640 if not thousands
00:19:57.560 of trees were felled,
00:19:58.740 the pilgrims lugged
00:19:59.640 the mass of timber
00:20:00.400 by hand,
00:20:01.300 and it stood
00:20:01.800 more than half a mile
00:20:02.760 in length
00:20:03.160 and over eight feet tall.
00:20:05.060 The wall's construction
00:20:06.000 was met by shrieking protests
00:20:07.520 and stupid pink hats.
00:20:08.880 I'm just kidding,
00:20:09.600 that wouldn't happen
00:20:10.280 in America
00:20:10.700 for almost 400 more years.
00:20:13.300 Indian relations
00:20:14.040 continued relatively well,
00:20:15.960 very often with the pilgrims
00:20:17.420 playing peacemakers
00:20:18.480 and intervening
00:20:19.240 on behalf of their
00:20:19.980 Indian friends
00:20:20.700 with other tribes.
00:20:22.100 When Massasoit
00:20:22.800 demanded Squanto's head
00:20:24.100 after an attempted coup,
00:20:25.780 the pilgrims
00:20:26.360 begged for his life.
00:20:27.800 Massasoit agreed,
00:20:29.020 though likely
00:20:29.440 he later poisoned him anyway.
00:20:31.320 On his deathbed,
00:20:32.220 Squanto asked Bradford
00:20:33.520 to pray for him
00:20:34.320 that he might go
00:20:35.000 to the Englishman's god.
00:20:36.780 Bradford called Squanto,
00:20:38.020 quote,
00:20:38.640 a special instrument
00:20:39.660 sent of god
00:20:40.480 for their good
00:20:41.440 beyond their expectation.
00:20:43.260 It's impossible
00:20:43.980 to argue with that,
00:20:44.900 he clearly was.
00:20:46.040 The pilgrims
00:20:46.620 at Bradford's command
00:20:47.540 later saved Massasoit's life
00:20:49.100 by rushing to his deathbed,
00:20:51.140 cleaning his sores,
00:20:52.100 cooking him food,
00:20:52.740 administering
00:20:53.760 what little medicine
00:20:54.500 they had,
00:20:55.240 doing anything they could,
00:20:56.500 no matter how degrading,
00:20:57.680 no matter how ethereal
00:20:59.920 for Massasoit.
00:21:01.340 To thank them,
00:21:02.100 Massasoit told the English
00:21:03.160 of the Massachusetts,
00:21:04.760 unprovoked plan
00:21:05.820 to attack the colony.
00:21:07.360 The Massachusetts
00:21:07.940 were going to strike,
00:21:09.600 but this put Bradford
00:21:10.520 in a difficult position.
00:21:12.140 The pilgrims
00:21:12.640 didn't want to attack
00:21:13.440 the Massachusetts
00:21:14.060 without provocation,
00:21:15.420 but if they waited
00:21:16.300 for the Massachusetts
00:21:16.980 to strike,
00:21:17.780 they were doomed.
00:21:18.780 The Massachusetts
00:21:19.200 wanted to take care
00:21:20.200 of some Englishmen
00:21:20.860 on their property,
00:21:21.940 and they knew
00:21:22.200 they'd have to hit
00:21:22.780 Plymouth, too.
00:21:23.960 So what happened?
00:21:25.540 Bradford gave the order,
00:21:26.720 Standish set the trap,
00:21:27.720 and the English
00:21:28.100 averted war
00:21:28.840 by carrying the head
00:21:30.020 of Sachem Wituwamot
00:21:31.660 back to Plymouth.
00:21:33.380 Now, it's funny
00:21:33.920 to think of those
00:21:34.540 Bush-era activists
00:21:35.720 who screaked
00:21:36.780 about how awful
00:21:37.560 and unprecedented
00:21:38.480 preemptive war
00:21:39.520 was for America.
00:21:40.860 Literally,
00:21:41.300 the first major
00:21:42.160 military assault
00:21:42.920 waged by our country
00:21:44.340 was preemptive.
00:21:45.660 Not only that,
00:21:46.420 it worked.
00:21:47.360 War was averted,
00:21:48.420 and the Indians
00:21:48.940 who conspired
00:21:49.600 against the pilgrims
00:21:50.380 apologized profusely,
00:21:52.220 they made amends,
00:21:53.220 and Massasoit
00:21:54.040 consolidated his power
00:21:55.420 even further,
00:21:56.580 creating,
00:21:57.280 thanks to the pilgrims
00:21:58.200 for the first time,
00:21:59.340 the Wampanoag nation.
00:22:01.380 Peace persisted
00:22:02.140 for decades.
00:22:03.000 As the Massachusetts
00:22:03.880 Bay Colony
00:22:04.640 and other colonies
00:22:05.380 were formed,
00:22:06.300 Harvard College
00:22:07.060 was founded,
00:22:08.160 Indians converted
00:22:09.080 to Christianity
00:22:09.820 by the tribe full,
00:22:11.420 and as a result,
00:22:12.500 Indians ranked
00:22:13.220 among some of
00:22:13.900 the earliest alumni
00:22:14.820 of Harvard.
00:22:15.840 I'm certain they
00:22:16.640 were far better educated
00:22:17.980 than those shrieking
00:22:19.260 snowflakes today.
00:22:20.580 Missionary John Elliott
00:22:21.640 translated the entire Bible
00:22:23.180 into a phonetic version
00:22:24.360 of the Massachusetts language
00:22:26.100 since the Massachusetts
00:22:27.180 hadn't developed
00:22:27.980 their own written language,
00:22:29.320 both the Old
00:22:29.800 and the New Testament.
00:22:30.940 As happened
00:22:31.500 1600 years prior
00:22:32.860 in Europe,
00:22:33.720 the advent of Christianity
00:22:34.800 threatened the political
00:22:35.820 power of Sachems
00:22:36.840 because Christ's conquest
00:22:38.460 of death
00:22:39.500 on the cross
00:22:40.120 removed political leaders
00:22:41.700 only claimed to authority,
00:22:43.180 and this led to jealousy
00:22:44.440 now among other
00:22:45.580 Indian tribes.
00:22:46.320 Peace endured
00:22:48.320 virtually unbroken
00:22:49.280 for 55 years.
00:22:51.380 It only broke
00:22:52.120 when Massasoit's own son,
00:22:53.680 Philip,
00:22:54.320 wrongly blamed the English
00:22:55.640 for the death
00:22:56.180 of his brother,
00:22:56.940 who more likely died
00:22:57.940 of appendicitis
00:22:58.820 or some other
00:22:59.380 natural ailment.
00:23:01.040 Philip vowed revenge.
00:23:02.280 He began selling off land
00:23:03.420 to raise funds for war,
00:23:04.860 and he thereby exacerbated
00:23:06.400 the need for war.
00:23:07.660 Local Indians,
00:23:08.680 notably the Christian
00:23:09.520 and Harvard alum
00:23:10.440 John Sassaman,
00:23:11.760 warned Plymouth
00:23:12.480 of Philip's plans for war.
00:23:14.180 Many local tribes
00:23:15.160 rebuffed Philip's belligerence
00:23:16.840 and sided with the English.
00:23:18.440 Philip even made
00:23:19.120 an alliance with the French
00:23:20.380 against the English,
00:23:21.400 an offense unforgivable
00:23:22.680 not only to you and me
00:23:24.000 and all right-thinking people,
00:23:25.640 but also to the fierce
00:23:26.820 and not infrequently
00:23:27.880 cannibalistic Mohawk tribe
00:23:29.500 who promptly sided
00:23:30.960 with the English.
00:23:32.500 Looking back,
00:23:33.340 it seems miraculous
00:23:34.460 that peace endured so long
00:23:36.120 until tragically
00:23:37.380 the hot-headed child
00:23:38.640 of the pilgrim's
00:23:39.380 dear friend Massasoit
00:23:40.340 acted on a bad hunch
00:23:41.840 and destroyed
00:23:42.700 more than half a century
00:23:43.680 of mutual benefit
00:23:44.500 and cooperation,
00:23:45.680 setting the English
00:23:46.580 permanently on their course
00:23:48.040 to possess
00:23:48.900 the whole new world.
00:23:50.840 Reflecting on the abject misery
00:23:52.740 the pilgrims endured
00:23:53.820 at the Mayflower's landfall,
00:23:55.400 the miracle of their survival,
00:23:57.000 and their great thanks to God
00:23:58.320 for protecting his people,
00:24:00.040 William Bradford wrote,
00:24:01.060 What could now sustain them
00:24:04.320 but the spirit of God
00:24:05.440 and his grace?
00:24:07.040 May not and ought not
00:24:08.560 the children of these fathers
00:24:09.840 rightly say,
00:24:11.240 Our fathers were Englishmen
00:24:12.700 which came over this great ocean
00:24:14.620 and were ready to perish
00:24:16.060 in this wilderness,
00:24:17.220 but they cried unto the Lord
00:24:18.740 and he heard their voice
00:24:20.100 and looked on their adversity.
00:24:22.460 The quintessentially American poet
00:24:23.960 Robert Frost
00:24:24.740 looked on the country's destiny
00:24:26.640 with an additional
00:24:27.640 three centuries perspective.
00:24:28.900 He wrote,
00:24:29.820 The land was ours
00:24:31.520 before we were the lands.
00:24:33.360 She was our land
00:24:34.080 more than a hundred years
00:24:35.120 before we were her people.
00:24:36.980 She was ours in Massachusetts,
00:24:38.820 in Virginia,
00:24:39.760 but we were England's
00:24:40.840 still colonials,
00:24:42.400 possessing
00:24:42.980 what we still were
00:24:43.960 unpossessed by,
00:24:45.560 possessed by
00:24:46.280 what we now
00:24:47.020 no more possessed.
00:24:48.780 Something we were withholding
00:24:50.140 made us weak
00:24:50.820 until we found out
00:24:52.240 that it was ourselves
00:24:53.240 we were withholding
00:24:54.280 from our land of living
00:24:55.260 and forthwith found
00:24:56.860 salvation in surrender.
00:24:59.140 Such as we were
00:25:00.060 we gave ourselves outright.
00:25:02.160 The deed of gift
00:25:03.000 was many deeds of war.
00:25:05.120 To the land
00:25:05.760 vaguely realizing westward,
00:25:07.660 but still unstoried,
00:25:08.920 artless,
00:25:09.780 unenhanced.
00:25:11.240 Such as she was,
00:25:12.660 such as she would become.
00:25:15.020 I'm Michael Knowles.
00:25:15.900 This is The Michael Knowles Show.
00:25:17.400 Happy Thanksgiving.
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