The story of the "First Pilgrim" and a special Thanksgiving wish

Peregrine White was the first child born to the Pilgrims in the New World.Peregrine, meaning "traveler" or "Pilgrim," was born onboard the Mayflower in Provincetown harbor in November of 1620.His parents, William and Susanna White, had boarded the Mayflower with their young son Resolved. Susanna gave birth to Peregrine before the end of November (Old Style calendar), 1620 while the Mayflower was anchored in Provincetown Harbor. William White died the first winter, Susanna White married fellow Mayflower passenger Edward Winslow.

Little Peregrine wasn't even a year old at the First Thanksgiving, but his name is listed among the 53 colonists who were there. (see the PilgrimHall.org link, and scroll down the page for the list.)  As he grew up, he would have known Governor William Bradford, watched the military drills of Captain Myles Standish, been baptized and taught by pastor William Brewster and was written about by his step-father Edward Winslow.  If he didn't know them, he would have a least grown up hearing stories of the native leaders Squanto and Massasoit.

Peregrine married Sarah Basset about 1648. Sarah’s parents, William and Elizabeth Bassett, had been members of the Leiden Separatist community; they had arrived in Plymouth in 1621 onboard the Fortune. Sarah was born after their arrival in Plymouth, sometime before 1627. Peregrine and Sarah had 7 children. At age 78, Peregrine officially joined the Marshfield church. He lived until July of 1704, dying at Marshfield aged 83.

So now you know the story of "The First Pilgrim" but the story doesn't end there, because 386 years later, Peregrine's 12th generation descendant is posting this forum message about him.  The little baby boy at the First Thanksgiving, the First Pilgrim, was my great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandfather.  So now I'd like to wish all of you who who took the time to read this a very Happy and Blessed Thanksgiving Day, no matter what part of the world you're in.  Remember that those who live with even the smallest of luxuries are a minority on this planet, and even just having enough to eat is something to be thankful for.  And if it means anything to receive those wishes from someone carrying a copy of a piece of DNA that was there that First Thanksgiving Day, then share your blessings with others less fortunate so that, hopefully, no one has to go hungry or feel alone.

Happy Thanksgiving,

Gregory

P.S. Know that "Six Degrees of Seperation" idea?  This puts all of you just two steps or less from the crew of the Mayflower and the First Thanksgiving We're all more connected than any realize!

Avalod, my family keeps extensive genealogy records which go back even farther than 1620.  They show over 13 generations of the White family who were my ancestors. Of the 102 people who set sail from Europe, only 53 survived to see Thanksgiving; the others died of disease and starvation over the first winter.  If only one, the right one, had died, I wouldn't exist!  Don't even think of going back in time to erase me, either!  That creates all sorts of messy paradoxes that we'd rather not deal with!  Happy Thanksgiving everyone!


P.S. Vinia, yes Halloween is celebrated elsewhere, but the USA tends gluttonize holidays and turn them from celebration to spectacle... no one goes stupid-crazy and over commercialized for Halloween like the USA, which is why it got the mention.

WOW! That is so cool! Ain't geneology fun?

On a similar note, my mother hired someone to trace her geneology; on her mother's side, we got as far back as the mid-1600's, and apparantly, her grandmother with about eight or ten greats tacked on in front, Sarah Jones, lived in Salem, Massachusetts around the time of the Witch Hysteria in the 1690s. She was about eleven or twelve at the time, and it appears her family moved to Wilmington, Massachusetts shortly after then-Governor William Phipps put an end to the madness when his wife got falsely accused of witchcraft. I have a feeling they just wanted to get away from the crazies there, but it kind of explains why my mom and I both feel right at home whenever we visit Salem. If I remember correctly, Sarah's parents came to the then-Massachusetts Bay Colony in the 1670s or 1680s; we're not completely sure, but it seems her father was a merchant of some sort, which means I missed out on being descended from the Pilgrims.

A very Happy Thanksgiving to you PS1ON as well as everyone else on the forums.  That's a great story man, now I can go tell people that I know a descendant of the first pilgrim. " />

Even though I hail from Arkansas, I'm currently in South Dakota visiting my mother's side of the family.  Sadly, my grandmother who we were coming to visit passed away last Friday.  Her memory and her influence on me and my family is one of the things I'm greatly thankful for.  Yesterday I took this photo while getting film footage for a news story I'm working on while up here. 



From the snowy Black Hills of South Dakota, I wish you all a Happy Thanksgiving (again).

The Great Thanksgiving Hoax
by Richard J. Marbury

Each year at this time school children all over America are taught the official Thanksgiving story, and newspapers, radio, TV, and magazines devote vast amounts of time and space to it. It is all very colorful and fascinating.

It is also very deceiving. This official story is nothing like what really happened. It is a fairy tale, a whitewashed and sanitized collection of half-truths, which divert attention away from Thanksgiving's real meaning.

The official story has the pilgrims boarding the Mayflower, coming to America and establishing the Plymouth colony in the winter of 1620-21. This first winter is hard, and half the colonists die. But the survivors are hard-working and tenacious, and they learn new farming techniques from the Indians. The harvest of 1621 is bountiful.

The Pilgrims hold a celebration, and give thanks to God. They are grateful for the wonderful new abundant land He has given them.

The official story then has the Pilgrims living more or less happily ever after, each year repeating the first Thanksgiving. Other early colonies also have hard times at first, but they soon prosper and adopt the annual tradition of giving thanks for this prosperous new land called America.

The problem with this official story is that the harvest of 1621 was not bountiful, nor were the colonists hard-working or tenacious. 1621 was a famine year and many of the colonists were lazy thieves.

In his History of Plymouth Plantation, the governor of the colony, William Bradford, reported that the colonists went hungry for years, because they refused to work in the fields. They preferred instead to steal food. He says the colony was riddled with "corruption," and with "confusion and discontent." The crops were small because "much was stolen both by night and day, before it became scarce eatable."

In the harvest feasts of 1621 and 1622, "all had their hungry bellies filled," but only briefly. The prevailing condition during those years was not the abundance the official story claims; it was famine and death. The first "Thanksgiving" was not so much a celebration as it was the last meal of condemned men.

But in subsequent years something changes. The harvest of 1623 was different. Suddenly, "instead of famine now God gave them plenty," Bradford wrote, "and the face of things was changed, to the rejoicing of the hearts of many, for which they blessed God." Thereafter, he wrote, "any general want or famine hath not been amongst them since to this day." In fact, in 1624, so much food was produced that the colonists were able to begin exporting corn.

What happened?

After the poor harvest of 1622, writes Bradford, "they began to think how they might raise as much corn as they could, and obtain a better crop." They began to question their form of economic organization.

This had required that "all profits & benefits that are got by trade, working, fishing, or any other means" were to be placed in the common stock of the colony, and that, "all such persons as are of this colony, are to have their meat, drink, apparel, and all provisions out of the common stock." A person was to put into the common stock all he could, and take out only what he needed.

This "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need" was an early form of socialism, and it is why the Pilgrims were starving. Bradford writes that "young men that are most able and fit for labor and service" complained about being forced to "spend their time and strength to work for other men's wives and children."

Also, "the strong, or man of parts, had no more in division of victuals and clothes, than he that was weak." So the young and strong refused to work, and the total amount of food produced was never adequate.

To rectify this situation, in 1623 Bradford abolished socialism. He gave each household a parcel of land and told them they could keep what they produced, or trade it away as they saw fit. In other words, he replaced socialism with a free market, and that was the end of famines.

Many early groups of colonists set up socialist states, all with the same terrible results. At Jamestown, established in 1607, out of every shipload of settlers that arrived, less than half would survive their first 12 months in America. Most of the work was being done by only one-fifth of the men, the other four-fifths choosing to be parasites. In the winter of 1609-10, called "The Starving Time," the population fell from 500 to 60.

Then the Jamestown colony was converted to a free market, and the results were every bit as dramatic as those at Plymouth. In 1614, Colony Secretary Ralph Hamor wrote that after the switch there was "plenty of food, which every man by his own industry may easily and doth procure." He said that when the socialist system had prevailed, "we reaped not so much corn from the labors of thirty men as three men have done for themselves now."

Before these free markets were established, the colonists had nothing for which to be thankful. They were in the same situation as Ethiopians are today, and for the same reasons. But after free markets were established, the resulting abundance was so dramatic that the annual Thanksgiving celebrations became common throughout the colonies, and in 1863, Thanksgiving became a national holiday.

Thus the real reason for Thanksgiving, deleted from the official story, is: Socialism does not work; the one and only source of abundance is free markets, and we thank God we live in a country where we can have them.

Pamphlet No. 1078, November, 2000

originally published in
The Free Market, November, 1985
by the Ludwig von Mises Institute

P.S. Vinia, yes Halloween is celebrated elsewhere, but the USA tends gluttonize holidays and turn them from celebration to spectacle... no one goes stupid-crazy and over commercialized for Halloween like the USA, which is why it got the mention.

“We set the last spring some twenty acres of Indian corn, and sowed some six acres of barley and peas, and according to the manner of the Indians, we manured our ground with herrings or rather shads, which we have in great abundance, and take with great ease at our doors. Our corn [wheat] did prove well, and God be praised, we had a good increase of Indian corn, and our barley indifferent good, but our peas not worth the gathering, for we feared they were too late sown, they came up very well, and blossomed, but the sun parched them in the blossom. Our harvest being gotten in, our governor sent four men on fowling, that so we might after have a special manner rejoice together after we had gathered the fruit of our labors; they four in one day killed as much fowl, as with a little help beside, served the company almost a week, at which time amongst other recreations, we exercised our arms, many of the Indians coming amongst us, and among the rest their greatest King Massasoit, with some ninety men, whom for three days we entertained and feasted, and they went out and killed five deer, which they brought to the plantation and bestowed on our governor, and upon the captain, and others. And although it be not always so plentiful as it was at this time with us, yet by the goodness of God, we are so far from want that we often wish you partakers of our plenty. ” – Edward Winslow, December 12, 1621