This post was originally published on this site.
Robert W. Weir, photograph courtesy of the Architect of the Capitol, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
Four hundred six years ago today, one hundred and two Pilgrims climbed aboard a ship called the Mayflower and set sail from England on one of the most courageous journeys in history. They charted a course for the unknown — a sixty-six-day crossing of 2,700 miles of open Atlantic Ocean, facing storms violent enough to crack the main mast and require passengers to hold it in place. High winds blew the Mayflower off its intended course to Virginia and into the cold harbor at Cape Cod, Massachusetts. When they finally came ashore, Governor William Bradford recorded that they fell upon their knees and blessed the God of Heaven who had brought them over the vast and furious ocean and delivered them from its perils and miseries. They started a settlement, and yet half of those who survived the ocean crossing would not survive their first New England winter.
But here is a part of the Pilgrim story that is almost never taught in schools, and it speaks directly to a great debate happening in America right now. When Plymouth Plantation was first established, it operated under a communal arrangement imposed by its London investors. All profits and labor went into a common stock, out of which every man, woman, and child received equal provision regardless of how hard they worked. That system failed …completely.
Governor Bradford described it plainly in his own writings: the communistic plan bred confusion, discontent, and idleness. The strong had no more than the weak. The young men resented working for others’ families without recompense. The aged felt it an indignity to be equalized with those who contributed far less. Bradford wrote that the experiment proved the emptiness of the theory that taking away private property and holding all things in common would create happiness and flourishing. It did not.
So Bradford gave every family their own plot of land and the results were both immediate and dramatic. More corn was planted than ever before. Women who had previously pleaded weakness went willingly to the fields. Bradford wrote that instead of famine, God gave them plenty.
The Pilgrims tried collectivism and they almost starved. Then they chose private property and flourished. This is not just a footnote to American history — it is our foundation.
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