Hold on to your hats, your cats, your kids and any preconceived notions about what Thanksgiving is and why we celebrate it nearly 400 years later.
Ready?
Religious freedom.
I'll wait while those of you who have been brainwashed, er, taught to believe the Pilgrims risked their lives on a three-month trip across the Atlantic because they wanted to, they were bored, or they were eager to see what another continent looked like gather yourselves together and attempt to process this startling, yet true, information.
Let me know when you've caught your breath again and your eyes have ceased to bulge from your head. . .
Sarcasm aside, I've had it with the dumbing down (deliberate deception?) of the origins of Thanksgiving. No doubt I'm gonna piss off the ACLU with this post -- since anything that defends religion or religious freedom tends to make those morons come unglued -- but I can't let another Thanksgiving go by without speaking up.
Last year, it was a coloring book I'd bought for my daughters to use along with a study of the origins of the Thanksgiving holiday itself. The book, purchased through a well-known supplier of materials for homeschoolers, was supposed to tell the story of the Pilgrims' voyage as it presented pictures for kids to color. Its opening line? "The Pilgraims were a group of people who came to America from England."
Oh? Why?
The question is never answered. I relegated the book to the mishmash of our playtime puzzle and coloring books. It wasn't worthy of a place on the shelves where we house our serious academic materials.
This year, it's me trying to put together materials for my son (the one who managed to cancel his own birthday party -- see previous post --) to make a simple unit study about the Pilgrims and the whole Thanksgiving gig.
Hunting across the internet for freebies to print out for his folder, I came across a little printable book that purports to tell the story of Thanksgiving.
Its opening line? "In the year 1620, the Pilgrims sailed from England to look for the New World on a ship called the Mayflower."
Seriously? To look for the New World?
What was there to look for? The colony at Jamestown had already been settled and abandoned by the time the Pilgrims set sail. Before that, Spanish explorers had canvassed much of the southern and western parts of the country, and Columbus had pretty much nailed down the West Indies and their neighbors before that!
I think the New World had already been found by 1620, don't you? The Pilgrims weren't needed for that particular job.
No, the Pilgrims (the name of which even means a person who travels for RELIGIOUS reasons) came to the New World TO LOOK FOR FREEDOM FROM RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION.
Don't believe me, read it for yourself in William Bradford's journal. Bradford, the first governor of the colony at Plymouth, tells the story like no one else can and he pulls no punches.
Bradford writes about the persecution of the Separatists in England (later called Pilgrims) and how no amount of influence or intervention on their behalf relieved the pressure to conform to King James' state church: "They proceeded by all means to disturb the peace of this poor persecuted church, even so far as to charge some of their chief opposers with rebellion and high treason against the Emperor (King James) and other such crimes."
Then Bradford goes on to describe the Separatists' decision to flee to Holland in search of religious freedom: "Being thus constrained to leave their native soil and country, their lands and their livings, and all their friends and familiar acquaintance, it was much, and thought marvelous by many. . . It was by many thought an adventure almost desperate, a case intolerable, and a misery worse than death. . . But these things did not dismay them (thought they did sometimes trouble them) for their desires were set on the ways of God and to enjoy his ordinances. But they rested on his providence and knew whom they had believed."
Bradford then carefully lays out the arguments for and against going to America, including the acknowledgement that the Separatists would face hardships at sea, "savage" Indians once they landed, a different environment altogether, and possible death. He discusses the other options available to the Pilgrims at that point including Virginia, where English were already settled.
He explains why the Separatists decided NOT to head for Virginia: "If they lived among the English which were there planted, or so near them as to be under their government, they should be in as great a danger to be troubled and persecuted for the cause of religion, as if they lived in England, and it might be worse."
I ask you, dear readers, DOES THIS SOUND LIKE THE DELIBERATION OF A PEOPLE WHO JUST WANTED A JOYRIDE ACROSS THE ATLANTIC FOR A GOOD LOOK AT AMERICA?????????
The next time the child in your life brings home a book about the Pilgrims and the first Thanksgiving or you consider buying said child a coloring book, puzzle book or other so-called educational resource that purports to discuss this historic time in American history, read through it first, will you?
If you do not see the words, "religious freedom" somewhere in the text, put it down or send it back. It is not factual, it is not correct, and it is not the truth!
Without the truth, we perish as a people and as a nation.
What a shame it would be, considering the sincerity with which our Pilgrim fathers and mothers established the colony at Plymouth so long ago and the tremendous sacrifices they made.
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