Bacon's Rebellion

Democracy Thrives in Sunlight

Happy Thanksgiving — and Please Pass the Beans

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by

James A. Bacon
in

I saw a link to a USA Today story entitled, “The First Real Thanksgiving.” I clicked on it, eagerly anticipating that a national publication would give credence to Virginia’s claim to having celebrated the first thanksgiving in North America. Finally, I thought, those pesky pilgrims would get their comeuppance.

Indeed, they did. But the article said nothing about Virginia’s Thanksgiving — it was all about some nonsense down in St. Augustine. Floridian Robyn Gioia contends that Pedro Menendez de Aviles landed there on Sept. 8, 1565, and celebrated a feast of thanksgiving with the Timucua Indians. They dined on bean soup.

Bean soup? Some actually gave thanks for bean soup? I don’t think so!

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3 responses to “Happy Thanksgiving — and Please Pass the Beans”

  1. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    The Great Thanksgiving Hoax

    http://dailypaul.com/node/8776

    “…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….

    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. …

    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.”

  2. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    “hey dined on bean soup”

    reminds me of my cub scout days around the campfire .. singing “beans, beans, the musical fruit…..”

    🙂

  3. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    I suppose ther is a reason the Senate bean soup is so famous.

    RH

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