The Seldom Told Story of Plymouth Commune

The politicization of American History may be a natural outcome of our highly partisan society, but it is not an acceptable one. Many of the stories historians choose not to share have relevance to current situations and deserve to be told in their entirety. Partisan historians may not like the conclusions people draw from these stories, but still it is the people’s right to receive factual information and form what opinions they may.

One such story is that of the earliest New World colonists, in particular of the Pilgrims of Plymouth Plantation. With Thanksgiving upon us it seems a good time to revisit their experiences when they first settled on the American continent. The real story is much more interesting than the simplified version we learned as school children and offers valuable insight into solutions to our economic problems.

Over half of the 101 Pilgrims who first landed on Cape Cod were dead within the first few months of their arrival, victims of disease, harsh weather conditions and malnutrition. Over the next three years, 100 more settlers joined Plymouth Plantation, but the colony was barely able to feed itself. According to William Bradford, the first governor of the colony, the Pilgrims were so destitute that "many sold away their clothes and bed coverings [to the Indians]; others (so base were they) became servants to the Indians and would cut them wood and fetch them water for a capful of corn; others fell to plain stealing, both night and day, from the Indians ... ."

Why was this happening? New England may not have the most temperate climate or the most fertile soil, but the Native Americans had managed to grow food and feed themselves. What prevented the Pilgrims from doing likewise?

The answer, it turns out, was an incorrect political economic decision imposed on the colony by the investors in the Mayflower. Before you blame capitalism (a term which had not yet been coined) and bankers, however, understand that the cause of the Pilgrims’ problems was the decidedly anti-capitalist property distribution scheme these investors imposed. They assumed that common property ownership would be the most profitable arrangement under which the Pilgrims could work and produce in order to pay back the money fronted them for their voyage. These investors turned Plymouth Plantation into a collectivized farm.

The results were disastrous. Where there is not ownership there is no pride and little incentive. Governor Bradford explained it this way: "For the young men, that were most able and fit for labour and service, did repine that they should spend their time and strength to work for other men’s wives and children without any recompense." Those who did more of the work also felt it unjust that they should receive no greater reward than those who did little, Bradford said, and husbands resented that their wives were forced to cook and care for men to whom they were not married.

The problem was solved when each household was given a private plot of land to tend. "This had very good success, for it made all hands very industrious," Bradford reported, "so as much more corn was planted than otherwise would have been by any means the Governor or any other could use, and saved him a great deal of trouble and gave far better content."

Bradford blamed the failed collectivization experiment on "that conceit of Plato," referencing the Greek philosopher’s advocacy of collective ownership of land, and said those who believed communal property would make people "happy and flourishing" mistakenly thought themselves "wiser than God."

Those who blame the "greedy investors" for this debacle miss the point. The Pilgrims were not in conflict with those who had enabled them to flee to the New World but with each other. Some saw an opportunity to slack off while others supported them, and those willing to work became decidedly less willing when they saw no more benefit to themselves than to their lazy fellow colonists.

As is always the case when an economic system fails, it was a failure of human nature rather than the system. But since human nature itself is eternal and does not seem to change no matter how hard utopians try to force it to, it makes sense that a system which accepts human nature and works with it to produce the best results will succeed.

That system, then, as now, appears to be one of free enterprise and respect for property rights. Today, more than at any time in our nation’s history, we are moving toward a collectivist economic system. Socialism, wherever it has been tried, has failed to, in William Bradford’s words, create a society that is "happy and flourishing." Rather, collectivism more widely and equally distributes misery and poverty. The Pilgrims learned this lesson quickly and corrected their mistake. Why would we now condemn ourselves, as Santayana warned, to repeat history?

Audrey Pietrucha is interim county coordinator for the Bennington County Campaign for Liberty and founder of the Southern Vermont Liberty Council.