Over the last year, I’ve made a series of
videos arguing that the United States really began with the Jamestown colony: a tobacco company town which began 250 years
of slavery and 400 years of conflict with Native Americans. All told, I made 6 hours and 44 minutes of
content to discuss those various subjects over the course of 14 videos. Just as a side note, all of those shorts and
followup videos aren’t just clips from the main video. They’re not recycled content, they’re additional content. Go watch them if you haven’t. If you’re having trouble finding that Geronimo
video, I’ll talk about that later. Anyway, that history is pretty well documented, but is rarely taught in school. I didn’t learn about debt peonage or reservation
allotments until this Youtube channel became my full-time job and I could devote weeks
to reading books. I didn’t learn about any of this in elementary,
middle, or high school, nor did I learn about it when I was in college
training to become a history teacher. I taught in two different states and not once
did any of this come up in a textbook or in my curriculum. It’s kind of astonishing that teachers are
considered “highly qualified” without having to know any of this stuff. So, in a sense, this Youtube channel is my
atonement for having participated in the further spread of what I refer to as the Standard
American History Myth. This is the patriotic version of history that
most people in the United States are familiar with, it’s the story of American exceptionalism
that you were taught throughout all of your years of education and continue to hear well
into your adulthood. As part of the Neoslavery video, I made a PragerU parody outlining the basic
details of that myth, which began like this… America was founded when a group of Protestant
Christians, fleeing religious persecution in Europe, made the harrowing journey across the Atlantic
Ocean and landed at Plymouth Rock. These Pilgrims had a feast with the Indians
to celebrate their cooperation and that became the holiday of Thanksgiving. Over the next few decades, several other British
colonies were founded On the American continent and in 1776 they
all declared [Static] their independence from the King over the
issue of taxation- I’m Knowless Better, author of “You Learned
Everything You Need to Know About History in Elementary School” for Better University. If anyone knows how to fix a 20 year old CRT
let me know, this is getting ridiculous. Anyway, those Jamestown videos were my attempt to
fill in the blanks and provide context to everything you learned in elementary school. I discussed many of the negative aspects of
American history, which most people had never heard before. This video is about the overly positive story
that you already know regarding the founding of our nation. I’ve been teasing this for a while and it’s
finally another time. Let’s talk about the Pilgrims. [Intro music] This video was brought to you by CuriosityStream
and Nebula. In every classroom in the United States, American history always begins with Columbus, because that’s when the New World was discovered
by Europeans. Anything that happened before that is regarded
as Prehistory if it took place in the Americas and World History if it took place anywhere
else. Despite the name, World History really means
Ancient or Classical history. The only civilizations we ever discussed were
Egypt, Greece, Rome, China… maybe India if there was enough time. All of which are disconnected from the modern
world. As a result, the only continuous historical
narrative in the minds of most Americans begins in 1492, when Columbus sailed the ocean blue. Then… nothing happens until 1620, when the Pilgrims show up and the real story
begins. If you learn about Jamestown, John Smith,
and Pocahontas, they’re presented as a prequel to America
rather than its actual beginning. So if I ask you to try and imagine what life
was like for a Pilgrim, you’re forced to take a retrospective view, meaning from here in the present, looking back to the past. Put another way, you take the world as it
is today and mentally subtract everything you know that didn’t exist back then. So let’s do that right now: try to picture
a Pilgrim in the 1620s. There are no cell phones, no internet, no TV or radio, no planes, trains, or automobiles. No machine guns, no rights… I’m sure you can think of more, but once you’ve taken all of that away, what you’re left with is every American
sitcom’s depiction of Thanksgiving. Pretty much any TV show you can think of has
a Thanksgiving episode where the characters are transported back in time or have to participate in a holiday pageant
where they act out some version of that fall harvest feast. The details of the story are always a little
different, sometimes they only find untamed wilderness
when they land, sometimes it’s an abandoned village. The Indian that comes to help them can be
any combination of people: Samoset, Squanto, Massasoit, or an entire group of them. Sometimes the Indians are the ones who bring
the food to the first Thanksgiving, other times it’s the Pilgrims who set up
the feast and only later invite the Indians. We’re going to sort out those differences
later, but all these depictions are similar in the
way they imagine daily life. The Pilgrims all have nuclear families with
a father, a mother, two or three kids, and maybe a dog. They all live in single family homes with
a picket fence, a living room, a kitchen, and separate bedrooms. They go to church on Sunday and are involved
in the community, but otherwise live separate, individual lives. No television sitcom portrays this better
than Thanks!, a short-lived series on CBS that came out
in 1999 which follows the anachronistic Winthrop family as they navigate life in Plymouth Colony
in 1621. As you know, many families offered to host
what we are now calling the “We Really, Really Appreciate All of Your
Help” feast. [Laugh track] Why don’t we call it Thanksgiving? Be quiet, little girl. [Laugh track] It’s actually pretty funny, it’s a shame
that it only lasted six episodes. I don’t know, maybe there’s tiny creatures
smaller than the eye can see living inside of people’s mouths. [Laugh track] She has a healthy imagination. Imagination… sounds more like black magic
to me. [Laugh track] You see, they were just like us, just without
cell phones, the internet, cars, germ theory, and all of the other stuff that makes life
so complicated these days. But this way of thinking about history is
as accurate as The Flintstones. The Pilgrims were not modern people transplanted
into the past. Taking a retrospective view of the Pilgrims
allows us to project our own ideas of liberty and religious freedom onto them which makes them seem more American and forward-thinking
than they really were. The Pilgrims were basically medieval people
with medieval ideas and ways of doing things. They’re closer in time to William Wallace
and the Black Death than they are to us. Because of that, it is much more helpful to talk about the
Pilgrims and Thanksgiving with a prospective approach, meaning we begin in the past and move forward. So I’ll be setting up a lot of backstory
before we get to the actual debunking. But the obvious question is… where should
we start? Gather round children! Today we’re going to be learning the exciting
tale of the Pilgrims and that most American of holidays – Thanksgiving! I just happen to have one of my favorite children’s
books right here, so let’s get to it! Once upon a time, in the land of England,
there lived a small group of people called the Pilgrims. The Pilgrims were unhappy, because the King
would not let them worship God in their own way. Oh good, I was worried we were going to have
to start at the Plague! Every version of the Thanksgiving story begins
by explaining the motivations of the Pilgrims, they were either fleeing religious persecution
or seeking religious freedom, which is the same thing. If you really want to whitewash it, you could just say they were looking for a
land of opportunity or a new home. The Pilgrims gave up comfort and went to sea
to roam. They headed for the New World in hopes of
finding a new home. Before you go thinking that this video is
just going to rag on fake Youtube universities or children’s books about Thanksgiving, respected historical documentaries are just
as bad. This is America: The Story of Us, released
in 2010. The DVD set is ubiquitous in every history
classroom in the United States and you’ve definitely seen clips of this constantly ever
since. It is the Standard American History Myth for
adults and probably deserves its own video some day. These are a different breed of settler, a group of religious dissidents with faith
at the center of their lives. They made the dangerous Atlantic crossing
seeking religious freedom in the New World. To explain who the Pilgrims were and what
persecution they were fleeing, we have to go back to the year 1436, when
Gutenberg invented movable type. Up until that point, the Catholic Church was
the ultimate gatekeeper for all things Christian. If you wanted a copy of the Bible, you had to pay a monk and wait a few years
for him to write it all out by hand. These became family heirlooms and were basically
works of art. But if you couldn’t afford that or couldn’t
read Latin, your only source for theological information
was your local priest or bishop. The printing press had been around for a while, but each page required its own, individually
carved plate. Gutenberg changed that by allowing the same
plate to be rearranged for every page, which made the whole process significantly
cheaper. Within a few decades, the Bible was translated
and became widely available for people to read, which allowed for the… democratization of
Christianity. In 1517, Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses
to the All Saints’ Church, kicking off the Protestant Reformation, when people turned directly to the Bible for
salvation, which eventually created groups like the Calvinists. To put it in the simplest possible terms, Protestants believe that the Bible is the
highest authority on religious matters, while Catholics believe it’s the Pope. Separate from the Reformation, King Henry
VIII broke away from the Catholic Church in 1534 because the Pope wouldn’t allow him
to divorce his wife, Catherine of Aragon, for failing to provide
him with a male heir. This created the Church of England, or Anglican
Church, which was basically a copy of Catholicism
with the King as the leader, rather than the Pope. Following Henry’s death, his Catholic daughter
Mary tried to reverse that separation and return the country to the faith, killing hundreds of Protestants and earning
her the nickname that would eventually inspire this drink! [Choking cough] When she died, her Protestant sister Elizabeth
took the throne and reversed the reversal, while also reforming the Anglican Church to
be more Catholic. She hoped that this would make everyone happy, as Protestants and Catholics would have a
hybrid church they could both enjoy. But as you probably guessed, this had the
exact opposite effect. Catholics were never going to abandon the
Pope and Protestants who didn’t like the Catholic changes to the Anglican Church became
the Puritans. When Elizabeth I died in 1603, James VI of
Scotland became James I of England which united the two kingdoms. He then declared the Church of England to
be the only religion in the country. England had been at war with Spain for almost
20 years at this point. They destroyed the Spanish Armada in 1588, which cleared the way for England to start
colonizing the New World. Spain initially thought of itself as the defender
of the Catholic faith and vowed to support Catholics living in England, but having suffered massive losses during
the war, they reneged on that promise and made peace
in 1604. The English Catholics were now on their own
and decided to take matters into their own hands, which you probably remember, remember as the
fifth of November. In 1605, Robert Catesby and his Catholic collaborators,
including one Guy Fawkes, attempted to assassinate King James by blowing
up Parliament, with the intention of installing his Catholic
daughter on the throne. As you likely know, the plot was discovered
and the surviving conspirators were executed by being disemboweled and quartered. This began a wave of anti-Catholic sentiment
in England, especially among the Puritans, who viewed the Pope as the Antichrist and
demanded that the Anglican Church remove any symbols or practices that resembled the Catholic
Church. It should be noted that in the early 1600s, Puritan was a slur. They were a nuisance, a bunch of religious extremists who wanted
to “purify” the Church of England. The Gunpowder Plot made it clear to James
I that the Catholic resistance within England was more widespread than previously thought and that further persecution would only result
in further violence. So after only a year, he began to dial back
the torture and oppression. This pissed off the Puritans something awful
and to maintain peace in his kingdom, he introduced laws to crack down on them by
forbidding ministers from holding private religious gatherings. In 1607, the Puritan minister William Brewster
was issued a fine for doing exactly that, so he and his congregation decided to separate
from the Church of England and England as a whole. Religious dissenters were not allowed to leave
the country without permission, so Brewster’s Separatists had to escape. It took them three tries, but they finally made it to Holland in 1609. They settled in the textile manufacturing
town of Leiden after living in Amsterdam for a few months. The King James Bible was published in 1611, but the Separatists continued to use the Calvinist
Geneva Bible. Now, I hope you’re sitting down, because I’m about to blow your mind by telling
you something else that happened while they were living in Holland… Ready? In 1616, William Shakespeare died – that’s
what time period we are still in. Most Americans learn about Shakespeare in
English Literature class rather than History, so he and the Pilgrims might as well exist
in different universes. You’ve got Game of Thrones with Henry VIII, Shakespeare, and Guy Fawkes over there, and the Handmaid’s Tale with the Pilgrims
and Puritans over here, and never the twain shall meet. But in reality, this is one interconnected
timeline. Without the separation of the Anglican Church, the defeat of the Spanish Armada, and the
Gunpowder Plot, there are no Pilgrims trying to leave England. To clear something up real quick, all of the Pilgrims were Puritans, they shared the same theological beliefs. But while the Puritans wanted to fix the Church
of England from within, the Pilgrims thought it was beyond repair. It’s around this time that the Separatist
Pilgrims began to fear that their children were growing up to be culturally Dutch rather
than English and started to look for a new home… at least, that’s the story anyway. They feared seduction, not persecution. Worrying that their children would be corrupted
by the materialistic Dutch culture. Now, that very well may have been part of
it, the Puritans were notoriously paranoid about
corrupting influences. But they weren’t worried about that in 1612
or 1615… so why did they suddenly want to leave now? Because a great war between the Catholics
and Protestants of Europe seemed inevitable. In fact, the Holy Roman Empire broke down into a conflict
that would kick off the Thirty Years’ War in May 1618. Six months later, the Pilgrims witnessed a
blue-green comet in the sky, which they interpreted as a sign of the Second
Coming. The Dutch had a truce with Spain that was
set to expire in 1621 and the Pilgrims wanted to get out of there before that happened, so they began shopping around to secure passage
to the New World. It took until June 1620 for them to enter
into an agreement with a company with the ridiculous name: The Fellowship of the Merchant Adventurers. The next month, the Pilgrims returned to England
and boarded two ships in the harbour of Southampton, the Speedwell and the Mayflower, and began their long journey across the Atlantic. They only made it a few hundred miles before
the Speedwell began taking on water, so both ships turned back to England and docked
in Plymouth Harbor. At that point, the decision was made to load
everyone and everything onto the larger Mayflower and continue the expedition without the Speedwell. They finally set sail for real on September
6, 1620. A quick note on dates in this video. At this point in history, the English were
still using the Julian calendar, which was ten days behind the Gregorian calendar. They didn’t make the switch until 1750,
so the Pilgrims used Julian dates in their journals and letters. For the sake of simplicity, that’s also
what I’ll be using here. In 1620, a group of Pilgrims decided to leave
England for the New World to build a new life. “It was a long, long trip, on a big, big ship!” all the Pilgrims sang. Okay so… did the Pilgrims really come to
America seeking religious freedom? No, they already had it, they were trying to escape a war. You could maybe claim that persecution is
why they left England for Holland, but for the crime of denouncing the Church
of England, and thus the King, for being too Catholic, they got off rather light compared to the
Catholics and Jews. So no, despite the oppression of having to
pay a fine, the main reason they wanted to leave England
was that it wasn’t pure enough. Hurry my little Puritans, we must flee England
and its insufficiently Puritanical ways! Finally we shall bid goodbye to England and
its drunken, decadent sinners. I can’t believe the Simpsons are the only
ones to portray that accurately… The Pilgrims didn’t cross the ocean to flee
persecution—or even England. They’d been living for over a decade in
Holland, Europe’s most tolerant nation, and a haven for religious dissenters. … So let me get this straight. The Simpsons and PragerU got it right, while
America: The Story of Us got it wrong… Anyway, when it comes to why they left Holland
to come to America, they were trying to escape the inevitable
conflict between Catholics and Protestants, making them more like war refugees than religious
dissenters. Speaking of which, not everyone on the Mayflower
was a Pilgrim, in fact, they weren’t even the majority. From Holland, 102 Pilgrims set sail on that
ship. The voyage lasted 66 days and was a very dangerous
trip. The Mayflower left England with 132 souls
on board, 30 of which belonged to Captain Christopher
Jones and his crew. That leaves 102 passengers; 50 men, 20 women,
and 32 children. And of those passengers… 35 were Separatist Pilgrims. In exchange for passage to the New World, the Pilgrims agreed to work for the Merchant
Adventurers for seven years, which means they were actually indentured
servants. The company was hoping to make huge profits
exporting timber and beaver fur to Europe, so they needed all the warm bodies they could
get. The other 67 passengers had signed similar
agreements and if they’re mentioned at all, they’re typically referred to as “the
Strangers”. Despite the fact that they outnumbered the
Separatists two to one, the Strangers are regarded as side characters
in the Pilgrim story, And the profit motive is replaced with divine
providence. That’s why they risked their dangerous 1620
voyage to a wilderness continent: not because they were running from oppression, but because they were running toward holiness—fulfilling
a fateful mission to build an ideal Christian commonwealth. … Damn it… Hey. Hey!! I don’t know if you remember me… I’m the one from the future. Anyway, it’s been a long time since he’s
made a religion video and I was thinking– … [Coffee commercial music plays] [Music stops] [Coffee commercial music resumes] We had a pretty good year here at Knowing
Better. We look forward to continuing to provide you
with the high quality content you know and love. But none of that would’ve been possible
without the help of our discord community. I’ve come to rely on them a lot for help
finding sources, fact-checking, and reviewing early drafts of videos. There are three different ways you can join
the discord community. First, you can become a member of the channel on
Youtube by clicking the Join button and signing up at the Green Fork tier. Alternatively, you can head over to the Knowing
Better Patreon, where there are several tiers for you to choose
from, each with a different set of perks, including access to behind the scenes videos,
early access videos, and even content that’s been retired to
the vault. Anyone who pledges at the Green Fork tier
or above gets access to the discord. If you go with an annual subscription, you’ll
get a full month for free. And finally, you can subscribe to me over
on Twitch, where you can participate in the research,
writing, or editing of future projects. I’ve taken a break from streaming over the
holidays, but I’ll be getting back to it soon. I hear sometimes we put on events or watch
parties in the discord, so come and join us, and maybe next year, you’ll know– There we go. The first known contact between the Wampanoag
Indians of New England and Europeans occurred when the French-employed Italian explorer
Giovanni da Verrazano arrived in 1524. The English didn’t make it to the region
until 1580, when Sir Humphrey Gilbert scouted the area
for future settlement. A few years later, the English began their
first actual colony in the New World: Roanoke, founded in 1585 in modern-day North
Carolina. It was mysteriously abandoned, then re-populated, and then abandoned again. The English wouldn’t make their second attempt
until Jamestown, Virginia in 1607 – which you’re probably
sick of hearing about by now, so I won’t dwell on it. But a few months after Jamestown, the English established a separate colony
in New England named Popham as a timber and fur trading post. That sounds familiar, doesn’t it? Unfortunately, Popham only lasted 14 months. The French and the Dutch set up their own
colonies shortly afterwards, and the English continued to visit the area
to trade. In 1614, the region was explored by a familiar face…
or name, at least: John Smith, of Jamestown and Pocahontas fame. During this expedition, he produced a map where he named the area
“New England.” One of the captains under Smith’s command
was Thomas Hunt, who decided to go rogue just before the fleet
was set to return home. He invited 20 or so Wampanoags onto his ship
to trade, which was pretty standard practice at the
time. But then decided to seize all of them and
sell them into slavery in Spain. Among the abducted was a man named Tisquantum, but his sale was blocked by friars, who cited an oft-ignored law that Native Americans
could not be enslaved. He eventually made it to London, and was living there when Pocahontas came
to town for her public relations campaign in 1616. While there is no documentation to support
this, it is incredibly likely that they met. That same year, a devastating smallpox epidemic
broke out in New England and killed upwards of 90% of the local population over the course
of three years. Entire villages became sick at once and were
reduced to only one or two survivors. The Massachusett people were only left with
a few hundred and the Wampanoags were so decimated that they became tributaries to the neighboring
Narragansett. In the middle of this apocalyptic event, the Wampanoags witnessed that same blue-green
comet in the sky and interpreted it as a sign of worse things to come. Sir Ferdinando Gorges was a prominent Englishman
who liked to take Indians, teach them English, and then release them back into the wild to
pave the way for future colonial efforts. So in the spring of 1619, he paid to have
Tisquantum returned home. When he arrived, he found his home village
of Patuxet to be completely deserted. Everyone had died of smallpox, he was the
lone survivor. Luckily, the sachem next door took him in. The Wampanoags were less of a cultural identity
and more of a political one. Each village was run by a local sachem who
paid tribute to a paramount sachem and could change allegiance at any time… as long as
they were willing to face the consequences. There were very few cultural differences between
the Wampanoags, Massachusetts, and Narragansetts, so these political alliances were always fluid. The year that Tisquantum came home, the paramount sachem of the Wampanoags was
a man named Ousamequin, who lived in the village of Pokanoket. You’ll often hear them referred to as the
Pokanoket Indians, but that’s where they’re from, not who they are, which is Wampanoag. As winter began to set in, the Wampanoags
left their coastline villages to move inland, where the climate was much more agreeable. They had been making these semi-annual migrations
for generations. I just want to point out that Cape Cod and
Martha’s Vineyard were being used as summer vacation homes well before the arrival of
Europeans. On November 9, 1620, the Mayflower spotted
land and realized they were 200 miles north of their intended destination on the Hudson
River. They tried to sail south, but were blocked by rocky shoals and decided
to weigh anchor at Cape Cod. Since they were so far outside the bounds
of their legal charter, many of the Strangers felt they were no longer
held to service and wanted to go off to do their own thing. To prevent the group from disbanding a document
was written and signed by 41 of the men on board, which later became known as the Mayflower
Compact. This is the entire text of that agreement, both the first and last sentences state that
they are still subjects of the King of England, so we can assume that separation was no longer
their intent. They were not here to found a new nation. They chose John Carver, who was a Protestant
minister, but not a Puritan, as their first governor and began sending
out scouting parties. William Bradford, Edward Winslow, and Miles Standish went searching for people,
animals, or food, and found none of the above, only bringing back some firewood. Typically, when Europeans sailed to the New
World to start a colony, they would leave in February or March so that
they would have plenty of time to clear fields, plant crops, and hopefully harvest them before winter. The Mayflower left England in September and
arrived in November. They didn’t have time for any of that, they
needed food yesterday. So when further expeditions found gravesites
and food stores, they promptly looted them for supplies. They took baskets of seed corn and even dug
up bodies to take the tools and weapons that were buried with them. On December 8, the Pilgrim landing party was
attacked by a group of Indians on the now-appropriately named First Encounter Beach. Luckily, nobody was harmed during the skirmish
and soon afterwards, they stumbled upon an abandoned village with
fields that had been cleared for agriculture, a source of freshwater, stored food, and lots and lots of dead bodies. The Pilgrims interpreted this as divine providence. God had cleared away the natives to make room
for his chosen people. The hand of God fell heavily upon them, with such a mortal stroke that they died on
heaps as they lay in their houses; and the living, that were able to shift for themselves, would run away and let them die, and let their carcasses lie above the ground
without burial. For in a place where many inhabited, there hath been but one left alive to tell
what became of the rest; the living being not able to bury the dead, they were left
for Crows, Kites and vermin to pray upon. And the bones and skulls upon the several
places of their habitations made such a spectacle. And by this means there is as yet but a small
number of Savages in New England, and the place is made so much the more fit
for the English Nation to inhabit in. They didn’t know it yet, but this was the
village of Patuxet, which had been completely wiped out by the
smallpox epidemic of 1616 to 1619. It was a deserted Indian village with cleared
land, stored supplies of corn, and a reliable source of fresh water. No, these supposedly cruel conquerors never
actually invaded that village. Instead, they expressed a fervent desire to pay the
natives for the dried corn they found, if only they could find someone to pay. But the former inhabitants had perished during
three years of plague—probably smallpox—that immediately preceded the Pilgrims’ arrival. Okay, these aren’t Plains Indians. Why are they wearing headdresses and living
in teepees? They built houses that more or less resembled
the ones the Pilgrims built – they weren’t nomadic hunter-gatherers. And the Puritans only wore black on Sundays, those were their most formal clothes. It was actually seen as offensive to wear
your Sunday best on any other day. And, the English saw it as their right as
Christians to take whatever they found. PragerU is compressing events when they say
that the colonists wanted to pay for the food and supplies they stole. But credit where credit is due, most tellings of this story don’t include
the abandoned village or stolen food at all. The Pilgrims rowed ashore to explore this
wild land so full of mystery and promise. After many days of exploring up and down the
coast, they found a deep harbor near good farmland. Here they would make their home. They called it Plymouth. They come ashore on a deserted beach 450 miles
up the coast from Jamestown and call the place Plymouth, after the English port they sailed from. I can’t believe I ever showed this series
in class. 0 for 2, America: The Story of Us. This part of the Thanksgiving myth is rarely
disputed but I’m going to do it anyway. The Mayflower set sail from Southampton, not
Plymouth, that was an unintended pit stop. Think of it this way, if you were on a road
trip from New York to San Francisco, but you had to stop in Philadelphia because
your car broke down, would you tell anyone that your trip began
in Philadelphia? I somehow doubt it. Plymouth Harbor had no special significance
to the Pilgrims, so when they arrived in the New World, they did not name the place Plymouth. Do you remember that map John Smith made after
his 1614 expedition? The one where he named the region “New England?” Guess what else he named. There it is, Plymouth. When the Pilgrims went off course, unintentionally
landed there, and decided to settle in that abandoned village, they pulled out their map and said “Oh, I guess we’re in Plymouth.” They didn’t name it after the port they
sailed from, in fact, they didn’t name it at all. But that version of history isn’t as poetic
as saying these coincidences are the actual story. When making that map, John Smith described
the village of Patuxet, which he renamed Plymouth as being “well
inhabited with goodly, strong, and well-proportioned people, so planted with gardens and corn.” That was what the Pilgrims expected to find
when they came ashore, but the smallpox epidemic that ended just
before their arrival obviously changed that. So anyway, they got to work building their
first common house in late December and worked straight through Christmas. Not because this was an emergency, but because Christmas was an evil Catholic
holiday that only a heathen would look forward to. Puritans only observed holidays that were
mentioned in the Bible – which is none of them, not even Easter. It was actually illegal to celebrate Christmas
in New England for decades. The letter of the law concerning keeping Christmas
is clear: it is a sacrilege! If thou does know of any man or woman that
be feasting, wearing fine clothes, or exchanging gifts or greetings this time
of year, deliver them forthwith to the magistrates
assembled in the court in the shire in which you dwell. They hath offended God, and shall be fined five shillings for every
such offense. If God meant for us to keep Christmas, why is there no mention of it within the Holy
Bible? Indeed, the only holy days specified within
the Word of God are the Sabbath days. It stands to reason then, that every other day of the year be spent
in godly labor. During that first winter, most people stayed
on the Mayflower while the shelters were being built on shore. It didn’t take long before the colonists
started dying of exposure, dysentery, and scurvy. The situation was so dire that many of the
Pilgrims wrote in their journals that they regretted ever coming to this place and wanted
to go home. They were in such despair that some of them
turned to suicide, including the wife of William Bradford, who would soon become governor and eventually
write the definitive history of Plymouth colony based on his journal. A journal which makes no mention of his wife’s
death, likely because it occurred under what they
would consider to be shameful circumstances. There was a terrible sickness in Plymouth
that first winter. There were some days in February when only
six or seven people were well enough to take care of the ones who were sick. By spring, about half of the Pilgrims were
dead. The brave little group of Pilgrims sadly buried
their dead. They did not mark the graves in any way. They hoped the Indians would not find out
how few Pilgrims were left alive. Of the 102 colonists that came to Plymouth, only 57 survived that first winter, 22 of
which were children. It’s unknown how many of those survivors
were Pilgrims or Strangers. William Bradford wrote about the first few
deaths and burials in his journal, but then curiously went silent. We know dozens of people died during that
winter, so why didn’t he write about them? It took a few decades for the true story of
what actually happened to come out. This is an excerpt from the deposition of
Phineas Pratt, who was part of the third wave of settlers
sent to Plymouth in 1622. We asked them where the rest of our friends
were that came in the first ship [the Mayflower.] They said that God had taken them away by
death, and that before the second ship came, they were so distressed with sickness that
they, fearing the savages should know it, had set up their sick men with their muskets
upon their rests and their backs leaning against trees. The Pilgrims did not “sadly bury their dead”
in unmarked graves. They dragged the bodies out into the forest
and propped them up against trees with their muskets so that the Indians would think the
settlement was well guarded. I’ll leave it to your imagination what happened
to the corpses after that, but I can assure you, there was nothing proper or Christian about
it. The usual story here is that the Wampanoags
were frightened by the English and kept their distance that winter, not understanding who these people were or
why they had come to their land. But as you now know, that simply wasn’t
the case. The Wampanoags were very familiar with Europeans
by this point and knew exactly who they were dealing with. So, on March 16, 1621, as the snows were melting
and spring began, a lone Indian wearing nothing but a loincloth
and carrying a bow walked into the Pilgrim camp and greeted them by saying “Welcome,
Englishmen.” Depending on which source you’re using to
tell your Thanksgiving story, this can be one of any number of people. One of the few survivors of that devastation
turned up several months later to welcome the English newcomers. His name was Squanto, and he had grown up in this very village before
a ruthless sea captain kidnapped him as a boy and sold him into slavery in Spain. Alright, you already know that story. Squanto is just the English simplification
of Tisquantum; that ruthless sea captain he was talking about was Thomas Hunt. But none of that matters, because Squanto wasn’t the one who welcomed
them… despite what most of you apparently think. For a time, Plymouth provides the sanctuary
they sought. Edward! Edward! Edward, please look over there! But, like Jamestown, there were others here
first. Bruh… that’s terrifying, if that’s how
it actually happened, I don’t think there would be a Thanksgiving. It’s mind blowing that Pete the Cat, a book written for 4-8 year olds, got it more correct than a high-budget documentary
on the History Channel… Can you just show us the right answer please? Look Linus! He’s not carrying any weapons! Welcome, Englishmen, my name Samoset. My people welcome you to our land. Oof at the Tonto-speak, but Charlie Brown
got it right. The person who welcomed the Pilgrims was Samoset, an Abenaki from Maine who just happened to
be visiting the Wampanoags when the English arrived. The Pilgrims were even more amazed when he
said, “Welcome, Englishmen!” He spoke English! But was he a spy? No. The man was very friendly. His name was Samoset, and he had learned English from traveling
fishermen whom he had met along the coast. Aww, well that’s a nice story isn’t it? Too bad it isn’t true. Samoset was captured by the English in 1605,
sold into Spanish slavery, acquired by Sir Ferdinando Gorges, taught
English, and returned to the New World. I told you that seeding America with pre-made
translators was a hobby of his, and in this case, it actually paid off. He informed the Pilgrims that they were currently
living in the village of Patuxet, which had been wiped out by a disease, and that this was Wampanoag territory and
ruled by a man named Chief Massasoit. His real name was Ousamequin, the paramount
sachem I mentioned earlier. Massasoit was his title, the English mistakenly
thought that was his name and it stuck. Massasoit is used in every version of the
Thanksgiving story. About a week later, Samoset returned to Plymouth
with Ousamequin and 60 of his men. The sachem and the governor then worked out
a treaty which formally ceded Patuxet to the colony and established a mutual defense pact. It also stated that if an Indian were to harm
an Englishmen, they should be turned over for justice. A clause which I’m sure will have no negative
consequences later on. The Wampanoags regarded the Pilgrims as helpless
children after watching them struggle through the winter, and the fact that they brought women and children
with them showed that they likely came in peace. So Ousamequin agreed that Tisquantum, the sole survivor of the epidemic and another
translator trained by Gorges, would remain in Plymouth to teach the Pilgrims
how to survive. He proved to be the single human being on
the continent best-suited to help the struggling settlers. Over the next few months, Squanto helped the
English newcomers plant crops and negotiate a friendly trade agreement with the region’s
most important chief— Massasoit. No wonder Pilgrim leader William Bradford
called Squanto “a special instrument sent of God for their good.” I seriously doubt that he was the only person
on the continent that could’ve taught them how to plant corn using fish as fertilizer… I don’t think you even need to know English
to get that point across. And, “a special instrument sent of God?” More like a random dude who was captured,
taught English, and released by a forward-thinking colonizer. But now that friendly relations were established
and the first structures were coming together, the Mayflower set sail to return home on April
5, 1621. Captain Christopher Jones died a year later
and the Mayflower was sold for scrap two years after that. It’s kind of funny how this historic moment
for America was basically disregarded as a non-event at the time. 50 people on the other side of the world? Pfft, who cares… William Bradford became governor the day the
Mayflower left and they soon learned that those gravesites and abandoned food stores
they looted that winter belonged to the Nauset people. That’s who attacked them on First Encounter
Beach. It’s only at this point, when the Nausets were moving back into their
summer villages, that the Pilgrims felt bad and made an effort
to pay restitution. In November 1621, a ship named the Fortune
arrived with no supplies and about 35 new mouths to feed, only a handful of which were Separatist Pilgrims. It also carried a letter from the Merchant
Adventurers scolding them for not sending any fur or timber back on the Mayflower. They made sure to load up the Fortune with
all they could before it sailed home, but it was plundered along the way, meaning the colony had yet to produce anything. At this point, they had built 11 structures
in Plymouth: 4 common houses used for meetings and storage, and 7 homes. If you did the math there, that isn’t enough for everyone, so they crammed multiple families into the
same house. Ten or so people would sleep under the same
roof, often in the same bed. So take the idea that Pilgrims lived in nuclear
families and just get rid of it. So, here we are… it’s fall and the crops
have been harvested. I know what you’re expecting me to say, but the truth is that the event in question
was so unremarkable that nobody wrote about it in their journals. We actually have no idea when that feast took
place. Most people assume it was in October or November, and it likely happened before the Fortune
arrived. The only contemporary, first-person account
we have of the event was written by Edward Winslow on December 11 in a letter to a friend
back home in England. Our harvest being gotten in, our governor
sent four men on fowling, that so we might after 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. That’s it, that’s the basis for every
Thanksgiving story you’ve ever been told. Four sentences. Almost everything else is an embellishment
made up after the fact. Let’s lightning round this. In the autumn of 1621, 53 men, women and children
celebrated their first harvest in the New World. The great Indian chief, Massasoit, brought 90 of his men to the three-day party. From all reports, a good time was had by all. All reports? You mean the one report? And what was that pronunciation of Massasoit? The Pilgrims were thankful for their Indian
friends. Without the Indian corn, the Pilgrims would have starved. The Governor of Plymouth asked Chief Massasoit
to come. The Governor told the Indian chief to bring
along a few friends. Chief Massasoit brought more than a few friends. He showed up with ninety Indian braves! Yeah, so, they weren’t invited. Your first clue is that they were all men, or braves, or as PragerU puts it… Ninety hungry Indian warriors joined the 53
surviving Pilgrims for this occasion. The Puritans liked to celebrate by doing rifle
drills and target practice. Hearing the gunfire, Ousamequin assumed Plymouth
was under attack and showed up with 90 armed men. They weren’t invited by the grateful Pilgrims, they came ready to help defend their new allies. Two unlikely allies. A partnership all too rare in North America. “We have found the Indians very faithful
in their covenant of peace with us. They are people without any religion or knowledge
of any God, yet very trusty, quick of apprehension, ripe-witted and just.” Big yikes energy from that quote, right? It comes from that same December 11 letter
and you’ll see it used everywhere. Almost always without the correction he wrote
two years later. And first, whereas myself and others, in former
letters, wrote that the Indians about us are a people
without any religion, or knowledge of any God, therein I erred, though we could then gather no better; for
as they conceive of many divine powers, so of one, whom they call Kiehtan, to be the principal and maker of all the rest,
and to be made by none. He, they say, created the heavens, earth, sea and all creatures contained therein; also
that he made one man and one woman, of whom they and we and all mankind came. The Wampanoags believed in a single creator
god named Keihtan, later missionaries would capitalize on that
by using his name as the Algonquian translation for the Christian God. By fall harvest, the Pilgrims had plenty of
food. To thank Squanto and the other Native Americans, the Pilgrims invited them to share the harvest. This celebration became known as the first
Thanksgiving. Most tellings of this story tend to get this
part right. This feast would eventually become known as
the first Thanksgiving, but no Pilgrim at the time would have called
it that. Harvests were seasonal, non-religious events. Thanksgiving was actually a completely separate
thing where you would spend all day in church praying and giving thanks to God. It only existed because of its polar opposite,
Fast Day, when you wouldn’t eat and instead spent
all day praying for the thing you’ll eventually be giving thanks for. Neither of these days had a set date, the community would just declare one whenever
something good or bad happened. So, what did they eat during that 1621 fall
harvest feast? Don’t think about it too hard because you’re
almost certainly wrong. They didn’t have wheat, so no bread or stuffing. There weren’t any potatoes, regular or sweet, but there were plenty of pumpkins, cranberries, and corn. Unfortunately, they didn’t have milk or
sugar yet, so they couldn’t make corn bread or pumpkin
pies. As for meat, Edward Winslow said that the Wampanoags brought
five deer and the Pilgrims went “fowling,” which very likely rules out turkey. That term usually refers to waterfowl, which includes things like duck and geese. And there were several other animals on the
menu that you might not usually associate with Thanksgiving, which you can learn more about by going to
curiositystream.com/knowingbetter. CuriosityStream is a subscription streaming
service that offers thousands of documentaries and non-fiction titles which you can access
across multiple platforms. I specifically recommend that you check out
Animals of Thanksgiving, not only do they talk about American Thanksgiving, but what fall harvest festivals look like
around the world. They even explain where the cornucopia comes
from. Today's Thanksgiving has a pretty set traditional
menu but despite the fame of the first fateful meal no one knows what the Pilgrims and Native
Americans were eating. By signing up for CuriosityStream, you’ll also get access to Nebula, the streaming service built by fellow colonists
hoping to seek refuge from the persecution of the algorithm. Every Knowing Better video is hosted there
without ads, without sponsors, and sometimes including additional content
that you can only see on Nebula. As part of my last video on Indian Removal, I made a Nebula-exclusive follow-up on Geronimo, While Geronimo became a celebrity attending
expositions all over the country where people could pay for a tintype selfie with grthe
“the worst Indian who ever lived.” Check it out by heading over to curiositystream.com/knowingbetter. For an extremely limited time, you can get access to both CuriosityStream
and Nebula for only $11.59 a year – you’ll also be supporting the channel when you do. Pretty much every documentary, Youtube video,
children’s book, and classroom in America ends the story there. The Pilgrims show up, they struggle that first
winter, the Indians help them, Thanksgiving, the end. But the truth is that the fall harvest feast
was the high-point of English-Wampanoag relations, it was all downhill from there. It turned out that Tisquantum was using the
Pilgrims to make a name for himself, the Wampanoag who commands the English and
their superior firepower. Local sachems began to pay him tribute rather
than Ousamequin. When the Pilgrims found that out, they switched to a different translator named
Hobbamock, and the disgraced Tisquantum died of sickness
within a year of that first Thanksgiving. In August 1622, the Merchant Adventurers sent
60 men – none of which were Separatist Pilgrims – to establish a second trading post north
of Plymouth in Massachusett territory, which they named Wessagusset. They weren’t looking to stay permanently, they were just here for the money. As a result, they had terrible relations with
the Massachusett people. In March 1623, Ousamequin fell ill and Edward
Winslow went to his village to offer him medical care, which worked. Once he recovered, he told Edward of a secret plot by the Massachusetts
to destroy both Wessagusset and Plymouth. Shortly afterwards, Phineas Pratt escaped
from a besieged Wessagusset and made it to Plymouth, where he informed them of the dire situation. Plymouth decided to strike back before their
sister colony was completely overrun. They sent Miles Standish and a few men to
“negotiate” with the Massachusett sachems and they promptly executed all of them. The Massachusett people were never able to
pose a threat to the colonists again, and while they still existed, they basically disappeared from the story
at this point. The Plymouth colonists viewed the entirety
of New England as belonging to England. So from their perspective the Wampanoags,
Narragansetts, and all the other native peoples of the region
were under English rule. They made it official with that peace treaty
they signed with the Wampanoags, which declared them to be the loyal subjects
of King James. Ousamequin obviously had the opposite view. This was his domain, all of the villages in
the region owed allegiance to him… including Plymouth. It was just one more of the many communities
under his leadership. And he used the Pilgrims, with their superior
weapons, to expand his power and crush his enemies
– like he just did with the Massachusetts. In 1626, Plymouth colony had yet to turn a
profit, they were never able to send back furs or
timber in sufficient quantities. So the Fellowship of the Merchant Adventurers
went bankrupt and all of their debt was shifted to the Pilgrims. Without support from back home, it was widely assumed that Plymouth colony, with its approximately 100 residents, would soon be abandoned like Roanoke and Popham. But back in Europe, England was finally dragged
into the Thirty Years’ War. In 1627, they declared war on France, which meant that English high-society could
no longer get beaver furs from North America. Hoping to capitalize on that demand, the Pilgrims eventually found a seemingly
endless supply of beaver in Maine and finally became a profitable, successful colony. At this point, King James had died and was
succeeded by King Charles I, who was married to a Catholic. That didn’t sit too well with the Puritans, who were now holding positions in Parliament
and could more easily voice their disagreement. So in 1629, King Charles dissolved the Parliament, which began the Great Migration. 80,000 Puritans left the country over the
next 10 years. On April 8, 1630, 17 ships under the command
of John Winthrop brought 1000 Puritan settlers to New England to establish the Massachusetts
Bay Colony right next door to Plymouth. For we must consider that we shall be as a
city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us. So that if we shall deal falsely with our
God in this work we have undertaken, and so cause Him to withdraw His present help
from us, we shall be made a story and a byword through
the world. You’ve likely heard variations of that quote
in a different context. There’s a certain modern president who liked
to invoke that phrase to imply that America is supposed to be a Christian nation. The past few days when I've been at that window
upstairs, I've thought a bit of the “shining city
upon a hill.” The phrase comes from John Winthrop, who wrote
it to describe the America he imagined. I've spoken of the shining city all my political
life. And how stands the city on this winter night? More prosperous, more secure, and happier than it was 8 years ago. When Winthrop’s fleet arrived in Massachusetts
Bay, there were only 300 colonists in Plymouth, fewer than 100 of which were Separatist Pilgrims
who had long since given up the idea of separating from England. As soon as Winthrop’s thousand colonists
began setting up shop near Boston, the Pilgrims basically ceased to exist. They were all just New England Puritans now. But you know, whenever you have over a thousand
people who want to establish a utopian society, they’re all going to have different ideas
about how that city upon a hill should look. Winthrop didn’t put up with any of that, agitators like Roger Williams and Anne Hutchinson
were banished from the colony and eventually founded Rhode Island in 1636. That same year, a man named John Oldham was
found dead. He had been murdered by Niantics on Block
Island, who then sought refuge with the Pequots. The English demanded that they be turned over
for justice as their treaties stipulated and the Pequots refused. This began the Pequot War, which ended with
the Mystic Fort Massacre. When colonists surrounded a village, burned it to the ground, and killed anyone
who fled. Both Massachusetts Bay and the Saybrook colony
in Connecticut declared days of thanksgiving following their victory – though, this was still the go-to-church version, not the all-you-can-eat version that we celebrate
today. There was a day of thanksgiving kept in all
the churches for the victory obtained against the Pequots, and for other mercies. Two things happened at the end of that war. One, the Pequots were sold into slavery or divided
amongst the Narragansetts and Mohegans to be assimilated. They could no longer refer to themselves as
Pequots. And two, the Narragansetts were so horrified
by Mystic Fort that they began building a Pan-Indian alliance to get rid of the English
once and for all. By 1675, Ousamequin had passed away and after
briefly going to his son Wamsutta, the sachemship passed to his younger son,
Metacom, also known as Metacomet or King Philip. He was more sympathetic to the Narragansett
view than his father’s. So when Plymouth executed 3 Wampanoags for
the murder of an interpreter that June, like the treaty allowed, he began King Philip’s War with a coalition
of tribes from the region. Now, I don’t want to get too into the details
of this war, since Atun-Shei Films has covered this topic
in several excellent videos you should check out. Hi, Andy from Atun-Shei Films here. So for whatever reason, I seem to be the only person here on YouTube
making in-depth educational videos about King Philip’s War. A bloody 14 month conflict that saw the New
England colonies conquer and nearly exterminate the Wampanoag, Nipmucks, and Narragansetts nations. It was a hugely formative moment in early
American history, but it doesn’t really fit into the nice,
neat, little story we tell ourselves about the settlement
of this country, what KB would no doubt call the Standard American
History Myth. To the contrary, King Philip’s War was cruel,
violent, and tragic, with unspeakable things committed by all sides,
in every quarter. To this day it remains the bloodiest war per
capita in American history. If you’d like to learn more, head over to
my channel Atun-Shei Films where you can find lots of videos about many aspects of 17th
century New England history. I’ve actually, as it happens, just started
a playlist with all my King Philip’s War videos in chronological order so that might
be of interest to you. I’ve also been known to dress up as a witch
hunter and accost people on the streets of Salem… from time to time. King Philip’s War ended with a repeat of
Mystic Fort known as the Great Swamp Fight. They surrounded a Narragansett village, set
it on fire, and shot anyone who attempted to escape. Hundreds were killed. You really should watch his video about this,
I can’t do it justice here. Links to everything will be in the description. On August 12, 1676 Metacom was killed. The Plymouth colonists quartered him and sent
his arms and legs to different parts of New England, but kept the head on a spike in the middle
of town for the next 20 years. Five days later, they held a day of go-to-church thanksgiving. Just to reiterate that, after butchering a
man, cutting off his head, and mounting it in the middle of town for
all to see… they celebrated. Like I said, these are medieval people. In 1691, Plymouth was officially absorbed
into the Massachusetts Bay colony and the Puritan movement in America began to crumble
after the public relations disaster that was the Salem Witch Trials, when they burned innocent women at the stake. There, done! I debunked the story of Thanksgiving in less
than an hour! Bet you didn’t think that was possible! Oh no… How did this event, which happened almost
400 years ago, become a part of the American story and our
oldest national tradition? Okay, are you like, a person? You aren’t just showing me random clips, these are intentional… Nothing? Fine, to explain– Hi, KB Morgan here from KB Morgan’s Gold,
Pawn, Check-Cashing, Rent-a-Center, and Payday Loans! But today, I’m here to talk to you about the Knowing
Better merch store! We’re going to be launching some new and
exciting products in 2023, but first everything we currently have in
stock must go! That’s right, it’s a Knowing Better liquidation
sale! From now until the end of January, enter KB2023
at checkout to receive 20% off your order! We’ve got shirts, stickers, and my personal
favorite – enamel pins! I don’t know about you guys, but I’ve been collecting pins from all of
my favorite creators and I’ve got to complete the set! We’ve also got these notebooks that KB uses
literally every day. Look at these color-coded notes, what a nerd! Get yours while supplies last! I want to be mad at him for that but… he’s
a damn good salesman. KB2023 at checkout. William Bradford’s journal, the definitive
first-hand history of Plymouth colony, had been handed down generation to generation
until it ended up in the Old South Church in Boston. During the Revolutionary War, the British
briefly took control of the city and Bradford’s manuscript was lost. When the war was won and America had gained
its independence, George Washington proclaimed a day of National
Thanksgiving, to take place on November 26, 1789. He announced another one following the successful
suppression of the Whiskey Rebellion, on February 19, 1795. James Madison issued a similar proclamation
following the end of the War of 1812, to take place on April 13, 1815. None of these three included turkey or a feast, you were still supposed to spend the day in
contemplative prayer. After that, there were no thanksgivings, at
least not nationally. Individual states continued to declare them
whenever, but it wasn’t a specific day on the calendar. But then in 1841, Alexander Young published
Edward Winslow’s papers, including that December 11 letter which described
the fall harvest feast in four sentences. However, he didn’t just publish the letters
on their own, he included his own commentary. The footnote for this paragraph states “This
was the first Thanksgiving, the harvest festival of New England. On this occasion they no doubt feasted on
the wild turkey as well as venison.” That’s it. That’s the reason why everyone says the
Pilgrims held the first Thanksgiving. That one footnote that unilaterally declared
the day to be something more significant than it actually was. But the person most often credited with transforming
the solemn Pilgrim thanksgiving into the modern family feast we have today is a woman named
Sarah Josepha Hale, who was the editor of Godey’s Lady’s Book. As the influential editor of one of the most
popular periodicals of the 19th century, year after year she wrote columns making the
case for the holiday; she published fiction and poems with a Thanksgiving Day theme; and she offered her readers recipes for traditional
Thanksgiving dishes such as roast turkey and pumpkin pie. Her version of the holiday began to catch
on with the public and several states made it a habit of declaring certain days to be
Thanksgiving, but they weren’t consistent. One state might have it in November, another
in December. So in 1847, she began urging her readers to
write letters to politicians in the hopes of establishing a single, unified Thanksgiving that the entire nation
would celebrate together. In 1855, William Bradford’s journal was
discovered in the library of the Bishop of London, a copy was made, and the History of Plymouth Plantation was
published the very next year. Just 5 years before the Civil War, this book kicked off a cultural Pilgrim craze
across the country, on par with Pokemon or Marvel superheroes
today. Presidents Zachary Taylor, Millard Fillmore,
and Franklin Pierce, to whom she had written letters, showed little interest in her cause. But Lincoln saw its potential. His proclamation was the first in what became
an unbroken string of annual Thanksgiving proclamations by every subsequent president. In the autumn of 1863 – at the height of
the Civil War, when Americans were bitterly divided – Abraham
Lincoln nevertheless called for a day of national thanksgiving. That’s how every version of this story goes. Sarah Josepha Hale writes Lincoln a letter
and he declares Thanksgiving to be a national holiday. If you google “when did Lincoln declare
the first thanksgiving,” the answer you get is October 1863. PragerU is not the only source to say that,
it’s everywhere. So now I’m going to tell you why I think
that story is made up. Sarah Josepha Hale wrote her letter to Lincoln
on September 28, 1863 and Lincoln issued his proclamation for
Thanksgiving Day on October 3, 1863. You’re telling me that during the height
of the Civil War, a letter made it to the White House in under
5 days? Even if it did, Presidential Proclamations
aren’t the kinds of things that are written and delivered in a day. This was prepared days, if not weeks in advance. And to top it all off, this wasn’t Lincoln’s first Thanksgiving
proclamation, it was his third. The first was on April 13, 1862 to celebrate
Grant’s victory at Shiloh. The second was on August 6, 1863 to celebrate
the victory at Gettysburg. The one that Hale gets credit for was issued
just two months later. We had two Thanksgivings in Fall 1863 and
we only ever talk about the second one. Now, PragerU is correct when they say that
this was the first in an unbroken string of late-fall Thanksgivings, but it still wasn’t a national holiday, it had to be re-declared every year by the
President. When Andrew Johnson assumed the office, he moved Thanksgiving to the first Thursday
in December. If Sarah Josepha Hale was successful in making
Thanksgiving a national holiday in 1863, someone really should’ve let her know, because she continued her letter writing campaign
for another decade and a half. The only political body in the country that
could make Thanksgiving a permanent federal holiday was Congress, who just established Christmas as a federal
holiday, so that’s who she directed her efforts towards. Sarah Josepha Hale died in 1879, the holiday continued to be renewed annually
by each President until 1941, when Congress and FDR finally made Thanksgiving
a federal holiday and pegged it to the fourth Thursday of November. So why does everyone say Sarah Josepha Hale
is responsible for pressuring Lincoln into declaring Thanksgiving a national holiday? Because the truth is boring. Crediting a female magazine editor’s decades-long
letter writing campaign in the mid-1800s makes for a better story. People love stories, and what holiday has
a better story than Thanksgiving? Nowadays, both the Fourth of July and Thanksgiving
are celebrated as America’s beginning. It’s much less about giving thanks and more
about reminding ourselves that we live in the greatest country in the world. “But Thanksgiving is about more than tasty
food,” said Dennis. “It’s a special day set aside to give
thanks and remember everything we’re grateful for – especially for being American.” All great change in America begins at the
dinner table. So tomorrow night in the kitchen, I hope the talking begins. And children, if your parents haven’t been teaching you
what it means to be an American, let ‘em know, and nail ‘em on it. Here's a suggestion: at this year's Thanksgiving
table, ask everyone to spend a minute to say what
they are grateful for. I suspect you'll find your guests will have
a long and eloquent list. And if they don't, you can help them out: suggest they start with family, friends, and living in the freest country in the world. Given that framing, it’s no wonder why some
people, especially American Indians, view Thanksgiving as a Day of Mourning. Back in 2007, Seattle public school officials
made national news by describing the holiday as a “time of mourning” and a “bitter
reminder of 500 years of betrayal.” This new narrative describes the Pilgrims
as arrogant oppressors who– Hold up their bud, this is not a new narrative
– not even close. In 1836, William Apess wrote a book titled
Eulogy on King Philip, where he stated… We say, therefore, let every man of color
wrap himself in mourning, for the 22nd of December and the 4th of July
are days of mourning and not of joy.… the prayers, preaching, and examples of those pretended pious, has been the foundation of all the slavery
and degradation in the American colonies, towards colored people. December 22 was the day the Pilgrims landed
at Patuxet. Thanksgiving wasn’t a thing in the 1830s, otherwise I’m sure he would have chosen
that day instead. By 1970, it was a full-blown federal holiday, so a man named Frank James organized the first
National Day of Mourning. It was soon hijacked by the American Indian
Movement, who stormed the Mayflower II replica and buried
Plymouth Rock under sand, which was somewhat of a distraction from the
original message. The point is, this mournful view of Thanksgiving
is well over a century old, it’s not a new narrative thought up by a
Seattle public school. PragerU wants people to think that the controversy
surrounding Thanksgiving, and even Columbus Day, are recent phenomena. Which somehow makes it easier to brush off
and ignore. When PragerU, politicians, and parents say
that they want to bring back patriotic education, they’re talking about the sanitized version
of American history, which invariably begins with the Pilgrims
and Thanksgiving. I am not against the holiday of Thanksgiving. There is nothing wrong with getting together
with friends and family to eat a bunch of food, watch football, and pray, if that’s what you’re into. I’m against the fairytale we tell ourselves
which has transformed Thanksgiving into a uniquely American holiday which serves as
a nationalistic reminder of our freedoms and Christian roots. This fantasy was invented out of whole cloth
in the mid-1800s and continued to evolve through the turn of the century… when a lot of our history was simply made
up. This period is typically referred to as the
Victorian Age and it’s when George Washington cut down the cherry tree, Columbus proved the world was round, Vikings began wearing horned helmets, and the Pilgrims had buckles on their hats. This is also when Santa got fat, started wearing red, and moved to the North
Pole. A lot of our holiday traditions and narratives
were developed during this time. Prior to the Civil War, the North and South
had separate creation myths with Plymouth and Jamestown competing over which one gets
the title of the true founding moment for the United States. During Reconstruction, Jamestown faded into
obscurity and the legend of the Mayflower and the first Thanksgiving became the dominant
story. The helpful, welcoming Indians weren’t added
to the narrative until the 1890s, when the wars were over and they were all
living on reservations. Americans simply couldn’t accept them as
being friendly until they had been defeated. Now, you may be asking yourself why the South
would be so willing to abandon their own mythology for one that originated in the North. And the answer to that question is that the
Victorian Age in England was the Post-Reconstruction Era in the United States. The South was more than happy to switch to
a narrative that does not include slavery. The Pilgrim story was invented and adopted
at the same time as the Lost Cause – in fact, it’s the first chapter of the Lost
Cause. The focus on Plymouth as our national origin
is one of the weirdest cases of survivorship bias I’ve ever seen. It wasn’t the first English colony in North
America. It wasn’t even the second. If we’re only counting major attempts, it
was the fourth. And that “first Thanksgiving” with the
Pilgrims and Wampanoags wasn’t the first to take place in North America. The Spanish and the French beat them by decades. Only a third of the passengers on the Mayflower
were persecuted saints looking to worship God in their own way. Everyone else was coming to the New World
for the same reason that Jamestown was founded – to make money. But we focus on the Pilgrims because it replaces
the capitalist, racist, expansionist origin of America with a pious
Christian one, based on individual liberty and freedom, where we make friends with the natives. Just don’t think about what happened immediately
afterwards. The tale of the Pilgrims lays the groundwork
for a very religious telling of American History that has wormed its way into every classroom. We were founded on divine providence to manifest
our destiny to become a Christian nation, founded on Judeo-Christian values and a Protestant
work ethic. Honestly, the legend of the Mayflower sounds
more like the founding myth of Gilead than the United States… and I think that’s
the point. That’s why it’s really only Republicans
and Evangelicals who want to make sure that this myth is the only version taught in school. But this isn’t just targeted at the next
generation, there’s a reason why PragerU makes videos
about Thanksgiving and every sitcom does an episode on it. And that’s because… you can vote. You can show up at school board meetings and
yell “that’s not the version I was taught, stop indoctrinating our kids!” Continuing to spread this false narrative
about a holiday allows us to lie to ourselves about who we are as a country. We were not always nice to people of color, we didn’t always have the best intentions, and we certainly aren’t as devout as those
original Pilgrims. While Puritanism might have faded away, their various spin-offs remain. Today we refer to any church that adheres
to their interpretation of the bible as a cult. Think about that the next time you sit down
with your family to celebrate Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, or any other holiday really, because now,
you know better. Hey everyone, I just want to thank you all
for making this a great year. I really enjoyed working on this Jamestown
project, so I hope you all did too. I’m going to take a little bit of time off
in January, but Twitch streams and work on the next video
will pick up after that. There’s no way I can maintain this as my
full-time job without your support and every little bit counts, so here is a list of every patron who supports
the channel. If you’d like to add your name to this list
of religious dissidents, head on over to patreon.com/knowingbetter,
or, for a one-time donation, paypal.me/knowingbetter. Don’t forget to feast on that subscribe
button, or the join button if you’re a full-blown
Puritan. Check out the merch at knowingbetter.tv, follow me on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, and join us on the subreddit! [Outro music]
