Thankful for the Lessons of Failure

The first Pilgrim colonists who arrived in North America in November of 1620 failed in grand ways. The Founders learned from those failures. We can, too.

The first Pilgrim colonists who arrived in North America in November of 1620 failed in grand ways. Later generations—especially the Founding generation—learned valuable lessons from those failures.

We should be thankful the Founders learned from the failures of the Pilgrims and other early colonists. Those same failures also offer important lessons for us, today, if we are willing to learn.

Death

The first Pilgrims arrived off the coast of Cape Cod in November 1620 and initially anchored at Provincetown Harbor.

After exploring the area, they decided to settle at a site they named Plymouth. They chose this location due to its natural harbor, fresh water supply, and surrounding resources.

The Mayflower, the ship that brought them, anchored in Plymouth Harbor, and the settlers began to disembark to establish their new community, which became the site of one of the first successful permanent English settlements in North America.

In the Fall of 1621, nearly a year after their arrival, and with indispensable help from the local Wampanoag tribe, there was a harvest, which meant food for hungry colonists living in Plymouth. They celebrated with a feast. This was the famous first Thanksgiving.

Not all the news, however, was good. Half of the Pilgrims who had crossed the Atlantic aboard the Mayflower did not attend the first Thanksgiving. They had starved to death, frozen to death, or succumbed to diseases during the ocean voyage and subsequent first Winter of 1620-21 in the New World.

The first winter in the New World was brutal for the Pilgrims. Of the 102 passengers on the Mayflower who disembarked at Plymouth, 1 died in November 1620; 6 died in December; 8 died in January; 17 died in February, and 13 died in March. Several more Pilgrims died during the Spring and Summer of 1621.

Not many would consider a fifty percent death rate “successful.”

Theft

According to the diary of Plymouth Governor William Bradford, there remained hungry bellies, despite the harvest, because “much was stolen both by night and day before it became scarce eatable.”

While theft is nothing new in the annals of human history, in the shiny hilltop colonial city of Plymouth stealing became rampant.

Plymouth was a centrally planned community. Everything was controlled, regulated, and rationed by one central government authority. Like all central planning projects, the results included shortages, hunger, and panicked desperation.

People who are hungry and scared are more inclined to steal.