America’s Early Experiments With Socialism

Lessons from the Past: America’s Early Experiments with Socialism and the Wisdom of Freedom

The article explores early American attempts at socialism, focusing on the Pilgrims at Plymouth and settlers in Jamestown. Both colonies initially practiced communal living, where resources were shared, leading to severe shortages and hunger. In Plymouth, leaders like William Bradford recognized the failure of socialism and adopted a system of private property and free enterprise, which led to prosperity. Similarly, Jamestown thrived after abandoning the communal system. The article highlights how these early experiments shaped America’s future understanding of economic freedom and the importance of private property, aligning with biblical principles and foundational American values.

By Jonathan Copeland

The thud of John Robinson’s knees landing on the deck of the Mayflower was followed by tears streaming down his face and “a most fervent and solemn prayer” for the portion of his flock setting out on a great adventure to the New World.[1] The pastor, who had directed his congregation from their English homeland to the religious freedom found in Holland, approved of the decision to relocate in what would one day become the United States of America because he well understood the severe influence of the ungodly Dutch culture upon the children of his parishioners. However, he made the decision to stay back with the elderly members of the church as those younger and more physically suited to the difficult task ahead boarded the small vessel that would be their home (and almost their tomb) for the next 66 harrowing days.

Before arriving in modern-day Massachusetts, the people commonly called Pilgrims would endure storms so severe that the mast of the ship would dip into the ocean, face icy winds so strong that they would be forced to seek shelter between the two decks of the ship, and bear the insults of a nonreligious crew, including jests about their two most common practices: singing Psalms and battling seasickness. Once their feet were firmly planted upon Plymouth Rock, challenges lay ahead that were no less daunting: skirmishes with the natives, the winter that would be referred to as the “starving time,” and a lesser-known enemy that is vital for modern-day Americans to understand: socialism. While much of the customary story that Americans learned as children concerning the first Thanksgiving is based upon historical fact, many specifics of everyday life in Plymouth have not been retained in our common knowledge, including some of the most important lessons that apply to our lives today.

Our Pilgrim Comrades

Most Americans are familiar with the significant struggle to survive endured by the small community at Plymouth during their first winter in the New World. Over half of those who arrived on the Mayflower were buried in a common grave to intentionally hide the extent of their losses from any Indians in their vicinity. Often, this high mortality rate is explained by the inexperience of the settlers without acknowledging that serious problems with disease would affect future waves of immigrants to the New England shore as well. However, it would be a fallacy to conclude that disease and fear of attack were the only problems faced by the Pilgrim leaders.

Several years before the arrival of the settlers of Plymouth, a native named Squanto was kidnapped and sold into slavery in Europe where he learned to speak English fluently. After escaping his captivity, he returned to his native land only to discover his entire tribe had been wiped out by a plague. His friendship played a vital role in helping the Englishmen survive, causing William Bradford, the man who chronicled the history of Plymouth and served as its governor for 30 years, to claim that he was a “special instrument sent of God.”[2] The lessons the settlers learned about how to fish and plant crops in this strange land were invaluable, not to mention his help interpreting when negotiating with the Indian Chief Massasoit who joined the Pilgrims for the famous feast of 1621 that we call the first Thanksgiving.

Despite help received from Squanto and the bountiful harvest that Americans celebrate every year in November, the problems in Plymouth continued because of the faulty economic system. The lack of food was so severe that “it has been stated that they were at one time reduced to a single pint of corn, which being equally divided gave to each person five kernels, which were parched and eaten.”[3] There were times in which more widespread loss of life was only avoided because of the large number of clams and other shellfish that were easily attainable.

Such a dearth of rations may be partially attributable to drought, ignorance of the terrain, and ineffective seed; however, the lesser-known enemy of production was the requirement “by the articles of agreement with the merchant adventurers in England” that the settlement “maintain a community of interest, as respects the cultivation of the land, [with the harvest] necessarily thrown into the common stock.”[4] Historian Noah Webster explains, “The lands also were at first cultivated in common, and the fruits of the earth, deposited in a common magazine.”[5] In other words, before the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia produced the first highly publicized effort to establish communism in the world, socialism was first attempted in America. The results were the same as what occurs every time throughout human history that the edicts of communism are embraced – starvation.

The Wisdom of William Bradford

Reality often disrupts the best laid plans of idealists. Such was the case in Plymouth, for “within three years, experience convinced the people of the absurdity of the project [socialism]; for many persons, expecting to be maintained out of the public fund, neglected to labor, and the colony was in danger of perishing with hunger.”[6] William Bradford explained “the experience that was had in this common course and condition, tried sundry years, and that amongst godly and sober men, may well evince the vanity and conceit of Plato and other ancients.” After rightly disparaging the Greek philosopher who introduced the term utopia to the world, Bradford then explained that “the taking away of property, and bringing in community into a commonwealth,” which was intended to “make them happy and flourishing; as if they were wiser than God … was found to breed much confusion and discontent, and retard much imployment [sic] that would have been to their benefit and comfort.”[7] Those experiencing the hunger pangs and desperation in Plymouth certainly would have deemed that an understatement.

The socialistic system was replaced by nothing short of free enterprise. Property was divided among family units and “only of a certain portion of the corn set apart at the harvest for those who were engaged in public business and for the fishermen.”[8] Economists call that type of arrangement, where people focus upon the type of production best suited to their skill level, the division of labor, an idea that is as old as humanity. The Book of Genesis identifies Abel as a keeper of sheep and his brother Cain a tiller of the ground. Furthermore, the descendants of Cain are identified by the various vocations in which they specialized. In the New Testament, Paul uses the example of the human body to describe the same type of specialization within the church, as each saint is expected to serve in a role that best utilizes his gifting. Capitalism is an economic system that both recognizes and encourages the proper application of that principle.

Once the government removed itself from production and “left every family to trust its own labor for food,” Bradford explains that “the consequence was the settlers became more contented, and … [enjoyed] food in abundance.”[9] In Alvin J. Schmidt’s “How Christianity Changed the World,” he explained: “Before long the slothful and unproductive Pilgrims turned from laggards and idle-bodies to willing, productive workers.” Quoting from D. James Kennedy and Jerry Newcombe, Schmidt further asserts that “Men who previously ‘had feigned sickness were now eager to get into the fields. Even the women went out to work eagerly … their children with them … happily engaged in labor for their own family.’”[10] The result was a thriving settlement and peaceful relations with the neighbors they had previously feared. As historian Marshall Foster notes, “The Pilgrims strove to be self-supporting and, through Governor Bradford’s wisdom in establishing private enterprise, succeeded. They neither stole from the Natives nor demanded by the sword that the Natives barter their corn.”[11]

The Common Kettle of Jamestown

This disastrous experiment with socialism was not confined only to the Pilgrim settlement in Massachusetts. The same approach, sometimes referred to as eating from the common kettle, had previously been attempted in Virginia. Often, historians are quick to label Jamestown as the non-religious English colony in America, the typical statement following this logic: Plymouth was founded for religious freedom, while Jamestown was motivated purely by profit. While many of the first settlers in Virginia were “soldiers of fortune intent on mere economic gain” who arrived “without their families and with no intention of settling there permanently,” the language of the Jamestown charter was strikingly similar to the religious language of the Mayflower Compact. It identified the establishment of the colony as “so noble a work, which may, by the Providence of almighty God, hereafter tend to the glory of His divine Majesty, in propagating of Christian religion to such people as yet live in darkness and miserable ignorance of the true knowledge and worship of God.”[12] Moreover, the Virginia settlers “erected a wooden cross at Cape Henry” where Reverend Hunt “led the 149 men of the Virginia Company in prayer, thanking God for their safe journey and recommitting the group to God’s plan and purpose for the New World.”[13] The significance of this action has long been understood, as it has been noted in a brief presented to the Supreme Court that the cross is the “most censored symbol in America” which has “inspired Americans since the planting of the Jamestown Cross in 1607.”[14]

Despite these acknowledgements of God, there was a general lack of understanding biblical truth in Jamestown regarding economics. Any society that ignores Scripture’s injunction that “if any would not work, neither should he eat,” will experience a lack of economic production; this fact was proven in Jamestown just as in Plymouth (2 Thessalonians 3:10). According to William Robertson, “it was computed that the united industry of [Jamestown] did not accomplish as much work in a week as might have been performed in a day, if each individual had laboured on his own account.”[15]  As early as 1609, Captain John Smith, in his role as the Jamestown Council President, urged the settlers at Jamestown by making a direct reference to Paul’s admonition concerning idleness: “Countrymen, the long experience of our late miseries I hope is sufficient to persuade everyone to a present correction … the greater part must be more industrious, or starve … You must obey this now for a law, that he that will not work shall not eat (except by sickness he be disabled).”[16] While the movement away from socialism did not occur overnight, Sir Thomas Dale, the governor of the colony, took drastic action. He “invoked martial law in order to force production of the food they so desperately needed.”[17] Then in 1611, Dale “began abolishing the common store system, and four years later he had the London Company grant fifty acres of land to each colonist if he would clear the trees and farm it.” A “dramatic change in Jamestown” was the immediate result of this “injection of private property and economic freedom … the colonists worked and prospered … [demonstrating] that socialism does not work.”[18]

What the Founding Fathers Understood

The generations that immediately followed these failed experiments in socialism understood the lessons their predecessors had so painfully learned from lived experience; thus, recognition of the right to private property ownership has been a consistent feature of the American governmental system since the founding era. James Wilson, an original U.S. Supreme Court Justice and signer of both the Declaration and Constitution, declared the United States government was created “to acquire a new security for the possession or the recovery of those rights to … which we were previously entitled by the immediate gift or by the unerring law of our all-wise and all-beneficent Creator,” including the right to own property and that “every government which has not this in view as its principal object is not a government of the legitimate kind.” John Dickinson, a fellow signer of the Constitution, declared: “Let these truths be indelibly impressed on our minds: 1) that we cannot be happy without being free; 2) that we cannot be free without being secure in our property; 3) that we cannot be secure in our property if without our consent others may as by right take it away.” James Madison, the fourth American president who is often called the Father of the Constitution argued that “government is instituted to protect property … this being the end of government, that alone is a just government which impartially secures to every man whatever is his own.”[19]

Capitalism and the Bible

Furthermore, the importance of private ownership of property is firmly supported by the Word of God, including one of the Ten Commandments which justifies the private ownership of property by declaring theft a sin. Many, who desire to eliminate the capitalistic economic system in America, misrepresent descriptions of the first century church such as found in Acts 2:44-45: “And all that believed were together, and had all things common; And sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all men, as every man had need.” The answer to those who try to misuse this passage to support socialism is to point out that the selling of property by individuals in the first century church was not the result of governmental regulation, nor the outcome demanded by church leaders. It was a series of voluntary financial transactions entered into by the members of the church as a means of helping support efforts to spread the Gospel and help those already born again. It was not taxation; it was an offering.

Another economic principle explained in the Bible and promoted by capitalism is the benefit of accumulated capital. In stark contrast to the predictions of the World Economic Forum who claim we will all soon own nothing and be happy, the Word of God declares: “There is treasure to be desired and oil in the dwelling of the wise; but a foolish man spendeth it up.” (Proverbs 21:20) The difference between a home filled with treasure and one void of valuables is not the surrounding political climate but the wisdom of the owner. The Bible also includes the story of a wise man passing by “ … the field of the slothful, and by the vineyard of the man void of understanding;” (Proverbs 24:30) The lesson he gains from observation is that laziness will result in this reality: “ … thy poverty [shall] come as one that travelleth; and thy want as an armed man.” (Proverbs 24:34) God expects each of us to take responsibility for our personal property and well-being and if we follow biblical principles, He will help us.

The Bible does teach we give unto Caesar what is due to Caesar but we are also required to give unto God what is due to God. That instruction does not sit well with the practitioners of communism which is why the first lesson taught in the public school of the Soviet Union was that there is no God. For communism to work, the government must become god.

America’s Destiny is not Socialism

That explains the systematic attempt to remove God from the public school and public square, as those advocating for world government desire to label people who believe in the Bible as radical extremists. The church is the largest obstacle to a communist takeover of America and the enemy knows it. The good news is the Word of God contains proof that America will resist the one-world socialistic government the elites of society are working so diligently to construct. The Book of Daniel includes a detailed description of a vision of four beasts which represent nations that will be in existence when the Lord returns: a lion (Great Britain), a bear (Russia), a leopard (Germany) and a 10-horned kingdom (the reborn Holy Roman Empire). The lion is described as having a pair of eagle’s wings that are removed and made to stand on feet as a man. The United States is the only modern-day nation with the official symbol of the eagle that was created when it separated from the lion (Great Britain) when the Declaration of Independence was signed on July 4, 1776.

The Book of Revelation includes a depiction of the one-world socialistic government that is now being formed using the exact same animal symbols. The lion provides the mouth which explains why English has become the language of the world government. Additionally, the bear provides the feet of the combined beast, a clear indication that socialism will be the economic basis upon which the world government is formed. All the major nations from Daniel’s vision are included in this combined beast with one very significant exception: it does not include the eagle’s wings. Instead, the symbol of America appears in Revelation 12:14: “And to the woman,” [Israel] “were given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness, into her place, where she is nourished for a time, and times, and half a time, from the face of the serpent.” This prophecy reveals America will once again shake off the shackles of socialism and embrace the economic principles that will allow her to maintain the economic and military power necessary to protect the nation of Israel during the final 3 ½ years of the Great Tribulation. It is time for God-fearing, Bible-believing Americans to embrace the lessons learned from our forefathers’ failed experiments with socialism and claim the promises of our future as outlined in the Word of God.

[1] Thatcher, James. History of the Town of Plymouth. Boston: Marsh, Capen, and Lyon, 1835.

[2] Bradford, William. The History Of Plymouth Plantation. 2 vols. New York: Russell and Russell, 1968, repr. of Massachusetts Historical Society, 1856.

[3] Thatcher, James. History of the Town of Plymouth. Boston: Marsh, Capen, and Lyon, 1835.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Webster, Noah. History of the United States. London: Forgotten Books, 2018, repr. of Durrie and Peck, 1832.

[6] Ibid.

[7] Bradford, William. The History Of Plymouth Plantation. 2 vols. New York: Russell and Russell, 1968, repr. of Massachusetts Historical Society, 1856.

[8] Thatcher, James. History of the Town of Plymouth. Boston: Marsh, Capen, and Lyon, 1835.

[9] Bradford, William. The History Of Plymouth Plantation. 2 vols. New York: Russell and Russell, 1968, repr. of Massachusetts Historical Society, 1856.

[10] https://wordfoundations.com/socialism-of-jamestown-and-plymouth-fails/

[11] Foster, Marshall. The American Covenant: The Untold Story. Ventura, CA: Nordskog Publishing, 2021.

[12] Ibid

[13] https://wallbuilders.com/chw/lessons/lesson-1-discovery-early-planting/

[14] https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/18/18-18/56143/20180801124326382_18-18%20FML%20Bladensburg%20amicus.pdf

[15] Foster, Marshall. The American Covenant: The Untold Story. Ventura, CA: Nordskog Publishing, 2021.

[16] https://wordfoundations.com/socialism-of-jamestown-and-plymouth-fails/

[17] Foster, Marshall. The American Covenant: The Untold Story. Ventura, CA: Nordskog Publishing, 2021.

[18] https://wordfoundations.com/socialism-of-jamestown-and-plymouth-fails/

[19] https://wallbuilders.com/private-property-rights-resolution/