“The Pilgrims”

 Carmel Pine Cone, Dec. 19, 2025

Geoff Johnston, in his letter “Defending fairness,” should examine the Plymouth experiment a little closer. Sure, these settlers had to deal with bad weather, disease, and scarcity, but their starvation was primarily due to their government-imposed socialist economy.

Several years of harsh anti-property rights had reduced the original number of Plymouth colonists to half. They had no private property rights, and everyone had to store their grown food in a community storage shed for shared use. Few wanted to work hard when others simply refused to labor in the fields.

Jamestown suffered from the same collectivist dilemma, where everyone had to store and share their homegrown food in a common storage space. It failed. Of the approximately 500 colonists, 439 died, primarily due to starvation. When the new governor, Dale Smith, arrived, he was horrified. He quickly handed out three-acre parcels to each family. Now, every colonist could own their own land and farm it as they saw fit. Soon after, Jamestown began to flourish.

Lawrence Samuels, Carmel