Jody – First Thanksgiving Proclamation

William Bradford was born in 1590 to William and Alice Bradford in Austerfield,Yorkshire,England. Austerfield was a small town of 200 or so residents. Most were farmers of modest means. TheBradfordfamily owned a large farm and was considered comparatively wealthy and influential in the community. As a child, William Bradford lost many family members. His father died when he was just a year old. His mother raised him alone until he was 4 years old when she re-married and sent him to his grandfather to live. Two years later his grandfather died and he returned to live with his mother and stepfather. One year later he became an orphan when his mother died. He was then sent to live with two uncles. Bradford’s uncles expected him to help with farm work but he was sickly most of the time and unable to do much work. He turned to reading and became familiar with the Bible and classic literature.

When William Bradford was twelve years old a friend invited him to hear a Puritan minister, Reverend Richard Clyfton, preach in Babworth, ten miles away from Austerfield. The sermons of Rev. Clyfton and, later, John Smith inspired young William. Even though his uncles forbade him to attend,Bradfordcontinued to attend their sermons. During one of the meetings he was befriended by William Brewster, bailiff and postmaster for the Archbishop of York. Brewster lived at Scrooby Manor, about 4 miles from Austerfield, and quickly became a father figure forBradford. Bradford borrowed books from Brewster and Brewster told him about church reform efforts that were taking place throughout England. A group of about 50 reformers began meeting secretly at Scrooby Manor. The group soon decided that reform of the Church of England was hopeless and that they would separate all ties with it. They became known as Separatists.

The weekly meetings of the Separatists soon attracted the attention of the Archbishop of York and many members were arrested, imprisoned and fined, including Brewster. In 1607 the Scrooby congregation decided to leaveEnglandillegally for the Dutch Republic, where religious freedom was permitted. William Bradford decided to go with them. The group suffered many setbacks in trying to leaveEngland, most notably their betrayal by an English sea captain who agreed to take them to theNetherlandsbut turned them over to the authorities instead. They were imprisoned for a short time. By the summer of 1608, the Scrooby congregation, including 18 year old William Bradford, had managed to escape England in small groups and relocated in Amsterdam.

The Separatists had spent most of their money in their attempts to get to the Dutch Republic. They took the lowest of jobs and lived under poor conditions. Having no family, William Bradford was taken in by the Brewster family. After nine months the congregation decided to relocate to the smaller city ofLeiden. When Bradford turned 21 in 1611, he was able to claim his family inheritance. He soon bought his own house and set up a workshop as a silk weaver, earning a reputable standing. In 1613, Bradford married Dorothy May, the daughter of a well-off English couple living inAmsterdam. In 1617, they had their first child, John Bradford. That same year the Scrooby congregation began to plan the establishment of their own colony in the New World.

The Separatists spent three years negotiating withEnglandto seek permission to settle in the northern parts of the Colony of Virginia. By July 1620, the necessary arrangements were made and approximately 50 Separatists departed theNetherlandson board the Speedwell. William and Dorothy Bradford had to leave their son behind with grandparents because he was too frail to make the voyage. The Speedwell was to meet up with the Mayflower off the coast of Englandand both would sail to Hudson’s River, now the site ofNew York City. The Speedwell proved too leaky and unable to make the voyage. About 100 passengers were instead crowded aboard the Mayflower. The passengers of the Mayflower, both Separatist and non-Separatist, are referred to today as Pilgrims. The term is derived from William Bradford’s journal describing their departure: With mutual embraces and many tears, they took their leaves of one another, which proved to be the last leave to many of them…but they knew they were pilgrims and looked not much on those things, but lifted their eyes to heaven.

The Mayflower reachedCape Codon November 9, 1620 after a voyage of 64 days. The colonists decided that the Mayflower could not proceed toHudson’s River for a variety of reasons, including shortage of supplies. They decided to settle somewhere on or nearCape Cod. They had no permission from the Crown to do so and feared for the legal status of the colony. They drafted the Mayflower Compact, which all free adult males signed, and agreed to majority rule. At the same time, they elected John Carver their first governor.

The Mayflower and its pilgrims searched theCapearea for a place to settle down. When the Mayflower was anchored in present-dayProvincetown harbor, Bradford volunteered to be a member of the exploration parties. While the Pilgrim men were out exploring one possible settlement site, Dorothy Bradford accidentally fell overboard and drowned. The exploration parties made three separate ventures from the Mayflower on foot and by boat. On December 6, 1620, during the third exploration, Bradford and his fellow explorers located what is nowPlymouth Bay and selected it for settlement. For the next few days they explored the bay and found a suitable place for settlement. The location featured a prominent hill suitable for defense. There were numerous brooks to provide fresh water. On December 20, 1620, the Mayflower Pilgrims arrived inPlymouth Bayand began building the colony’s first house on December 23.

In January 1621, a widespread sickness struck the colonists. William Bradford was stricken but recovered. Many of the settlers did not recover. During the months of February and March as many as two or three people died in a day. By the end of the winter, half of the 100 settlers had died. The Pilgrims’ remarkable courage was displayed in the spring when the Mayflower returned to England with not a single Pilgrim on it.

On March 16, the settlers had their first meeting with the Native Americans who lived in the area. The Pilgrims were frightened until a representative of Chief Massasoit (leader of the Pokanoket tribe) by the name of Samoset called out “Welcome” in English. He had learned English from the captains of fishing boats that sailed off the coast. Samoset stayed the night and left the next day. On March 22 a visit was made by Massasoit himself. Together Massasoit and the Governor of Plymouth John Carver signed a treaty to aid each other militarily in times of need. In April 1621, Governor Carver collapsed and died a few days later. The settlers ofPlymouththen chose William Bradford as the new governor.

Samoset returned to visit the Pilgrims with another Native American named Squanto, who spoke better English than Samoset. Squanto had been kidnapped a decade before by fishermen and taken toEngland, where he learned the language. The importance of Squanto to the Pilgrims was enormous. It has been said they would not have survived without him. Squanto taught them how to tap the maple trees for sap. He taught them which plants were poisonous and which ones were for medicine. He showed them how to plant corn by heaping the earth in low mounds with several seeds and a fish in each mound. He taught them to plant other crops as well.

Pilgrims had much to celebrate. They had built homes in the wilderness and were at peace with their neighbors. The harvest in October 1621 was a successful one. The Pilgrims had enough food to put away for winter. The corn, fruits and vegetables were all thanks to their Native American friends. The Pilgrim Governor William Bradford proclaimed a day of thanksgiving to be shared by the colonists and the neighboring Native Americans. They invited Squanto and his tribe to join them in their celebration. Chief Massasoit and 90 braves came to the celebration that lasted three days. The next year the Pilgrims’ harvest was not as bountiful. The third year brought a hot and dry spring and summer. The crops were dying in the fields. Governor Bradford ordered a day of fasting and prayer. Soon the rains came. To celebrate, November 29^th was proclaimed a day of thanksgiving. It is this date that is believed to be the true beginning of our present day Thanksgiving Day.

“In as much as the great Father has given us this year an abundant harvest of Indian corn, wheat, peas, beans, squashes, and garden vegetables, and has made the forests to abound with game and the sea with fish and clams, and inasmuch as he has protected us from the ravages of the savages, has spared us from pestilence and disease, has granted us freedom to worship God according to the dictates of our own conscience.

Now, I, your magistrate, do proclaim that all ye Pilgrims, with your wives and ye little ones, do gather at ye meeting house, on ye hill, between the hours of 9 and 12 in the day time, on Thursday, November 29^th, of the year of our Lord one thousand six hundred and twenty-three and the third year since ye Pilgrims landed on ye Pilgrim Rock, there to listen to ye pastor and render thanksgiving to ye Almighty God for all His blessings.” – William Bradford, Ye Governor of Ye Colony.

Jody – Resolving Conflict with Words

William “Bill” Jefferson Blythe III was born on August 19, 1946, at Julia Chester Hospital in Hope, Arkansas. His father, William Jefferson Blythe, had died in an auto accident several months before his birth. His mother was Virginia Dell Cassidy Blyth, a fun-loving free spirit. She left Bill in Hope with his grandparents, Eldridge and Edith Cassidy, shortly after he was born to study nursing in New Orleans. The Cassidys owned and ran a small grocery store. At a time when the U.S. South was racially segregated, Bill’s grandparents sold goods on credit to people of all races. Bill’s grandmother was a strong-willed disciplinarian who tried to shape his character and taught him to read at an early age. Both his mother and his grandmother were strong women who competed for his attention. Bill remembered loving both of them during that time of his life, but always felt torn between them as a young mediator for their arguments.

In 1950, Bill’s mother Virginia married Roger Clinton, Sr., who owned a car dealership with his brother in Hot Springs, Arkansas. The family moved to Hot Springs, a busy resort town an hour away from Hope. Bill assumed the surname of his stepfather and when he turned fourteen he formally adopted the surname as a gesture towards him. His stepfather was an alcoholic who regularly abused his mother and his half-brother, Roger Clinton, Jr. Many times Bill had to intervene to protect them. Instead of returning his step-father’s physical abuse with more physical fighting, he usually appealed to him verbally for peaceful resolutions.

Bill Clinton attended St. John’s Catholic Elementary School, Ramble Elementary School and Hot Springs High School. He was an active student leader, an avid reader and a musician. He especially loved the gospel music of his Baptist faith. While his mother went to the racetracks on Sunday, Bill attended church to hear the music he loved. He was in the chorus at school and played the tenor saxophone, winning first chair in the state band’s saxophone section. He briefly considered dedicating his life to music. Sometime in his sixteenth year, he decided he wanted to be in public life. Two influential moments contributed to that decision. One was his visit as a Boys Nation senator to Washington, D.C. and the opportunity to meet his political idol, President John F. Kennedy. He was captured in a historic photograph shaking the President’s hand in the White House Rose Garden. The other was listening to Martin Luther King’s 1963 “I Have a Dream” speech, which he later memorized.

In 1964, Bill Clinton graduated from high school and left Arkansas to attend Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. With the aid of scholarships and part-time jobs, he majored in international affairs at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown. While in college, he became a brother of Alpha Phi Omega and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. He was a member of the Order of DeMolay, a youth group affiliated with Freemasonry. He is a member of Kappa Kappa Psi honorary band fraternity. He spent the summer of 1967 (the summer before his senior year) interning for Arkansas Senator J. William Fulbright. Clinton received his Bachelor of Science in Foreign Service in 1968.

Upon graduating from Georgetown University, Clinton won a Rhodes scholarship to University College, Oxford (England) where he studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics. While at Oxford he developed an interest in rugby and played for Oxford. Later he played for the Little Rock Rugby Club in Arkansas. Clinton switched programs and left Oxford early to attend Yale Law School. In a Yale library in 1971, he met fellow law student Hillary Rodham, who was a year ahead of him. They began dating and were soon inseparable. After just one month, Clinton proposed to Hillary and postponed his plans to be a coordinator for the 1972 McGovern Presidential campaign in order to move to California with her. Clinton did eventually move to Texas with Hillary to take a job leading McGovern’s campaign there in 1972. He had an office in Dallas and worked with future two-term mayor of Dallas, Ron Kirk, future governor of Texas, Ann Richards, and then unknown television director, Steven Spielberg. Clinton earned his Juris Doctor (J.D.) degree from Yale in 1973. Following graduation, Clinton moved back to Arkansas with a job teaching law at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville. He ran for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives in 1974 against a popular incumbent. Even though he lost, it was a close race and Clinton became a rising political star.

Bill Clinton and Hillary Rodham were married on October 11, 1975. Together they have one daughter, Chelsea, who was born in 1980. In 1976, Arkansas voters elected Clinton state attorney general. In 1978, Clinton ran for governor, winning an easy victory. At the age of thirty-two, he became one of the nation’s youngest governors ever. In 1980, he lost reelection, becoming the youngest former governor in U.S. history. Clinton went to work for a Little Rock law firm but spent most of his time campaigning for reelection. In the 1982 race, Clinton admitted his mistakes. He used his natural charm and effective TV ads to convince the voters to give him another chance. He won in 1982 and again in 1984. In 1986 and 1990, he was supported by the Arkansas voters for two, four-year terms. As governor, Clinton supported centrist issues. He helped Arkansas transform its economy. He strongly advocated for educational reform, appointing Arkansas First Lady Hillary to lead a committee to draft higher standards for schools in Arkansas. Governor Clinton’s reforms positively impacted Arkansas schools, which experienced a decrease in drop-out rates and an increase in college-entrance exam scores. From 1986 to 1987, Clinton served as Chair of the National Governors Association, bringing him out of Arkansas and onto the national stage.

William “Bill” Jefferson Clinton won the U.S. Presidential election in 1992. As President-elect, he vowed to focus on economic issues and issues supported by the middle class. As President, Clinton presided over the longest period of peacetime economic expansion in American history. He successfully passed welfare reform and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (S-CHIP), providing health coverage for millions of children. The Congressional Budget Office reported a budget surplus between the years 1998 and 2000, the last three years of President Clinton’s two terms in office. In foreign affairs, President Clinton succeeded in mediating peace negotiations in Northern Ireland between warring Catholics and Protestants.

Since leaving office, Clinton has been involved in public speaking and humanitarian work. He created the William J. Clinton Foundation to promote and address international causes such as prevention of AIDS and global warming. In 2009, he was named United Nations Special Envoy to Haiti and after the 2010 earthquake he teamed up with George W. Bush to form the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund.

“We must teach our children to resolve their conflicts with words, not weapons.”- William J. Clinton