Food, football, and oppression.

That's what Thanksgiving has come to mean to many Americans.

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 fled persecution only to become persecutors themselves,

depriving Native Americans of their land and their lives.

But this is wrong on every count.

First of all, 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.

Free from interference by the Church of England,

they feared seduction, not persecution,

worrying that their children would be corrupted

by the materialistic Dutch culture.

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.

They initially planned to plant this model society

...