Colin F. Jones

A HISTORY LESSON

In their arrogance White Europeans believed that Christianity was a superior religion to all others, thus God was always on their side. They also believed that their Race was culturally superior to none white races, such as the African peoples and the Indian peoples. This view is thought to have developed from the crusades, where in the Holy land and Jerusalem the Moslems were seen to be inferior savages.

The success of Europeans settlers in America was due to this belief in racial and religious superiority. The believed that they were God’s chosen race. In a similar way to that applied in Australia, the church fundamentalists wanted to “civilize” the Indians in America so that once reformed they would become part of the white society. But Imperialists took a harder line and considered the Indians racially inferior to whites and could never become part of a civilized society. The particular views were to some extent dependent on whether the Indians were Allies or weather the whites were dependant on them. Genocide was sometimes justified by these beliefs for the Indians who refused to accept the control and domination of the whites.

Wealth and Liberty was considered only the right of the white people and they were driven by the desire to satisfy more than one need. Rather than creating a comfortable quality of life from within their own means using the resources available to them they desired to exploit the wealth and resources of other countries.

The settlers in fact settled on lands that had been cultivated by the Indians. It was simply untrue when they claimed that there was no enclosed land and that there was no settled habitation. The Indians provided much before being driven from their cultivated land and the whites used it to their very advantage. The English settlers stamped their rule over already settled land.

The question is asked, why do Americans believe that the USA was first settled in 1620 by the pilgrims? Is this due to a desire to forget a past that is likely to trouble them? When the first settlers arrived in America they settled on cleared and cultivated lands that the Indians no longer occupied because they had been annihilated by European diseases. The answer for this was “that God sent a plague to the Indians in order to clear the land for the white English settlers.”

Because of this there was no challenge to their occupation for fifty years. More than 90% of Indian peoples died in the 200 years after European settlement as a result of the plague. As Historian Richard White wrote, “this is the greatest human catastrophe in human history.”

It is highly unlikely that the Europeans could have conquered and settled the Americas without the plague.

The first successful English settlement was the Jamestown colony in Virginia in 1607. These were ruthless greedy people who stole from the Indians, enslaved them, abused and killed them. They were not your average American well behaved settler. Perhaps this is why they are not mentioned in the school history text books. Instead the text books refer to the settlement at Plymouth.

The Pilgrims settled on Indian land, stole from their graves and pillaged their homes for supplies. The leader of the Plymouth colony was apparently a man called Squanto. He helped the settlers to survive their first five years. Squanto was said to be “a special instrument sent of God for their good beyond their expectation”

He showed them all that was necessary to know, how to plant their corn, where to fish and how to procure a host of other commodities. They were little different from the Jamestown settlers their main purpose for settling in America was for profit.

It is said that Thanksgiving is “the occasion on which we give thanks to God as a nation for the blessings he hath bestowed upon us” The King of England had given thanks to “Almighty God in his great goodness and bounty toward us… for sending this wonderful plague among the savages” before the Pilgrims had left England.

Americans celebrate Thanksgiving as if America was God’s gift to them. The larger, uglier history is ignored, because facing the truth would acknowledge the reality of Imperious. European and English settlers went to America seeking opportunity, wealth and freedom, which was satisfied at the expense of the shattered cultures and lives of the American Indians.

The church cared little of the devastation; their only mission was to carry the Gospel to one end of the earth to the other. America was thought to be a refuge provided by God for those in England who were having a bit of a difficult time. He was “… guiding them into the American wilderness… “ to “… increase and multiply; replenish and subdue the earth… “

In God’s name the settlers deserved to own the land for showing the Indians how to use it properly. “We leave them sufficient for their use and take possession of the rest”

But of course if the purpose of the settlement was to spread the Christian belief and to teach the Indians how to farm and thus profit from the land, why was it that they celebrated the fact that God had destroyed the natives with the plague leaving very few of them left alive?

Obviously the real reason for it all was not to spread Christianity and civilization to the Indians; that was just the excuse they used for taking over their lands and profiting from their resources and labour.

“Refuse the benefits of Christianity and civilization, and you will be treated as the enemy; be killed, enslaved or placed on reservations.”

White people are clever with words. They mix them up, and change their meanings. They do not speak the truth; there are only a few who do that. This is the way we are because we believe in a myth that gives us the right to run roughshod over all and everything.

In which direction will the Christian race move next? Iraq? Iran? Who knows? The only thing we do know is that it will happen.

The Indians trusted us. That was their mistake.