I think we tend to forget
That the English
Really were
The ones
Who decided to settle
The New World.
They weren’t
Exploring
They were actively
Colonizing.
Between John Smith,
The Puritans,
The Pilgrims,
They established
What it was
To be a European
Living in North America.
Today we look at it
From the perspective
Of encroachment,
We redefine
The Thanksgiving story
As the prelude
To slaughter.
But it was never the story
Of trying to decimate
The native populations.
Daniel Boone,
For instance,
Was as close to
Straddling
The two worlds
In a famous capacity
As we ever got.
We forget
That in terms of technology
They really weren’t so different,
That the whole point of
The Thanksgiving narrative
Is that the native peoples
Gave these Europeans
A chance to survive,
And that horses
Were not native
To the Americas,
That the native populations
Very quickly adapted
To them
So that in later generations
They had master the equestrian life
Perhaps better
Than anyone else had
In history.
What happened
Was not prelude
Was not destiny
But rather
A culmination
Of choices
That played out.
The English
Built societies
In the New World.
We look at what happened in Salem
As emblematic
Of how primitive they were
But it’s the Mayflower Compact,
Really,
That demonstrated
How quickly
The idea
That was to define these lands
Took hold
In the imaginations
Of the earliest
English migrants,
That it was the idea
Of opportunity,
Of freedom
That inspired them.
We think American history
Begins with the Revolution,
With a Declaration of Independence,
With the formal recognition of
Of a country,
But it begins
With English settlement,
With the foundation stories,
For they really are
As American as anything
That has happened
Since.
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