A lot of people today just like to bash our forefathers and the history of the United States. Words like “racist,” “imperialist,” “colonial,” and “slavery” come up. But I think most people have had a very poor sampling of the history of our United States of America.
Now, I’m going to start with a quick survey of events surrounding the move west. Prior to and during the Revolutionary War the British government, under the leadership of King George III had prohibited settlers from moving west, implementing things such as the Quebec Act. Now, truth be told, our forefathers actually saw this as an infringement on religious liberty. They saw it as an attempt by the Crown to spread Catholicism while suppressing Protestantism. (Interestingly, while the Church of England claimed to be a Protestant denomination, it still had a top down hierarchy and Anglican priests even copied the outfits of their Catholic counterparts, wearing the same black and white collars that Catholic priests wore.)
Another thing that must be understood about the move west in the 1700s is that the population of British America was getting larger while simultaneously being squeezed against the eastern seaboard. They had to go somewhere. And so, they looked west. Interestingly, it wasn’t just the land that motivated them. Some, such as President Thomas Jefferson, where motivated by a desire to evangelize the Native American population. Now, to be fair, some of the “missionaries” that went west during the second half of the 19th century wanted to indoctrinate and assimilate the natives rather than evangelize them. But Jefferson seems to have been motivated by a genuine desire to see the Native Americans come to know Christ. His “Jefferson Bible,” (of which there are actually two,) was originally intended as a teaching tool for the Indians. Plus, it wasn’t the blasphemous, anti-Jesus document that “historians” today want you to think it was. Jefferson had literally cut the words of Jesus out of the Bible, (the red print if you will,) and pasted them together back-to-back so that the words of Jesus could be read non-stop. Why had he done this? A missionary friend had come to him and said that if he wanted to reach the Natives with the gospel, he couldn’t use a full Bible, as the Indians would read the genealogies and get confused. Instead, the friend suggested giving the Indians the words of Jesus and the words of Jesus alone. Jefferson said, “that makes sense,” and so he began work on his “blasphemous book.”
Now I will look to the move west in the 1800s. THAT was wrong. You see, in the second half of the 19th century you had, not merely settlers moving west onto what little land the Native Americans had left. You also had federal troops (and federal troops who had fought in the Civil War might I add,) getting involved. They marched west where they proceeded to butcher the Natives whom Jefferson had so badly wanted to evangelize. This is a very sad turn of events, and one for which we may be getting judged today. Today the Native American population is very much smaller than it used to be. And there are Christians among them, praise be, but they, I believe, still may be suffering for what we did to them, and we may be getting judged for what we did to them.
However, we are also being judged for what we became in the 1960s: a pornographic, oversexed, and selfish society, thinking nothing of the greater good, but only of what we want. And we have the audacity to look at our forebears and say, “We may not be perfect, but thank God (or whatever god people today pray to,) that we aren’t like them.” No, you’re absolutely right, we’re not like them. WE’RE WORSE! MUCH MUCH WORSE! We’ve killed so many babies and put out so much pornography that God may never forgive America. So, in closing, before you decide to judge the Pilgrims this Thanksgiving, take a good look in the mirror first, and ask yourself, “Am I really better than they were?” You would benefit if you tried to answer that question for yourself.
TeawiththeDukeofWellington 