Our earliest American colonists weren't "the best Europe had to offer"

[Tom Rinaldo]

At least not in the eyes of those holding power they weren't. They were misfits, heretics, radicals and/or impoverished if not literally enslaved. Many were considered criminals and/or subversives. Our nation was founded in large part by people who were seen as "cultists" in England: Puritans, Quakers and the like. Maryland was an early refuge for Catholics who were denigrated by the British Crown. The first (non native) Americans were mostly castoffs, unwanted at home and often unable to provide for their families without fleeing their country of origin. They were virtually all refugees. As were the many generations of immigrants who followed them here. The early elites of America could never have built this nation without them.

No, the refugees who populated America supposedly weren't the best that their homelands had to offer. They didn't come here bearing great wealth. Very few of them found welcome on these shores because of the technical skills they possessed. But collectively they built one of the greatest nations the world has ever known. They had courage, they had perseverance, they had the will to make a better life for their children, and in the process they built a better nation for us all.

Only the worst that America has to offer see poor people walking thousands of mile with their children and only the few possessions they can carry on their back as a grave threat to this nation. Only the worst that America has to offer see those who flee torture rape starvation and death as an invading force who threaten our security and American values.

And on top of everything else, those who fear the slow approach of "a caravan" of a few thousand hungry unarmed refugees are quite simply pathetic. Whether or not all of them should be welcomed here, whether or not all of them are walking this way for officially sanctioned reasons, they do not create a national emergency for America. Their numbers would barely add up to a halfway decent crowd at one minor league baseball game. If history is any guide, and it damn well should be, they ultimately have far more to ultimately offer America than our nation may offer to them. These are the type people that America has always been made of.

[marybourg]

1. Very well said.

[Grasswire2]

2. Hey! Your blanket condemnation includes...

...my ancestor Elizabeth Tilley, who came to the New World in 1620 as a girl who was then orphaned the first winter, and my ancestor John Howland, who came as a manservant to Carver and became so respected that he was a signatory to the Mayflower Compact. They were not elites nor were they horrible people. They were just people. Terrified at times, likely.

[Tom Rinaldo]

5. Yes good for nothings like your relatives made this nation great

The elites wouldn't even know how to raise a barn or plow a filed. Let alone build a nation.

[Maeve]

3. Many of the first few generations here were lied to and treated badly

Quite a large number were sent here unwillingly to their deaths. AND YET...(as you point out) and yet, they persevered, they made the best they could of what they had and produced something greater than the sum of their parts.

It's an unfinished work in progress--we still have a lot to do to live up to the ideals we have preached these past centuries. And we need new hands helping, new people who come here because of the promises those ideals hold out for a better future.

[roamer65]

4. Australia was a penal colony in those days.

British North America wasn’t much different.

[Tom Rinaldo]

6. Right, I was thinking about penal colonies and indentured servants and slaves

All the Irish who the British didn't want to deal with among them, and among those some of my own relatives. Someone like Trump is a parasite, not a nation builder.

[Aristus]

7. Australia got the criminals. We got the religious fanatics.

I think Australia got the better of that deal...

[roamer65]

8. I would agree.

At least with criminals, you know where you stand.

ALL religious cultists are lying, sniveling backstabbers.

[Aristus]

9. Exactly. Criminals don't tell you you're going to Hell if you don't join them in

their lives of crime.

[treestar]

13. Exactly

Australia got that role because, after the American Revolution, America was no longer available to the British for it.

[Leith]

10. That Was One of the Best Things I've Ever Read

It was excellent. It describes my immigrant ancestors perfectly.

[Ferrets are Cool]

11. K and R

[hostalover]

12. Very insightful; thanks!

[gordianot]

14. I remember a College professor describing the earliest colonist as wretched refuse of Europe.

They introduced scalping to the native population then complained when they got scalped in return.

[world wide wally]

15. Have you ever driven through New Mexico?

We have more than enough room for refugees

[UTUSN]

16. Neither were some of the later ones, especially like the DRUMPFs!1

[jcmaine72]

17. Exactly! Quite the contrary, in fact. Many were the scum of the continent.

A trait that is still reflected in a sizable percentage of the European population in the U.S. Today. Just look at the South.

[Tom Rinaldo]

20. There will always be people who are scum, but they mostly don't come from the poor

The worst come from those who force others to live in poverty. All those Daughters of the American Revolution types who take such pride now in their ancestors should acknowledge that most of those ancestors ended up here because Europe at the time thought that they were scum.

[homegirl]

18. Thank you,

may I pass it on?

[Tom Rinaldo]

19. You are welcome. Absolutely you may pass it on n/t