What does all this talk of finding Truth and telling the whole Story mean when we come to the founding Story of our Country? It’s been a long time since I studied American History, but the basic outline is still etched in my memory.
The English crown gave land in the “New World” to assorted
British aristocrats to found colonies starting with Jamestown in 1607. The
Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock in 1620 seeking religious freedom. Eventually,
the colonists got tired of ‘taxation without representation’ and issued a
Declaration of Independence in 1776, ratified across the 13 colonies on July 4.
The American Revolution ensued. From that war came a new country based on a new
Constitution. OK-so I probably oversimplified the whole 150 years of history.
There’s a lot in that history that we don’t learn very much
about in school (or didn’t when I was in school—I hope children now learn a
little more). We don’t hear about the Indigenous People who were already here.
We don’t hear how they were forced from their homes, enslaved, and/or killed.
We hear about the attacks by ‘the Indians’, but we learn very little about the
atrocities committed by the white settlers against the Native people. We don’t
learn about the riches amassed by the northern slave trading ships between 1619
and 1860. We don’t hear of the religious institutions that abetted the trade
and benefitted from it in the founding of institutions.
We may not understand the impact of the Papal Bull of 1493 or of the “Doctrine of Discovery” on European
settlement in North and South America. We may learn how those proclamations enabled and empowered European colonization, but not learn the impact on the
Indigenous peoples already there. Unless you live in a Southwestern state, you
didn’t learn much about the Spanish conquest of what is now New Mexico and the Southwest
starting before there was an English presence on the East Coast. Nor do we learn
the rich history of the Southwestern tribes.
The list of what we may not know much about could go on and
on. Our history as a nation is inadequate without hearing the stories of
those who lived in the Americas before Columbus arrived. Our Culture is
poorer is we don’t give an equal hearing to the experiences of those who had
rich cultures for generations before Europeans arrived. Our Story is incomplete
if we don’t encourage all POC to find and tell their own story.
This is not erasing the History of the United States. It
is enlarging and enriching it. It is completing and validating everyone’s Story.
The story of the Jamestown settlers is important AND so is the story of the
Powhatan and other east coast Native Americans. The story of the Southern
cotton grower is part of this History AND so is the story of the Black family
ripped from their native African homeland and forced to work in a strange
place. The story of the influence of religion in the formation of our nation
can’t be diminished AND we must not forget the children removed from families
and forced to learn ‘white ways’. It’s true that building railroads across the
country brought East and West together. It is equally true that it devastated Native
culture and forced Asian Americans and other immigrants into dangerous
situations as the lines were built.
Our story as a Nation is so much richer and broader and deeper than we have been taught. We need to be open to learning and being enriched by hearing the stories of those who don’t necessarily look like us. This graphic shows each of us holding a piece to the puzzle. Together we can make a complete Story.
Let’s not be afraid to learn the fuller history of our country. Let’s work to understand and embrace ideas and ideals that may not fit into our personal or societal ‘norms’. Maybe those norms need renovation in the post-COVID world. What are you interested in learning about?