Hello Stranger
Happy Columbus Day or Indigenous People’s Day, take your pick. Either way, it’s a stretch to say Columbus discovered America, if by America you mean the land that became the United States. He discovered the Bahamas. Although from there the Spaniards got to us because we live on a hard-to-miss land mass. So, I guess it’s okay to give Columbus his due. In either case, the indigenous peoples were in for a hard time with the coming of Columbus.
Of course, the indigenous people were no slouches when it came to grabbing land, that’s how the Aztecs, Incas, and Iroquois did it, along with the Comanche, Sioux and numerous other tribes. Basically, people, indigenous or otherwise, fought for land and made empires. It’s part of the story of the world, the story of Egypt, Rome, Greece, the Mongols, the French, the Dutch, the Germans, and the British. Veni. Vidi, Vici as Ceasar said. I came; I saw; I conquered. And people did it and still do it with a vengeance. Humans.
I wonder if all this unwanted coming and going was how people came to think of immigration as being a bad idea. The unwanted stranger is here to do us in. In a primeval sense that’s probably a good plan, but we’re no longer primitives and it seems these days that most people who immigrate to anywhere simply want a decent job and a safe place to live with their family. But that’s just me, and I’m mostly on the watch for the rich guy who wants more of my money and thinks it’s perfectly okay to rig the game in his favor.