Pat Buchanan: Indians had the land and we took it

Tuesday, May 8, 2007  

"On the 400th anniversary of the Jamestown Settlement, Queen Elizabeth II arrived to commemorate the great occasion. And it took some fancy footwork for Her Majesty to run the Powhatan gauntlet.

"Fifty years on, we are now in a position to reflect more candidly on the Jamestown legacy," said the queen, as she began to reflect less candidly.

At Jamestown, "Three great civilizations came together for the first time -- Western European, native American and African."

Well, that is one way to put it. Except that the Jamestown settlers were not Western Europeans but English Christians. And the first thing they did was build a fort to protect themselves from Powhatan's tribe, whom they thought might massacre them -- as they suspected Indians had massacred the Roanoke colony. Their leader, Capt. John Smith, barely escaped execution by Powhatan. Or so Smith tells it.

As for the Africans, they arrived in 1620 in slave ships, and were not freed for 145 years. Then they were segregated for 100 years. There was no coming together of African, Indian and European civilizations. The African slaves were uprooted from their civilization and had to became part of ours.

Jamestown was no coming together of civilizations, but the opening of a war of imperial conquest by self-confident Christians who defeated and destroyed the pagan Indian tribes, drove them westward, repopulated their lands, and imposed their own faith and laws.

When we came, the Indians had the land. We took it."

Get the Story:
Patrick J. Buchanan: Jamestown as it Never Was (Human Revent 5/8)

Committee Hearing:
Full Committee Legislative Hearing: H.R. 1294 and H.R. 65 (April 18, 2007)

Recognition Bill:
Thomasina E. Jordan Indian Tribes of Virginia Federal Recognition Act (H.R.1294)

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