This is a seriously abridged retelling of a slice of unthinkable American history. And one major reason that I am a former Christian. Nothing new in this monumentally shameful story. My conscience compelled me to publish it. It’s definitely inaccurate in the details especially with regards to timing. Hey – I’m no historian. Even my own yesterdays are escaping me and at an ever increasing rate.

The Good Stuff:

My Christian European ancestors were outstanding and very brave (or rum – drunken) mariners. I have been at sea in a couple of hard storms – but not in a wooden vessel under sail power.

It was quite an adventure to be bending over the ship’s railing, feeding the fish with my stomach contents, while getting bone-chillingly drenched with seawater. By the way, seawater is downright fucking COLD.

Our navigation was done mostly by electronic means. And even more importantly, many others had gone before us. Not so for my European ancestors. So Kudos to them for accomplishing that great feat.

Here is the unthinkable shit they actually did also:

Eventually, they found dry land, disembarked and claimed a miniscule piece of land for living. Land that was already inhabited by human beings. No big deal – we had them outgunned. In most cases, the natives were gracious and willing to trade all sorts of knowledge and items valuable for survival in the new world, in exchange for our sparkly but worthless stuff.

All the while we kept coming. More and more and more. Claiming everything and anything that we wanted. Demand for resources (primo land, water supply) started causing negative human interactions. Neither the humans that were living here “since the memory of man knows no further” or the armed interlopers (European Christians) wanted to relinquish any dominion of these assets.

My clever Christian ancestors foresaw that a “final solution” would be needed. If only Nazi gas chambers had been invented then.

Old World religions, primarily Christianity, prescribed a completely undesirable eternal afterlife for persons who committed the acts needed for “manifest destiny” and the “final solution”.

But W A I T ! That only applied if the object was a living human being. SHAZAM!! a workaround to that “burning in hell forever” issue had just been Heaven-sent. We would de-humanize the natives into “Savages”! Problem solved.

This does beg the question: Could a Jewish lawyer been a stowaway on a Pilgrim ship?

The dehumanization concept was accepted immediately by my white Christian ancestors – no questions asked.

That cleared the way for: complete destruction of native cultures including religions and ceremonies, languages, even whole communities. Mass murder, torture, slavery, rape, theft of anything including women, food supplies, and real property. And we did every bit of that, many times over! ALL of it!! Why not? They were no longer going to burn in Hell forever. And the more the natives fought back the more they were painted as “Savages”.

My European Christian ancestors committed unspeakable crimes against humanity, which has gone unpunished and mostly unapologetically.

In spite of white man’s treachery, Ira Hayes from the Pima tribe was one of the Marines that raised Old Glory on Mount Suribachi, and members of the Navaho tribe were Marine “Code-talkers” that helped defeat the Japanese.

Sometimes my thoughts are of the never to be known stories about the pre-white Natives’ lives, families, love, and hate, sex, squabbles, pets, freedoms, midnight creeping, that my existence now overlays.