A Land of Immigrants

The immigrants attending that first Thanksgiving at Plymouth Rock must have played nice with the local Indians. Good first impressions are what much of this world got built around.

First Thanksgiving History, Thanksgiving Before Plymouth Rock (aarp.org)

One person’s modern day immigration viewpoint.

Many of the early wealthy landlords grabbed vast acres of land, far too much for them to farm themselves, so they brought in slaves from Africa.

Slavery in the United States – Wikipedia

When my ancestors arrived in the Dakota Territory to claim their free land in the 1880s, the local Indians were pissed, not as receptive as the tribe at Plymouth Rock. They said, “their new neighbors spoke with forked tongues and trust did not exist.” Indians got placed on reservations. Their land was given to the new stampede of immigrants. A lot of tribes in the Dakotas felt betrayed. They explained that to General Custer and his men explicitly.

After the battle of the Little Bighorn, Army troops arrived in huge numbers. A lot of the Indians got killed by the Cavalry others rounded up and shipped to different areas of the country, forced to leave their sacred land. The railroads had been completed going east, so that’s the direction many of the Indians got sent.

Battle of the Little Bighorn – Wikipedia

A century of trauma at U.S. boarding schools for Native American children (msn.com)

Dakota Territory 1866

“2019 marked the 150th anniversary of the completion of America’s first transcontinental railroad. Between 1863 and 1869, two companies built a rail line across the United States. Union Pacific, starting from Council Bluffs, Iowa, built west, laying more than a thousand miles of rail; Central Pacific, starting from Sacramento, California, built east, laying nearly seven hundred miles of track. On May 10, 1869, work crews from the two companies met in the Utah desert at Promontory Summit to link their rails and hammer home the final spikes.” “The labor of Chinese workers was instrumental to the transcontinental railroad’s construction. At any given time, between ten thousand and twelve thousand Chinese workers were employed on the project, largely by Central Pacific.”

Chinese Railroad Workers and the Golden Spike – US History Scene

The newly arrived immigrants from all over Europe traveled West by rail and covered wagons. A huge productive land got formed by hard work, suffering, and faith. The rich valleys of California grew outstanding crops, far more than there were Harvesters to gather. So Mexican field workers got brought in. Most lived a pitiful existence working long hours in the hot sun.

These intimate photos chronicle the Mexican worker program that helped ‘feed and build America’ | by Brendan Seibel | Timeline

The United States is a grand experiment. Immigrants from all over the world can come to live in Freedom, and everyone should have equal rights. That was the plan. Now we must protect it from greedy people with evil ambitions.

America, The Land of the Free? – American Creed (nwp.org)

Article 2021: Frequently Requested Statistics on I.. | migrationpolicy.org

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