One thing I really hate is when history is rewritten. Why hide from the FACTS? Why believe in a LIE? ON the television show “America Unearthed” host Scott Wolter says something to the effect that “history as we’ve been taught is a lie” and I could not agree more. In fact, our history is so full of lies that it’s astounding!
One of these lies that really gets me centers around Columbus and the Mayflower. Of course we all know the story (read LIE) that Columbus came along and discovered America. Frankly, he thought he was voyaging to the Indies and STUMBLED across America! Not only that but there is all sorts of evidence that he was a LATE COMER when it comes to finding America. There is evidence of Asians, Vikings, and others having been in the Americas long before he came along.
And then there is the Pilgrims and the Mayflower. We all know the story about that one too. Supposedly they were the first Europeans to settle in America and then they feasted with Native Americans on turkey, cranberries, stuffing, and the whole Thanksgiving bull. Sorry but it isn’t so! In fact, the Pilgrims had a lot of enemies among Native Americans who saw them as invaders not friends. But that’s another subject. What I want to focus on here is the claim that they were the first Europeans to settle in the Americas. NOT SO!
Like Columbus, the Pilgrims were late comers in the Americas! Columbus stumbled upon the New World in 1492 while the Pilgrims who came across the Atlantic in the Mayflower came along in 1620. BUT what happened between 1492 and 1620? Nothing? Well frankly there was another group who was exploring the Americas and building settlements in the Americas during that time long before the Pilgrims came along.
The Pilgrims were NOT the first Europeans to settle in America and that is a fact! The first Europeans to explore and settle in the Americas were the SPANISH! Spain is a European country and always has been and in 1519 which is 101 years BEFORE the coming of the Pilgrims the Spaniard Hernan Cortez and his army sailed across the ocean and came to Hispanola and Mexico City. They colonized Vera Cruz and defeated the Aztec Empire. After the conquest the Spanish soldiers who remained in Mexico and Latin America began interbreeding with Native Americans and having children. They built towns, roads, ports, farms, ranches, etc. And all of this was before the Pilgrims came along!
By the beginning of the 1600s the Spanish population was in its third generation in the Americas. They numbered about 5000 people stretching from Mexico City to Vera Cruz and from the Rio Grande to New Mexico. By the time the Pilgrims arrived at Plymouth Rock, in New Mexico the Spanish already had grown from the original 200 settlers to over 1000 Spanish colonists! There were only 102 Pilgrims I might mention. So by the time that the Pilgrims stumbled onto Plymouth Rock the Spanish ALREADY had a flown blown EUROPEAN civilization going on in the Americas!!
I must also note that the establishment and flourishing of the Spanish population in the Americas had NOTHING at all to do with the Pilgrims arrival on the US east coast.
The HISTORICAL FACT and TRUTH is that the Pilgrims were NOT the first Europeans to settle in America. It was the SPANISH!
Yet, our children aren’t taught this much and so they grow up as most of us did believing that the Pilgrims settled first in America when the fact is that it was the Spanish and NOT the Pilgrims at all. Once again TRUTH is hidden and facts are not reported nor taught as they are. Instead truth and history is rewritten and, thus, we grow up believing a LIE!
As Wolter says, history as we’ve been taught it is wrong ….. a LIE. And maybe that is our biggest problem at all in our society today because we’d rather believe a LIE than face the TRUTH! So if you’re Spanish by any means BE PROUD because YOUR ancestors were the REAL first settlers of the Americas and NOT those 102 Pilgrims who sailed over in the Mayflower.