And those "Eurotrash" created the greatest nation on earth and the hope of world civilization. Remarkable history and indeed quite different and more wonderful than the history books tell us. Of course "Lies My Teacher Told Me" itself is trash history, perhaps interesting to read but trash history.
Did you know that the Pilgrims formed their own organized church? Do you know what denomination that is and what denomination branched off from it? The Congregationalists and the Unitarians, perhaps the most "liberal" of all denominations.
If you know old history, perhaps you have heard of Louis XIV's Edict of Nantes that exiled Hugonots (the French Protestants) from France. Did you know the French, like the Brits, quite welcomed their dissidents in their colonies--not quite deportation but anyway they could to get a foot in the new world. You won't find that in the history books and to what extent French Canada and Mississippi settlement involved Hugonots I don't know--just that the son of French Hugonots who lived in exile in Switzerland was one of the earliest fur traders in Wisconsin and Illinois then-wilderness for his maternal uncle fur merchant in Montreal, financed the George Rogers Clark expedition during the American Revolution that won the Northwest (current Midwest), hosted George's brother, first Gov of Louisiana Territory, at his home in St. Louis (had married Catholic sister of French brothers who founded St.L., children raised Catholic but one married Presby daughter of the sergeant who accompanied Nathan Hale on his spy mission during the Revolution & their children were raised Protestant) where American flag first raised in Territory from front porch balcony, negotiated with his two brothers-in-law the 1804 treaty with the Sauk and Fox Indians that was Jefferson's first instruction to Gov. Clark to get done--whose son did the first American settlement in Wisconsin in 1826/27 & helped get a more fair treaty with the Winnebago Indians in 1829 & who went to Washington in 1835 to request official permission for the Rock River Winnebago band he was sub-agent for that was subject to the 1804 treaty to return across the Mississippi to hunt which was had been the incident for the Blackhawk Fox Indian War in 1832 3 years earlier, died on way home with Supreme Court Chief Justice Taney a deathbed visitor, Indians still 35 and 40 years later coming to and camping at the homestead in southwest Wisconsin (where his son lived who invented the milling process for hard wheat, the basis of the Minneapolis-St.Paul flour mills, largest owner brother of his sister's husband & Wis.'s richest Gov) and the home of daughter in Galena as told by son-in-law presenting portrait of his father-in-law to Wis. Historical Society in 1870s, which son-in-law was Grant's Congressional sponsor in Civil War and political sponsor and campaign manager for Pres. and whose son (grandson & great grandson of precedings) was mayor of Chicago and creator of the 1893 Columbian Exposition--yeah, ordinary and extraordinary people like all Americans & the parts they played in early Midwest history known to me by accident of buying & researching history of the abandoned rock house Henry Gratiot built in 1835 just before going to Washington for his Indian clients. Oh, and he was also visiting his brother, a West Point graduate, later superintendent there, first head of the Corps of Engineers--pretty good achievement for son of French "Eurotrash"-- who, by the way was dismissed from the military in a financial scandal. See, ordinary Eurotrash people for sure after all. A county and a fort in Michigan named after him. Two towns in Wisconsin named after younger brother Henry. Younger brother Jean Bugnion Gratiot married to daughter of a Napoleon minister in exile in New Orleans, pioneer prospector for gold in Southwest a generation before the Gold Rush, though the term "prospector" originated in his and his brother's lead rush Wisconsin settlement in the late 1820s. (If you want to see Henry's rock house, google The Gratiot House site where the new owners post their progress in "restoring" the Gratiot house--very nice people by the way.
My point? America is as extraordinary as these people. It is also as ordinary and everyday as these people, and that is what makes America great. We cannot emphasize enough that John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Barack Hussein Obama, Albert Einstein, Warren Buffet, Joan and Ray Kroc and any other American we spotlight are just ordinary people in America, the product of Irish, African, and Euro miscellaneous trash accidentally thrown into the new world where there was space to become American, Irish American, African American, native American, Mexican American, Italian American, and all the other extraordinary ordinary American varieties we are together. Wish I could post Frances Brundage's c.1893 Columbian Expo image of America (don't have copier)--five smiling girls holding hands or arms around shoulders...pugnacious Irish girl in rags left hand on hip, holding hand of black girl also in rags, whose other hand is held by white girl in fine clothes with arm around shoulder of dignified Asian girl in Kimono with somewhat sad looking native American girl standing beside her. This was the image chosen by a Cincinnati merchant 120 years ago to hand out as his Christmas greeting to customers. That was Frances Brundage's vision of America then with all its parts of equal worth despite differences in appearance and social status and it is still the vision of America that is the example to the world and the hope of future civilization for mankind.
Now I realize you extremists of left and right and wingnuts-all (parallels to the historical and hysterical Know Nothings) are also part of the American pie (the rotten apple part), but please stop making all these ugly faces at the camera...it doesn't make a pretty picture. You, too, inyourface, put down that hand with clenched fist and middle finger up. If you wish, all of you mischievous brats, we can make a separate cute picture of all the naughty face-making American children to put in the national picture album, but please behave for the official national picture for the history books.
And those "Eurotrash" created the greate... (
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