Susan Constant - Tumblr Posts

Thanksgiving

A reddit thread today made me stop and think there really needs to be some kind of grim action movie called JAMESTOWN, taglines including "where it all began" and "forget what you were told in school". It would show the terror of crossing the Atlantic in tiny wooden boats to an unknown shore, the kinds of desperate, stupid, or insane people who would take that bet, the inevitable and understandable Indian attacks, the disease, the starvation, the cannibalism, the arrival of the tobacco brides, the beginning of chattel slavery. Of course the only possible plot I can imagine would be the plucky orphan trying like hell to survive and get on the next boat home.

Pretty certain this would be loudly denounced as anti-American and unpatriotic from certain circles. But it is obvious why schools and society focus on the Mayflower and Plymouth, because who wants to try to explain that shit to a fourth grader?