Amarillo Voices: Could Pilgrims have gotten by an Indian INS?

Posted: Thursday, November 21, 2002

In school I learned about the Pilgrims who came to the New World in search of a new life and freedom to live and believe the way their conscience led them.

They were good people. Many had nothing in the Old World to keep them there and longed for a breath of free air. As more people came to seek their fortunes and make new lives, all were welcome. There was plenty of room and the land was for the taking.

Unfortunately, the continent was inhabited by developed native cultures that had lived well for thousands of years without any immigration from other lands. That didn't seem to bother anyone, though.

I recently took an online survey concerning immigration into the United States. It asked my opinion on amnesty, the strictness of the laws allowing people to stay in the United States, and deportation policies. As a history buff, one of my favorite games is to write "what if" scenarios.

What if the American Indians had been a confederation with laws restricting immigration into the New World? The Mayflower and other early ships carrying weary, half-starved, sick and dying passengers, taking on water and foul with the stench of months of close quarters, might have been sent back into the howling sea.

Were these refugees from tyranny just poor people who really couldn't add anything to the already developed culture here?

We have to admit they had really strange ideas. Their hygiene definitely left something to be desired. Clean air and clean bodies were considered dangerous to your health in 17th-century Europe. Their diets were limited to grains and a little meat.

The Immigration and Naturalization Service would have had to put them in quarantine until their health problems could be determined and cured. If the illnesses could not be contained, the Pilgrims would have been deported back to Europe.

What possible worthy contribution could the Pilgrims have given to the American natives' lives? The Pilgrims didn't have any new methods of fishing, hunting, medicine, or a life skills course to offer. As a group, they were uneducated.

The leaders were educated and had their own political and religious ideas. They wanted to come here and exercise freedom of thought and actions. Of course, many also wanted to prosper from the riches of this new land.

Maybe the confederation would have had a written and oral test to give to the Pilgrims and other immigrants to see if they were intelligent or literate enough to stay.

Of course, the newcomers would have had to learn the native language. It is only right that if you want to live somewhere, you should speak the language, believe the religion, and conduct your life as the natives do.

Thousands of people wanted to follow the earliest settlers to the New World. With an uncontrollable number of people coming in at every point on the continent, the Native Americans couldn't possibly handle the overwhelming influx.

A confederation formed early during that influx could have controlled immigration better. It would have started much like the loose association of the Thirteen Colonies but grown stronger, as did our fledgling country.

OK, it didn't happen this way. We took everything we wanted and all but obliterated the original people who had lived here for thousands of years. Now, we consider ourselves the "original people," and all who come here to live the free, abundant life we promote all over the world must ask our permission.

What if we had asked permission?

Soon it will be Thanksgiving, when everyone celebrates those early Pilgrims and their hardships. We are thankful the Indians fed them through that first winter and helped them establish a colony.

As we carve our turkeys, embrace our families, and remember our heritage, I hope we can be thankful our forebears weren't met by the Native American Confederation INS on Plymouth Rock - and found wanting.


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