hillbillypolitics.com

Posted by hillbilly on May 17th, 2007 in Politics General

For my first post back after my absence I’m not going to talk about the latest political mishmash of hogwash but about history… my history. While I’ve still got a lot to research to do what I’ve already learned tells me a lot about me and my family, our strong roots, and a bit about why we feel the way we do about some things.

  You see, I’ve traced one branch of my family all the way back to 14th century England complete with a Coat of Arms. Now I’m not going to get all high and mighty about it, although it does say something about my distant past in that it was awarded to my family for service to the crown. Some generations later, a segment of that family came to America and settled in Jamestown on a land grant. Yeah, they owned a few slaves but nothing extraordinary given the times. Nor did that ownership stop one of several brothers from marrying a free Black woman and raising an enormous family with her many of whom had descendants who remain in the Jamestown area to this day although many also moved north to PA and other states.  Another couple of brothers decided to strike out on their own and began a number of businesses throughout North Carolina and Tennessee before moving up through Kentucky where some of their descendants settled and pushed into West Virginia where my father lives today. They were also quite involved in government including such interludes as the Bacon Rebellion, the Revolutionary War, and later the Civil War.

Another branch of my family were Irish immigrants who came to Philadelpia in the early 1800s.  My ancestor from that branch married another Irish immigrant and they had a farm in western Virginia when she was taken by Native Americans and forced to watch as all her small children were killed except for an infant son. That son, whom she was holding, was later found with his head bashed in from being slammed against a tree. The story went that he was taken from my ancestor because he was slowing them up. This ancestor was held captive for more than a year by this group of Native Americans before she found a way to escape. Her captors grew lax about keeping her tied up thinking she was too passive to think about escaping. She did escape and was trailed all the way back to a fort where she was saved from recapture just in the nick of time. However, once reunited with her husband, they settled in that area of the fort and thus began the line of my ancestors beginning with a son who was born “shortly” after her return. I suppose they could have killed that son in retaliation for the family of which they were robbed but they didn’t. They recognized his right to life was equal to their own. Strong family ties, a sense of adventure, or pioneer spirit some would say, define my family and my history. Other branches contain similar stories.

They all fought for America and lived the life of what has come to be called the American spirit. Today, that spirit is dying. It has been dying slowly for a number of years and is now spiralling toward an ignomious death and I mourn for it.

Other immigrants throughout America’s history have stepped foot on these shores and embraced the American Spirit but today, immigrants seek to change what is into what they want and are winning. I mourn for them; that they will never know the American Spirit they seek so strongly to destroy.

I mourn for those of us who try to breath life back into it all the while fearing its too late.