On 17 Jan 2004 02:52:27 GMT, John Griffin <thathillbilly@yahooie.com>
wrote:

} "Tha Ghee" <grewatson@yahoo.com> wrote:
} 
} > "Jack Crenshaw" <jcrens@earthlink.net> wrote in message
} > news:Yq4Kb.21019$lo3.17226@newsread2.news.pas.earthlink.net.
} > .. 
} >> When I was in grade school, I remember learning that
} >> Columbus discovered America in 1492, but Jamestown wasn't
} >> founded until something like 1610. 
} >>   That's over 100 years between first contact and
} >>   colonization.  I 
} >> always wondered:  Why in the world would people wait? Why
} >> waste 100 years after knowing North America was here, and
} >> how to get to it?  It seemed crazy to me.
} >>
} > few things, Columbus thought he was in India and that was
} > already colonized, second South America where he landed was
} > Jamestown was the North America's first settlement of
} > England.  France and Finns already had people here. 
} 
} According to a National Geographic article several years ago, 
} the crew of one of the earliest explorers of what is now Florida 
} included about two dozen African-Americans!
} 
} It's really sad that that kid's school completely skipped 108 
} years of history...among other stuff. Some Vikings lived on this 
} continent a hell of a long time before Columbus, who never saw 
} it.

It's more the shame that the schools never allowed the kids to know
there was 35,000 years of history on this continent prior to visitors
from the east.

For instance: Did people come across the "Bering Bridge"?
Yes, the Dene/Dine did. We know this because the Hopi were already
here and knew of the bridge from *this* side. They were exploring the
northwest (but following their edict not to go onto the glaciers) when
the Dene showed up. The Dene called the Hopi the Anasazi (Ancient
Ones). The Hopi called the Dene "They who hit you on the head with
rocks" because that's pretty much the only weapons they had.

The Hopi migration stories tell this. Many of the other details they
tell have been verified.

One anthropologist took pictures of the Nazca Plain rock pictures to
Hotevilla. Some Hopi elders read him the story they tell. They're
pretty much the same pictures that appear on rock carvings and
paintings all over both continents, and carved into the sacred Hopi
tablets there at Hotevilla.

The only thing that was discovered in 1492 was a starving and lost
Italian guy with a big boat. I'm sure the Taino now have second
thoughts about letting him go.


By the way, there was another colonization effor between Columbus and
Jamestown. The "failed" Roanoke Island Colony in 1585-9. There's an
outdoor play there that commemorates the "loss" of all 100 some
people, who left behind only a carved sign saying CROATAN.

Perhaps the greatest part of this mystery is why most people refuse to
draw the obvious conclusion from the evidence: The Lumbee nation
(named for the Lumber River where they were living; their name for
themselves is Croatan).

===

http://www.augustachronicle.com/stories/051897/fea_floyd.html

"Pioneers pushing inland along the Lumber River in 18th-century North
Carolina were surprised when they found a tribe of Englishspeaking
Indians who dressed like white frontiersmen and lived in remarkably
comfortable houses.

Even more astounding was the way many of the tribe looked. Although
most had dark skins, a few exhibited fair complexions, blond hair and
blue eyes.

Some could also read, claiming white gods had long ago taught their
ancestors how to ``talk in books,'' which, the explorers understood,
meant to read and write."

===

An odd fact I've always wondered whether it was related to this, the
Lumbee have always refused registration and "recognition" as a tribe
with the US government.


A little deeper inland in NC is the Melungeon, probably an
intermarrying of sailors of Mediterranian heritage with the natives.
The large inion (bump at the base of the skull) common to many of them
is found almost exclusively among Turkish and nearby peoples.
http://www.geocities.com/melungeonheritage/faq.html


Seems North carolina attracts all the really neat people. I was amazed
that there were people on the outer bansk who sounded Canadian ("I'm
goin oot. What aboot it?" Turns out the Arcadians, (Canadians from
where Maine is now) after being kicked out of Canada after the war,
stopped there on their way south. Some settled. The rest moved on. As
they moved south, they became 'Cadians, and later, when they finnaly
got to New Orleans, the heat made their mouths REAL lazy, and they
became "Cajuns". So, there's people on North Carolina's Outer Banks
that belong to the Lost Tribe of Mardi Gras! That's a joke, of course,
but the facts stand. The US is the Melting Pot, and North Carolina is
where you lift the lid.


So much for history as it's taught.

They say the winners write it. That's a lie told by the winners so you
won't believe the losers' side of the story. Darn shame. Sometimes
it's the "other side", and sometimes it's just other history you might
never know otherwise, not for or against any side.

We're still here.