James,

The clarify, I was not referring to the Norsemen as the first European 
settlers in the New World, but the Albans who lived on mainland of Canada 
for perhaps hundreds of years before the Norsemen came. They were not 
totally isolated, but made annual trips back to their home islands with furs 
and even brought back a bishop from time to time to perform marriages and 
baptisms. They were a predominantly seafaring people who may have used their 
boats in winter as roofs to their stone houses (which still exist).

What is a distince different between the Albans in the 10th-11th and 12th 
cenutry is that they strove to get along with and intermarried with the 
natives rather than trying to conquer or enslave them.

There is also the high likelihood that the great fishermen of 1000 years ago 
regularly used the extensive fishing banks of America, but, in order to 
insure that their "fishing holes" were not crowded with everyone, chose to 
keep the locations secret. Again, they used the land for curing fish for 
transport back to Europe, and traded with the Indians rather than attempting 
to conquer or enslave them.

It is unfortunate that when the Americas does enter into the history record, 
it is accompanied by inhuman behaviors that ended up destroying large 
swathes of the native population.

The archeological evidence also points to a Chinese presence on the west 
coast of the Americas preceding Columbus. It also points to a Pacific Coast 
South American civilization that co-existed with the Sumerian civilizations 
which pushes back the date of the arrival of humanity to America by several 
thousand years and suggests that not all Americans arrived by a northern 
route across the Bering Straits.

I agree that the fascination with history is that what is written is never 
the final answer or story. There is always more to be discovered in various 
nooks and crannies.

My objection is the tendency to dismiss out of hand that which comes to us 
via long-repressed oral histories because it "tarnishes" the reputation of 
those we've put on pedestals. First of all, we need to stop putting 
historical people on pedestals, and second, we need to recognize that 
certain aspects of lives were repressed in their time but that is not 
evidence they didn't take place.

I think we need to keep open minds on the paternity claims of oral history, 
and do the research to estalish them, bearing in mind that we could be 
looking for evidence that was deliberately repressed in the original 
lifetimes. I would not assume that oral histories are necessarily matters of 
aggrandizing one's family history without strong evidence that this is the 
case. Otherwise, oral family histories are just more clues to be 
investigated rather than negated out of hand. We know with certainty that 
some slaveowners felt the way to increase their wealth was by siring more 
slaves. That they had an innate sense they were doing wrong by keeping such 
issue in bondage points out the inhumanity of slavery as much as the sins of 
those who used this method to increase their wealth.

At present, we hold in high esteem those who "create wealth" and amass great 
fortunes. At some time in the future, this may be seen as unsavory, and the 
"heroes" of the present day will become notorious in the future.

Anne

Anne Pemberton
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http://www.erols.com/apembert
http://www.educationalsynthesis.org 

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