Anglo-American Global Village Lecture

Early inhabitants of this global village, arrived 12 to 20,000 years ago, hailing from the North, by land or by sea – or perhaps both.  They spoke a variety of languages and had tribal customs, traditions, and shamans for religious and healing purposes.

These early peoples who crossed the Bering Strait by foot, or those that may have arrived by sea, had enough technology and material culture to satisfy the basic needs of hunting, gathering, and fishing.  They made nets, wove baskets, and lived in dwellings that were made of environmental resources or animal hides.  They often used both timber and bones for the framework of their homes.  The early populations spread across the continent in all directions, and they lived thousands of years within the North American region, developing unique and often isolated cultures depending upon where they settled.

After the first inhabitants, described as Native Americans, arrived in North America, another group of people arrived by sea around 1,000 AD.  They are believed to be from Scandinavia and are commonly called Norsemen. The Norsemen stopped over in Greenland before continuing to the northeast coast of Canada.

Scholars do not know for sure if these new seafarers interacted with the First Nations of Canada. (Native Americans) The ruins of their settlements were discovered in the 1960s in Newfoundland. Now, however, new evidence from material culture suggests that Viking traders, even further north, may have interacted on friendly terms with at least one native population known as the Dorset people.

The pre-historic Dorset culture and people are said to have thrived in the Canadian eastern Arctic and as far south as Newfoundland from about 800 BC to 1300 AD.  They are named the Dorset people only because the ruins of their settlements were first excavated at a place known as Cape Dorset on Baffin Island, located in Canada among the Arctic Archipelago.  The little-known and very remote Baffin Island is the largest island in Canadian territory and the fifth largest island in the world.  The people inhabiting this island may be another faction of the Native Inuit culture (formerly called Eskimo). There is much speculation concerning the Viking era in the New World, but it ended around the 14th century for reasons still being contemplated.

After the Viking era, in 1497, John Cabot staked claim to the New World for Anglo-Britain.  He was on a mission for King Henry VII, (King of England from 1485-1509) looking for another route to Asia.

Christopher Columbus arrived earlier in the New World on his first voyage of 1492-1493, but he never actually set foot on the mainland of North America.  His early island outposts, however, became the launching pads for all those who followed his exploratory paths.

The first successful colony by the British was not established until 1607, and that first Anglo-cultural hearth is located in what is now the state of Virginia. Early pilgrims followed in 1620, landing in Massachusetts; and America’s Thanksgiving holiday is patterned after the legend of their friendly interactions with the Native peoples they encountered.

Unfortunately, such friendly interactions were short-lived, and the rest is a recorded history of complex struggles for several centuries between the Native Americans and the influx of immigrants from many parts of the Old World.

In today’s Anglo-American Global Village, both Anglos and Native Americans live among hundreds of immigrants from different countries who bring new languages, customs, and cultures to the North American continent.

Such diverse populations and cultures could not live in peace without the stable governments of Canada and the United States, which strive to provide multi-cultural policies that promote freedom, and opportunity for all in this extremely diverse Anglo-American Global Village.

My Father Had No Children