Back in the mists of time, the local Acushnets, like most Native American tribes, had ceded land for settlers’ use, but not necessarily with the understanding that when Europeans are given access to land, they will assume ownership.

We give it the lofty name Manifest Destiny and claim it is how God wants it.

The area on the South Coast of what would become the state of Massachusetts was given over by Massasoit and his son, Wamsutta, in 1652 with the signed document beginning,

“Know all men by these presents, that I, Wesamequen, and Wamsutta my son, have sold unto Mr. William Bradford, Captain Standish, Thomas Southworth, John Winslow, John Cooke and their associates, the purchasers or old-comers, all the tract or tracts of land lying three miles eastward from a river called Cushenagg, to a certain harbour called Acoaksett, to a flat rock on the westerward side of said harbour.”

Eventually the Russel family came into possession of what would become New Bedford which at one point became the City that Lit the World and was home to a lot of money and rich people. This latter was the result of the industries of whaling, fishing, cloth manufacturing, the city’s Holy Trinity, with other acolyte industries sprinkled in all of which relied on Europe’s poor and huddled masses yearning to breathe free.

There were a lot of Black people as this was a place to escape to in the ante-bellum days. There were many people from the Lusophone world as whaling relied on wind and currents, and Islands like the Azores and Cabo Verde were natural stops during a voyage where crew members were added because the ship left port shorthanded or deserted crew needed to be replaced who went with the ship and ended up here.

As manufacturing grew and workers were needed, by and large, they weren’t from the most desirable class to please the Guilded Age. If you weren’t a person of color, chances are you were somewhere on the sliding scale of “poor white Trash”.

Recently, even though Bristol County got rid of its white supremacist, anti-immigrant sheriff, quite surprisingly there has been an uptick with racism and white supremacy on the South Coast.

I lived in Oklahoma where the supremacist crowd demanded that whites “take back the (your location here)” when they had actually taken it from the people who had already been there. White supremacists coming to this town demand White people take it back not realizing if the people who were entitled to take it back were anything but White guys.

They claim they are the superior people, the only ones who actually count.

In 1843 the state of Massachusetts decided stop fighting the tide, to stop shoveling the excrement into it choosing instead to agree with the supremacists that they were indeed the benchmark of humanity and passed  

General laws: Part 1:Title XV: Section 102. 

 “(a) All persons within the commonwealth, regardless of sex, race, color, creed or national origin, shall have, except as is otherwise provided or permitted by law, the same rights enjoyed by white male citizens, to make and enforce contracts, to inherit, purchase, to lease, sell, hold and convey real and

personal property, to sue, be parties, give evidence, and to the full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of persons and property, and shall be subject to like punishment, pains, penalties, taxes, licenses, and exactions of every kind, and to no other.

So a group of very White men, New England Yankees with a heavy Boston Brahman bent, acknowledge their superiority and selflessly chose to extend it to all. 

New people from other places are demanding we insult those who passed that law and those who built this city and the whole of the South Coast by undoing what they had done.

This was a White Man’s law. 

If one reviews the history, if those who have the right to reclaim the land are nothing by like White, and to demand taking something back requires being aware of the chain of ownership so you are aware when the taking back begins and to whom it will lead.

And besides, initiation is the sincerest form of flattery, so, making people equal to White guys is quite the compliment.

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