The Queen was in Virginia this week to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the founding of Jamestown by English settlers. We've visited Jamestown, and we saw how tenuous their hold was on life in the New World. Everybody knows about the hardships they faced and the death and disappearance of the whole settlement.
This current English settlement anniversary reminded me of the Randy Newman song about the Great Nations of Europe, and how they ravaged the native populations through conflict and disease:
Great Nations of Europe
The Great Nations of Europe
Had gathered on the shore.
They'd conquered what was behind them
And now they wanted more.
So they looked to the mighty ocean
And took to the western sea
The great nations of Europe in the sixteenth century.
Hide your wives and daughters,
Hide the groceries too,
Great nations of Europe coming through.
The Grand Canary Islands
First land to which they came.
They slaughtered all the canaries
Which gave the land its name.
There were natives there called Guanches
Guanches by the score.
Bullets, disease, the Portuguese,
And they weren't there anymore.
Now they're gone, they're gone, they're really gone.
You've never seen anyone so gone.
Some pictures in a museum,
Some lines written in a book.
But you won't find a live one no matter where you look.
Hide your wives and daughters,
Hide the groceries too,
Great nations of Europe coming through.
Columbus sailed for India,
Found Salvador instead.
He shook hands with some Indians
And soon they all were dead.
They got TB and typhoid and athlete's foot
Diphtheria and the flu.
Excuse me - Great nations coming through.
Balboa found the Pacific
And on the trail one day
He met some friendly Indians
Whom he was told were gay
So he had them torn apart by dogs
On religious grounds they say.
The great nations of Europe were quite holy in their way.
Now they're gone, they're gone, they're really gone,
You've never seen anyone so gone.
Some bones hidden in a canyon,
Some paintings in a cave.
There's no use trying to save them
There's nothing left to save.
Hide your wives and daughters,
Hide your sons as well.
With the great nations of Europe you never can tell.
From where you and I are standing
At the end of a century
Europes have sprung up everywhere as even I can see
But there on the horizon is a possibility -
Some bug from out of Africa might come for you and me,
Destroying everything in its path
From sea to shining sea.
Like the great nations of Europe
In the sixteenth century.
I know that Randy got the century wrong - but I think it's a most profound statement on the effects of colonialism and imperialism.
