Isolating Monuments

“Our western boundary would be the Rio Grande. With such a barrier on our west we are invincible.” These were the words our seventh president (Trump's hero) in 1845 as the annexation of Texas was mulled. In the day's before the Mexican-American War (1846-1848)war was still something America did not see as a casual line of defense. It was not until May of 1846 that President James Polk informed Congress of the invading Mexican troops, of the violence and bloodshed. Congress declared war, as America was attacked, but many Americans were against the decision, seeing Polk's agenda to expand America.

Jackson, who emulated Trump in callous legislation that ignores humanity, spoke the aforementioned words in his final days on the earth. He had thought the natural barrier of a grand river was enough to repel intruders and infidels. The world is constantly changing. The case for the United States is forever in balance, trying to supply—or deny—the demand to enter. In  To the Front of the Bus: Movement toward a fair Democracy, I trace, I show the lineage of how and from where America came to change. I address, in scrupulous detail, why those changes were made and why they were so long in their legal and mindful applications.

Drawing boundaries, securing our nation, defending America for real or heavily exaggerated invaders is uniquely American. Building barriers; walls,fences, along a 2,000 mile border 50 miles at stretch, has become the new American pastime. One small section of America will let any injustice,any immorality, hypocrisy, or human suffering go on as long as a barrier is erected. The other, much larger section of America is trying to keep the barriers down to a minimum, to build physical bridges where they are best fitted. Therein lies the divide. The fuse which has been burning since anyone cares to remember. It's the 1% versus the 99% of America. In James Madison America was divided on the War of 1812, whether it was necessary on just how autonomous from England we wanted to be. The war was, in the words of historian Sam Eliot Morison, “the most unpopular war that this country has ever waged, not seen excepting the Vietnam conflict.” In Jackson's day America was divided. In Polk's day the nation was divided on the motives to wage war against Mexico. By the Civil War, America was questioning its ability to survive as a divided nation. The rest is history slated to repeat itself like a syndicated reality show.

To the Front of the Bus: Movement toward a fair Democracy drives to the root of that mantle of divisiveness,investigates where it all began, and cites the numerous times people have conquered it with or without the law on their side. I start at the embryonic America, the “new world,” the “passage to India” that Columbus stumbled upon. On October 12, 1492 Columbus first landed in the new world, on an island he named San Salvador, claimed for Spain, and set about creating barriers that would set America's course for centuries.

“More than two centuries before America declared independence from Britain, Christopher Columbus landed in what are now the Caribbean Islands. In 1492 he landed, narrowly avoiding mutiny from his crew, in San Salvador. He claimed it for Spain. Initially meeting the natives with a mutual friendly curiosity, Columbus soon exploited and decimated them. He enslaved the people, set fire to their homes, and instigated numerous atrocities. He and his crew introduced diseases on his first voyage to Hispaniola (what is now Haiti and the Dominican Republic), bringing influenza, smallpox and measles to the Taino people. He rose to power, governing the new properties. By 1503, when he was charged with tyranny, he returned to Spain. Among his dubious achievements was the creation of the transatlantic slave trade.

In 1513, Juan Ponce de Leon began Spanish colonization in what is now St. Augustine, Florida. The Spanish invaders experienced minimal resistance from Calusa, Timucua and Apalachee tribes. Leon built settlements and fortifications as far north as the Appalachian Mountains and as far west as Texas. Like Columbus before him, Ponce de Leon, justified by the Inquisition, coerced the tribes into accepting his God. To accomplish this, Leon established missions and churches as far north as South Carolina. By the end of the 1600s, Spanish Florida, particularly St. Augustine, faced failure as a settlement.

Conflicts of interest between the Spanish and the English, with atrocious acts and disease brought by the Europeans, nearly eradicated the indigenous people of Florida, a culture that had thrived for more than twelve thousand years before contact with the Europeans. Scholars have estimated the indigenous population of America prior to the Spanish invasion to have been as high as eighteen million. When the era of English rule began in the early seventeenth century, that estimate had shrunk to six million. When the colonies and territories the Spanish had established fell under English rule there was an exodus, a forced migration of African and Native American slaves south.”

The plundering, violence, decimation, the castigation left by the man America commemorates every October set scales of imbalance for America's destiny. From the slave trade to the movements to bring equal representation to the disabled, equal opportunity and accessibility in transportation, and all the abrogation in between, my book investigates the cause and effects of Columbus' savagery on America. To the Front of the Bus: Movement toward a fair Democracy motivates America. I throw the hurdles in front of the black race, in front of women, ahead of the disabled. I look at how and why they shall, and have overcome.