American children are taught about how America was founded by men and women escaping persecution in England for their religion and that's true, we demanded that England become as fundamentally religious as we were, King James said no so we said right then, your persecuting us so we're off to make our own country but the first stop was The Netherlands.
My role was to raise the funds to get us over the Atlantic and it was a group of businessmen called the Merchant Adventurers who saw a business opportunity and funded us with the condition that we would trade with them once we got there.
With the funding behind us, we hired two ships, the Speedwell and the Mayflower and set off but the Speedwell sank before it was even made it out of the harbour so all 120 of us piled onto the Mayflower and tried again, Virginia ahoy.
Six weeks of disease, scurvy and stepping in people's sick later, we turned up 200 miles away from Virginia but everyone said for crying out loud let us off this damned boat so we landed and one of the very first things we did to celebrate our leaving behind all things English was to name many towns and cities after places in England and even named Plymouth where we landed after the city where we sailed from.
We also agreed that we were free to do what the English wouldn't let us do and banned Christmas and Easter and fined anyone caught not working on December 25th or enjoying a sneaky feast for the baby Jesus.
We were also able to now give our children silly names like "Remember', Truelove', 'Wrestling', 'Humility' and 'Peregrine' without the endless ribbing.
I was made the colony Governor and worked out a treaty of peace with the local natives but that first Winter was tough and many died although i managed to get through it only to die a few months later after lying down with a headache and not waking up again.
I am proud to have played a part in what would evolve into America with a Constitution written by a dude with wooden teeth and people coming to these shores to pursue the American dream of life, liberty and the chance to militarily exploit other nations for their resources.
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