Jews Fighting in American Revolutionary War

 Nadene Goldfoot                                                  

                                  It looks like the Eastern Seaboard to me...

The thirteen original states involved in the American Revolutionary War were: Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Georgia, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maryland, New Hampshire, New York, Rhode Island, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia. These colonies, which were part of British America, declared their independence in 1776 and fought for it in the Revolutionary War.  

The 4th of July, or Independence Day, celebrates the adoption of the Declaration of Independence in 1776, marking the United States' separation from Great Britain and the end of the American Revolutionary War. While the war itself continued for several more years, this day signifies the official declaration of the colonies' independence. 

During the American Revolutionary War, Jews actively participated on both the Continental Army side and in support roles, with some even serving as officers. Estimates suggest that around 100 Jews fought in the Continental Army, with others contributing through financial support and supplying provisions. 

Like other colonial Americans, their loyalties were divided, with a sizable majority favoring the Patriot vision of an independent America.  Jewish merchants’ signatures appeared on the various non-importation resolutions adopted by individual colonies. Like other Americans, they opposed the power of the British Parliament to tax the colonies. But some Jews probably had mixed feelings, given the freedoms they enjoyed under British rule. 

 Benjamin Mendes Seixas, a prominent merchant and founder of the New York Stock Exchange. a large family of Marrano origin, from Portuguese, another was a banker, part of Gershom Mendes Seixas family... 

Gershom Mendes Seixas, (1745-1816) son of immigrant Sephardi Jew,  Isaac Mendes (1708-1780) who emigrated to America from Portugal in 1730.  Gershom was the minister (rabbi) of Congregation Shearith Israel in New York  for some 50 years.  When the British occupied New York City  in 1776, he took the scrolls and other religious objects from the synagogue and went to Stratford, Conn. and then to Philadelphia where he helped found the 1st Jewish congregation in 1780.  After the British left New York, he returned to is duties there.  He was one of 13 clergymen to participate in George Washington's 1st  inauguration.  Gershom was a trustee of Columbia College from 17887-1815.  He achieved prominence as an educator of the deaf and introduced the daguerrotype into America.  At the same time, Benjamin Mendes was a founder of the New York stock exchange.  

In New York, as the British fleet appeared in the harbor, Reverend Gershom Mendes Seixas called his congregants to the Mill Street Synagogue. There he delivered a powerful patriotic address and shortly thereafter left the city for safety in Stratford, Connecticut. While most other patriotic Jews also left the city, a small number remained behind and, together with the few Loyalist Jews, kept the synagogue open. During the war, the congregation was led first by a Tory sympathizer and later by a Jewish Hessian officer who fought with the British and remained after the hostilities ended.   (Hessian forces, which were German mercenaries primarily from the region of Hesse-Kassel hired by the British. One notable Jewish figure who worked with the Hessians was Haym Salomon, who used his German language skills to assist prisoners of war and encourage desertion, but he was not a Hessian officer. (below)                                   

Chaim/Haym Salomon,(1740-1785) Jewish financier of the Revolution, began the war as a wealthy merchant whose unstinting financial sacrifices helped to keep the Revolution going.  Chaim was born in Lissa, Poland, immigrated in 1772, went into the brokerage business.  He was all for the patriot cause and wound up in prison.  Later he became a broker to the Office of Finance and collaborated with Robert Morris in maintaining public credit during 1781-1784.  Using his own money, he financed patriot leaders such as James Madison and Thomas Jefferson.  With his assistance, an expert in finance, he helped consolidate the American republic in its formative years.  He died penniless.

British attacks forced residents, including Jews, from the cities of Newport, Philadelphia, Boston, and Charleston. Of the approximately 1,500 Jews scattered among the 13 colonies on the eve of the American Revolution, about 200 lived in Newport–the largest concentration of Jews in the colonies.Newport, Rhode Island, was a prominent seaport and a significant city within the 13 colonies. Founded in 1639, it was one of the original settlements of the Rhode Island and Providence Plantations colony. Newport played a vital role in colonial trade, particularly as a hub for the "Triangle Trade" and as a center for shipbuilding and rum production. It also held importance for its early embrace of religious tolerance and its role in the American Revolution. After the war, Newport transitioned into a Gilded Age summer resort for the wealthy, with the construction of grand mansions. 

Mordecai Sheftall of Savannah, Georgia, and his son was the head of the local revolutionary committee and was responsible for provisioning soldiers.  They were captured by the British in 1778.  Parolled from the British ship, Nancy, local Tories beat and killed Patriots as British troops evacuated under fire from American forces, and both Sheftalls escaped by sea, only to be recaptured and sent to Antigua, but freed in 1780.

Aaron Lopez was one of the Newport Jews who opposed British rule and abandoned the city where they had developed roots and prospered. Lopez led his extended family and members of the Rivera and Mendes families, numbering nearly 70 people, to temporary settlement in Leicester, Massachusetts. The renowned synagogue was closed, and its spiritual leader, Isaac Touro, who professed Loyalist tendencies, sailed with his family to Jamaica where he lived out his life under British rule. According the diary of the Reverend Ezra Stiles, the few Jews remaining in Newport were “very officious as Informing against the Inhabitant–who are one + another frequently taken up + put in Gaol.”

Isaac Touro (`1740-1784), minister (I hope this is meant as a rabbi) though he could have been a Marrano or Anusim;  The Hebrew word used to describe Jews forcibly converted during the Spanish Inquisition is Anusim, meaning "the coerced". While other terms like "Conversos" (Spanish for "converts") and "Marranos" (an offensive term meaning "pigs") were also used, "Anusim" specifically highlights the forced nature of their conversion.  Isaac was the father of  Judah.

Touro, then twenty years old, was from a Dutch Sephardic family—who in Spain had been the de Toros—and had trained in Amsterdam for the rabbinate (although he was never ordained). Before his arrival in Newport, Touro may have spent time in Curacao, Suriname, or New York, and certainly in Jamaica. It was from there that he arrived in 1758, as the city of Newport reached its commercial peak.

Judah Touro (1775-1854) son of Isaac,  US philanthropist, born in Newport, 

Rhode Island, became a prosperous merchant in New Orleans]

and gave generously to Jewish and Christian charities.  He and

his brother, Abraham (1774-1822) were responsible for the pres

ervation and maintenance of Newport's 18th cent. synagogue.

Judah's will made it possible  the construction of the 1st res-

idential units in what became the new city of Jerusalem.  

Reuben Etting of Baltimore enlisted the moment he heard about the Battle of Lexington and headed north to Massachusetts. He was taken prisoner by the British who, when they discovered he was Jewish, gave him only pork, which he refused to eat. He was able to survive on scraps of permitted food from fellow prisoners. Weakened by such treatment, he died shortly after his release. A cousin bearing the same name, born in 1762, also fought in the war and was appointed as a United States marshal in 1801 by President Thomas Jefferson.

Abgail Minis supplied provisions to American troops in 1779, angering British authorities. She received permission from them, however, to move with her daughters to safety in Charleston, South Carolina. She died in 1794 at the age of 94.

For Jews, participation in the war marked the first time since their exile from Jerusalem in 70 CE  that they could take their place alongside their Christian neighbors as equals in a fight for freedom. Jews were present at Bunker Hill, Valley Forge, and other battle sites throughout the colonies. Behind the scenes, they provided logistic support by equipping soldiers, shipping supplies, and raising funds. Ship owners such as Isaac Moses of Philadelphia outfitted privateers to harass British shipping.  

Isaac Moses: (1742-April 16, 1818) of Philadelphia outfitted privateers to harass British shipping, and their ships engaged in running the British blockade to provide necessary provisions to the needy Revolutionary forces. He  helped establish the Bank of North America in 1781. He was born in the Holy Roman Empire.  He came to the 13 colonies in 1764.  

Resource:

https://www.myjewishlearning.com/arti

The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia

July 4th Celebrating USA's Birthday with Remembering The Jews' Introduction to New York Before Statehood and the Blacks in Oregon

 Nadene Goldfoot                                            

The 13 original states were New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. New York actually became a state on July 9, 1776.  

Tomorrow we celebrate the 247th  anniversary of the creation of the United States of America.  It's one of the youngest of the countries on this planet.  Only 13 colonies were united in 1776 when it became a country.                                 

The 13 original states were the first 13 British colonies. British colonists traveled across the Atlantic Ocean from Europe and were daringly brave to step into small-leaky boats manned only by sails.  Who would dare do such a thing today?  The first was John Robinson, pastor from Amsterdam's son, Isaac.  John stayed on land with the rest of his flock.  In time, there were only a few members left as several had between 1629 and 1633 sporadically relocated to the Plymouth Colony. This included Robinson's son Isaac who arrived in 1631 and joined the Pilgrims at the Plymouth Colony.

I have a ggrandfather, Abiathar Smith Robinson, who was born in Vermont, but often thought it was New York.  Vermont was created on March 4, 1791,  only 15 years later,  out of a piece of New York, evidently.  The following are 15 towns near the New York border but now in Vermont:

1. Swanton, VT (about 11 miles from the border)
2. Saint Albans, VT (about 12 miles from the border)
3. Milton, VT (about 13 miles from the border)
4. Colchester, VT (about 9 miles from the border)
5. Burlington, VT (about 4 miles from the border)
6. Winooski, VT (about 6 miles from the border)
7. South Burlington, VT (about 6 miles from the border)
8. Shelburne, VT (about 4 miles from the border)
9. Williston, VT (about 11 miles from the border)
10. Jericho, VT (about 15 miles from the border)
11. Hinesburg, VT (about 10 miles from the border)
12. Middlebury, VT (about 12 miles from the border)
13. Rutland, VT (about 14 miles from the border)
14. Manchester, VT (about 9 miles from the border)
15. Bennington, VT (about 3 miles from the border)

New York's name was originally "New Amsterdam."  They showed how their people felt about Jews right away;  at least Peter did.  The Jewish arrival in New Amsterdam of September 1654 was the first organized Jewish migration to North America. 

Spain's new Christianity decided not to allow Jews in their country, so in 1492, they made a law expelling all Jews unless they converted to Christianity.  180,000 Jews were kicked out of Spain.  50,000 converted to Christianity -forced to-many becoming Marranos (hiding their Judaism).  

When it had become a Christian state, Jews, probably from Spain along with Jews living there over 100 years already, had been living there, in Lisbon, Beja, and Santa-rem. Since the founding of the official Kingdom of Portugal in 1139, the country has been predominantly Christian. The first king of Portugal, Afonso Henriques, declared a unified church and state under Christianity. 

A whole community of Jews had been converted by force in 1497, 5 years after Spain's decision,  and they too became Marranos (hidden Jews).  When the Spanish Inquisition was introduced in the 16th century in Portugual, the refugees who fled to escape it formed the Portuguese synagogues in Amsterdam.  England had expelled Jews earlier, in 1290 as a result of Christianity through the Byzantine Empire's wishes, and Jews were not allowed back into England until 1655, the year after the boat full of Jews turned up near New Amsterdam.   

 It comprised 23 Sephardi Jews, refugees "big and little" of families fleeing persecution by the Portuguese Inquisition after the conquest of Dutch Brazil. It is widely commemorated as the starting point of New York Jewish and Jewish-American history.  The Jews had sailed from Recife on the ship Valck, one of at least sixteen that left mostly bound for the Netherlands at the end of the Dutch–Portuguese War. Valck was blown off course to Jamaica and/or Cuba.  According to account in Saul Levi Morteira and David Franco Mendes, they were then taken by Spanish pirates for a time. In Cuba, the Jews eventually boarded the St. Catrina, called by later historians the "Jewish Mayflower", which took them to New Amsterdam.

                  Peter Stuyvesant--America's first and worst anti-Semite, b; 1610-d:August 1672)the  Dutch Director General of New Netherland from 1647 until it ceded to the English in 1664.  Then it split into New York and New Jersey.  Stuyvesant, himself a member of the Dutch Reformed Church, opposed religious pluralism and came into conflict with Lutherans, Jews, Roman Catholics, and Quakers as they attempted to build places of worship in the city and practice their faiths. Stuyvesant was in particular antisemitic, loathing both the Jewish race and religion.

The new Jewish community faced antisemitic opposition to their settlement from Director-General Peter Stuyvesant, as well as a monetary dispute with the captain of the St. Catrina, which required adjudication from the Dutch West India Company. They were aided by some Ashkenazi Jewish traders who had arrived just a month earlier, on the ship Peereboom, from Amsterdam via London. This group included Jacob Barsimson, and perhaps Solomon Pietersen and Asser Levy, who has also in earlier sources been claimed as one of the twenty-three. The new community founded Congregation Shearith Israel, which still endures as the oldest Jewish congregation in the United States.

Peter Stuyvesant wasn't going to allow them to land because they were Jews.  As he wrote to the Amsterdam Chamber of the Dutch West India Company in 1654, he hoped that "the deceitful race, — such hateful enemies and blasphemers of the name of Christ, — be not allowed to further infect and trouble this new colony." He referred to Jews as a "repugnant race" and "usurers", and was concerned that   "Jewish settlers should not be granted the same liberties enjoyed by Jews in Holland, lest members of other persecuted minority groups, such as Roman Catholics, be attracted to the colony."

As it turned out, these Jews were representatives of the Dutch East India Company who paid Stuyvesant his salary.  They were all for allowing the Jews entrance to the land and told Peter so.                           

I see that Jan Pieterszoon Coen ([ˈjɑn ˈpitərzoːn ˈkun], 8 January 1587 – 21 September 1629) was an officer of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) in the early 17th century,      

Jan Pieterszoon Coen who was born in Hoorn on 8 January 1587, and was raised by his family in accordance with strict Calvinist principles,.The five principles of Calvinism as formulated by the Synod of Dort (1618-1619) are summarized in "tulip," a popular acronym for total depravity, unconditional election, limited atonement, irresistibility of grace and final perseverance of the saints. Calvin was a religious man who had left  the Roman Catholic Church and was very strict. They believed in the authority and sufficiency of Scripture for one to know God and one's duties to God and one's neighbour; the equal authority of both Old and New Testaments, the true interpretation of which is assured by the internal testimony of the Holy Spirit; the doctrines of God as triune and as creator and sustainer of all things, of Christ the Mediator, whose atonement for sin satisfies the divine justice, and of justification by faith issuing in an ethic that aims to transform every aspect of life.

 Jan held two terms as governor-general of the Dutch East Indies. In 1601, he travelled to Rome, to study trade in the offices of the Fleming Joost de Visscher, where he learned the art of bookkeeping. Joining the Dutch East India Company (VOC) in 1606, he made a trading voyage to the East Indies in 1607 with the fleet of Pieter Willemsz Verhoeff.

He was the founder of Batavia, capital of the Dutch East Indies. Renowned for providing the impulse that set the VOC on the path to dominance in the Dutch East Indies, he was long considered a national hero in the Netherlands. Since the 19th century, his legacy has become controversial due to the violence he employed, especially during the last stage of the Dutch conquest of the Banda Islands, in order to secure a trade monopoly on nutmeg, mace and clove.  A famed quote of his from 1618, Despair not, spare your enemies not, for God is with us, illustrates his single-minded ruthlessness, and his unstinting belief in the divinely-sanctioned nature of his project.

I bet his name was originally Cohen and he came from a Jewish family who had to become Marranos, Jews that had to go underground in hiding the fact they were Jews.  They hid it so well that soon the children really were brought up as Christians and this Coen was one of them.  All history, knowledge of his ancestors, could have been lost by the time he was born.                      

                  Size of Israel compared to USA's lower 48

On the West coast, for it took a while for people to travel across this North American Continent that hadn't been known about in Europe:  California on September 9, 1850; Oregon on February 14, 1859; and Washington on November 11, 1889.  Alaska on January 3, 1959 and Hawaii on August 21, 1959.  It was our 34th president, Dwight David Eisenhower who was the 1st president to reside over all 50 states with his term from 1953 to 1961.  

7 year old Dick Bogle b: 1930  with his mother, Katheryn Hall Bogle, a reporter for the Oregonian in Portland, Oregon. America's president then was Herbert Hoover (1929-1933).  Dick wore a lot of hats in Portland; sports editor, head of Portland's fire department, police officer, detective, had a jazz radio show, etc.  His father had been a postman from a line of very impressive Bogles. Dick's ggrandfather had been born in Jamaica.    

Dick Bogle speaks at the City of Unity Rainbow Rally, 1989. 

In honor of MLK, Jr., and in recognition of the death of a black college student in Portland. Courtesy Oregon Hist. Soc. Research Lib., bd000443

Blacks were not allowed in Oregon originally, but could move to Washington. Dick Bogle's family were affected by that ruling.  His ancestor, America, could not follow the wagon train to Oregon and instead was able to live in Washington. 

The first Black exclusion law in Oregon, adopted in 1844 by the Provisional Government, mandated that Blacks attempting to settle in Oregon would be publicly whipped—thirty-nine lashes, repeated every six months—until they departed. There is no documented record of any official whipping—the law was written with a grace period, and it was repealed before it had expired—but the concept was clear. In 1849, the Oregon Territorial Government adopted a second Black exclusion law, which was repealed in 1853.

The Oregon constitution, adopted in 1857, banned slavery but also excluded Blacks from legal residence. It made it illegal for Blacks to be in Oregon or to own real estate, make contracts, vote, or use the legal system. Like earlier exclusion laws, the constitutional ban, which took effect when Oregon became a state in 1859, was not retroactive, which meant that it did not apply to Blacks who were legally in Oregon before the ban was adopted.

  

Resource:

https://americanhistory.si.edu/citizenship/learn/a-growing-nation/64/learn#:~:text=The%2013%20original%20states%20were,the%20Atlantic%20Ocean%20from%20Europe.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_East_India_Company

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Robinson_(pastor)#:~:text=In%20time%2C%20there%20were%20only,Pilgrims%20at%20the%20Plymouth%20Colony.

https://statedistance.com/border-new-york-and-vermont

https://www.census.gov/newsroom/stories/vermont-admission-anniversary.html#:~:text=From%20the%20Guide%20to%202010,territory%20of%20the%20United%20States.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Pieterszoon_Coen

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Stuyvesant#:~:text=As%20he%20wrote%20to%20the,usurers%22%2C%20and%20was%20concerned%20that

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_arrival_in_New_Amsterdam

How A Failing Population Became the Best In The World

 Nadene Goldfoot                                             

                    John Robinson, Reverend (1575-1624) who sent Puritans over to America on          the  ship, The Mayflower.  He died in Holland.

The USA is unlike any established European country.  It was created by the failures of the world.  What was going on in Europe in the 1600s was that the eldest son inherited the land, property, the estates of his fathers.  The other sons received none of this.  They had to make do some other way. "In law, primogeniture is the rule of inheritance whereby land descends to the oldest son. Under the feudal system of medieval Europe, primogeniture generally governed the inheritance of land held in military tenure (see knight)".  Real estate (land) passed to the eldest male descendant by operation of law.

The Puritans were unwanted in England as they didn't want to follow the established religion of the king's choice.  They had moved to Holland for a better life but found their children speaking Dutch as their 1st language. They moved because their religious views weren't allowed.   They realized that with the discovery of a new land, they had a chance to live the life they wanted and needed. Another group arrived earlier and made it to the South, Jamestown in Virginia.  They were more business centered, and wanted a start in life.  

 There was more enthusiasm within the young sons of the establishments of Europe.  A fleet of ships went over to America in 1630.  This continued.  They saw they  could make their own fortunes in this new land.                                                     

                           Emma Lazarus (1849-1887) Jewish poet

 By 1886 France sent over a gift;  the Statue of Liberty, that said,   "Give me your tired, your poor,  Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,  The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.  Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,  I lift my lamp beside the golden door!". This was written by Emma Lazarus, part of her poem entitled, The Colossus.                                    

 The statue was built in France, shipped overseas in crates, and assembled on the completed pedestal on what was then called Bedloe's Island. The statue's completion was marked by New York's first ticker-tape parade and a dedication ceremony presided over by President Grover Cleveland.

Emma Lazarus was born in New York City, July 22, 1849, into a large Sephardic Jewish family. She was the fourth of seven children of Moses Lazarus, a wealthy Jewish merchant and sugar refiner, and Esther Nathan. One of her great-grandfathers on the Lazarus side was from Germany; the rest of her Lazarus and Nathan ancestors were originally from Portugal and resident in New York long before the American Revolution, being among the original twenty-three Portuguese Jews who arrived in New Amsterdam fleeing the Inquisition from their settlement of Recife, Brazil. Lazarus's great-great-grandmother on her mother's side, Grace Seixas Nathan (born in New York in 1752) was also a poet. Lazarus was related through her mother to Benjamin N. Cardozo, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Her siblings included sisters Josephine, Sarah, Mary, Agnes and Annie, and a brother, Frank.

Privately educated by tutors from an early age, she studied American and British literature as well as several languages, including German, French, and Italian. She was attracted in youth to poetry, writing her first lyrics when eleven years old.

Emma was fortunate to have come from a wealthy Jewish family, as later 

Ashkenazi Jews of Europe who were of a poor lot came over and had 

no one to help them except themselves which they did.  

Emma's Sephardic background was also one of fear and hunger ever since 1492

and the Spanish inquisition with Jews leaving Spain, forced to leave as

unwanted people.  

Jews have settled in New York state since the 17th century. In August 1654, the first known Jewish settler, Jacob Barsimson of Dutch or German origin, arrived a month before the 1st group of 23 Jews in 1654, came to New Amsterdam. The Dutch colonial port city was the seat of the government for the New Netherland territory and became New York City in 1664.  One thing about Jacob was that he was a champion of equal rights for the Jews in New Amsterdam.  He insisted upon his right to render guard duty in place of paying a fine or tax.  

The first significant group of Jewish settlers came in September 1654 as refugees from Recife, Brazil to New Amsterdam. Portugal had just conquered Brazil from the Dutch Republic and the Spanish and Portuguese Jews there promptly fled. A group of 23 Jewish immigrants in New Amsterdam was greeted by director general Peter Stuyvesant who was at first unwilling to accept them.

The Jewish population in New York City went from about 80,000 in 1880 to 1.6 million in 1920. By 1910, more than 1 million Jews made up 25 percent of New York's population and made it the world's largest Jewish city. As of 2016, about 1.1 million residents of New York City, or about 12 percent of its residents, were Jewish. New York state has about 1.75 million Jews, comprising approximately 9 percent of its total population.  Many Ashkenazi Jews came over in the late 1800s and early 1900s till about 1920 when the door closed to them. 

  This period of immigration came to an end with the passage of restrictive laws in 1921 and 1924. Jewish emigration from Eastern Europe to the United States never again reached the levels that it did before 1920.  In 1921 and 1924, the US Congress passed immigration laws that severely limited the number and “national origin” of new immigrants. These laws did not change in the 1930s, as desperate Jewish refugees attempted to immigrate from Nazi Germany.  Jews had problems entering the USA at this time  and Palestine in the 30s; with Palestine by the English who held the mandate and who were allowing Arabs in instead.  Other countries kept them out for reasons that they had no baptism certifications, needed to enter.  

My grandfather, Nahum Abraham Goldfus/foot came over from Lithuania and was found on the 1910 census in Portland, Oregon, but was killed accidently with his horse and wagon in an accident in July 1912.  He may have entered around 1905, as a son was born here in 1906.  

All sorts of Robinsons followed John.  Robinson became the 16th most popular surname, but John never made it over.  He did send his son, Isaac over, though.  Frank Hugh Robinson was born to an Abiathar Smith Robinson of Vermont or New York, since Vermont had been formed out of New York and Frank had lost track of his original ancestor who arrived from Great Britain.  His father was a teamster, a popular choice of work since men of those days were so used to handling horses and Abiathar had a farm with horses and cattle, so was a farmer first.  Frank became a teamster, too.  All immigrants who first came over were farmers.  They wanted land.  

New England had been settled first by the English.  There were plenty of French, Spanish, Dutch and even Russian colonial outposts on the American continent–but the story of those 13 colonies (New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia) is an important one. It was those colonies that came together to form the United States.

The United states grew from the first 13.  it became a melting pot, a mixture of all sorts of people from all corners of the world.  The only other country following in these footsteps now, is Israel, a  protective habitat for Jews from all corners of the world.  It's the time of the prophesized Ingathering. Just as people chose America, Jews are choosing to return to Israel.                                           

Israel has been the #1 leading nation of Start Ups, the starting up of new industry.  In fact, there is a book out about it.  "Start-up Nation: The Story of Israel's Economic Miracle is a 2009 book by Dan Senor and Saul Singer about the economy of Israel".  Israel was the country in the waiting for 2,000 years since 70 CE that was rebirthed on May 14, 1948, a very new nation making waves of success with the aid of its big brother, the USA another new nation only 245 years old on July 4, 2021. Both are made up of immigrants and some native peoples.  The immigrants were fighting for their lives to succeed as they had nowhere else to go.  So were the natives.  

it's important for the USA to remember why it has been a leader and are a country of leadership.  They need not follow Europe, as Europe needs the USA to lead us into the future.  What we need Europe for is to remember our past and not make similar mistakes that they have made, and to remember those efforts that were successful.  

I like what our 35th President John Fitzgerald Kennedy reminded us of:  "Ask not what can the country do for you, but what you can do for your country."  We need to remember our Constitution and what it stands for-and have some self control and use our heads and think about our actions.       

In 1790 we had 3,929,214 people.  

In 2020 we had 330,000,000 people.  A lot of people have immigrated to this country.  They have wanted to be Americans for many reasons.  It continues to be the grand young country and is just going through a growing pains period right now, but it will mature quickly and be better than ever for it, for it learns from its experiences.  Remember, on July 4th it will only be 245 years old !  Compared to Europe, that's a baby, but a baby genius!                          

Now that land has been spoken for, and there is no more left like there was in the 1600s, we are facing a new frontier-outer space.  That's where future dare-devils; people needing to explore and discover, will be going next.  We even have a space program set up and have been doing some explorations already.  We have NASA.  

Resource:

updated: 1/13/21 at midnight

https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/united-states-immigration-and-refugee-law-1921-1980

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_colonization_of_the_Americas#Southern_Colonies

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_inheritance_systems

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primogeniture#:~:text=In%20law%2C%20primogeniture%20is%20the,military%20tenure%20(see%20knight).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statue_of_Liberty

https://poets.org/poem/new-colossus?gclid=Cj0KCQiArvX_BRCyARIsAKsnTxO52dqUdstKzLtYEjlW-ILBBLxecELx5MN8hhKx0uJl-GjTkLx1Oq4aAsBrEALw_wcB

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA

https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/haventohome/haven-century.html

https://2020census.gov/en/focus/years-counting.html