Indigenous Invaders Day

Doncha know me? I'm your native son.

I was born here.

Well, not here, because I’m sitting in my 1904 barn, in Fort Collins, Colorado.

By here I mean: this continent. Specifically, in glamorous Bridgeport, Connecticut, home of P.T. Barnum and a sucker born every minute. And my people have been in place in New England for many generations. Three of my relatives arrived on the Mayflower in 1620: Francis Cooke and his son John, plus Richard Warren. Richard’s daughter Sarah Warren arrived on the good ship Anne in 1623 and she married the aforementioned John, setting off a DNA cascade through my maternal grandmother’s side—a line that also ties me to the Stuarts, in the royal line of England.

Impressive, right?

Well, actually…my people were a mere 15,000 years behind the first settlers on this continent.

I’m not related to Christopher Columbus, who is the reason you won’t be receiving any junk mail on this federal holiday. Columbus is now widely acknowledged as a despoiler of all he “discovered” when he sailed the ocean blue in…