Chapter Two - The Pilgrims Didn’t Land on Liberty

CHAPTER TWO

The Pilgrims Didn’t Land on Liberty

LET’S REWIND THE myth.

You were probably taught some version of this:

“Brave Pilgrims fled religious tyranny in Europe and came to America for freedom, unity, and a fresh start.”

Cute.
Also: deeply misleading.

They weren’t freedom fighters.
They were strict religious separatists who wanted the freedom to control, not the freedom to coexist.

And when they got here?
They didn’t build a land of tolerance.
They built a theocracy — one where their version of belief was law, and your version could get you hanged.

So no, they didn’t land on liberty.
They landed on Plymouth Rock and said:
“My way or the stocks.”

In Massachusetts Bay Colony, you could be exiled — or worse — for being a Quaker, a Catholic, or just having a slightly different opinion about how long church should last.

Ask Anne Hutchinson.
Ask Roger Williams.
Or, you know, ask the people who were already living here.

Because let’s not forget:
The land wasn’t “new.”
It was taken.
From people who had been living here for thousands of years.

You can’t “discover” land with entire civilizations on it.
But European settlers wrote the story — so in their version, they were the heroes.

And it wasn’t just the Pilgrims.
This pattern repeated across colonies:

• Come in the name of God.
• Take in the name of King.
• Kill in the name of progress.

And we’ve been calling it “freedom” ever since.

We don’t bring this up to dunk on old white dudes in funny hats.
We bring it up because origin stories shape national identity.

And when your origin story is half fairy tale, half erasure —
you grow up with a warped view of who you are and how you got here.

Acknowledging the truth doesn’t ruin America.
It just makes us honest about the foundation we’re standing on.

Because if we’re ever going to fix the cracks —
we gotta know what’s under the floorboards.