Posted on 10/30/2015 1:54:11 AM PDT by Loud Mime
I didn’t realize the mortality rate was THAT high. Thanks. My ancestors came from England sometime before the Revolution to Virginia.
Thanks. Rather eye opening.
ping
Calm down. It was written by a German in 1750 or so. It’s from a journal. Things were different then.
As I read this I kept stopping to visualize what the writer conveyed. My god, it must have been horrible.
...but enough about my Navy career. (Some people complain about every little thing).
You had to really want to be here and be willing to endure that sort of hardship. Sometimes I want to strangle certain glib proggies who dismiss the lot of them as "illegal aliens". It's so far from the same thing it's scarcely worth considering, and there wasn't any welfare waiting for them at the destination. 130 years earlier the Mayflower brought a hundred or so people into New England in late November. The wonder is that anyone at all survived.
And this is why we Americans are who we are. We are these peoples descendents. People who pulled up stakes and undertook a perilous voyage for a chance to carve out a new life in a new land. To take advantage of all that the new world had to offer.
And for some, perhaps most, it was an expensive voyage in more ways than one.
My paternal ancestors were indentured Irish.
Textide, I was surprised to learn that it’s still incredibly risky. Following a professional mariners’ forum made me realize that. DH’s boss is a retired Navy Swimmer & recently told him (in a conversation about the El Faro) that ships sink all the time- you just don’t hear about it.
You wouldn’t think- considering the size, construction, & technology of modern shipping, that would be true. How these wooden ships made it is a wonder.
Thank you for the ping, SunkenCiv.
ps. One of the mariners on the forum has a tagline I like. It says something to the effect that if you find a man who doesn’t believe in God, send him to sea. I’d been thinking that there was a marked absence of atheists there.
About 58,000,000 dead in a little over 4 decades.
I hope you like brimstone, America...
Those are indeed vivid descriptions. History is a weird and wonderful thing to ponder.
To think we’re descended from the survivors of not just the crossing but the various plagues in Europe for the previous 1000 years not to mention the literally medieval medical practices before the 20th century. What our ancestors have seen....
The day will come when the barbaric practice of abortion will face history. It will not be kind. At least the Spartan society allowed a child to be born before determining if it was ‘weak’ and then left outside in the elements to die.
Relating to this thread, each farming family would usually have many children in the hope that some will live through childhood to become adults. Kids had a harder time in the long crossings as well, often dying first. Our success in reducing infant mortality along with the move out of the farming life has reduced the need to have so many children. Killing them in the womb has become preferable (and legal) to being ‘burdened’ with their care and support. Throw in many other societal and family changes over the years and those that came over on these crossings wouldn’t recognize or accept what we’ve become.
One of our ancestors was born at sea in the 1700s. It’s a wonder (and mercy!) that the poor baby and his mother survived. Well ... we know he survived ... hope she did, too.
Thanks KGeorge.
50,000 convicts had reached the colonial shores... Their descendants are members of the democrat party.
Ummmm...the man from the 1700’s wrote it in a journal. That is how they spoke then.
I contrast the character of the people who came to this country with that of the cell-phone absorbed drones walking around the University campus where I work.
Those dumb-asses will stride into a crosswalk without even a glance at the traffic. Their situational awareness is zero. All that matters to them is the presentations on that little device.
These people will be capitulants at the first sign of trouble.
I used to be a Democrat - - Kennedy style.
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