June 16, 2026: USA: The Founding & Founding Fathers

In advance of the USA's 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, we focused on the founding of the USA and its Founding Fathers, from the 15th to 18th centuries, discarding the myths, lies and legends for truth.  
We began with the Doctrine of Christian Discovery issued by the Catholic Church in the mid 15th century that characterized non-Christians as savages to be converted by the discoverers to the Founding Fathers' call to arms in 1776.  Settlement and growth, led by the founders, was primarily based not on religious freedom but rather on the exploitation of land and people for profit.  The sponsors of the discoverers, primarily Spain, Portugal and England, expected a return on their investment in the form of claimed land and its resources.  England led settlement of the North American colonies and chartered trading companies that used land stolen from the indigenous and people induced to settle from England and stolen and enslaved from Africa to produce goods to trade, with profits accruing to the king and the colonial leaders.  The founding of Georgia, the last colony, on the border of Spanish Florida, was the exception.  Given in trust to Oglethorpe in 1733, the colony shared its Savannah settlement on the bluff with the Yamacraw, was laid out to encourage community spaces for its settlers, and did not permit slavery.  However, the king was encouraged by its colony to the north to recall Oglethorpe in 1743, and slavery was permitted by 1751.  
As England considered banning slavery in its colonies and the colonies and their profits grew, the colonial leaders, aka Founding Fathers, feared the loss of their slave labor and resented sharing profits with and paying taxes to the king.  This led to acts of resistance, rebellion, a declaration of independence, and revolution with a moral justification provided by Thomas Paine in "Common Sense."
Next week's conversation will focus on 1776 to 2026, and how the "profit over people" model established at its founding manifested in the growth of the USA empire.