Am I More American than You?

My surname is Moore, not uncommon in America. The first of my ancestors came to the colony of New Hampshire in 1738. Since that is eight generations before me, I have 256 grandparents from that time, only one of which was a Moore. However, many other ancestors related by marriage to those eight Moore generations were on the continent before it became the United States of America.

John Moore, of the second generation, had a son shortly before dying at the Battle of Bennington in the Revolutionary War. His grandson (4^th generation) was a major in the War of 1812. The major’s son had one son before he died young. That 6th generation son moved with his mother to Illinois, the same area and timeframe as Abraham Lincoln.

One of the sons born in Illinois became a cowboy and rancher, homesteading in Montana near the Canadian border. Neighboring homesteaders were from Ontario, Canada, and this sixth-generation Moore married one of them. Unfortunately, the Dust Bowl and Depression sent them back to Illinois. Still, my grandfather never lost his love of the Big Sky Country.

Born in Montana, the seventh generation, my father fought in World War II. I have fought in no wars, but this long heritage would seem to entitle me status as a true American.

But wait. My Moore grandfather married someone from over the border. That makes me one-quarter Canadian. A second issue: my mother’s parents were both German-born. Her father fought in World War I on the Russian front. That makes me half-German.

Doesn’t that leave me a mere one-quarter American? Not only that but why have I been tracing only the Moore surname? Every wife in those eight generations contributed just as much DNA. The whole idea of bloodlines is artificial. Historically, it is a human construct created by dominant males with power agendas.

I remember learning that among the founding fathers of the United States, the Southerners wanted some political credit for having slaves. The legitimacy of owning slaves at all was currently under debate, and the owners argued that slaves should be considered livestock. These were not people; they were animals. But to gain political power, they contended that a slave should be counted as three-fifths of a person.

I’ve always appreciated animals. Our family then had a dog, a cat, and horses. Learning that history, I thought it would have been fair to allow horses to be counted as two-fifths of a person. That way, each slave could get together with a horse, and the two of them could decide how they wanted to vote.

Europeans had long wreaked havoc on this continent. Without compunction, they displaced people they considered savages. Yet, they also brought a religion that supposedly taught that the Creator valued all people. Some of the invaders probably justified killing savages based on their being mere animals. Others thought the savages should be tamed by learning the invading culture and converting to the new religion.

Humans pick and choose their religious teachings to suit their goals. If the Creator values all people, but we don’t, we dehumanize them to feel better about our actions. In the short history of America, the world has become more interconnected and interdependent. We can no longer afford to devalue foreigners and those of other cultures.

Whenever I need to prove my right to be an American, I talk about those eight generations of Moores. I avoid mentioning my grandfather’s role in the German army during the Great War. Neither do I admit to knowing it is all a bit of flim-flam.

As a Christian, I find it interesting that this situation does not require me to go against my religion but rather to follow it better. Even the ancient Greek religion taught that respect for foreigners was the will of the gods. Jesus said we must love all people, even enemies.

We are all squatters here on Earth. As we try to get elbow room, we should also respect each other as people God loves. Incidentally, he also loves the rest of his Creation, so we might be wise to respect that too. Those horses may have been worthy of a personhood percentage higher than two-fifths.