EARTH: JULY 4, 1776
Four perspectives on American independence: the British aristocrat's disdain, the enslaved woman's irony, the Native elder's mournful warning, and the immigrant's conflicted hope.
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I. The Monarch's Lament
By an Imagined Member of the British Aristocracy, 1776
What brazen audacity it must take to draft a declaration—not of cooperation or compromise—but of rebellion, on parchment still stained with our ink. July 5, 1776, and these colonial upstarts dare to enshrine treason as liberty. They twist our centuries of structure into tyranny with a flick of the quill. I write this not from fear of their arms but the arrogant hope in their eyes. They do not know what it takes to govern, only what it means to resist.
The colonies were our project, our gamble. We sailed seas, erected ports, bled for the expansion of an empire that has brought law, language, and civility to the wild. That they now call us oppressors is not only ingratitude—it is betrayal. They fancy themselves philosophers, invoking liberty while clinging to chains of their own making: slavery, class, and religious bigotry. Do they not see their contradiction? Or are they simply choosing the most convenient tyranny?
I walk the halls of Westminster with unease. Not from their muskets or their militias—but from the knowledge that they have declared independence from reason itself. They rally behind a man who once argued for unity with the Crown, now lost to delusions of republicanism. Jefferson's words are clever, yes. But even clever words cannot cover blood.
The King—our King—is not perfect. But he is constant. He is the rhythm of a world that does not bend to every whimper of discontent.
What shall come of a nation founded in fury, built on lands it stole, powered by backs it broke?
Let them have their rebellion. Let them sew their flags and rewrite their histories. We, in our majesty, will endure. For nations built on rage often rage themselves into ruin.
II. A Captive Reflection
By an Enslaved African Woman, newly arrived to the Carolinas
They say this land is free now. The white men shout of liberty, of breaking the chain from a king who lives far away. Yet I feel the chains, real and rusted, cutting into my wrists. If this be liberty, then let me not see slavery.
I do not know the name of this place, not in my tongue. They have taken that from me, as they have taken my name, my children, my breath. They branded my back and now they brand this land with words of freedom that were not meant for me.
On this July morning, they toast to their independence. They dance with rifles and wear their powdered wigs. But they do not see me. I am the silent foundation beneath their freedom. My labor feeds their revolution. My body bears their sons. My spirit is the offering they burn on the altar of their freedom.
I remember my home. Ghana's winds. My mother's voice. We were not perfect, but we were whole. Here, they break you and call it ownership. They baptize you and call it salvation. But who will save them from themselves?
They fight for freedom from a crown, while becoming crueler than kings. What irony that those who protest their bondage to empire cannot see the empire they've created from our bones.
I do not celebrate today. But I survive. And in my survival is a quiet resistance. My womb, my will, my whisper—all are weapons. Someday, perhaps long after my bones have returned to the soil, this land will know real liberty. But not today. Today is the white man's lie.
III. The Land Remembers
By a Native Lenape Elder, watching the smoke rise in 1776
The trees know. The rivers know. We remember a time before flags, before maps. Now the white men mark this day as birth. But it is another funeral. Another grave dug in a forest they never asked permission to enter.
They shout of independence, but they mean conquest. They mean fences. They mean names that erase the ones our grandmothers sang. They came first as guests. Then as thieves. Now as kings of a land that still bleeds our stories.
I do not raise my voice today. I raise my prayer. For the animals driven from their homes. For the women taken in the dark. For the sacred fires stomped out by boots that worship gold and God more than life itself.
1
Before
When the British ruled, they offered gifts and treaties, even if laced with lies.
2
Now
But these new men—the "Americans"—speak of manifest destiny, and I see the hunger in their eyes. It is not enough for them to be free. They must possess.
3
Warning
I watch the firelight flicker on the horizon. It is not celebration. It is warning. They will come for us next. They already have.
But I am old. I have seen floods and famines. I have seen the eagle fall and rise again. We endure. The land remembers. Even when their ink dries and their cities crumble, we will remain. In wind. In root. In memory.
IV. The Stranger's Reckoning
By an Original Immigrant, escaping religious persecution in Europe, 1776
We came here with hope. My wife wept when we saw the shore. A chance to pray without fear, to speak without the threat of prison. They told us this land was new, empty. But that was the first lie. There were people here. Civilized in ways we didn't understand. We ignored them. We stole from them. And now we claim independence as if we deserve it.
The Celebration
On July 5, I watched men cheer and drink to their new country. I could not cheer. I have seen too much. The ink was still wet on the Declaration, and already it reeked of hypocrisy.
The Contradiction
"All men are created equal," they say—while our neighbors keep Africans in bondage and our leaders plot to push deeper into native lands.
The Question
My children ask what this means. What this "America" is becoming. I do not know what to tell them. That we left persecution only to become persecutors? That we built churches while burning other people's homes?
Independence is not freedom if it depends on the suffering of others. This land may be free from Britain, but it is not free from sin.
I still believe in God. I still believe in justice. But I do not believe that flags or declarations or gunfire can make a people righteous. I pray this country finds its soul before it loses itself.