What if, when the first ships arrived, there had been Native patrols along the shores – like the ICE patrols of today?

The buffalo would still thunder across the plains, millions strong. The land would be lush, green, and alive – untouched by the scars of colonization and / or greed. The air would be clearer, and many of the diseases that tore through entire nations would never set foot on this soil.

Imagine a population of strong, proud people rooted in their ancestry, carrying forward stories of creation, invention, and survival. There would be no daily mourning for stolen children, no mass graves from genocidal campaigns, no hidden epidemic of sexual violence, and torture carried out under colonial rule. Instead, there would be a common knowledge passed down: respect the Earth, and it will respect you. Natural disasters would not be worsened by human greed, and balance – not exploitation – would guide life here.

Visitors could still arrive, but as guests. They would be welcomed with open arms, provided they came without weapons. They would learn to farm the soil, to heal with medicinal plants, and perhaps most importantly, how to live with cleanliness and respect for their bodies and spirts. Sons and daughters would have the childhood they deserved – free from fear, free from the chains of colonization. Entire families and villages would gather for shared feasts, not sit in the shadow of prisons or mourn loved ones swallowed by slave catchers.

Imagine how safe children would be today. Unfortunately, there would actually be a lot fewer weapons of mass destruction in the world. The correct families would be celebrating the anniversaries of their inventions and contributions toward humanity. Many statues would still be standing, honored, and undamaged. Many cultures would still possess their national treasures and artwork. Africa would never have been turned into the testing ground for AIDS and other cruel experiments in human exploitation. And without colonization’s hunger for profit, there would be no pharmaceutical empires built on suffering.

Can you imagine how much ingenuity the world has lost because so many Black and Native bodies were taken before they could fully contribute to it? The world would know Black people not through programmed fear but as celebrated contributors to human progress. And it would be clear who the real “undocumented criminals” were: not the Indigenous or the enslaved, but the colonizers who stole, killed, and erased.

And then, imagine this: a certain person in Europe would never have learned from the West how to exterminate a civilization through gas chambers and torture camps. Japan – and the entire world – would never have faced the shadow of Hiroshima. None of it would have been possible if one greedy, hateful group had not been allowed to infect the world with its fear of being lesser, destroying every trace of harmony beyond themselves, then there need for claiming they had “discovered” the world.

There would be no churches on every corner claiming the best land to impose dominance, no doctrines of guilt and punishment scarring generations. Instead, spiritual practices would remain rooted in harmony, and countless children would be safe from institutional abuse. Freedom would mean something deeper: not a tax-burdened life under the watch of the state, where a fragile group of people needed to force other humans to worship them. Instead, a community where everyone contributed, took only what they needed, and greed was cast out, not celebrated.

Perhaps, had the ancestors looked upon those pale, unwashed, and uncivilized people stepping onto the shore with suspicion, they might have said: “We don’t trust these outsiders who disrespect life. We don’t accept uncivilized groups into this peaceful land.” Perhaps masks and fire at the shoreline would have stopped the invasion before it began, along with centuries of pain.

If that had happened, the world itself would be different. The land now called America would not stand as headquarters of hate, exporting violence and domination to every corner of the globe. Africa, Hawaii, Jamaica, Haiti, Cuba, Vietnam, the Middle East, Mexico – all would be living closer to their original rhythms, in peace, without the scars of empire carved into their landscapes and their people.

Well, maybe not all of Mexico. The Aztecs were pretty brutal with greed and mass sacrifices.

The question remains: What if the Natives had ICE patrols?

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