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Most Americans grow up learning that America was founded by pasty white English people who left Europe to escape religious persecution. And while that is true for the small percentage of people who settled in Massachusetts Bay, the Pilgrims and Puritans were hardly the first people or even the first Europeans to settle on the continent. The earliest Europeans were the Spanish, and obviously before them were the Native Americans who were now in a constant struggle to defend their wonderful cultures from the Europeans that wished to stamp them out. And a good chunk of that struggle involved the Assassins and Templars. The Templars, after nearly being wiped out in Europe during the Renaissance, decided to travel to America in hopes of starting anew. The Assassins were quick to follow, and sided with the Natives when they arrived, since the two groups had similar ideologies of freedom and justice that lined up nicely. The Templars sided with the Europeans, believing the Natives uncivilized and in need of salvation through forceful conversion.

The Templars established most of their colonies near where they heard undiscovered Precursor temples were. The first English colony was Roanoke, near modern North Carolina. Publicly, the colony was established to make money for England, but was really a Templar cover to find Pieces of Eden. The colony was run by governor John White, who left for England for new food and supplies in 1585, only to have his return trip delayed by the Spanish Armada. This caused his men in the colony to go mad from starvation, and the Templars in Roanoke began abusing the innocent colonists. That all changed in 1588, when a Croatoan Assassin named Kahente traveled to the island on orders from her mentor. Kahente had originally been tasked with finding a Piece of Eden on the island before the Templars did, but upon seeing their abusive nature, Kahente vowed to protect the colonists for as long as possible. Kahente’s kindness won her great friendships with the colonists such as Eleanor and Ananias Dare, the parents of the first English child born in America, Virginia.

In 1589, Kahente finally tracked down the Precursor temple, although the Templars had found it first. The Templar Roger Bailie activated the artifact within, accidentally programming it to eliminate any organism on the island with English DNA. The artifact did as it was unintentionally told and let out a blast of energy that killed everyone on the island except Kahente, who was racked with guilt over not being able to stop the event. She carved the word “Croatoan” into a tree post as a warning to any that came to the island. Kahente fell into a deep drunken depression after that, and returned to Roanoke in 1590 to meet John White, who had finally been allowed to return from England. She wanted to kill him but instead warned him never to return lest she change her mind.

Kahente left the Brotherhood after that, the guilt to much for her to handle. She spent her days either drinking or pleasuring anyone who'd take the offer. It was only until 1595, when she gave birth to twins, that she finally snapped out of it, the responsibility of raising her children overriding the pain she felt. Sobered up with a newfound will to fight, she returned to the mentor, Chief Wahunsenacawh (called Powhatan by the English), and she was welcomed back to the Assassins with open arms. Kahente took a motherly role to Powhatan’s daughter, Pocahontas, and the two eventually became inseparable.

In 1607, the Virginia Company established the first permanent English settlement in America at Jamestown, Virginia. Their governor, a Templar named John Smith, was captured by the Assassins and would have been executed had it not been for the pleas of Pocahontas. Kahente wanted him dead, but she loved the little girl too much to deny her request. Smith was returned unharmed to Jamestown, and relations between the English and Natives actually did improve soon after. But, Smith was returned to England after a gunpowder accident, and the Templars continued their characteristic abuse of power. The Templars captured Pocahontas in 1613 and corrupted her to join their ranks. Kahente was heartbroken by this betrayal, and knew she had to follow Pocahontas to England in 1616. After several failed attempts to win back her allegiance, Kahente was forced to kill the girl she once treated as a daughter in March of 1617.

Kahente arrived back in America in 1618, only to find that Powhatan had died. She took his place as mentor and continued to combat the growing Templar influence. In 1620, a group of Pilgrims and Templars came to America aboard the Mayflower and founded the colony of Plymouth. They barely survived the first few winters, and only lived through it thanks to an ex-Assassin named Squanto, who taught them how to live off the land like the Natives did. As thanks, the colonists held a grand feast with Squanto’s people in November of 1621, which would go down in history as the first Thanksgiving. Kahente had Squanto poisoned for his treachery in 1622.

Things only continued to get worse as the English tried to steal more and more Native lands and by 1637, the Pequot War had begun between the two groups. Later that year, the English Templars burned down a Native village in Mystic in what would be called the Mystic Massacre. Kahente was killed in that event while trying to save the innocent villagers, and her children and grandchildren carried on the fight in her honor. Later, in 1675, Chief Metacom led Native forces against New England colonists in what the English called King Philip’s War. The brutal fight lasted for two years until the Templars killed Metacom and won the War.

The Assassins and the Natives continued to get overwhelmed as the Templars continued their expansion westward. And to the Natives’ dismay, it was clear that the English were here to stay. In 1665, the English captured the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam, renaming it New York. In 1681, William Penn was granted control of Pennsylvania, where things were actually quite better since the local Quakers were generally much more tolerant of people, including Native Americans, and vehemently opposed slavery. But when Penn left the colony... yeah things got sucky again. Meanwhile in Virginia, an armed uprising led by the Templar Nathaniel Bacon in 1676 threatened the Assassin-influenced governor, William Berkeley. Bacon was mad because Berkeley told the colonists they couldn't keep massacring Natives and stealing their lands. Bacon burned down Jamestown and made himself ruler of the colony but his uprising was quelled by a fleet of English warships and he himself was poisoned by the Assassins.

So yeah. While a lot of Americans like to imagine their country as being founded on ideals of freedom and fairness and whatnot... yeah no. What we think of as America was founded on the same imperialistic, discriminatory, and unequal ideals that the rest of Europe held at the time. And America itself was founded by thousands of varied indigenous peoples with a vast variety of amazing cultures whom often held more fair and free ideals than the colonists ever did. And unfortunately things would only get worse for the Natives throughout the coming centuries. But for now we'll go to the opposite side of the planet, to a time and place that also often dramatized in people's imaginations: Japan.