Posted on 09/19/2007 4:58:59 AM PDT by Kaslin
Few opinions I've expressed on air have produced a more indignant, outraged reaction than my repeated insistence that the word "genocide" in no way fits as a description of the treatment of Native Americans by British colonists or, later, American settlers.
I've never denied that the 400 year history of American contact with the Indians includes many examples of white cruelty and viciousness --- just as the Native Americans frequently (indeed, regularly) dealt with the European newcomers with monstrous brutality and, indeed, savagery. In fact, reading the history of the relationship between British settlers and Native Americans its obvious that the blood-thirsty excesses of one group provoked blood thirsty excesses from the other, in a cycle that listed with scant interruption for several hundred years.
But none of the warfare (including an Indian attack in 1675 that succeeded in butchering a full one-fourth of the white population of Connecticut, and claimed additional thousands of casualties throughout New England) on either side amounted to genocide. Colonial and, later, the American government, never endorsed or practiced a policy of Indian extermination; rather, the official leaders of white society tried to restrain some of their settlers and militias and paramilitary groups from unnecessary conflict and brutality.
Moreover, the real decimation of Indian populations had nothing to do with massacres or military actions, but rather stemmed from infectious diseases that white settlers brought with them at the time they first arrived in the New World.
UCLA professor Jared Diamond, author of the universally acclaimed bestseller "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies," writes:
"Throughout the Americas, diseases introduced with Europeans spread from tribe to tribe far in advance of the Europeans themselves, killing an estimated 95 percent of the pre-Columbian Native American population. The most populous and highly organized native societies of North America, the Mississippian chiefdoms, disappeared in that way between 1492 and the late 1600's, even before Europeans themselves made their first settlement on the Mississippi River (page 78)....
"The main killers were Old World germs to which Indians had never been exposed, and against which they therefore had neither immune nor genetic resistance. Smallpox, measles, influenza, and typhus rank top among the killers." (page 212).
"As for the most advanced native societies of North America, those of the U.S. Southeast and the Mississippi River system, their destruction was accomplished largely by germs alone, introduced by early European explorers and advancing ahead of them" (page 374)
Obviously, the decimation of native population by European germs represents an enormous tragedy, but in no sense does it represent a crime. Stories of deliberate infection by passing along "small-pox blankets" are based exclusively on two letters from British soldiers in 1763, at the end of the bitter and bloody French and Indian War. By that time, Indian populations (including those in the area) had already been terribly impacted by smallpox, and there's no evidence of a particularly devastating outbreak as a result of British policy.
For the most part, Indians were infected by devastating diseases even before they made direct contact with Europeans: other Indians who had already been exposed to the germs, carried them with them to virtually every corner of North America and many British explorers and settlers found empty, abandoned villages (as did the Pilgrims) and greatly reduced populations when they first arrived.
Sympathy for Native Americans and admiration for their cultures in no way requires a belief in European or American genocide. As Jared Diamond's book (and countless others) makes clear, the mass migration of Europeans to the New World and the rapid displacement and replacement of Native populations is hardly a unique interchange in human history. On six continents, such shifting populations – with countless cruel invasions and occupations and social destructions and replacements - have been the rule rather than the exception.
The notion that unique viciousness to Native Americans represents our "original sin" fails to put European contact with these struggling Stone Age societies in any context whatever, and only serves the purposes of those who want to foster inappropriate guilt, uncertainty and shame in young Americans.
A nation ashamed of its past will fear its future.
One of the most urgent needs in culture and education for the United States of America is discarding the stupid, groundless and anti-American lies that characterize contemporary political correctness.
The right place to begin is to confront, resist and reject the all-too-common line that our rightly admired forebears involved themselves in genocide.
The early colonists and settlers can hardly qualify as perfect but describing them in Hitlerian, mass-murdering terms represents an act of brain-dead defamation.
and for that I blame white men.
(In addition to these accounts from North America, Bernal Diaz mentions small pox among the Aztecs. As before, it was not deliberate policy. It arose from infected Indians and Spanish deserters coming into Aztec settlements and cities ahead of the Spanish and their Indian allies. Neither was it completely devastating; the Spanish still faced tremendous opposition from considerable numbers of Aztec warriors throughout his account, “The Conquest of New Spain.” The Aztecs Empire fell to the sword, not to disease.)
However, there was not a general policy among Europeans to eradicate the Native American population. An in-place population was far too valuable for that. What was needed was a pacified Native American population that would do European bidding. Generalizing somewhat, the approach ttaken by the Europeans was dictated by circumstances on the ground and the culture of the colonizing nations. In the early stages of settlement, where there were low numbers of Europeans, they sought to establish some sort of trading arrangement with them (e.g., Canadian and American colonies). However, when Europeans, and especially European military forces, were present in considerable numbers, they sought to directly exploit them for labor (e.g., Caribbean, Central, and South America).
The 17th century English and French colonizers arrived in North America with a mercantile and agrarian economic model that initially governed relations with the Native American population. A century earlier, the Spanish and Portuguese arrived in Central America with a military model for imperial conquest and resource exploitation to support it. In both regions, African slavery was introduced only when and only where Native American population numbers were low or when passive/aggressive resistance made further attempts to subdue them uneconomical.
It would be fairer to say that there WAS a European policy of derogating Native American culture. During the settlement period, European colonists (and later, citizens of European ancestory) considered Native American religion false, their culture, food, and language inferior, and their monuments (where they were easily accessible) as worthy only of serving as ready sources for the materials to build the rising cities of the European Americas.
However, in surveying other regions of the world touched by Europe, one can hardly say that these European policies and attitudes were unique to the Americas.
Too bad we cannot just get bill o’r to comment on all these discussions—being the foremost numbnutz of all, I’m sure he could settle all questions once and for all.
;)
Dick G
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It would also be fair to say that the Indians felt the same way about European culture, it was just that they lacked the means to do anything about it on a large scale.
>> The Aztecs Empire fell to the sword, not to disease.) <<
An empire of millions fell to the sword of a few hundred men? If Cortez’s men had killed the numbers he was accused of by British black propaganda, they’d have spent their lives plunging their swords into new victims each second. The swords they fell to were largely their own, as they panicked that the plague which was consuming them was their own fear that Cortez was the return of Queztlcoatl, the god whose Toltec civilization they had destroyed.
I’m not ashamed to say I’ve never seen one.
I was using the buffalo skeletons as an analogy to how external conditions impact the remains of Indians. I was alluding to how they were used after the buffalo were slaughtered, but I didn’t know that. Thanks.
I give up, bbq sauce?
Much The holier than though in touch with nature crap might play in 1970s public service ads to put your garbage in the can... but it just doesn’t jive with reality
How much value did your ancestors place on the Hopi and Pueblos they slaughtered and massacred?
Please don’t try this line of crap, it doesn’t fly.
You're not talking with some tree hugger, I grew up in inner city Philly -a product of relocation. The fact remains that the white immigrants to this country massacred my ancestors, period. We got scr*wed, even today we're still gettin' it (read up on Clinton's gang destroying AI records).
My family never bought into the whole "noble savage" bvllsh*t, we know different. Ever seen AI's fight? why do you think we make good soldiers?
I have no problem with killing the enemy and in war, the more you kill the better. The biliganna has always been very good at killing the enemy and very good at winning war - I attribute (tech advance) this partially to a written and easily reproduced language but more on that another time.
My beef is that whenever a "Indian thing" comes up everyone trots out the "they were savages and deserved it because..."
and I like to counter with what if I substituted another group of people in there, say bl*cks, j*ws or l*tinos?
Questioned the h0l0caust and prepare for battle - in some countries, jail- debate slavery and you are a racist, JJ and Rainbow connection will stop by for donations, come out against illegal M*xican immigration and well, you know how that goes , the law means nothing.
We don't spy on the US and give secrets to other countries because of religious allegiance to another supposedly friendly nation, we don't run around causing huge percentages of crime and making up the major ranks of prisoners, we don't over run hospital ER's with our illegal families looking for handouts.
For the most part, we wanted to be left alone.
and for the record, that "crying indian" in those commericals was Italian, look it up... the 70's were not a good time for my family
It would be wise to remember that... hehe just kiddin', seriously though, you're wrong, ever hear of Stalin Polpot Adolph and those fun fun Japanese that experimented on the Chinese and Philipinos? ...
Our claim rests upon treaties with this our government, don't like it? Petition Congress to change the treaties
Yes, that’s right, Diaz was there from beginning to end and did quite a bit of the killing himself. There were maybe 1 to 2,000 Spaniards in total at the peak but they were accompanied by tens of thousands of coastal tribe allies who were sick of Aztec arrogance and hegemony. Diaz notes on many occasions how bravely these allies fought. The number of Aztec warriors was great but not every single person in the empire was a warrior; they were an elite at the top of a subservient rural farmer population. So a population to Spanish soldier comparison (as seems to be alluded to in your British black propaganda reference) is invalid. The Quetzalcoatl myth may have helped get them into the island capital the first time but it certainly didn’t help them get out once the Aztecs turned on them nor did it help help them when they returned some months later, reinforced with more Spaniards and coastal tribe allies, to finish the job.
Disease had a role, as I acknowledged in my original posting. But the Spanish and their allies, together, took down the empire with the sword (steel and obsidian edged).
Horsecrap. A fair wind, dry grass, and fire will do the job.
When the grass grows back, it will bring even more animals in.
If you had ever seen a prairie fire (during and some time after), you'd know it.
The horse enabled more efficient hunting over a greater area. The Sioux were known for their use of the bow from horseback, hunting bison (Catlin documented that)--which meant less waste than a 'buffalo jump'.
Yeah, at least a hundred carcasses.
Perhaps. But it was a highly stratified society. I imagine a very great number just wanted the killing (by which ever side) to stop so they could go back to tending their maize and other crops.
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You presume too much.
The disease thing worked both ways and the Black Death itself, still available in the southwest, might well have come from America through Iceland to Europe. It was before Columbus, which is another myth.
I have no issues with Native Americans, like you I just don’t care for this “NOBLE WARRIOR” and “eathly angel” romanticized PC crap that is perpetuated about them.
You object to my calling of the native american peoples at the times of the majority of our ancestors conflicts as savages. I however do stand by that classification.
Does this mean they were all inately evil? Of course not. The native americans and european settlers conflicts spread over hundreds of years and thousands of square miles.... with attrocities committed by all involved.
While it was the murder of one native american that lead to the massacre at Jamestown and other settlements (after years of confrontations regarding land and other issues) It was the Indians who massacred nearly 350 men women and children, not the Europeans. To believe that such acts would not draw the ire and wrath of the Settlers (acts that repeated themselves on small and large scales throughout hundreds of years) is naive. While europe was no peaceful contintent, the wholesale slaughter of women and children, not just military enlistments was not an act remotely acceptable, it was an act of a barbarism to the Europeans... while native americans may have committed such acts toward each other over millenia and thought nothing of them beyond a victory or a loss, such is not largely the view of the civilized world.
Alas this tactic of slaughtering all, rape and kidnapping of women, to send messages or to “protect” their lands, was a perpetual theme that again and again was taken by indians of various tribes on the contenent over the centuries.
End of the day, the native americans and the european settlers fought a war, one that spanned hundreds of years and an entire continent. In the end the native americans were conquered... CONQUERED, and faced a fate that every conquered people throughout history have known. No worse, no better.
Those that claim Genocide do not understand the meaning of genocide... Certainly if the european settlers goal was to ensure no native american blood ever flowed again in this nation, they had the means to accomplish it should they have chosen to exercise it.
I wish no ill will to the native american decendants here today, I do not view them as traitors or evil. I just don’t buy into the idealized and politically correct narrative of the conflicts between our ancestors. Nor do I personally carry or feel any guilt over the outcome.
Bump to save
I don't think this attitude was unique to Europeans, is what I mean to say. It exists, and has always existed, in all cultures, even to this day.
It's exactly how Al-Queda looks at us, how the Japanese and Chinese view all other cultures, and how the American Indian cultures looked at European culture. It's basic human nature. What's unique is when any culture is able to look beyond it, at the human being.
I disagree. The rounding up and removal of people to camps, the campaigns against the people, women children the "laws" passed putting prices on the head of people sounds like genocide to me. If the centuries of war against AI's was not genocide then I believe nothing short of success is.
I would very much like to debate this (and other topics) further with you as we are interested in similar histories.
I wish no ill will to the native american decendants here today, I do not view them as traitors or evil. I just don’t buy into the idealized and politically correct narrative of the conflicts between our ancestors. Nor do I personally carry or feel any guilt over the outcome.
We are not "decendants" we are Americans, we are also American Indians. This idealized PC cr@p is a hustle and you know it, just like it is for the protected groups. The diffence is for the most part AI's have yet to get in on the PC gravy train.
I have known Indians that had direct experience of the war between our peoples and to many, it was not that long ago.
Right now, people should pay close attention to what happened to AI's - broken treaties, law passed but not enforced, stolen lands. It is my belief that now as it happen then, our government will ignore and break the law and allow unchecked immigration to achieve a "greater good".
History has a funny way of repeating
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