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Between the cracks and spins of the revisionists and counter revisionists, there is a pesky thing called facts.
American Indians were basically a stone age culture, limited by hunting and gathering, to require vast areas to support themselves.
According to the Department of the Interior, a hunter / gatherer, such as a tribal Indian, needed 10 square miles per person to sustain themselves. Based on the 3,794,101 sq. mi. of the USA, that computes to 379,410 indigenous people living a primitive lifestyle.
Even with the primitive slash and burn mode of agriculture, the American Indians could not approach the food production output of the Europeans.
Was there a justification to eject the indigenous people from under utilized lands?
The math is simple : use 6,400 acres to support one hunter / gatherer, or use 6,400 acres to support 57,600 by modern agriculture.
(Assuming 1 acre supports 9 people by agriculture; a low estimate. Some crops yield even higher harvests - supporting 11 people per acre and more.)
[This article claims 3,333 people per acre supported by agriculture: http://www.splendidtable.org/story/h...s-in-the-city]
- - - Crime or Tragedy?
America was stolen, fair and square, by conquest, by treaty, and by adverse possession - a practice common among Amerindians, who fought incessantly with rival tribes to maintain / expand hunting grounds.
The rationale is simple - ejecting aboriginal populations is warranted when agricultural improvement can support far more people.
It is expedient to eject 10 from land that when improved, can support 576,000. The lives of the 575,990 condone it. However, due to culture clashes of the hunter / gatherers with the farmers, it was not possible to return the 10 to the land, to join the 575,990. Instead, they were relocated to primitive reservations, that were neither sufficient for survival nor equitable in value.
This conflict of cultures was the impetus for “civilizing” the Amerindian, so he would fit in with the agriculture based system, with its private property and no trespassing. It was not based on some evil plan to destroy cultural identity, but to deal with the change from a stone age culture to a modern one.
Much injustice and evil was done on both sides, as each sought to support and defend their modes of survival. But in the long view, the multitudes of today owe their existence to the victory of the Europeans.
In the end, the sad fate of America's Indians represents not a crime but a tragedy, involving an irreconcilable collision of cultures and values. Despite the efforts of well-meaning people in both camps, there existed no good solution to this clash. The Indians were not prepared to give up the nomadic life of the hunter for the sedentary life of the farmer. The new Americans, convinced of their cultural and racial superiority, were unwilling to grant the original inhabitants of the continent the VAST PRESERVE of land required by the Indians’ way of life. The consequence was a conflict in which there were few heroes, but which was far from a simple tale of hapless victims and merciless aggressors. To fling the charge of genocide at an entire society serves neither the interests of the Indians nor those of history.
The BOTTOM LINE is survival of the most.
And if the Permaculturists and Alternative Farmers can support even more people per surface area that agribusiness, they should eventually prevail, as well, "conquering" the corporate farmers.
Because prosperity is based on production, trade and enjoyment of surplus goods and services. Doing more with less so more can enjoy is superior to doing less with more so few can enjoy.
It isn't celebrated in Arizona but technically it is a federal holiday. I'm torn on the idea. It is both a good and bad thing that the New World was discovered. The Indians died off and for that I am broken hearted as part-native but I think it also leads us to America's discovery and the age of exploration. I say call the day both and let people decide.
However there was a good one when I was in college. I wrote a "Happy Thanksgiving" note on the white board I had. Well the next day or so I find it crossed out with "You mean The Spanish killed thousands of Indians Day." I obviously had to correct that.
What I get a kick out of is........................the people who met Columbus were no more indigenous to North American than he was. They just got there a heck of a lot sooner.
But between those getting here by crossing the land bridge and how they treated the animals when they got here (ie, stampeding buffalo by the tens if not the hundreds over cliffs), well, I wouldn't be throwing stones.
Really? Ask a Carib if they are better off. Or ask an arrowok. Ohh sorry. You can't. Columbus exterminated them. Well... Ask the 1.2 percent of native Americans in the US if they are better off. Only somebody who thinks they are supreme would ever utter something like that. The modern world benefits exactly who it was designed for. All others be damned. Ownership of resources and land and fish and the seas and all of that is a western value system. And it works for the West. Want some oil... Go take it by FORCE from the weaker folks. What you just said is akin to saying the Jews are better off after Hitler. Come on man. I'm sure they would rather have their six million kin back and their stolen treasures . just because I have an iPhone and a BMW doesn't mean I'm better off.
I could ask a Neutral if they would have preferred to be wiped out by the Senecas or by the Europeans but they're long gone. The Iroquois Confederacy in what is now New York State, of which the Senecas were a member, terrorized neighboring tribes. The Senecas wanted the hunting lands between the Genesee River and Lake Erie that the Neutrals occupied, so they wiped out the Neutrals and used their lands as a giant hunting preserve.
Are you aware that Cortez conquered the Aztecs with the help of some of the Native peoples that the Aztecs conquered and enslaved or forced to provide them with tribute? The Aztecs were notoriously blood thirsty, being infamous for using human sacrifice during their religious ceremonies. In many cases, Native peoples in Mexico simply exchanged Aztec masters for Spanish ones and wouldn't have been able to see any difference between the two.
The fact is that human groups with larger numbers and/or better technology have always been taking what they want by FORCE from the weaker folks, and the Native peoples of the Americas were no different. Both the Aztec and the Inca civilizations were based on conquest. Most tribes in the Americas had developed warrior cultures long before they encountered Europeans, which is really hard to do without having warfare.
Okay. Columbus is out. Then why not Columbus, Ohio. Columbia, S.C. District of Columbia. Columbia University. Columbia River. Etc. Etc. Etc. Change all those names to something politically correct.
My opinion is that, generally speaking, almost everyone BUT the people of the Native American tribes (exterminated or not) are generally better off then they would have been if their ancestors had not come here, even if they were forced to come here, as in the case of slaves.
What the whites did to the Native Americans and to the Africans they forced to come here as slaves was extremely shameful, despite all the excuses I hear, especially in the case of Native American "Indians". However, although I do think that the majority of U.S. blacks have it better than their relatives who still live in Africa, from everything I have read, I do not think the majority of Native American "Indians" are happier now then they would have been if the whites had never invaded their lands.
(And, speaking personally, I wish that my English, Scottish, French, and Swiss ancestors who immigrated to the U.S. had not done so. This is due to what the U.S. has become in the past 70 years regarding their involvement in foreign wars due to greed and the "need" of those in power to bend the rest of the world to their will.)
I think you need to do some serious reading in American history. Maybe you slept through the chapter in your social studies text on Manifest Destiny and the Mexican War. Maybe you think that the Spanish American War really was only to help Cuba get its freedom form Spain and that the US sending marines to Nicaraugua was a humanitarian mission.
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I obviously had to correct that.
