Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
If we are going to call the descendants of those who came over the Bering Strait, natives then we should also call the descendants of the Europeans, native Americans. Everyone born here is a native.
The people that migrated across the Bering Strait were the first settlers here.
They then populated the entire 2 continents over thousands upon thousands and then even more thousands of years.
The Europeans on the other hand, arrived here in comparatively recent times and pushed the original inhabitants aside and exterminated them en masse.
To consider the later group 'native' is absurd in the extreme.
What language do you speak natively?
Is it English?
Where is English from?
What language do American Indians speak?
(at least before the Europeans exterminated them).
Where is that language from?
Q: Are Amerindian languages related to Mongolian or other Asian languages?
A: No. Many people think American Indians are descended from Mongolian people. This may be true, but if it is, they left Asia more than 20,000 years ago, which is much too long a time period for linguistic preservation to occur. None of the Amerindian languages bear any linguistic resemblance to Asian languages.
How were they native to this continent? They migrated across the Bering Strait.
How many generations does it take for someone to be considered a "native" to wherever they live?
I am a "native" NY'er because I was born in NYC.
Several of my grand kids are "native" Coloradans because they were born in Colorado.
Current research states that the people who were on this continent when the Europeans arrived had been in residence for tens of thousands of years.
How could anyone argue that those that were alive when they first encountered Europeans were not "native" to wherever they lived?
I'm confused by the term "Native American" because the tribes scattered all around this country were not "American" to begin with, but became American once European settlers created America as we know it.
So in fact, it is the founding Europeans and their ancestors who should be labeled "Native Americans."
Wouldn't "Native Peoples" be more accurate?
There are a few different words for them: Native American, Indigenous, First Nation, Aboriginals...
The problem is that their identity was given to them by others. Indeed, they aren't really 'Native Americans' if we use the words for what they mean. They are Lakota or Apache or Mohawk. Some Tribal names weren't even theirs, like Sioux, which was a word given to them by French explorers because to their untrained ear, the languages of a diverse group of Tribes all sounded the same... so they must be the same.
Also, for quite some time, Natives were not American citizens. Some were if they payed taxes, though in order to keep them from asking for rights, they allowed the land privileges that excused them from taxes. However, because they did not pay taxes (and weren't citizens) those land privileges could be taken for essentially any arbitrary reason and they had no legal defense... because they weren't citizens.
Today, Natives generally have dual citizenship with the US and their tribe. Their tribes are considered Sovereign countries. They, on tribal land, do not have to follow US law, they elect their own leaders, and can (and often do) meet foreign diplomats. Technically speaking, a map of the US that does not take out space of Native reservations is inaccurate as the US does not actually own that land (technically, the only land mass that is entirely the US is DC and island territories as States are sovereign enough to be considered technically separate but that's getting too deep into it). Natives reservations collectively add up to being about the size of Idaho, the largest is roughly the size of West Virginia. More than 1 millions people live on these reservations in total. Does anyone really know that or understand the significants of that though?
Indeed, a more logical term for Native Americans would be something like Aboriginal or First Nation (which is commonly used in Canada). Though this would be a substitute for race only. In the same way, I'm white but am ethnically English and socially American a Native would be Aboriginal, ethnically Navajo, and socially Navajo and American.
The people that migrated across the Bering Strait were the first settlers here.
They then populated the entire 2 continents over thousands upon thousands and then even more thousands of years.
The Europeans on the other hand, arrived here in comparatively recent times and pushed the original inhabitants aside and exterminated them en masse.
To consider the later group 'native' is absurd in the extreme.
Thousands and thousands of years? I don't think so. The Ameridians were just as vicious. The Europeans had just as much right to come here and produce their own natives (descendants) since there were no immigration laws and no land ownership and as everyone knows there were no original natives to these continents. First doesn't mean native.
These are the same people that scream like banshees and jump up and down at the thought of brown people entering Europe. But the Indians had no ownership of land if you let them tell it.
They mainly refer to themselves by tribe, and different groups may or may not have a preference for Indian, Native, First Nations etc. So there doesn't seem to be a consensus, which makes sense given how broad a group of people we're talking here.
These are the same people that scream like banshees and jump up and down at the thought of brown people entering Europe. But the Indians had no ownership of land if you let them tell it.
LOL yeah, because their "ownership" didn't fit the invaders' definition, it wasn't really theirs. The colonial mindset at its finest.
LOL yeah, because they didn't claim ownership to the invaders' definition, it wasn't really theirs. The colonial mindset at its finest.
Yeah...they didn't walk up the Europeans sporting a paper deed from the local Indian magistrate (), so what the hell....they weren't really people then, were they? LOL...
The conservative colonial mindset is a hoot.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
