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Once again the patriotic American circle tries to paint a pretty picture of what really happened during the European settlement of America.
Sometimes I really feel bad for the white race as a collective group, especially here in the States. I can't imagine what it's like to be brainwashed into thinking that everything European-Americans have is because they're really, truly smarter, stronger and better than everyone else, and constantly arguing this point even when all evidence points to the contrary.
Need land? Kill Indians.
Need labor? Kidnap Africans.
Need more labor? Breed slaves like one would breed cattle.
Need more land? Kill Mexicans.
Need railroads? Screw over the Chinese.
Need to feel like smarter, better, stronger European males? Strip your women of all their rights, then show her how valuable she is by lynching any man of color who might have looked at her. (I think she would've been happy with some flowers.)
Anyone who would even suggest that the slaughter of the Native Americans wasn't genocide is either a damn fool or deeply self-loathing.
I would regard the campaign of General Sherman against the plains Indians as genocide. Here are the goals, in his own words
"We are not going to let a few thieving, ragged Indians check and stop the progress of the railroads.... I regard the railroad as the most important element now in progress to facilitate the military interests of our Frontier
We must act with vindictive earnestness against the Sioux, even to their extermination, men, women and children. (The Sioux must) feel the superior power of the Government.
During an assault, the soldiers cannot pause to distinguish between male and female, or even discriminate as to age."
Of course we committed genocide against the American Indians and we will do it to anyone else that gets in the way of our Manifest Destiny to rule a Christian world in the name of God.
Of course we committed genocide against the American Indians and we will do it to anyone else that gets in the way of our Manifest Destiny to rule a Christian world in the name of God.
I would regard the campaign of General Sherman against the plains Indians as genocide. Here are the goals, in his own words
"We are not going to let a few thieving, ragged Indians check and stop the progress of the railroads.... I regard the railroad as the most important element now in progress to facilitate the military interests of our Frontier
We must act with vindictive earnestness against the Sioux, even to their extermination, men, women and children. (The Sioux must) feel the superior power of the Government.
During an assault, the soldiers cannot pause to distinguish between male and female, or even discriminate as to age."
I'll see your Gen. Sherman and raise you a Christopher "Young & Green & No Hair In-Between" Columbus:
Quote:
I was very attentive to them, and strove to learn if they had any gold. Seeing some of them with little bits of this metal hanging at their noses, I gathered from them by signs that by going southward or steering round the island in that direction, there would be found a king who possessed large vessels of gold, and in great quantities...I could conquer the whole of them with fifty men and govern them as I please."
And more fun with ol' Cristobal in a letter written to a friend in the year 1500:
Quote:
"A hundred castellanoes are as easily obtained for a woman as for a farm, and it is very general and there are plenty of dealers who go about looking for girls; those from nine to ten are now in demand."
You're attributing European characteristics to those Indians in question - is that not racist!?
There was no Kurkkawa nation with an economy, military, school system, bridges, industry, etc.
These were nomadic people, many of whom were cannibals, horrificlly tortured people for fun, massacured neighboring tribes and butchered terrified European settlers.
I find the extremes on both sides of this issue a bit silly, but this post is the silliest of them all.
Woaaaah there, cannibals? Really, all of the tribes? Sounds like you've read way too much "propaganda" that was written about them in the 18th and 19th centuries.
Really, your whole post is like an Indian-hating white American time traveled from 1840 to now to make sweeping statements about the "horrible savages". You are almost making the case for the other guy.
I don't doubt that the Indians committed atrocities against the white settlers. I don't doubt that some of the atrocities were committed against innocents. I had ancestors killed by American Indians, do I expect apologies? No, that would be silly. American Indians did what they felt they had to do. So did white settlers.
There were hundreds of different tribes, each with their own cultural practices. Some were nomadic and moved about the territory they had control of, some were settled...having a winter home and a summer home. There are probably some that only had one home year 'round. I don't know of any single American Indian tribe practicing cannibalism during the time the Europeans moved on the land that is now USA, but there could have been one or two.
Why do people have to have "an economy, military, school system, bridges, industry" as _you_ define them, to have the right to their land and their way of life...and to defend the same?
As it happens, the Cherokee people DID try to assimilate some of our culture into their own. They developed their own alphabet and so became a "literate" society complete with at least one newspaper written in their own language. They often dressed in the white settler style, and lived a life style that was close to the white style, assimilating as much as they could in the hopes that they would be allowed to remain on their own lands. Unfortunately, they were treated the same as the rest...forced off their land to move to reservations.
What happened to American Indians...and to all of the "New World"...was horrible and unfortunate. Not sure what good an apology is going to do at this point. The people that committed the atrocities are long gone now.
Heck, if we're talking about apologies, I want Imperial Rome to apologize for conquering Northwestern Europe, brutalizing the natives and forcing them to assimilate Roman culture. Bastards!
Sometimes I really feel bad for the white race as a collective group, especially here in the States. I can't imagine what it's like to be brainwashed into thinking that everything European-Americans have is because they're really, truly smarter, stronger and better than everyone else, and constantly arguing this point even when all evidence points to the contrary.
Need land? Kill Indians.
Need labor? Kidnap Africans.
Need more labor? Breed slaves like one would breed cattle.
Need more land? Kill Mexicans.
Need railroads? Screw over the Chinese.
Need to feel like smarter, better, stronger European males? Strip your women of all their rights, then show her how valuable she is by lynching any man of color who might have looked at her. (I think she would've been happy with some flowers.)
Anyone who would even suggest that the slaughter of the Native Americans wasn't genocide is either a damn fool or deeply self-loathing.
I agree that parts of the settling of the US were genocide. However, seems like you have some deep racial issues towards European Americans. Lets check your list again....
1. Kill indians for land? Yes.
2. Kidnap Africans? If you mean import africans being sold by fellow africans and north african arabs? yes.
3. Breed slaves? yes.
4. Kill Mexicans? You mean killing the european oppressors of the native population? Yes. But based upon your first point this is supposed to be a good thing.
5. Screw over the chinese? Yeah, just like every other immigrant that came to the US has gone through rough times. You do know they used Irish on the east end of the railroad right? Those poor chinese got to miss out on the cultural revolution and Japanese occupation too. Poor guys.
6. Yep. We've come a long way since that male dominated society. I wonder how those countries you mentioned above are doing?
You do realize that I can go after Africans, Chinese etc. for doing the same things that we did in some of our bad sections of history. Only difference is that it's going on today.
crap! Study history, Every culture that has been a world power has subjugated/extermintaed the indeginous populations of the countrys they overthrew. The Egyptions,Charthagenians,Romans,Huns,Vandles,Goths ..It's nothing new Friggin Crow-Magnon moved in and wiped out the Neanderthals. To say the White Anglo Saxon Protestents are the first to do it is assinine. I for one am HAPPY my forefathers carved this country out nothing.
P.S.
The indeginous population of North America were for the most part hunter gatherers which means they killed everyone and everything in one spot till it would no longer sustain life then they moved on. Eco friendly my eye..................The Hopie and before them the Anastazi were Tribes that did maintain one location by useing agriculture untill they destroyed the local enviroment and GASP climate change wiped them out.
How people can be so comfortable about a genocide happening on American soil beats me...and then to think that it was a grand Idea also beats me. They were human beings for crying out loud...
This also has nothing to do with the evolvement of human beings. Cro-magnons and neanderthals were humans that evoved during the same time on different parts of the earth...one kept evolving...they didn't wipe each other out.
and to Mathguy...if colonists didn't come to other countries and ruin them...they wouldn't be like they are now.
So how do you explain the fact that the framers of the U.S. Constitution, Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin to name two, themselves credited the League of the Iroquois as the their model?
There is nothing to explain because they didn't. This is a myth of revisionist history. Did the two perhaps make reference to the LoI? Probably so. But nothing at all to suggest it was their model as to the United States Constitution, which has its lineage in the Magna Carta.
Here is a fairly objective thesis on both sides of the issue (starting with an except, followed by the main link):
It seems as though the truth, as is so often the case with disagreements, lies somewhere in the middle. The Iroquois probably held some sway over the thinking of the Framers and the development of the U.S. Constitution and the development of American democracy, albeit perhaps indirectly or even subconsciously. Grinde's and Johansen's 'mosaic of history' model probably has some merit, and even without a 'smoking gun' we can consider the veracity of their arguments. However, the opposition is probably also correct, and Grinde, Johansen, and others overstate the case - the Iroquois influence is not as great as they would like it to be, the framers simply did not revere or even understand much of Iroquois culture, and their influences were European or classical - not wholly New World.
Naturally, if you have some primary sources to refute it (such as those from Thomas Jefferson or Old Ben) then I would like to see them myself.
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