Much of the modern left views the migration of Europeans to the Americas as one of history’s greatest tragedies. This cynicism represents a failure to examine both sides of the balance sheet, to recognize both good and bad consequences of trans-Atlantic colonization, as well as the consequences of having no European colonization at all. The answer to the question posed in the title comes down to at least four items.
Access to advanced technology. Recall this quote from Life of Brian: “All right, but apart from the sanitation, medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh water system and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?” One can nitpick and identify a few things the Judeans already had (e.g. wine), but overall the Romans significantly improved infrastructure that increased quality of life. The technological gap between Renaissance Europeans and pre-Columbian Americans was vastly greater. The Europeans also brought a non-technological advance that benefited some tribes in the short term: the horse.
And end to the constant threat of warfare. Before Europeans displaced the American natives, the natives were displacing each other. Such is life in a continent where one can find little land that isn’t frontier. As nation-states emerged and maintained long-term power, warfare became a less frequent concern.
Rule of law and relative freedom under the law. These principles evolved in Northern Europe and especially in England. They were exported to the Anglosphere colonies where they were developed further. Latin America was settled by the most autocratic region of Western Europe; centuries of existential threat under Moorish rule is not the sort of environment that breeds high-cooperation societies. Democratic reforms eventually came to many parts of the region with varying degrees of success.
The Chinese did not colonize the Americas. If Ming Dynasty maritime exploration had taken a different turn…
Happy Thanksgiving!
Two views of immigration:
https://chicagoboyz.net/archives/49641.html
Generally speaking I think the issue of American Indians, Native Americans, or whatever is a topic poorly discussed in our society mostly because the people who discuss it the most aren’t so much interested in Indians themselves as much as using them as a catspaw to take down American society (see “settler colonialism” and “land acknowledgments”), see also blacks
Case in point, Arizona has 22 tribes and nations and while I haven’t been to all of them I been to a lot of them and all the big ones. Number 31 NFL team? Dallas ((though Cardinals catching up) Number #2? Redskins. I haven’t redone my survey since the name change but if you through towns next to the big reservations like Winslow or Show Low you see a lot of trucks with Redskin logos and those aren’t white people
The name change? I think that was more to appease white people guilt and 2020 offered the opportunity. One conversation I did get into with someone while pumping gas in Show Low was “nobody asked us about it.”
There’s this about changing the name back, : Commanders Controversial Name Change Rumors Gaining Momentum Rumors mind you
However as far as the logo, maybe not gone forever.
I recall seeing a whole lot of t-shirts in Indian Country that either commemorated the Pueblo Massacre or read “Indians 1, Custer 0, How ’bout them Indians?.”
I could go on for hours about the warfare, torture and enslavement of the native American tribes against each other, but I’ll leave you with one thought.
You don’t honestly think the Inuit chose to live in the high arctic, do you?
I once did a tour of Amerindian sites such as Mesa Verde, which included visiting several museums that had many, many artifacts from pre-colonial days — clay pots, flint arrowheads, bead jewelry, etc. I thought at first that they were from prehistoric (‘caveman’) times, but no. Most were circa the 12th Century. They were literally in the Stone Age while Europeans had been using steel for thousands of years. tbf, some of the eastern and mesoamerican tribes were slightly more advanced, but still. Plus there doesn’t seem to have much of any technological advancement in the 300 or so years between then and when the Europeans arrived. It was quite startling.
A Stone Age tribe cannot compete with a tribe that has steel, gunpowder, the horse and the printing press. The American Indians were doomed from 1492.
Neither Indians nor colonists understand the germ theory of disease or the concept of an virgin field epidemic. This had far more effect on the near annihilation of the Indians than anything the colonists actually did
Siberian-Americans should be thankful that Europeans ended the cannibalism practiced by the Ancestral Puebloans (Anasazi), the Krankawas (Texas Gulf Coast), and the Aztecs within the Iroquois Confederacy.
Written language (for the great majority). Western art, music and literature. Christianity, philosophy, the scientific method and the broader pursuit of knowledge. Western culinary traditions, alcohol.
Alcohol is not a positive for Indians. Old Worlders have had millennia for drunks to remove themselves from the gene pool by accidents, hypothermia, and violent death.
Many benefits, but the shock of having your culture displaced by hordes of immigrants (who you may not have wanted there, or at least not wanted in the quantities that showed up) is usually traumatic, and the trauma can last for generations.
The passage from George MacDonald Fraser passage cited in my post Two Views of Immigration is, I think, insightful:
https://chicagoboyz.net/archives/49641.html
Isolation doomed the Indians, technologically, philosophically, and biologically. Whether it was Columbus or another, eventually Europeans would arrive in New World and bring with them smallpox and other Old World maladies.
as we are undergoing al hijra, or reconquista, it’s a point to take into account, war by mass immigration, as most of Western Europe is undergoing, and Enoch Powell’s warning was not heeded,
On Yellowstone, John Dutton’s earliest adversary, who has become a sort of ally of convenience, played by Gil Birmingham, tells John what drove him to go top schools and
apprentice at white shoe lawfirms, so he could ultimately reclaim his ancestors land, (spoiler alert, this will not happen) as pointed out the Chinese or even the Russians might have moved to seize at least part of what is the West Coast, maybe not the Mountain West, of course this would probably be in an era where they didn’t engage in the Crimean war, against three major powers,
While it’s true that American Indians suffer higher rates of alcoholism than other groups, as far as I can tell this is due as much to cultural / societal factors as to genetic ones – certainly, there’s no shortage of people with European ancestry who suffer from alcoholism. Even if I’m wrong, one can’t dispute the gustatory and communal pleasures to be derived from fine wines and liquors, craft beers, etc, consumed in moderation in company.
And while “generational trauma” is real, IMHO “people should know when they’re conquered”. Rather than obsessing about a mythical idealized past and / or brooding on past injustices (real though these were in many cases), American Indians would be better off upgrading their cultural software from “Stone Age Tribal” or “Marxist Victimhood” to “Modern Democratic Capitalism” (or whatever else it may be called), and taking advantage of the opportunities available to them.
Granted, Indians as a whole don’t currently enjoy the same opportunities as do some other groups, but demands to rectify this are more likely to succeed if made on the basis of citizenship in a shared polity, rather than as compensation for wrongs committed hundreds of years ago. Let’s bury the hatchet, FGS – we’re all in this together.
There is not one square centimeter of Europe, Asia or Africa that is not soaked in the brood shed by millennia of conflicts between the tribes occupying it and the tribes seeking to occupy it. The same is true for North and South America. Post 1492, the tribes just changed.
Brian April…”And while “generational trauma” is real, IMHO “people should know when they’re conquered”. Rather than obsessing about a mythical idealized past and / or brooding on past injustices (real though these were in many cases), American Indians would be better off upgrading their cultural software from “Stone Age Tribal” or “Marxist Victimhood” to “Modern Democratic Capitalism” (or whatever else it may be called), and taking advantage of the opportunities available to them.
The non-Indians didn’t always make it easy, though. Ely Parker (Seneca), who I mentioned in another thread (he was Grant’s military secretary at Appomattox) studied law as well as engineering, but found he couldn’t practice in the US because Indians were not considered American citizens.
On at least some reservations, the Bureau of Indian Affairs controls people’s affairs with a heavy hand. Is there really any reason for the continued existence of this agency?
David,
Agreed, there are legitimate historical complaints, but not all on one side. Unless someone can establish a Chesterton’s Fence justification for it that is still relevant, the Bureau should be abolished – and even if some justification for it might exist, surely there should be a better way of furthering whatever aim is intended. Hopefully the Bureau will be included in the upcoming review…
I am tracing a family line in Mexico, so I joined the Mexican genealogy sites on Facebook. The pap some of these Americans have been fed have way too many of them wishing to find their tribe, many want to be descended from Cortez. Many think the Aztec were great. They do not seem to realize how threatened with sacrificial death they might be were they actually Aztec, or a member of any tribe being attacked and killed by another tribe. Many seem not realize their DNA might not show one tribe because they fought, caught slaves, raped women and acted like any European tribe in earlier era.
— The hate America first crowd hates deeply and irrationally.
— The actor who played the noble Indian with a tear on his cheek back in the 70s was Italian.
@ David Foster || November 28, 2024 at 7:09 pm
“American Indians would be better off upgrading their cultural software from “Stone Age Tribal” or “Marxist Victimhood” to “Modern Democratic Capitalism” (or whatever else it may be called), and taking advantage of the opportunities available to them.”
Yes.
The Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma (https://cherokee.org/about-the-nation/) and the Salt River Pima–Maricopa Indian Community that owns the Talking Stick Resort & associated activity sites near Scottsdale AZ ,,,
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salt_River_Pima%E2%80%93Maricopa_Indian_Community)
…demonstrate that if the tribes are well-managed, they can, and some have, “…tak[en] advantage of the opportunities available to them.” (and boy, have they!)
There is no reason (other than a desire to cling to their non-capitalist & historical cultures) why other tribes cannot, or have not, followed their example.
Somewhat related—Bad Eagle’s Question:
https://ricochet.com/771458/bad-eagles-question/
Whoever landed first from the Eastern Hemisphere would touch of the germ holocaust we know took place. It happened to be the Spanish. Estimates range from 75% to 95% mortality in the space of a decade or two. That’s Walking Dead territory, truly post-apocalyptic. There were large civilizations, The Puebloans, The Mound Builders, besides the huge cities of central and South America. Tenochtitlan was one of the most populous cities in the world, and was a wonder to Cortez and his men.
The English at Jamestown parked on the doorstep of one of the places that were attempting under Powhatan to rebuild what had been lost a hundred years prior.
Think of some of the most dystopian novels you’ve read, and that’s what the 16th century looked like throughout the Americas. The Spanish were active agents in the destruction of the tropical people; the English and French found empty cities, a couple of incipient federations, villages and many small bands of survivalists wandering the wastelands.
The Indian known as ‘Squanto’ had been abducted by Europeans…circumstances not totally clear…finally got a ride home, and when he got there found out that his tribe had been completely wiped out by disease. Very likely had an influence on his desire to build relationships with European newcomers.
I’m afraid most people really do not understand how bad infectious diseases used to be. Somebody was saying that given vax and other drug side-effects, food additives, etc, it was amazing that people born in the 1980s were still alive at all.
Try the 1880s.
The death toll from disease was unavoidable from the moment that Europeans set foot ashore given the state of knowledge then and, for that matter, now. The death toll from enslavement, conquest, treasure hunting and mining are another matter and very much more important in the Spanish and Portuguese colonies.
Not that there weren’t sporadic attempts to enslave natives in North America, almost all came up against the refractory nature of the natives. More common were attempts to purchase land from parties that had no notion that anyone could own land and even less basis for binding anyone to such an agreement. In the end, Europeans mostly gaining title by the inexorable pressure of Westward Expansion interspersed with episodes of armed conflict.
What isn’t remotely in question is the idea that the New World inhabited by a few million Stone Age relicts would be left alone to develop “organically”.
the shock of having your culture displaced by hordes of immigrants (who you may not have wanted there, or at least not wanted in the quantities that showed up) is usually traumatic, and the trauma can last for generations.
Don’t Indians know it. Oh, you meant American Indians. The other Indians know it all too well. I hear the Moslem
invadersimmigrants still try to convert the conquered. And that caste system, well…I remember (from a long time ago) a symposium where the speaker said there were only three people in the United States; slaves and their descendants, Indians, and everyone else. I think his pithy phrase was, ” Those who were here, those come here, and those who came against their will.”
His larger point was that Indians have a special place in American law as sovereign nations with which the US government has a treaty relationship. Even back during the time that talk was given, the Left was using the strategy of making the whole fit a particular, to find exceptions to prevailing custom and make everything adapt to the exception which is their way of using “diversity” as a pry bar to destabilize society.
Accordingly, he stated that the status of American Indians and their relation to government is different and unique and is not applicable to any other group.
There was a comment above regarding Salt-RiverPima in Maricopa County, Arizona as an example of a well-run tribe. A little bit of detail as well as compare and contrast. Salt-River Pima is one of a number of recognized tribes in the Phoenix metro area and all of them profit from their location to the larger metroplex.
What makes the Salt River Pima different isn’t just a casino or an office building but rather a decision made back in the 1980s when the Maricopa freeway system was being designed. There was a need for a north-south aligned freeway to the east of SR-51 but any such roadway would have meant a lot of eminent domain issues. However if you are familiar with the area back then, you would note that Pima Road, which is the boundary line between Scottsdale and Salt-River Pima offers a striking image; built-up suburbs to the west and empty cotton fields to the east.
So a deal was truck and Salt-River Pima leased out the land for the Pima Freeway where it runs through reservation land for about 10 miles from Tempe to Scottsdale. However the real benefit to the tribe isn’t the freeway, but the exits as that’s what facilitates the further business development to the east of the freeway (on reservation land); Talking Stick being the prime example. Sharp operators, keep in mind this was done years before tribal gaming.
Fort McDowell (another tribe in the metro area) is a little far out there to take similar advantage but about 10 years ago the Gila River community voted to not follow Salt-River Pima’s lead and allow construction of the new 202 South Mountain on tribal land and thereby profit from the freeway exits.
I don’t think tribes out there in the sticks are in a position to profit the same way.
To the speaker I referenced earlier, later in his talk he amended his earlier statement about descendants of slaves stating that with the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act that those people should not be treated as unique group in terms of policy (though discrimination laws would still apply), but rather as an immigrant group to be integrated as such within the larger whole
We are having a similar debate here in Australia, about the ‘guilt’ of the ‘colonisers’ and what should now be done by way of making up for the ‘damage’ inflicted on the indigenous people who inhabited the land for many eons (at least 40,000 years and some claims are up to 100,000 years) before Europeans discovered it and settled it. As with everywhere else, the arrival of modern civilisation proved devastating for the original culture and the first disaster was diseases carried by the new people which the old ones had no resistance for. The fact that the indigenous culture was technologically still in the early Stone Age made the gap even greater. But now the wheel has turned and huge sums of money are thrown at the problem, with constant breast-beating about our ‘guilt’ and ‘closing the gap’. Our national broadcaster’s program presenters make a point of stating at the beginning of every program that it is coming from ‘xxxxx country’ – the first word being the name of whatever tribe roamed in the area before western settlement. And even introducing indigenous languages into school curriculums – there were more than 200 and many are no longer spoken, but even the others have only a tiny number of speakers and contain no words for many things and concepts that just did not exist in indigenous society. The worst of it is an absurd idealisation of life before the ‘invaders’ arrived, whereas many accounts of early explorers and more academic sources consistently reveal a rather Hobbesian way of life. While the old culture could not survive, the new culture did bring many benefits of civilisation and ended many not so good aspects of indigenous life. But even to say that now brings hysterical responses. The indoctrination program proceeds apace in our educational institutions and in a decade or two there will be few people left to dispute it.