Hell, even the romanticized and sanitized versions of “Old West” history we’ve been fed since the late 19th Century didn’t pretend those lands were completely unpopulated when white folks got there.
The pop culture “Cowboys and Indians” tropes might not have been accurate or sensitive depictions of the era but at least they acknowledged that there WERE native people to displace.
America was discovered by Amerigo Vespucci and was named after him,
until people got tired of living in a place called “Vespuccia” and
changed its name to “America”.
– Mike Harding, “The Armchair Anarchist’s Almanac”
I think there is a couple of ways that most people who have not read this history see it, mainly shaped by our popular culture. It’s either the “noble savage” trope, nobly making way for the clearly superior white population by nobly dying (usually in the process, giving the whites some valuable lessons, which is meant to indicate that it’s okay that they are now taking over - maybe the Lone Ranger?), or it’s the “dangerous savage” trope, dangerously hindering progress of clearly superior white population, so it’s okay to kill them in incredibily large numbers, because they are hindering what is clearly god-ordained progress. The otherwise well-done Ballad of Buster Scrugs was full of that bullshit - I don’t think a single Native person had a role to play other than to murder some innocent white person or to die while attacking white people… Honestly, I was really shocked by how much it was just re-playing classic era westerns from the past which so completely dehumanized Native peoples. It would be like if you had a film which made the nazis sympathetic characters and the Jews hostile in the face of “superior” civilization… you just wouldn’t do that, but in the case of Native Americans as depicted on screen, it’s just par for the course. Isn’t there some point made in Blazing Saddles to that effect, with Jews (including Mel Brooks) playing Native Americans, speaking in Yiddish?
But make no mistakes, the US government and many Americans very much contributed to this history of genocide, and were in fact the primary cause of the genocide. We continue to make life for the people who remain harsh and difficult, and we continue to make false promises as a country to the people who we helped wipe out in the first place. Just like with slavery, we’ve never faced what was done in the name of American conquest head on, and the ignorance on display here shows just how successful the cover up has been.
I never said the United States didn’t treat Native Americans horribly.
But the diseases that happened after the initial waves of Spanish conquest killed 90+% of the inhabitants of the Americas; and turned them from a group of civilized, highly cultured, as advanced as the Europeans in basically all areas groups of nations into disorganized bands of post-apocalyptic survivors desperately trying to recover their civilizations while Spain, England, and the other European powers followed up this with military conquest and enslavement.
If the Spanish genocides of Native American forces would not have happened, instead of encountering weak, nomadic bands of survivors, they would have encountered powerful nations who could have easily militarily held their own against the Europeans. (Yes, even without guns)
Did the US Government fuck over the Native Americans, hard-core? Yes. Horribly so. They intentionally kept them off guard and being pushed into areas that they weren’t used to and kept them into the marginal areas; while I don’t think they intentionally meant to prevent the Native Americans from rebuilding their civilizations (because they didn’t even realize that the Native Americans had civilizations that rivaled European Civilizations in age, complexity, and technology due to racism) that is exactly what they did.
While Spain (via Mexico) didn’t claim 100% of the west with actual troops… they did try to claim basically everything west of the Mississippi.
Yes. You did. You said Europeans committed genocide, not Americans. You even said that the overthrow of a sovereign government was NBD.
The face is THE US COMMITTED GENOCIDE. Full stop.
this is apparently different from “conquest”
You missed the part about the smallpox blankets, I guess.
This was done by a British commander, Lord Jeffrey Amherst. Blame England for that one.
What I am saying, in case I am not being absolutely clear enough:
America does have much to be ashamed of in it’s past.
But if you are European you have every bit as much blood on your hands, too. Europe spent 400 years terrorizing the world and enslaving, colonizing, and taking what ever they wanted; and you don’t get to play all noble because while you were rebuilding after WWII it went out of fashion. Don’t cast stones like your own history isn’t covered in blood, much of it innocent.
Again, the United States government enforced a policy of forced cultural assimilation through the “Indian boarding school” system as recently as 1978.
There are men and women in our society who had their childhoods, their families, their language and their culture stolen from them who aren’t even old enough to retire yet.
Of course. That was the only incident of the spread of smallpox by Americans in North America (Narrator: it wasn’t) and we all know that the British left North America and the people of the United States appeared spontaneously upon their departure (Narrator: Nope, those were also the British right up until the moment they weren’t anymore.)
Dude, get some help. Most of the folks who are calling you on this nonsense are from the USA. Even the Texas textbooks are clear on the USA’s genocide of indigenous peoples.
I am not.
I’m a descendant of the African Diaspora, with ancestors who were kidnapped and stolen from Africa.
Here’s the point that you seem to be ducking and dodging by any means possible, in a nutshell:
I gave you an easy link to go through, you know. Many Americans, government representatives included, were taking actions they were hoping would hasten the disappearance of the Natives. And not just in places where the Spanish had actual presences – you can look here at the history of groups like the Lakota and Cheyenne or the Niimíipuu (Nez Perce). Their land was stolen and people were hoping to be rid of them. “Nits make lice” would be the most spectacular quote, but many were more politely saying the same thing.
Seriously, please read some before you keep talking, because your attempts to minimize all the suffering inflicted here are both inaccurate and awful.
“Europe did it, too” is no fucking excuse for white washing genocide. You are white washing genocide and need to stop doing so.
Oh excellent, a post about the evolution of language and the genesis of demonyms! Hope I’m not to late to the thread, I bet there’s some really enlightening discussion going on —
What the fu…
I wasn’t trying to avoid that point. I would nearly agree with you. The United States learned how to be from the European powers, and tried to be better but failed often after independence. The Europeans continued to be every bit as evil as they ever were for another 200 years after that.
There is no absolution for this. What the USA did to the Native Americans - and to your people - is something that the country will need to be guilty about for the rest of it’s existence.
But it is also something that the Europeans need to be guilty over, too.
Now, you want to bad mouth the USA over slavery or racism? Go ahead; I’ll probably agree with you there, too. Want to criticize it over other stuff? You’re one of us, feel free to; it’s the only way we get better. There’s a lot of stuff to criticize. We can get a lot better.
I’m just sick of randos from Europe looking down on us barbarians from their enlightened positions when they are more guilty than we are. At least we tried not to be evil.
If that was “trying,” I’d hate to see “failing.”
Yeah? When?
