"Native Americans" And Rand's Statements: What Do We Know About The Native Americans of North/Central/South America?


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Ayn is alleged to have staed, in a Q&A at West Point, that the:

"[The Native Americans] didn't have any rights to the land and there was no reason for anyone to grant them rights which they had not conceived and were not using.... What was it they were fighting for, if they opposed white men on this continent? For their wish to continue a primitive existence, their "right" to keep part of the earth untouched, unused and not even as property, just keep everybody out so that you will live practically like an animal, or maybe a few caves above it. Any white person who brought the element of civilization had the right to take over this continent."

"Q and A session following her Address To The Graduating Class Of The United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, March 6, 1974"

Some folks are unable to veritfy the authenticity of the above quote, e.g.,

Regarding:

"[The Native Americans] didn't have any rights to the land and there was no reason for anyone to grant them rights which they had not conceived and were not using.... What was it they were fighting for, if they opposed white men on this continent? For their wish to continue a primitive existence, their "right" to keep part of the earth untouched, unused and not even as property, just keep everybody out so that you will live practically like an animal, or maybe a few caves above it. Any white person who brought the element of civilization had the right to take over this continent." * Source: "Q and A session following her Address To The Graduating Class Of The United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, March 6, 1974"

I note that on page 102-104 of the Book Ayn Rand Answers ISBN 0-451-21665-2 there is an answer to the question "When you consider the cultural genocide of Native Americans, the enslavement of blacks, and the relocation of Japanese Americans during World War Two, how can you have such a positive view of America?" in the Q&A section of a lecture, "Philosophy: Who Needs It" given at West Point Military Academy, 1974. Parts of the quote as given above (and I'll note given verbatim to other websites that misattribute this quote to her book The Virtue of Selfishness) do not match precisely with the answer as given in the book:

Now, I don't care to discuss the alleged complaints American Indians have against this country. I believe, with good reason, the most unsympathetic Hollywood portrayal of Indians and what they did to the white man. They had no right to a country merely because they were born here and then acted like savages. The white man did not
conquer
this country. And you're a racist if you object, because it means you believe that certain men are entitled to something because of their race. You believe that if someone is born in a magnificent country and doesn't know what to do with it, he still has a property right to it. He does not. Since the Indians did not have the concept of property or property rights--they didn't have a settled society, they had predominantly nomadic tribal "cultures"--they didn't have rights to the land, and there was no reason for anyone to grant them rights that they had not conceived of and were not using. It's wrong to attack a country that respects (or even tries to respect) individual rights. If you do, you're an aggressor and are morally wrong. But if a "country" does not protect rights--if a group of tribesmen are the slaves of their tribal chief--why should you respect the "rights" that they don't have or respect? The same is true for a dictatorship. The citizens in it have individual rights, but the country has no rights and so anyone has the right to invade it, because rights are not recognized in that country; and no individual or country can have its cake and eat it too--that is, you can't claim one should respect the "rights" of Indians, when they had no concept of rights and no respect for rights. But let's suppose they were all beautifully innocent savages--which they certainly were not. What were they fighting for, in opposing the white man on this continent? For their wish to continue a primitive existnece; for their "right" to keep part of the earth untouched--to keep everybody out so they could live like animals or cavemen. Any European who brought with him an element of civilization had the right to take over this continent, and it's great that some of them did. The racist Indians today--those who condemn America--do not respect individual rights.

Does anyone have access to the original audio and can confirm the correct wording of this quote

http://everything2.com/user/Glowing+Fish/writeups/Ayn+Rand+on+Native+Americans

Let us assume that the quote is substantially correct.

How much do we here at OL know about the North/Central/South "Native Americans?"

Here are some astoundingly fascinating maps created by an Oklahoman Native North American,website:

http://tribalnationsmaps.com/ <<nice full map there.

carapella-3dd37994f7ae50574799022b2dbad7

Aaron Carapella, a self-taught mapmaker in Warner, Okla., has designed a showing their locations before first contact with Europeans. Link to the story on NPR http://www.npr.org/blogs/codeswitch/2014/06/24/323665644/the-map-of-native-american-tribes-youve-never-seen-before?utm_source=npr_newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=20140629&utm_campaign=mostemailed&utm_term=nprnews

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The Noble Red Man (Mark Twain)

1622, Jamestown: The Indians killed families in the plantation houses and then moved on to kill servants and workers in the fields. The Powhatans killed 347 settlers in all - men, women, and children. Not even George Thorpe, a prominent colonist well known for his friendly stance towards the Indians, was spared. The Powhatans harsh treatment of the bodies of their victims was symbolic of their contempt for their opponents. The Indians also burned most of the outlying plantations, destroying the livestock and crops.

1675, New England: In the space of little more than a year, twelve of the region's towns were destroyed and many more damaged, the colony's economy was all but ruined, and its population was literally decimated, losing one-tenth of all men available for military service. More than half of New England's towns were attacked by Native American warriors.

1711, North Carolina: Southern Tuscarora, led by Chief Hancock, allied with the Pamplico Indians, the Cothechney, the Core, the Mattamuskeet and the Matchepungoe attacked settlers in a wide range of locations within a short time period. Principal targets were the planters along the Roanoke, Neuse, and Trent rivers and the city of Bath. They killed hundreds of settlers, plus driving off others.

1775-1784, Kentucky: Just before daybreak a group of Shawnee, slinging tomahawks, attacked sleeping men. Some of Boone's party were killed and a few were wounded but most were able to escape into the woods. Although the Transylvania Company had purchased the region from the Cherokee, and the Iroquois had ceded it at the Treaty of Fort Stanwix, other tribes, such as the Shawnee, still claimed it and lived there. Hundreds of pioneers were killed by Indian attacks. Often the Chickamauga, under the leadership of Dragging Canoe, would hide in ambush for weeks between Cumberland Gap and Crab Orchard, a distance of 100 miles. They would not attack large groups but wait for weaker ones who were not able to defend themselves. More than 100 men, women and children were killed in the fall of 1784 along the Wilderness Road.

1776-1782, New York and Pennsylvania: Mohawk, Seneca, Cayuga, and Onondaga fought with and for the British.

1787, Ohio: A pan-tribal confederacy led by Blue Jacket (Shawnee), Little Turtle (Miami), Buckongahelas (Lenape), and Egushawa (Ottawa) crushed armies led by Generals Josiah Harmar and Arthur St. Clair. General St. Clair's defeat was the most severe loss ever inflicted upon an American army by Native Americans.

1813, Alabama: The Red Sticks' goal was to strike at mixed-blood Creek of the Tensaw settlement who had taken refuge at the fort. The warriors attacked the fort, and killed a total of 400 to 500 people, including women and children and numerous white settlers.

1811-1924, West of the Missisippi: Led by resolute, militant leaders, such as Red Cloud and Crazy Horse, the Sioux were skilled at high-speed mounted warfare. Apache bands supplemented their economy by raiding others and practiced warfare to avenge a death of a kinsman. An estimated 7,000 white settlers and soldiers were killed, over half in Arizona.

1835, Florida: Two companies, totaling 110 men, left Fort Brooke under the command of Major Francis L. Dade. Seminoles shadowed the marching soldiers for five days. On December 28, the Seminoles ambushed the soldiers, and wiped out the command. Only three men survived, and one was hunted down and killed by a Seminole the next day.

1840, Texas: Altogether as many as a thousand Comanche may have set out from West Texas on the Great Raid. The war party literally burned one city to the ground. They took over 3,000 horses and mules, and hundreds of thousands of dollars of other plunder, ranging from silver to cloth and mirrors. 23 whites killed or carried away in Linville; 35 killed, 29 caught and imprisoned in Victoria.

1862, Minnesota: Free-roaming bands of Indians broke off from the main war army to attack farms and travelers. Settlers were killed in places with names like Acton, Milford and Slaughter Slough. There's never been an official report on the number of settlers killed, but estimates range from 300 to 800. Dakota were doing what they had always done in war: kill or capture everyone in their path.

1865, Colorado and Nebraska: Sioux, Cheyenne, and Arapaho attacked the stage station and fort at Julesburg, followed up by numerous raids along the South Platte both east and west of Julesburg and a second raid on Julesburg. A great deal of loot was captured and many whites killed. The bulk of the Indians then moved north into Nebraska on their way to the Black Hills. Raids continued along the Oregon trail in Nebraska and the Sioux, the Northern Cheyenne, the Northern Arapaho together with the warriors who had come north after the Sand Creek massacre raided the Oregon Trail along the North Platte River and attacked the troops stationed at the bridge across the North Platte. Livestock was continuously rustled by tribal raiders, who also boldly shot up railroad work crews and terrorized isolated station towns. Particularly vulnerable were route surveyors, who struck out on their own ahead of the work crews -- and sometimes paid for it with their lives.

---------------

Notwithstanding all of the foregoing, and as a matter of law:

"I like to think in particular cases. Does capturing a slave or feeding a child initialize ownership? If it's possible to fence an unoccupied river basin, does that initialize part ownership of the headwaters? Okay, we could elaborate a general theory with special rules... But I think Lockean first use made more sense two centuries ago, in the context of unopposed homesteading. Where it never made sense was blowing off the native Americans or aboriginal Tasmanians and taking their 'unowned' lands by force." [The Constitution of Government in Galt's Gulch, p.59]

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"[The Native Americans] didn't have any rights to the land and there was no reason for anyone to grant them rights which they had not conceived and were not using.... What was it they were fighting for, if they opposed white men on this continent? For their wish to continue a primitive existence, their "right" to keep part of the earth untouched, unused and not even as property, just keep everybody out so that you will live practically like an animal, or maybe a few caves above it. Any white person who brought the element of civilization had the right to take over this continent."

"Q and A session following her Address To The Graduating Class Of The United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, March 6, 1974"

Let us assume that the quote is substantially correct.

There are problems with the quotes. In some versions, Rand's spoken words are accurately transcribed as "white people" ... but in other versions, "white people" is replaced with "Europeans." See Robert Campbell's yeoman efforts to reality-check Mayhew's transcription/editing of this particular Q&A from the West Point speech in 1974. See also Robert's vetting of the Q&A from the 1976 Ford Hall Forum.

This link contains the entire 1974 question and answer period (link from your wikiquotes talk page reference):

https://ari-cdn.s3.amazonaws.com/audio/ar_library/ar_pwni/ar_pwni_qa.mp3

Edited by william.scherk
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Thanks William.

I was certain that Robert's version would be "cleaner."

I can't even remember her ever using the words "white people" in that context.

Also, Wolf, pretty sure you meant:

1811-1924 1824, West of the Missisippi: Led by resolute, militant leaders, such as Red Cloud and Crazy Horse, the Sioux were skilled at high-speed mounted warfare. Apache bands supplemented their economy by raiding others and practiced warfare to avenge a death of a kinsman. An estimated 7,000 white settlers and soldiers were killed, over half in Arizona.

A...

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In the following, I have inserted links to verbatim passages at other websites. I wish folks would not be this sloppy about attributions. If you are copying and pasting from other sources, it is a basic courtesy to let the readers know they are word-for-word borrowings. Please don't be lazy and forget to note when you lean heavily on other sources. If you have actually taken quotes, please mark them off ...

1622, Jamestown: The Indians killed families in the plantation houses and then moved on to kill servants and workers in the fields. The Powhatans killed 347 settlers in all - men, women, and children. Not even George Thorpe, a prominent colonist well known for his friendly stance towards the Indians, was spared.

1675, New England:

1711, North Carolina: Southern Tuscarora, led by Chief Hancock, allied with the Pamplico Indians, the Cothechney, the Core, the Mattamuskeet and the Matchepungoe attacked settlers in a wide range of locations within a short time period. Principal targets were the planters along the Roanoke, Neuse, and Trent rivers and the city of Bath. They killed hundreds of settlers, plus driving off others.

1775-1784, Kentucky: Just before daybreak a group of Shawnee, slinging tomahawks, attacked sleeping men. Some of Boone's party were killed and a few were wounded but most were able to escape into the woods. Although the Transylvania Company had purchased the region from the Cherokee, and the Iroquois had ceded it at the Treaty of Fort Stanwix, other tribes, such as the Shawnee, still claimed it and lived there. Hundreds of pioneers were killed by Indian attacks. Often the Chickamauga, under the leadership of Dragging Canoe, would hide in ambush for weeks between Cumberland Gap and Crab Orchard, a distance of 100 miles. They would not attack large groups but wait for weaker ones who were not able to defend themselves. More than 100 men, women and children were killed in the fall of 1784 along the Wilderness Road.

1776-1782, New York and Pennsylvania: Mohawk, Seneca, Cayuga, and Onondaga fought with and for the British.

1787, Ohio: A pan-tribal confederacy led by Blue Jacket (Shawnee), Little Turtle (Miami), Buckongahelas (Lenape), and Egushawa (Ottawa) crushed armies led by Generals Josiah Harmar and Arthur St. Clair. General St. Clair's defeat was the most severe loss ever inflicted upon an American army by Native Americans.

1813, Alabama: The Red Sticks' goal was to strike at mixed-blood Creek of the Tensaw settlement who had taken refuge at the fort. The warriors attacked the fort, and killed a total of 400 to 500 people, including women and children and numerous white settlers.

1811-1924, West of the Missisippi: Led by resolute, militant leaders, such as Red Cloud and Crazy Horse, the Sioux were skilled at high-speed mounted warfare. Apache bands supplemented their economy by raiding others and practiced warfare to avenge a death of a kinsman. An estimated 7,000 white settlers and soldiers were killed, over half in Arizona.

1835, Florida: Two companies, totaling 110 men, left Fort Brooke under the command of Major Francis L. Dade. Seminoles shadowed the marching soldiers for five days. On December 28, the Seminoles ambushed the soldiers, and wiped out the command. Only three men survived, and one was hunted down and killed by a Seminole the next day.

1840, Texas: Altogether as many as a thousand Comanche may have set out from West Texas on the Great Raid. The war party literally burned one city to the ground. They took over 3,000 horses and mules, and hundreds of thousands of dollars of other plunder, ranging from silver to cloth and mirrors. 23 whites killed or carried away in Linville; 35 killed, 29 caught and imprisoned in Victoria.

1862, Minnesota: Free-roaming bands of Indians broke off from the main war army to attack farms and travelers. Settlers were killed in places with names like Acton, Milford and Slaughter Slough. There's never been an official report on the number of settlers killed, but estimates range from 300 to 800. Dakota were doing what they had always done in war: kill or capture everyone in their path.

1865, Colorado and Nebraska: Sioux, Cheyenne, and Arapaho attacked the stage station and fort at Julesburg, followed up by numerous raids along the South Platte both east and west of Julesburg and a second raid on Julesburg. A great deal of loot was captured and many whites killed. The bulk of the Indians then moved north into Nebraska on their way to the Black Hills. Raids continued along the Oregon trail in Nebraska and the Sioux, the Northern Cheyenne, the Northern Arapaho together with the warriors who had come north after the Sand Creek massacre raided the Oregon Trail along the North Platte River and attacked the troops stationed at the bridge across the North Platte. Livestock was continuously rustled by tribal raiders, who also boldly shot up railroad work crews and terrorized isolated station towns. Particularly vulnerable were route surveyors, who struck out on their own ahead of the work crews -- and sometimes paid for it with their lives.

Edited by william.scherk
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How much do we here at OL know about the North/Central/South "Native Americans?"

I know some things about First Nations in my corner of the world, British Columbia. I don't always see Rand's 'savages' in these peoples. Culturally, the Haida and the other northernmost peoples reached some heights -- part of their economy is sustained by creating art works for the market. They were in a few senses, nations, rather than tribes, with language and culture being the distinction between adjoining peoples. Each one of them occupied and traversed traditional terrorities under their rule, warred against neighbours at times, captured slaves, did all the awful things that humans do. Some of their traditions were staggering, and interesting/repulsive from an Objectivist standpoint, ie, secret spirit lodges, fraternities, wool-dogs, steamed wooden boxes, and the truly 'monstrous' altruistic Potlach.

This week there was big news on this front in Canada. A small 'nation' in BC, the Chilcotin, had their right to aboriginal title affirmed by our Supreme Court. This means many things in BC context, especially resource extraction and the environment, but it surely would mean something bad to an Objectivist like Ayn Rand!

But I tend to think of these matters with an anthropological bent, and think of natives/aboriginals/first peoples as organized into cultures, and not as savage tribes needing complete subjugation to the European ideal. Ayn Rand seemed to say that all the cultures in BC too were deserving of whatever that white folks had in mind for their subjects ... I just can't go that far, knowing what harm was done to these very people by an earlier state.

As with Wolf's pastiche, I could dig up signs of vicious native antipathy to whites**, brutal massacres and so on. But however I might borrow from Wikipedia and elsewhere, I couldn't come up with the same tolls of savage wickedness on the BC frontier. I think we have to remember not to overgeneralize from one savage tribe to all the others.

Here's a rough ethnocultural map of 'indians' in BC as represented by the provincial education department (that same government now forced by law to gain 'consent' from first nations for major projects on their lands, rather than the earlier standard of 'consultation'). See this cool interactive to zoom in on language, culture, nation in BC. I think there are scary times ahead for Randians in the final shakedown of Canadian/First Nations treaties and legal frameworks.

It's the cultchah!

map2.jpg

___________________________

** Wikipedia's Chilcotin War article sez (Hi Wolf!):

April 29, 1864 a ferryman, Timothy Smith, stationed 30 miles up the river was killed after refusing a demand from Klattasine, Tellot and other natives for food. Smith was shot and his body thrown into the river. The food stores and supplies were looted. A half ton of provisions were taken. The following day the natives attacked the workers camp at daylight. Three men, Peterson Dane, Edwin Moseley and a man named Buckley, though injured, escaped and fled down the river. The remaining crew were killed and their bodies thrown into the river.

Four miles further up the trail, the band came upon the foreman, William Brewster, and three of his men blazing trail. All were killed. Brewster's body was mutilated and left. The others' bodies were thrown into the river. The band also killed William Manning, a settler at Puntzi Lake.

A pack train led by Alexander McDonald, though warned, continued into the area and three of the drivers were killed in the ensuing ambush. In all, nineteen men were killed.

Edited by william.scherk
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1862, Minnesota: Free-roaming bands of Indians broke off from the main war army to attack farms and travelers. Settlers were killed in places with names like Acton, Milford and Slaughter Slough. There's never been an official report on the number of settlers killed, but estimates range from 300 to 800. Dakota were doing what they had always done in war: kill or capture everyone in their path.

I lived in the New Ulm area for several years, and I married a woman whose ancestors survived the conflict. Members of both sides of the war were equally unfair and vicious. Representatives of the US government started the mess by repeatedly violating their agreements with the Dakota to the point of threatening their survival, and they added insult to injury by mocking and taunting them.

There were also acts of great kindness and generosity on both sides. Both German settlers and Dakota spared each other, showed mercy, and even hid or fed the "enemy," or tended to their wounded. Some of the Germans and Dakota didn't feel that they were really on any "side," but were just ordinary people who were pulled into a war by leaders who had carelessly put them in danger.

The trials and hangings after the war in Mankato were a shameful farce. They were about as fair, rational and carefully researched as Wolf's selective and shallow presentation of history above.

J

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Of the 30,000 citizens, only 5,000 survived. For fourteen days, charred bodies were carried to the Elbe River to be dumped to prevent disease. In one church 53 young girls were beheaded. Croatians laughed as they cast little children into the midst of flames. The tortures and horrors perpetrated in Magdeburg were so shocking that several imperial officers sought Tilly to put an end to them. He replied: “I’ve promised three days for pillaging and slaying. The soldiers must have some amusement after so many fatigues!”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sack_of_Magdeburg

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The Power of Maps by Denis Wood and John Fels is a classic. When we look at maps of the Native Americans, what is missing is their cities. What is a city? How is it different from a village?

Tribes-of-Indian-Nation-Map2.jpg

How is a native village of 3,000 different from Boston 1650 with 2,000?

Abenaki

The Abenaki, native to Maine and New Hampshire, made their villages along rivers and streams. Each village had a meeting hall, a sweat lodge, and was surrounded by palisades — tall log walls that guarded the village against attacks. The Abenaki lived primarily in wigwams, lodges made of birch, and although they were agricultural, growing corn, beans, and squash for food, they also hunted and fished.

Known for their quill and beadwork and making black ash baskets, the Abenaki often traded with other local tribes, using birchbark canoes, sleds, and snowshoes to travel from one place to another. The Abenaki were nearly wiped out by a series of epidemics after encountering Europeans in the 1500s. They allied with the French, and other local tribes in 1600s to fight the English, but after a series of defeats by the British, they withdrew to Canada.

abenaki.jpg

http://www.learner.org/interactives/historymap/indians5.html

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With an estimated population between 200,000 and 300,000, many scholars believe Tenochtitlan to have been among the largest city in the world at that time. Compared to Europe, only Paris, Venice, and Constantinople might have rivaled it. It was five times the size of the contemporary London of Henry VIII. -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenochtitlan

Two double aqueducts each more than 4 km (2.5 mi) long and made of terracotta provided the city with fresh water from the springs at Chapultepec. This was intended mainly for cleaning and washing. For drinking, water from mountain springs was preferred. Most of the population liked to bathe twice a day; Moctezuma was said to take four baths a day. As soap they used the root of a plant called copalxocotl... to clean their clothes they used the root of metl ... Also, the upper classes and pregnant women enjoyed the temazcalli. Similar to a sauna bath, it is still used in the south of Mexico. This was also popular in other Mesoamerican cultures. -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenochtitlan

... and yes, they cut the hearts out of dozens to hundreds of captives as sacrifices to their gods... (See Count Tilly at Magdeburg above.)

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With an estimated population between 200,000 and 300,000, many scholars believe Tenochtitlan to have been among the largest city in the world at that time. Compared to Europe, only Paris, Venice, and Constantinople might have rivaled it. It was five times the size of the contemporary London of Henry VIII. -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenochtitlan

And the Aztec also had flush toilets.

Ba'al Chatzaf

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Rand: But if a "country" does not protect rights--if a group of tribesmen are the slaves of their tribal chief--why should you respect the "rights" that they don't have or respect?

I wonder why Rand didn't use this same argument to defend the ownership of Africans by many of the Founders of "the greatest, the noblest and. . . the only moral country in the history of the world."

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That's all very nice, and let's not forget that the Incans had an even more organized and cruel system and gave the Conquistadores the good fight before submitting to the inevitable forces not of history but of simple biology:

What Ayn Rand, perhaps along with Isabel Paterson, instinctively understood (or maybe even considered obvious) is that every single nation and almost every tribe on Earth has been subjected to the crisis of being integrated to the Global Network (with its technology and weapons, its inmunity and diseases, its domesticated animals and vegetables).

The discovery of the Americas by the western peoples of the integrated eurasiafrican system unleashed a very rapid integration of the lesser but huge continent by the old world pangea. You may think of it as a harsh market correction in the case of the Spanish and a slower market correction in the case of the English USA/Canada and Portuguese.Brazil.

Australia is a more extreme example. Tasmania specifically.

It was inevitable. If man's will didn't do it, smallpox would not have had any problem finding its way to very similar results. And it would have been suicidal and impossible for the European peoples to donate horses and steel to the Aztecs, etc, and keep the Americas in a sort of quarantine.

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Rand: But if a "country" does not protect rights--if a group of tribesmen are the slaves of their tribal chief--why should you respect the "rights" that they don't have or respect?

I wonder why Rand didn't use this same argument to defend the ownership of Africans by many of the Founders of "the greatest, the noblest and. . . the only moral country in the history of the world."

Because Rand had an Agenda.

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If any of you had been the Pope, Mr Columbus, any European trader, an adventurer, or a curious poor devil who had just heard news of a land across the Ocean:

What would/could you have done that would have resulted in different results? What would you have done that it was in your best interest?

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That trading post would have expanded smallpox and other Old World diseases to the smaller New World. Of course your people would have gotten syphilis in turn, but the trade off would have resulted in the same situation as in the real timeline.

The area around the trade post would have slowly depopulated of First Nations Persons as a consequence of disease and the purpose of the trading post would be defeated. Instead all that big arable land around the old trade post would have been obviously taken by your people to form a permanent settlement, because that's what all known biological species do: we expand or are forced to contract, but never remain stagnant or voluntarily deprive ourselves from expansion*. Sorry to use the plural we, I mean us humans, or any other species for that matter.

*The Imperial Chinese ban on building oceangoing ships comes to mind as the exception that proves the rule. The very likely Phoenician discovery of the Atlantic, including maybe the Americas, is part of that rule. The fact that they could not monopolise the "Ocean" proves my point: Nec Plus Ultra? Plus Ultra indeed!

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The fact of the matter is that the Native Americans could have simply abandoned their savage way of life and become civilized and a part of the new country. Instead, they dug their heels in and decided to resist the US every step of the way. They had to be dragged out of the stone age kicking and screaming. Besides, if the US hadn't expanded westward and made use of that land, Britain, France, or maybe even Spain would have instead.

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warning: the links included on this post are ideologically dangerous, politically incorrect, and not even approved by me, I just included them because of intellectual curiosity.

The fact of the matter is that the Native Americans could have simply abandoned their savage way of life and become civilized and a part of the new country. Instead, they dug their heels in and decided to resist the US every step of the way. They had to be dragged out of the stone age kicking and screaming. Besides, if the US hadn't expanded westward and made use of that land, Britain, France, or maybe even Spain would have instead.

The second part (about any other european power taking what the US wouldn't, and you forgot about Russia in the Pacific) is absolutely undeniably true and it is confirmed in every other human "race", and every other biological species we know of.

The first part however is only partly true:

Some First Nation Persons resisted the change and absorption fiercely, and with good reason: the gap was too big for them to salvage their identity, dignity, or even to not become alcoholics or to not die of Old World diseases for which they had no immunity. David Yeagley or Bad Eagle in Comanche, who passed away only recently, made a magnificent point about the Comanche's original values including the immense respect they had for the winner and the tragic way in which (half of) his ancestors' World was replaced. His views on immigration are perfectly representative of the tribal mindset and show how recent and alive the colonization has been and is. It is no coincidence that UFOs and Alien invasions are a particularly American theme. There are many fierce tribes like this, perhaps the most dangerous the Arawaks or Caribs.

Other First Nation Persons, such as the Guaranis of Paraguay and Brasil, have been very cooperative with the also very cooperative Jesuitic Missionaries. The Spaniards were not so kind as the Jesuits in all cases, but even in the worse cases they didn't implement genocide but slavery (forced labor rather) and mass conversions. The result of this long submission oppression and interbreeding with Americas most advanced civilizations are the countries of Peru and Mexico. Both of which are experiencing a rather deserved renaissance after they allied economically with the USA and the Pacific ring. After independence, in frontier countries of the Spanish Empire like Argentina, the same policy as in the American West was applied (indeed using American-made Remington rifles). But not all First Nation Persons clinged to Barbarism as in the great Plains or Patagonia. Some in the Andean highlands developed very elaborate civilizations. Huntington speculates about an Aztec Mexico unmolested by Spain that would have in time become something akin to Japan; but I just think it was just an Americans' desire to have Japan for neighbour instead of castigated Mexico. The lesson to learn from this speculation is that maybe a culture and society fare better if it doesn't exist in a permanent state of identity crisis. I do not see how it could have been practically executed (except if the English had armed the Aztecs with steel, gunpowder and horses preemptively against the Spaniards, but the English of the time could not even secure an Anti Spanish pact with the Moors, only one with the Portuguese).

To this day there are still some uncontacted tribes, some can be found/discovered in the Amazon, and we have no idea how to handle the situation. The Brasilian and Peruvian Governments are trying a policy of maintaining isolation (experiments of giving them cooking pots and machetes have proven disastrous. Keyword Beyond the River of the Dead. In (an archipelago administered by) India they tried to integrate the Andaman Negritos to very lamentable results: the Andamanese are losing their exceptionally rare ways, and Anthropologists from India and elsewhere are losing one of the last isolated populations who can shed so much light on the development of the human species and our history. So my hypothetical scenario becomes a very real one: what would be your policy towards uncontacted tribes?

Introducing them to machetes, cooking pots and the internet, knowing that 99,9% of them will end up as beggars, prostitutes and thieves (some exceptional ones might become drug dealers) in the towns? Or preserve their environment "for their own good" in what can only be described as human zoos? Another idea?

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@Francisco Ferrer

What sense does it make to "respect the rights" of a people who engage in near continuous aggression against your country? African slaves are another matter. It's not like they invaded America.

Rand's point was not that Indian tribes had forfeited their rights by attacking European settlers; rather she argued that they had no rights (even before the arrival of white pioneers) because they had not conceived rights and were not using them.

[The Native Americans] didn't have any rights to the land and there was no reason for anyone to grant them rights which they had not conceived and were not using.... What was it they were fighting for, if they opposed white men on this continent? For their wish to continue a primitive existence, their "right" to keep part of the earth untouched, unused and not even as property, just keep everybody out so that you will live practically like an animal, or maybe a few caves above it. Any white person who brought the element of civilization had the right to take over this continent.

If Europeans could legitimately take land occupied by Indians because the Indians didn't believe in property rights, it would logically follow that Europeans could enslave Africans because (some) Africans had enslaved other Africans.

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+1 Francisco. It's a problem, all right. I suffered through this on the Rebirth of Reason site where Objectivists made the one claim (against the Indians) but not the other (against the Negroes). They did not have the insight; and neither did I. Thanks for drawing the conclusion.

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