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


Recommended Posts

Bottom line on all those treaties? -- ceded land, usually at gunpoint.

reservations2010.gif

Indian population

1650 2-10 million?

1800 600,000

1890 250,000

[Wikipedia] ... decimated is the proper word: 9 out of 10 killed

Wolf:

That base line 1650 number of 2, 000, 000 is the only one you can use with any degree of credibility.

Also, all the deaths cannot be laid on the state.

Difficult to establish factually what many of us "feel" was genocide.

A...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 91
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

It's those "few" cases that worry me. The only reason that there are only a few countries that we have to worry about today is because we've already "solved" just about all of our "problems" during the previous centuries. It's easy to say that the US should behave angelically on the international stage from our current vantage point, so let's consider a hypothetical that removes this bias and test your principles.

Pretend that we are a very small but productive country, and that we have two neighbors. One of them is Iran. It wants our territory and our stuff, and is currently preparing to annex us. The other is another small but militarily weak country that happens to be sitting on a strategic resource. If we had that resource, we could use it to successfully repel or deter an invasion from Iran.

Here are our options. We could try to buy that resource from them, but sadly, the amount they're willing to sell us is not enough to meet our military's needs. The other option is to quickly annex the parts of that country that contain that resource. We would then have enough of it to repel an Iranian attack.

Now, in this scenario, which is not too unrealistic (at least I think so), are we justified in "violating the rights" of the people in the other country?

I think most reasonable people, and by "reasonable people" I mean "anyody who doesn't want to live under an oppressive Muslim theocracy", would agree with me that we are.

Let's consider a hypothetical case, and in this hypothetical case there is Iran(!)

Yes, small countries get threatened sometimes by larger neighbors. If Country X is threatened by Country Y, it might do well to make common cause with Country Z that also considers Y a threat. I don't see invading country W as the first and only option. What if Big Countries T, U, and V also want W's resources and use Small Country X's invasion to invade and plunder X?

Anyway, Iran, hypothetical or otherwise, has nothing to do with the topic of this thread: Rand's position on the treatment of Indian tribes.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Let's consider a hypothetical case, and in this hypothetical case there is Iran(!)

Yes, small countries get threatened sometimes by larger neighbors. If Country X is threatened by Country Y, it might do well to make common cause with Country Z that also considers Y a threat. I don't see invading country W as the first and only option. What if Big Countries T, U, and V also want W's resources and use Small Country X's invasion to invade and plunder X?

Anyway, Iran, hypothetical or otherwise, has nothing to do with the topic of this thread: Rand's position on the treatment of Indian tribes.

So, in your view, there is no possible situation where some country could be faced with doing unsavory things on the one hand and facing annihilaiton on the other?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

"decimate" has Roman Latin roots. It was a punishment for a legion which broke in combat. Every tenth man was put to death.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The Cherokees took the government to court to stop the removal and the courts agreed the removal was illegal. Andrew Jackson said something like ---- the court has made it decision, let the court enforce it. And the Cherokee went down the Trail of Tears. half the tribe died on the way to Oklahoma. It was the American version of the Bataan Death March.

I'm not an expert on early American history and I know Wikipedia isn't always that accurate, but according to that source:

Jackson is often incorrectly quoted (regarding the decision) as having said, "John Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it!" Jackson never said this, and historian Robert Remini notes that the quote first appeared in Horace Greeley's The American Conflict in 1864.

In addition:

Jackson used the Georgia crisis to pressure Cherokee leaders to sign a removal treaty. A small faction of Cherokees led by John Ridge negotiated theTreaty of New Echota with Jackson's representatives. Ridge was not a recognized leader of the Cherokee Nation, and this document was rejected by most Cherokees as illegitimate.[49] Over 15,000 Cherokees signed a petition in protest of the proposed removal; the list was ignored by the Supreme Court and the U.S. Congress, in part due to delays and timing.[50] The treaty was enforced by Jackson's successor, Van Buren, who ordered 7,000 armed troops to remove the Cherokees. Due to the infighting between political factions, many Cherokees thought their appeals were still being considered until troops arrived.[51] This abrupt and forced removal resulted in the deaths of over 4,000 Cherokees on the "Trail of Tears".

That doesn't excuse what happened, but in the name of fairness, we should at least pin the tragedy on the correct American President.

Darrell

Link to comment
Share on other sites

In other words, the correct emotional attitude (the evaluation) for me is that we should be proud of the break-free of conquest the nation has done and we should try to keep pumped to keep moving in the right direction.

It is NOT we should be ashamed of the need to make a choice to break free in the first place (the identification). A shame like that is based on a misidentification of what humans are. And it leads to us despising ourselves for being like the rest of humanity at the start when our ancestors did things we now find unacceptable from our freedom perspective.

I guess it's alright if you are into wallowing in guilt qua guilt...

:smile:

Michael

I agree. We should not feel guilty about the sins of our ancestors. I'm not sure I would characterize what happened as conquest. It was more a case a mass immigration that led to conflicts with the indigenous population.

I also think it is important to separate the American ideal from what actually happened in some circumstances. There will always be bad actors. The failures in action were failures to uphold and sometimes a failure to understand the ideal on which America was founded, individual rights. It's important to not impugn the American experiment on the basis of the actions of some people shortly after the founding of this country.

Darrell

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Jesus! I cant even believe this is being argued. Allow me to settle it. Francisco is right. MSK is right about the evolution from immoral actions to good ones. Gary and Darrell... what the hell are you guys talking about? Gary has to be joking and Darrell sounds like the justification of god's actions. Everything god does is good because.. he's god and he would never do anything wrong.

Did I mention God?

I just think that the colonists used remarkable restraint in dealing with the indigenous peoples. Attempts were made to accommodate them. Some on the colonist's side may have wanted to wipe out the "Indians", but with a few exceptions, they didn't win the argument. On the other hand, there were a number of wars involving the Native Americans, many of which involved European powers as well, and it seems like the natives generally sided with the European powers against the colonists and ended up paying a price.

Darrell

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Probably none of you have heard of the Battle of Long Swamp Creek, but it officially was the last battle of the American Revolution. In fact, it occurred after the Treaty of Paris was signed. However, back then it took news at least 4-6 weeks to travel from England to North America, and another month or so for news to travel to the Up Country. In 1783 the area where I live, the southern tip of the Blue Ridge Mountains, would have been the end of the world, in the mind of most citizens of the new United States.

First, a explanation to you Brits. At the time of the Revolution, the word "Tory" meant a resident of the rebeling colonies, who took up arms for the King. Tory did not mean a "political & economic conservative" as it did in Great Britain. Many of the economicaly conservative, coastal plantation owners were the original leaders of the Revolution, whereas economically more progressive, up country yeomen farmers initially opposed the rebellion in the South.

If you have watched the movie, The Patriot, you know what happened to turn the tables. The British used the exact same strategy in the South as the United States in Viet Nam, with exactly the same results. In fact, General Vo Nguyen Giap, commander of the Communist army, has repeatedly stated that he modeled his strategy against the Americans on those of the Southern Patriot guerillas and his victory at Diet Ben Phu after Washington's victory at Yorktown.

Well, atrocities by British Regulars and Tory dragoons against politically neutral fronstiersmen turned the frontiersmen into rabid revolutionaries. It was a viscious, no quarter given war. Patriot guerillas usually kept Redcoats as prisoners to use in prisoner exchanges, but generally executed Tories, because the Tories usually executed all Patriot prisoners, and sometimes even their non-combantant relatives.

For several years a band of Tories, who had moved to this county in 1776 with their Cherokee wives had been committing atrocities on the frontier, which was about 200 miles to the Southeast in east-central Georgia. The bands of white and Cherokee mounted raiders generally killed all men, women and children when attacking a farmstead. Colonel Andrew Pickens and Major Elijah Clark led a small army of Georgia & Carolina Mounted Rifles, plus Creek Indian Mounted Rifles (which included some of my ancestors) on raid into the North Georgia Mountains. All of the Patriots were dressed in the uniform of the Creek Mounted Rifles. At that time (1783) there were only three significant Cherokee villages in Georgia.

The first two villages Pickens' Army visited, did not contain any whites. The third, located about 5 miles from my house here, did. The Cherokees quickly surrendered after the first attack, but allowed the Tories to escape the village. As a peace offering, the Cherokee chief offered Pickens a treaty written in English, which gave the Americans the Creek-owned lands in northeast Georgia. That probably did not make my ancestors very happy, because that is where they lived.

The Mounted Rifles quickly found where the Tory guerillas were hiding and attacked. It was a one-side battle. All Tories, who were not killed in battle, were hung on the spot. . . including the wounded. This aspect of the battle was thought to be a myth until 1885 when a railroad was being built to open up the enormous marble deposits in this county. The skeletons of several executed Tories were uncovered by a railroad cut in Nelson, GA. Those were brutal times.

I found this interesting that they only killed the white Tory men.

A...

Thanks for that history lesson. It is one more way in which the Cherokee sided against the eventually victorious colonists and paid a price as a result.

We should also keep in mind that even if there is a treaty ending a conflict, people have long memories and may have still harbored resentments against the Cherokee. At the very least, they would have found the Cherokee hard to trust and that could have potentially led to more friction.

Darrell

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm not sure I would characterize what happened as conquest. It was more a case a mass immigration that led to conflicts with the indigenous population.

Darrell,

Why not call it by it's right name?

Don't forget that the mass immigration happened because of incentives, not just pioneer fever. And it was supported by one broken treaty after another with the Indians.

Glenn Beck turned me on to the difference between the concepts of Manifest Destiny (conquest by religious right) and Divine Providence (peaceful expansion by the grace of God).

We may not like the religious frame, but those are what the policies were called way back when to justify expansion.

Michael

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm not sure I would characterize what happened as conquest. It was more a case a mass immigration that led to conflicts with the indigenous population.

Darrell,

Why not call it by it's right name?

Don't forget that the mass immigration happened because of incentives, not just pioneer fever. And it was supported by one broken treaty after another with the Indians.

Glenn Beck turned me on to the difference between the concepts of Manifest Destiny (conquest by religious right) and Divine Providence (peaceful expansion by the grace of God).

We may not like the religious frame, but those are what the policies were called way back when to justify expansion.

Michael

Hi Michael,

I'm not sure what incentives you're talking about? The Homestead Act(s)? The first Homestead Act wasn't passed until 1862, long after the conflict with the Cherokee. Also, the Homestead Act of 1862 was interesting in that it only allowed applications by people that had never taken up arms against the United States. One could look at this as a backhanded way to exclude indigenous peoples or take it at face value --- as a strike against the enemies of the U.S.

Since I'm not an expert on American history, I can't comment on the allegation of broken treaties, but the little reading I've done seems to indicate that the natives were often the ones that broke the treaties. I don't know which side broke the treaties more frequently. Perhaps the colonists did. But, I don't think it was a deliberate attempt to mollify the natives while waiting for another opportunity to attack.

To me, the word "conquest" implies that is was the goal of the colonists to put the natives under the rule of the United States.

We should distinguish between the actions of Great Brittain, France, and Spain and the actions of the United States. Great Brittain, France, and Spain may have had conquest in mind. The Spanish called themselves "conquistadors" and subjugated many of the peoples of Central and South America including the southwestern United States. But, was it ever the goal of the United States to subjugate the "Indians"?

How do you feel about mass immigration from Mexico to this country? Are the Mexicans colonists? Are they involved in a conquest?

Darrell

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Since I'm not an expert on American history, I can't comment on the allegation of broken treaties, but the little reading I've done seems to indicate that the natives were often the ones that broke the treaties. I don't know which side broke the treaties more frequently. Perhaps the colonists did. But, I don't think it was a deliberate attempt to mollify the natives while waiting for another opportunity to attack.

Darrell,

"Allegation of broken treaties"? Dayaamm! Really?

It wasn't the "colonists" that broke the treaties. It was the American federal government.

There was also a lot of monkeybusiness around the signing of new treaties. I can't take the time right now to go into this, but Google it. This is pretty standard history. You don't need to be an expert.

And, of course, the Indians did their own versions of monkeybusiness.

It was not a good time.

To me, the word "conquest" implies that is was the goal of the colonists to put the natives under the rule of the United States.

I don't mean it in just that narrow sense. Taking over land others are on and either killing them or pushing them off it is also conquest in my meaning. When you mix settlement with conquest, that doesn't mean you can leave out the conquest part and only focus on settlement. That's fudging the vocabulary.

Here is clear example of conquest in my meaning: Trail of Tears. (And that's just one.)

I have heard that in some places, descendents of that event refuse to this day to use twenty dollar bills because Andrew Jackson is on it.

How do you feel about mass immigration from Mexico to this country? Are the Mexicans colonists? Are they involved in a conquest?

I don't feel anything.

This is a stupid mess owing to big government people in the USA. Chambers of Commerce and Democrats both want immigrants to come in mass, the businesses want cheap labor and the Democrats want to give immigrants handouts to get their votes.

Both are afraid of a backlash from citizens already here for losing jobs, paying higher taxes, and watching real estate values tank in the neighborhoods the immigrants migrate to, so they push and back off, push and back off. And they all lie their asses off.

They pretend that the border thing is complicated in order to facilitate illegal immigration. The truth is they themselves are the complication.

This has nothing to do with Mexico and everything to do with dishonesty by some really bad actors on the USA side.

Michael

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 months later...

The oddest thing just happened right at this spot. A new member (from New Zealand according to the IP) signed up and said this was his first post.

But the rest of his post sounded a lot like a copy/paste of an article, so I Googled it. Sure enough, it was. However, there was only one site from 2012 referenced by Google. When I tried to go to that site, my antivirus went ape-shit.

I deleted the post and this particular poster will no longer be joining us unless he (or she) sneaks back in under a new account or whatever.

Michael

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The oddest thing just happened right at this spot. A new member (from New Zealand according to the IP) signed up and said this was his first post.

Michael

Michael:

Do you think that "sign up" was random, if that is even possible, or, some other reason?

A...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Adam,

I sometime prune spam stuff and rarely comment. This one was weird, though.

I have no idea if it was done on purpose. I do know there are a lot of cyberattacks out there at the present run by bots. My hunch is that this was one of those. I doubt it was from O-Land (although we do have some enemies).

If there was a virus on the site from Google search results I checked, there were probably viruses in some of the links in the article. (There were quite a few links.)

Regardless of anything, I won't have anyone subjecting OL members to risks. Not if I can avoid it. And I will err on the side of caution. Between offending a newcomer and opening OL readers/members to possible online nasties, swift action is a no-brainer for me.

Michael

Link to comment
Share on other sites

If there was a virus on the site from Google search results I checked, there were probably viruses in some of the links in the article. (There were quite a few links.)

Regardless of anything, I won't have anyone subjecting OL members to risks. Not if I can avoid it. And I will err on the side of caution. Between offending a newcomer and opening OL readers/members to possible online nasties, swift action is a no-brainer for me.

Michael

Hmmm seems like you could take over from President O'bama in your spare time just with that concept alone!

Mr. President do no harm!

A...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Jesus! I cant even believe this is being argued. Allow me to settle it. Francisco is right. MSK is right about the evolution from immoral actions to good ones. Gary and Darrell... what the hell are you guys talking about? Gary has to be joking and Darrell sounds like the justification of god's actions. Everything god does is good because.. he's god and he would never do anything wrong.

Did I mention God?

I just think that the colonists used remarkable restraint in dealing with the indigenous peoples. Attempts were made to accommodate them. Some on the colonist's side may have wanted to wipe out the "Indians", but with a few exceptions, they didn't win the argument. On the other hand, there were a number of wars involving the Native Americans, many of which involved European powers as well, and it seems like the natives generally sided with the European powers against the colonists and ended up paying a price.

Darrell

Some accommodation. Land theft. Attempted genocide and other such charming things. The aboriginals were generally regarded as and treated as subhuman scum. Even the Cherokee who became as civilized as any of the white-eyes were herded to a place 1000 miles from their native ground. Half the nation died on the march. -The Trail of Tears-. It was the American version of the Bataan Death March.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Jesus! I cant even believe this is being argued. Allow me to settle it. Francisco is right. MSK is right about the evolution from immoral actions to good ones. Gary and Darrell... what the hell are you guys talking about? Gary has to be joking and Darrell sounds like the justification of god's actions. Everything god does is good because.. he's god and he would never do anything wrong.

Did I mention God?

I just think that the colonists used remarkable restraint in dealing with the indigenous peoples. Attempts were made to accommodate them. Some on the colonist's side may have wanted to wipe out the "Indians", but with a few exceptions, they didn't win the argument. On the other hand, there were a number of wars involving the Native Americans, many of which involved European powers as well, and it seems like the natives generally sided with the European powers against the colonists and ended up paying a price.

Darrell

Some accommodation. Land theft. Attempted genocide and other such charming things. The aboriginals were generally regarded as and treated as subhuman scum. Even the Cherokee who became as civilized as any of the white-eyes were herded to a place 1000 miles from their native ground. Half the nation died on the march. -The Trail of Tears-. It was the American version of the Bataan Death March.

You're mixing up two categories here: pre and after independence. Darrell seems to be generally right about the colonialists. You about what the US government visited upon Native Americans. I said "generally," now. There had to have been multiplicities of exceptions, but the policies of Great Britain never seem to have been genocidal and were more considerate of the idea of tempering the colonialists' westward expansion, which irritated many of them no end and helped power the American Revolution. Smallpox, cholera and influenza were much more devastating--exponentially more so--than any Trail of Tears or 19th C. massacres, shameful enough as they were. (These western diseases inadvertently introduced into the South Seas killed many millions of natives there also.)

The United States has always been an imperial power, but not so much the way the Europeans and Brits were. After the westward expansion and "manifest destiny" played out it continued with the taking over of Hawaii and the Spanish American War and has never really stopped in spite of the essential stupidity of it all. The 20th C. was the American C. and so might too be this one. That remains to be seen. Such is the power of the greatest, most powerful country ever. "Great" doesn't mean "good." Countries aren't "good." They are conglomerations of power butting up against other conglomerations of power, economic, moral, military and intelligence.

In a way Great Britain was the most intelligent conglomeration of power in the last century referencing its power as such considered statically during any slice of time, but not what was weakening it until it came a cropper during the Suez Crisis in the mid 1950s and the United States put it sharply into its rightful and quite inferior place. In a serious way that might be the fate of the U.S. vs. China. Things are certainly happening faster since the days of the Roman Empire, though when it came a cropper for the Romans it came fast. All seems good and normal, then it's gone--gone to hell and never coming back.

--Brant

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now