Why Didn't Indian Tribes Repel The Colonists?

[PoliticalChic]

There is no doubt that the numbers Indians prior to the advent of Europeans, after 1600 or so, was far greater than the period just after.
The explanation, given earlier, was microbes against which the indigenous populations had no defense.

Today?
Numbers surpass those of the original.



13. During the 4 centuries following European entry into North America, Indian population fell. By the beginning of the 20th Century, officials found only 250,000 Indians in the territory of the US, .... Scholars estimate pre-Columbian North American population range from 1.2 million (1928 tribe-by-tribe assessment) up to 20 million by activists.


Collectively these data suggest that population numbered about 1,894,350 at about A.D. 1500. Epidemics and other factors reduced this number to only 530,000 by 1900.
Modern data suggest that by 1985 population size has increased to over 2.5 million.
North American Indian population size A.D. 1500 to 1985 - Ubelaker - 2005 - American Journal of Physical Anthropology - Wiley Online Library



a. The reported population of Native Americans by the most recent Census has soared more than 1000% since 1900, over 3 times that of the US as a whole.
A reasonable explanation is that intermarriage and assimilation reveal that a portion of the reported disappearance of native Americans may be that many still exist but in a different description..



b. "...According to 2008 US Census projections, those who are Native American and Alaska Natives alone number 3.08 million of the total US population of 304 million, or 1.01 percent of the nation's entire population. Those who are Native American alone or in combination with other races measure as 4.86 million individuals,..."
Modern social statistics of Native Americans - Wikipedia the free encyclopedia

 

[Urbanguerrilla]

Indians....erroneously known as 'Native Americans'....a subject that lends itself to the cause of the America-haters.

Here, we strip away both the romanticized notions, and the slanders: real history.



First the 'age of exploration,' then colonization. But when colonization began in America, it did so in dribs and drabs.... in small scattered or sporadic amounts.
Certainly not in huge numbers that would account for the mythical "Indian genocide."

Why didn't the Indian tribes extant simply toss 'em back into the sea?



1. Colonization began in 1607, with English settlers along the James River. Data shows some 2,400 English in Virginia, and about 1,400 in New England by 1630.
But there were over 400,000 Native Americans east of the Appalachians by the time the first settlers arrived!

Romanticized versions of Indian life paint them to be friendly, civilized, probably suggesting some sort of "Beer Summit" with the newcomers.....none of which is true.
"Can't we all just get along?" Maybe.


2. Woudn't the Indians, at first glance, want to curtail the newcomers?
Maybe so....but there were several reasons why they couldn't/wouldn't.
First, even small settlements tended to be fortified, and able to rely on sea power and firearms.

Indians quickly saw the value of muskets, and were able to trade for same, using them for hunting and against rival tribes.
How about simply using 'em against the 'white interlopers' ?(Al Sharpton).


a. Far from the static view that politicians have of human endeavors, in actuality, people behave dynamically. In this case, getting guns made the Indians more dependent on Europeans, for ammunition, powder, and repair of the weapons.

b. And, like garage door openers, once they had guns, they couldn't imagine living without them. So much for sending the Europeans away!

And, the law of unintended consequences went further: guns caused a loss of the skills needed in using bows/arrows!
Walter McDougall, " Freedom Just Around the Corner: A New American History: 1585-1828"

c. To show the extent of the desire for guns, in 1641, the Iroquois sued for peace in order to regain access to the guns the French were selling them! "Firearms in Colonial America: The Impact on History and Technology 1492-1792,' M. L. Brown,
p.151-158




3. Geography is another reason that the colonists were not sent packing: they settled along the coasts and rivers, so would fight tenaciously rather than be pushed into the water! The Indians, if they were losing, could simply retreat inland, and fade into the forests.



4. As far as losing to the Indians, the settlers has an inexhaustible supply of reinforcements from their national 'tribe,' while the Indians could rarely rely on support due to long tribal feuds.





5. Perhaps most important, the greatest of enemies that the Indians had to face...they couldn't actually 'face.' And the settlers didn't recognize their greatest ally: Disease.
Influenza, chicken pox, small pox,...and the plague that decimated the Europeans back home.

a. Over 90% of the Algonquin, Wampanoag, Massachusetts, and Pawtucket tribes were wiped out even before the Pilgrims arrived!

b. 50-75% of the Hurons, Iroquois, and Mohawks died in the 1630s and 1640s.

c. And almost 90% of the Powhatan, Susquehannock and other Chesapeake tribes in the 1670s.
McDougall, Op. Cit.

Another major problem with the Indians were the divisions inherent between the tribes.

They would have initially seen the Europeans small, isolated and far from home.

Immediate Indian concerns were how to defeat the tribe next door, the newcomers brought that ancient possibility closer due to their new technology, this one presumes is what preoccupied Indian thoughts. A distant future where the Europeans might have the numbers to seriously take their territory was probably like our concerns over global warming, kinda like, m'eh.

 

[M.D. Rawlings]

Schilling for some Stormfront-like anti-Native site now?

Actually, we're discussing the matter-of-fact history of the colonial-expansionist period of American history with regard to the impact on the lives of the indigenous peoples of America, and you're welcome to join us. Or you can go on thinking the fantasy history of "evil colonialism" to your heart's desire, believing nothing worth knowing.

Years ago as a junior at university, I wrote a paper on the problem of labor during the early colonial period in the Americas. The primary reason so many of the earliest settlements failed was not due to disease, but due to the shortage of labor. In truth, disease was more at a symptom of the ultimate problem. More laborers were needed to more quickly refine the raw resources needed to establish the disease-foiling infrastructure of fortified bases of reliably consistent supply from which to draw sustenance and expand. This involved the need to establish a system of mutual support quickly via the transaction of the various, indispensable resources of tamed land.

While at first the Spanish essentially enslaved the indigenous peoples of South America, which was efficient enough, but troublesome, they eventually resorted to the use of enslaved African labor beginning in the West Indies on the Caribbean island of Cuba. The British turned to indentured servitude, beginning in Virginia, as did the French elsewhere. This solved the problem, and the colonies began to flourish in earnest. Like the Spanish, the English and the French eventually took up the practice of using enslaved African labor beginning in their West Indies holdings as well, and the practice spread to America, which brings us back to the region of interest in this OP.

Now if you really want to exercise your knee-jerk reactionism and lose some of those unwanted pounds, let me give you something to really rave about. The indigenous peoples of North America were stuck in the Stone Age. Most of them were rank savages, a brutal and murderous lot. Now I'm fairly certain, given your "Stormfront" wisecracking, though you may correct me if I'm wrong, that reality doesn't compute in your politically correct world of the peaceful Noble Savage, loving the land and preserving it, as life remains brutal and short. But there it is.

 

[PoliticalChic]

Schilling for some Stormfront-like anti-Native site now?

Actually, we're discussing the matter-of-fact history of the colonial-expansionist period of American history with regard to the impact on the lives of the indigenous peoples of America, and you're welcome to join us. Or you can go on thinking the fantasy history of "evil colonialism" to your heart's desire, believing nothing worth knowing.

Years ago as a junior at university, I wrote a paper on the problem of labor during the early colonial period in the Americas. The primary reason so many of the earliest settlements failed was not due to disease, but due to the shortage of labor. In truth, disease was more at a symptom of the ultimate problem. More laborers were needed to more quickly refine the raw resources needed to establish the disease-foiling infrastructure of fortified bases of reliably consistent supply from which to draw sustenance and expand. This involved the need to establish a system of mutual support quickly via the transaction of the various, indispensable resources of tamed land.

While at first the Spanish essentially enslaved the indigenous peoples of South America, which was efficient enough, but troublesome, they eventually resorted to the use of enslaved African labor beginning in the West Indies on the Caribbean island of Cuba. The British turned to indentured servitude, beginning in Virginia, as did the French elsewhere. This solved the problem, and the colonies began to flourish in earnest. Like the Spanish, the English and the French eventually took up the practice of using enslaved African labor beginning in their West Indies holdings as well, and the practice spread to America, which brings us back to the region of interest in this OP.

Now if you really want to exercise your knee-jerk reactionism and lose some of those unwanted pounds, let me give you something to really rave about. The indigenous peoples of North America were stuck in the Stone Age. Most of them were rank savages, a brutal and murderous lot. Now I'm fairly certain, given your "Stormfront" wisecracking, though you may correct me if I'm wrong, that reality doesn't compute in your politically correct world of the peaceful Noble Savage, loving the land and preserving it, as life remains brutal and short. But there it is.

Certainly agree with your post.

But as for the dope to whom you addressed the post, he was actually sulking over previous spankings I've administered, and sought a way to attack me peripherally.

As you can see, he couldn't find any weakness in the posts.....

 

[PoliticalChic]

Who, exactly, were these noble people that so many seem to wish had expelled the 'white interlopers,' the vicious European murderers' that are the ones who 'stole' this nation, America, from its rightful owners???


Put the romaticized version to rest, or leave it for the children.
The reality is far different.





14. Potentates of Pop-Culture suggest the dignity and gentleness of native societies in pre-Columbian North America, regularly find phrases such as “noble civilizations,’ and “lived in peace,” etc. “Harvard archaeologist [Steven] LeBlanc and his co-author [in Constant Battles: The Myth of the Peaceful, Noble Savage ] dismantle the notion of the noble savage,...

.... most people envision prehistoric people as peace-seeking nature lovers. LeBlanc insists repeatedly that it is not only foolish, but also dangerous, to believe in an Edenic past when the evidence reveals overpopulation and violence wherever we look.” (Publisher’s Weekly)




15. Craig Childs wrote in the NYTimes “A Past That Makes Us Squirm,” “children killed the same way, human sacrifices to an ancient water deity, their bodies buried under pre-Columbian ball courts or at the foot of pillars in important rooms,” “archaeological record of the Americas read like a war-crimes indictment, with charred skeletons stacked like cordwood and innumerable human remains missing heads, legs and arms. In the American Southwest, which is my area of research, human tissue has been found cooked to the insides of kitchen jars and stained into a ceramic serving ladle. A grinding stone was found full of crushed human finger bones. A sample of human feces came up containing the remains of a cannibal’s meal.”
Childs also refers to the accuracy of “ Mel Gibson’s movie ‘Apocalypto.’

“ How do we rectify the age-old perception of noble and peaceful native America with the reality that at times violence was coordinated on a scale never before witnessed by humanity?

The answer is simple. We don’t.”

 

[Urbanguerrilla]

Actually, we're discussing the matter-of-fact history of the colonial-expansionist period of American history with regard to the impact on the lives of the indigenous peoples of America, and you're welcome to join us. Or you can go on thinking the fantasy history of "evil colonialism" to your heart's desire, believing nothing worth knowing.

Years ago as a junior at university, I wrote a paper on the problem of labor during the early colonial period in the Americas. The primary reason so many of the earliest settlements failed was not due to disease, but due to the shortage of labor. In truth, disease was more at a symptom of the ultimate problem. More laborers were needed to more quickly refine the raw resources needed to establish the disease-foiling infrastructure of fortified bases of reliably consistent supply from which to draw sustenance and expand. This involved the need to establish a system of mutual support quickly via the transaction of the various, indispensable resources of tamed land.

While at first the Spanish essentially enslaved the indigenous peoples of South America, which was efficient enough, but troublesome, they eventually resorted to the use of enslaved African labor beginning in the West Indies on the Caribbean island of Cuba. The British turned to indentured servitude, beginning in Virginia, as did the French elsewhere. This solved the problem, and the colonies began to flourish in earnest. Like the Spanish, the English and the French eventually took up the practice of using enslaved African labor beginning in their West Indies holdings as well, and the practice spread to America, which brings us back to the region of interest in this OP.

Now if you really want to exercise your knee-jerk reactionism and lose some of those unwanted pounds, let me give you something to really rave about. The indigenous peoples of North America were stuck in the Stone Age. Most of them were rank savages, a brutal and murderous lot. Now I'm fairly certain, given your "Stormfront" wisecracking, though you may correct me if I'm wrong, that reality doesn't compute in your politically correct world of the peaceful Noble Savage, loving the land and preserving it, as life remains brutal and short. But there it is.

They may have been 'stuck' in the stone age, but this shouldnt have been used as an excuse to take their land and massacre them.

The Europeans were also a brutal and murderous lot and estimates of 20 million for the numbers they were responsible for genociding attest to that.

 

[Urbanguerrilla]

Who, exactly, were these noble people that so many seem to wish had expelled the 'white interlopers,' the vicious European murderers' that are the ones who 'stole' this nation, America, from its rightful owners???

Put the romaticized version to rest, or leave it for the children.
The reality is far different.

14. Potentates of Pop-Culture suggest the dignity and gentleness of native societies in pre-Columbian North America, regularly find phrases such as “noble civilizations,’ and “lived in peace,” etc. “Harvard archaeologist [Steven] LeBlanc and his co-author [in Constant Battles: The Myth of the Peaceful, Noble Savage ] dismantle the notion of the noble savage,...

.... most people envision prehistoric people as peace-seeking nature lovers. LeBlanc insists repeatedly that it is not only foolish, but also dangerous, to believe in an Edenic past when the evidence reveals overpopulation and violence wherever we look.” (Publisher’s Weekly)

15. Craig Childs wrote in the NYTimes “A Past That Makes Us Squirm,” “children killed the same way, human sacrifices to an ancient water deity, their bodies buried under pre-Columbian ball courts or at the foot of pillars in important rooms,” “archaeological record of the Americas read like a war-crimes indictment, with charred skeletons stacked like cordwood and innumerable human remains missing heads, legs and arms. In the American Southwest, which is my area of research, human tissue has been found cooked to the insides of kitchen jars and stained into a ceramic serving ladle. A grinding stone was found full of crushed human finger bones. A sample of human feces came up containing the remains of a cannibal’s meal.”
Childs also refers to the accuracy of “ Mel Gibson’s movie ‘Apocalypto.’

“ How do we rectify the age-old perception of noble and peaceful native America with the reality that at times violence was coordinated on a scale never before witnessed by humanity?
The answer is simple. We don’t.”

Human sacrifice in Central/South America cant be used as a stick to beat North American natives with in all fairness. Of course the 'noble savage' notion was always greatly flawed, that doesnt whiten the black pages of European colonisation of an already inhabited landscape.

Also one may add to the graphic picture of Indo-American cultures propensity for littering the region with child-sacrifices that back in the old countries, that landscape was littered with the corpses of unwanted children in equal measure.

 

[PoliticalChic]

Actually, we're discussing the matter-of-fact history of the colonial-expansionist period of American history with regard to the impact on the lives of the indigenous peoples of America, and you're welcome to join us. Or you can go on thinking the fantasy history of "evil colonialism" to your heart's desire, believing nothing worth knowing.

Years ago as a junior at university, I wrote a paper on the problem of labor during the early colonial period in the Americas. The primary reason so many of the earliest settlements failed was not due to disease, but due to the shortage of labor. In truth, disease was more at a symptom of the ultimate problem. More laborers were needed to more quickly refine the raw resources needed to establish the disease-foiling infrastructure of fortified bases of reliably consistent supply from which to draw sustenance and expand. This involved the need to establish a system of mutual support quickly via the transaction of the various, indispensable resources of tamed land.

While at first the Spanish essentially enslaved the indigenous peoples of South America, which was efficient enough, but troublesome, they eventually resorted to the use of enslaved African labor beginning in the West Indies on the Caribbean island of Cuba. The British turned to indentured servitude, beginning in Virginia, as did the French elsewhere. This solved the problem, and the colonies began to flourish in earnest. Like the Spanish, the English and the French eventually took up the practice of using enslaved African labor beginning in their West Indies holdings as well, and the practice spread to America, which brings us back to the region of interest in this OP.

Now if you really want to exercise your knee-jerk reactionism and lose some of those unwanted pounds, let me give you something to really rave about. The indigenous peoples of North America were stuck in the Stone Age. Most of them were rank savages, a brutal and murderous lot. Now I'm fairly certain, given your "Stormfront" wisecracking, though you may correct me if I'm wrong, that reality doesn't compute in your politically correct world of the peaceful Noble Savage, loving the land and preserving it, as life remains brutal and short. But there it is.

They may have been 'stuck' in the stone age, but this shouldnt have been used as an excuse to take their land and massacre them.

The Europeans were also a brutal and murderous lot and estimates of 20 million for the numbers they were responsible for genociding attest to that.

Hard to believe that you were able to jam as much nonsense into such a short post.

 

[PoliticalChic]

Who, exactly, were these noble people that so many seem to wish had expelled the 'white interlopers,' the vicious European murderers' that are the ones who 'stole' this nation, America, from its rightful owners???

Put the romaticized version to rest, or leave it for the children.
The reality is far different.

14. Potentates of Pop-Culture suggest the dignity and gentleness of native societies in pre-Columbian North America, regularly find phrases such as “noble civilizations,’ and “lived in peace,” etc. “Harvard archaeologist [Steven] LeBlanc and his co-author [in Constant Battles: The Myth of the Peaceful, Noble Savage ] dismantle the notion of the noble savage,...

.... most people envision prehistoric people as peace-seeking nature lovers. LeBlanc insists repeatedly that it is not only foolish, but also dangerous, to believe in an Edenic past when the evidence reveals overpopulation and violence wherever we look.” (Publisher’s Weekly)

15. Craig Childs wrote in the NYTimes “A Past That Makes Us Squirm,” “children killed the same way, human sacrifices to an ancient water deity, their bodies buried under pre-Columbian ball courts or at the foot of pillars in important rooms,” “archaeological record of the Americas read like a war-crimes indictment, with charred skeletons stacked like cordwood and innumerable human remains missing heads, legs and arms. In the American Southwest, which is my area of research, human tissue has been found cooked to the insides of kitchen jars and stained into a ceramic serving ladle. A grinding stone was found full of crushed human finger bones. A sample of human feces came up containing the remains of a cannibal’s meal.”
Childs also refers to the accuracy of “ Mel Gibson’s movie ‘Apocalypto.’

“ How do we rectify the age-old perception of noble and peaceful native America with the reality that at times violence was coordinated on a scale never before witnessed by humanity?
The answer is simple. We don’t.”

Human sacrifice in Central/South America cant be used as a stick to beat North American natives with in all fairness. Of course the 'noble savage' notion was always greatly flawed, that doesnt whiten the black pages of European colonisation of an already inhabited landscape.

Also one may add to the graphic picture of Indo-American cultures propensity for littering the region with child-sacrifices that back in the old countries, that landscape was littered with the corpses of unwanted children in equal measure.

"...an already inhabited landscape...."


Seems you are unfamiliar with the peripatetic nature of Indian habitation.

No Indian tribe owned any land. They passed through and this, in fact, was the reason for much of the warfare.


"One popular history of Manhattan notes that the Canarsie Indians "dwelt on Long Island, merely trading on Manhattan, and their trickery [in selling what they didn't possess to the Dutch] made it necessary for the white man to buy part of the island over again from the tribes living near Washington Heights. Still more crafty were the Raritans of [Staten Island], for the records show that Staten Island was sold by these Indians no less than six times."
The Straight Dope How much would the 24 paid for Manhattan be worth in today s money

 

[Urbanguerrilla]

"...an already inhabited landscape...."
Seems you are unfamiliar with the peripatetic nature of Indian habitation.
No Indian tribe owned any land. They passed through and this, in fact, was the reason for much of the warfare.

"One popular history of Manhattan notes that the Canarsie Indians "dwelt on Long Island, merely trading on Manhattan, and their trickery [in selling what they didn't possess to the Dutch] made it necessary for the white man to buy part of the island over again from the tribes living near Washington Heights. Still more crafty were the Raritans of [Staten Island], for the records show that Staten Island was sold by these Indians no less than six times."
The Straight Dope How much would the 24 paid for Manhattan be worth in today s money

It was inhabited after their fashion, the fact that this didnt (or doesnt) suit the interlopers is neither here nor there.

Is the fact that they fought a sufficient reason in your mind for the dispossession?

The Europeans fought up till recently and were fairly barbaric and 'savage' for most of that time.

Today we are more 'civilised' and only massacre people in the Middle East, who as we know, deserve massacre far more than we do

 

[RetiredGySgt]

"...an already inhabited landscape...."
Seems you are unfamiliar with the peripatetic nature of Indian habitation.
No Indian tribe owned any land. They passed through and this, in fact, was the reason for much of the warfare.

"One popular history of Manhattan notes that the Canarsie Indians "dwelt on Long Island, merely trading on Manhattan, and their trickery [in selling what they didn't possess to the Dutch] made it necessary for the white man to buy part of the island over again from the tribes living near Washington Heights. Still more crafty were the Raritans of [Staten Island], for the records show that Staten Island was sold by these Indians no less than six times."
The Straight Dope How much would the 24 paid for Manhattan be worth in today s money

It was inhabited after their fashion, the fact that this didnt (or doesnt) suit the interlopers is neither here nor there.

Is the fact that they fought a sufficient reason in your mind for the dispossession?

The Europeans fought up till recently and were fairly barbaric and 'savage' for most of that time.

Today we are more 'civilised' and only massacre people in the Middle East, who as we know, deserve massacre far more than we do

You must be young and haven't grown up yet. I remember my days as wide eyed believer in the Noble Indian too.

 

[PoliticalChic]

"...an already inhabited landscape...."
Seems you are unfamiliar with the peripatetic nature of Indian habitation.
No Indian tribe owned any land. They passed through and this, in fact, was the reason for much of the warfare.

"One popular history of Manhattan notes that the Canarsie Indians "dwelt on Long Island, merely trading on Manhattan, and their trickery [in selling what they didn't possess to the Dutch] made it necessary for the white man to buy part of the island over again from the tribes living near Washington Heights. Still more crafty were the Raritans of [Staten Island], for the records show that Staten Island was sold by these Indians no less than six times."
The Straight Dope How much would the 24 paid for Manhattan be worth in today s money

It was inhabited after their fashion, the fact that this didnt (or doesnt) suit the interlopers is neither here nor there.

Is the fact that they fought a sufficient reason in your mind for the dispossession?

The Europeans fought up till recently and were fairly barbaric and 'savage' for most of that time.

Today we are more 'civilised' and only massacre people in the Middle East, who as we know, deserve massacre far more than we do

1. "It was inhabited after their fashion,..."

What you mean is that it wasn't owned in any way that required it to be respected as theirs.


2. "...the interlopers..."

The Indians were interlopers.
Perhaps you've heard of the Bering Straits.

Obviously you haven't heard of Kennewick Man.


3. I believe that earlier you referred to 'genocide.'
There was no Indian genocide.


Three strikes. You're out.

 

[PoliticalChic]

Our pal, the yellow M&M, seems to have accepted a lot of the propaganda.

I see a crying need for remediation.

Whatever their motivation, the Left uses every cudgel it can to slander and debase the origins of this nation.



On the subject of Indians, or so-called "Native Americans," dispelling the following myths should give ratiocination to those ready to believe the worst of Americans.



16. First, there is the often repeated story of Lord Jeffrey Amherst ordering the distribution of smallpox-infected blankets to the Indians, as an example of ‘germ warfare’ used by Europeans. The story is not documented, except as a ‘possibility.’ See the study of Professor d’Errico:

a. Historian Francis Parkman, in his book The Conspiracy of Pontiac and the Indian War after the Conquest of Canada [Boston: Little, Brown, 1886] refers to a postscript in an earlier letter from Amherst to Bouquet wondering whether smallpox could not be spread among the Indians:

“Could it not be contrived to send the Small Pox among those disaffected tribes of Indians? We must on this occasion use every stratagem in our power to reduce them”. [Vol. II, p. 39 (6th edition)]

"I have not found this letter, but there is a letter from Bouquet to Amherst, dated 23 June 1763, three weeks before the discussion of blankets to the Indians, stating that Captain Ecuyer at Fort Pitt (to which Bouquet would be heading with reinforcements) has reported smallpox in the Fort. This indicates at least that the writers knew the plan could be carried out. It is curious that the specific plans to spread smallpox were relegated to postscripts."


So....there is as much proof of that claim as there is of J. Edgar Hoover dressing in women's gowns.




17. Pop culture unfailingly paints the army as brutal killers, as in the famous South Dakota Wounded Knee ‘massacre,’ December 29, 1890. Robert Marshall Utley (born in 1929) is an author and historian who has written sixteen books on the history of the American West, including The Last Days of the Sioux Nation. Yale University Press, New Haven, CT (1963) in which he concludes that the army court of inquiry was correct in clearing the soldiers, and that “the Indians fired at least 50 shots before the troops returned fire.”

It was Ferguson, Missouri before Ferguson, Missouri.

 

[Dot Com]

Stop using such large swaths of other people's copyrighted mat'l tinfoil grl You could get the board in trouble by doing that.

 

[PoliticalChic]

Stop using such large swaths of other people's copyrighted mat'l tinfoil grl

I can't recall when you provided either an intelligent or an accurate post.

Perhaps you have a better memory......when was the last time?

 

[PoliticalChic]

18. It would be remiss not to point out an element leading to the downfall of the Indians, as it is a mirror image of one of the major societal problems facing America today: The attractiveness of entitlements, 'goodies, and material wealth.

Of course, it had been done before....
"31 Jacob said, “Sell me your birthright now.”32 Esau said, “I am about to die; of what use is a birthright to me?”33 Jacob said, “Swear to me now.” So he swore to him and sold his birthright to Jacob.34 Then Jacob gave Esau bread and lentil stew, and he ate and drank and rose and went his way. Thus Esau despised his birthright."
Genesis, chapter 25


Indians tended to embrace small groups of whites, not merely as non-threatening, but because they paid for land and furs with muskets, iron tools, various beads, bangles and curiosities, and liquor.

And they provided military aid to those Indians who became allies.
"Cambridge History of the Native Peoples of the Americas," by Bruce G. Trigger and Wilcomb E. Washburn, p. 399-460





19. A regular meme in the talking points of those who hate America is that nasty white folks came and slaughtered the Native Americans.

This is not based on ignorance alone, it is based on planned malevolence.

Colonists did not come here with the aim of killing or enslaving the inhabitants. They did want part of the continent, but were ready to work for and/or pay for same.


It was the confluence of natural events that played the major role in the outcome. The recipe included microbes, technology, organization and agriculture that displaced indigenous people.


"There is no 'what if' scenario that would have produced a different result once Europeans arrived."
McDougall, Op.Cit., p. 40





There is an underlying truth, one which puts a stake through the heart of a political philosophy ascendant today, Liberalism, and, simply stated.......


..... all cultures are not equal.

 

[Rikurzhen]

Actually, we're discussing the matter-of-fact history of the colonial-expansionist period of American history with regard to the impact on the lives of the indigenous peoples of America, and you're welcome to join us. Or you can go on thinking the fantasy history of "evil colonialism" to your heart's desire, believing nothing worth knowing.

Years ago as a junior at university, I wrote a paper on the problem of labor during the early colonial period in the Americas. The primary reason so many of the earliest settlements failed was not due to disease, but due to the shortage of labor. In truth, disease was more at a symptom of the ultimate problem. More laborers were needed to more quickly refine the raw resources needed to establish the disease-foiling infrastructure of fortified bases of reliably consistent supply from which to draw sustenance and expand. This involved the need to establish a system of mutual support quickly via the transaction of the various, indispensable resources of tamed land.

While at first the Spanish essentially enslaved the indigenous peoples of South America, which was efficient enough, but troublesome, they eventually resorted to the use of enslaved African labor beginning in the West Indies on the Caribbean island of Cuba. The British turned to indentured servitude, beginning in Virginia, as did the French elsewhere. This solved the problem, and the colonies began to flourish in earnest. Like the Spanish, the English and the French eventually took up the practice of using enslaved African labor beginning in their West Indies holdings as well, and the practice spread to America, which brings us back to the region of interest in this OP.

Now if you really want to exercise your knee-jerk reactionism and lose some of those unwanted pounds, let me give you something to really rave about. The indigenous peoples of North America were stuck in the Stone Age. Most of them were rank savages, a brutal and murderous lot. Now I'm fairly certain, given your "Stormfront" wisecracking, though you may correct me if I'm wrong, that reality doesn't compute in your politically correct world of the peaceful Noble Savage, loving the land and preserving it, as life remains brutal and short. But there it is.

They may have been 'stuck' in the stone age, but this shouldnt have been used as an excuse to take their land and massacre them.

The Europeans were also a brutal and murderous lot and estimates of 20 million for the numbers they were responsible for genociding attest to that.

Do you live in Africa? Homo sapiens took the lands of Neanderthals, Denisovans, homo erectus. Should that be condemned?

 

[M.D. Rawlings]

They may have been 'stuck' in the stone age, but this shouldnt have been used as an excuse to take their land and massacre them.

The Europeans were also a brutal and murderous lot and estimates of 20 million for the numbers they were responsible for genociding attest to that.

I'm gettin' a weepy, snot-stained hanky feelin' here.

Where did I say human beings should be slaughtered because they were stuck in the Stone Age, and in what sense was the land theirs in the face of an unstoppable, technologically superior civilization that tamed the land and put it to good use?

The Apaches of the southwest and the Comanches of the Plains were especially barbaric. Rape, infanticide, dismemberment, vicious and gruesome forms of torture and humiliation: these were standard practices perpetrated on white settlers and other Indians alike. These brutes as a matter of routine mercilessly clubbed babies, young children and women to death, more as a game than warfare, or would skin them and burn them alive.

In fact, if set upon by these savages, it was better to be a man as death came quickly in the fight, or if captured alive, the torture the latter endured was relatively short-lived and ended in death within hours. For it was the warriors who attended to the torture of the men . . . not the squaws.

Female captives endured days, weeks or even months of torture and servitude. The captives of these tribes didn't live long.

The females were gang raped, of course, regardless of age as the babies, male and female, and the female toddlers were usually killed outright. But the older girls above the age of six or seven were fair game. Boys were lucky if old enough to be useful but not too old to be a threat that couldn't be assimilated. Hence, they were raised as Apaches or Comanches, future warriors. Wait a minute. On second thought, the younger and older boys were the lucky ones.

After the men brutally raped them, the women were turned over to the squaws to be worked and beaten. Also, the squaws took pleasure in slicing off pieces of their captives' appendages—lips, noses, ears, fingers. Then they would cauterize the wounds with burning sticks. After all, there were chores to be done and it wouldn't do for them to die too soon. Eventually, of course, these captives were useless as slaves and then the real fun began: routinely, if circumstances permitted, these virtually unrecognizable wretches were stripped, staked down, skinned and burned alive. The lucky ones had their throats cut, when they weren't clubbed, beaten or stoned to death.

Don't expect me to get all weepy over the likes of the Apaches and the Comanches especially. They were the very worst, but none of the other warrior tribes of America were much better.

Now, if we're talking about the people of the Cherokee Nation, for example, and what the United States government stupidly did to them, a civilized people who embraced assimilation and the laudable conventions and ambitions of the European settlers. . . .

 

[M.D. Rawlings]

BTW, in the above I wrote about how the Spanish essentially enslaved the indigenous peoples of South American. For those who may not know. The Americas at that time were thought of as North and South America. Not long after the early colonial period, a distinction was made between Central America and South America.

 

[Solutrean_Hypothesis]

They hadn't even realized the use for the WHEEL, for Heaven's sake. Yes, they invented it. As in, someone found a child's toy that had a wheel on it in Central America once. But, the 'Natives' in America still used travois, basically dragging their squalling children behind them in the dirt. Of course, CRT and Whiteness Studies will soon wipe the slate clean so that Social Justice can be complete and all of us to finally be made complete and equal, not just in the law and the eyes of God but in every which way.