Native American "Indian" Removal: Are Our Actions Justified?

Hi, this is my first post. Woot. This forum seems pretty interesting and I hope that I'll fit in. But here's a topic for discussion - in fact, it's why I'm posting at all right now!! ZOMG

Here it is:

We came to the New World, declared our that we had a right to this land because God had deemed it so, we wiped out 90% of the native population and have given them a hard time since - Trail of Tears, etc. Do we really have the right to this country?

Disclaimer: This is just a hypothetical question - well, not really hypothetical. But it is supposed to elicit some intelligent discussion.

 

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Nice revisionist history. The true history of our interaction with the natives of America is a little more complex. Indians fought the British alongside George Washington. They traded with the French for hundreds of years, they had agricultural settlements in the South... we didn't just "wipe them out". Most of them died of disease.... But Christians didn't think they had the same rights to establish their civilization because they were "savages", they didn't worship the same God (for the most part). Treaties with them were problematic not only due to our own racism but also because Indians were not monolithic, a chief did not necessarily control the actions of his warriors, and every tribe had it's own ways of doing things.

 

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Well instead of looking back - why not look around? While no one can go back and return the Indians to their lands, their buffalos and their hunter gatherer lifestyle, what is truly bizarre is Americans bemoaning immigration and globalisation while denying their own role in wiping out the natives who preceded them.

 

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Not the same Americans.

 

The Americans who live there today did not come from immaculate conceptions. They live off the legacy of their forebears

 

We all came to America from somewhere else and have the same right to this planet we find ourselves on. The Indians didn't give a shit if other Indian tribes were wiped out, they were often at war. It's disingenuous to spend hundreds of years trying to kill your enemy tribe and then complaining about it when the white man accomplishes the same goal.

 

Hence my point on Americans bemoaning immigrants and their legality or lack thereof.

 

6. Equality and Democracy. Thus the eastern tribes of red men enjoyed a degree of democracy that the white invaders of their country were never able to understand. In the Penacook country, the tribes were all truly democratic nations, where the sachems, sagamores, and bashabas were not rulers but merely the trusted advisors and councillors of the people.

Among the Iroquois, the heredity tradition interfered to some extent with complete democracy, so that they were an actual oligarchy with democratic forms. The same was true to a lesser extent among the Algonquins farther south and west, where the sachems had more extensive power, being more nearly the "chiefs" that their white enemies considered them to be.

Also, farther west, a priesthood had developed into a more or less privileged class; and, on the North Pacific coast and in Mexico, this had begun to develop into a real class rule such as had been the custom in Europe for centuries. Among the Natchez, and all through Mexico, there was a strong despotism, and a highly graded system of castes. But, among the Penacook peoples, there was nothing known which could even remotely correspond to, or give an inkling of, any division of caste, class, or rank―probably the only completely democratic governments that ever existed in the history of the world.

This was a true democracy and equality which might well prepare their country (now known as New England) for being, at all times down to the present, the cradle of the spirit of liberty.

http://www.sidis.net/TSChap2.htm

 

Of course there were exceptions, thank you for pointing that out.

 

There are always exceptions to the "her skirt was short and she was asking for it" theory.

 

The biggest problem for First Nations people (as we call them in Canada), is they didn't know you could own land, like Paul and John, didn't know you could Own songs. They got screwed.

Sometimes they got screwed then tried to fight about it after - which open up the door to losing more. Sometimes they simply got played against another tribe/band with whitey's help and got owned then that band got screwed. Sometimes they were instigated against in a myriad of ways until they fought and got paWnd.

Canada was less ruthless (we had battles over Metis rights mostly, a dark spot in our usually bright history). English still used booze and pestilence whenever possible to gain advantage, French integrated better and adopted many original inhabitants customs/ways. ( Les Habitants they called themselves of the mixed race and this is where "The Montreal Canadians" Hockey team trace their namesake to)

In Canada, we are paying for this is SPADES. First Nations people have got Canada OVER A BARREL. Nothing says first class citizen than a Metis or band member card. Hunt anywhere anytime, free education(post secondary), in-roads to government and big business jobs too numerous to mention. Band members are sometimes (depending), WEALTHY BEYOND measure, if they actually did NOT get fucked in the original treaty deal. The Pendulum has swung back quite far in Canada for this topic and many would say "serves you right", but really does it serve "me" right. Did I get to choose my color and background anymore that they did? My problem with it is inheritance of a country granted by government, one that does not resemble in almost any form the one that took away so much(depending) hundreds of years ago.

Systems like this are broken and I envy the Americans and the general "suck it up, it's history" attitude their government has taken. Fuck em time heals all wounds, except when it's legislated to open them up over and over and over....

 

Well just consider what it would be like if present day non-European immigrants decided to contest your land ownership rules and regulations, made up their own and decided they were the only legal ones and imposed them on you.

 

My theory is the "inevitable clash of cultures" theory. Europe was bound to discover the sparsely populated New World eventually, and it's culture was bound to replace that of the Indians due to technology and a history of state rule, which is inherently more powerful than tribal organization.

 

Don't forget the European jamboree in the not so sparsely populated Asia, Africa and Arabia

 

It would probably be like war. Such things cannot occur easily today. Oddly i'd love to get my ass in a time machine and pretend I still lived in England or Norway. I can't. We can't go back and fix it. We gotta makes things better for people as they live today.

 

They do, actually, all the time. You just happen to belong to the group that makes it happen. Its more organised and efficient and no one need get down and dirty.

Nice theory, hopefully it will be practiced some day

 

Huh? what do you mean? Everyone gets a blood taken and if not native - shipped back to wherever their hapgroup came from?

 

Nope everyone still gets fucked over for their natural resources. Bullies still rule.

 

I'm sure you don't forget, since if that didn't happen you would be pulling a cow across a field now instead of typing on the internet.

 

Well that was definitely worth 30 million people dying of starvation, because clearly, it was ONLY by killing people around the world for their colour race or religion was it possible to invent the internet