“(T)here is a vast spectrum of skin colors represented in (the 18th century south). Some people are very dark skinned and free. Some people are light-skinned and bound laborers as indentured servants were in colonial Virginia and elsewhere. Indians too were considered to have very dark skin. They were not Christians. They did not speak English. And yet there were factors that prevented their mass enslavement in British North America, and those factors were their organization in nation or confederations and the fact that they were, in many cases, armed.” – A Dreadful Deceit: The Myth of Race from the Colonial Era to Obama’s America author Jacqueline Jones [at npr.com]
Racism is a great trick of progressivism. By convincing entire groups of people that they are somehow inferior causes in them, at some level, a belief that indeed they are. And they will look to you for a hand up. They will rely it, and you will count on them relying on it. Being able to provide that hand up earns trust which, in our system of government, correlates to power.
I am firm believer in the creed that this nation was founded on: All men are created equal. CREATED equal. Where you go from there is entirely on you.
“Well, It Worked for a While…”
Until *what*? Until they were disarmed?
Until the government convinced them they weren’t competent to make their own decisions?
Sounds familiar somehow….
Until they were killed off by disease, famine and slaughter, with the remainder confined (essentially imprisoned) and disarmed on the worst real estate the US government could manage (the government and white settlers having stolen the rest). Unable to raise crops, unable to raise cattle, unable to hunt, the Indians of the West became entirely dependent on the government for the basic necessities of bare survival.
A lot of settlers raised crops or herds on that same real estate all around the reservations.
Search YouTube for the Russell Means talk, “Americans Are the New Indians”. One of the last talks he ever gave; certainly the last long one.
From a 2A standpoint this is a great example of guns protecting individual liberties as our founding fathers understood.
From a racial perspective, this topic is very interesting. Being a scholar of history in an earlier life myself, I was exposed to the history of “whiteness” which elaborated on the trajectory of various groups of immigrants to the U.S. and their assimilation into the mainstream. Too often this is looked at in a white vs. black context but looking at the evidence of eastern europeans, irish, italians etc. immigrants shows similar discrimination of these groups upon first landing on U.S. soil in significant numbers.
Take a ride through one of the many reservations in Arizona and you can see the outcome of a complete welfare state.
And if you want to take a Lunar trip, visit the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. That’s where one of the Sioux tribes wound up being “settled.” It’s as close to the Moon as you can get on Earth.
Ladakh or parts of the Altiplano in Peru are as close as you can get to the Moon on Earth. Also the Changtang, in Northeast Tibet. Closest things to actual moonscapes I’ve seen.
The most disgusting place I’ve ever been is the Havasupai reservation in Havasu Canyon (a side canyon of the Grand Canyon). It’s the most remote settlement in the continental US, reachable only by foot, horse, or helicopter, and it’s in a stunningly beautiful canyon with amazing waterfalls.
But the town there is essentially a third world town. Only a handful of people work (their only industry is the hiking/camping tourism to the canyons), and those few are resentful of that fact. The rest get a government check. Everybody I saw over the age of 10 was obese, many morbidly. And watching them get off the helicopter with their bulk cases of Hot Pockets and Pepsi from Sam’s Club (to go shopping they take the helicopter up to the parking lot, where the tribe parks some trucks), while we waited to check in, I can see why. The place is crawling with these packs of feral dogs. There were a couple times I thought I might have to shoot one, because they were too close to our camp and wouldn’t take the hint of thrown rocks. Fortunately I didn’t have to, because, like most reservations, guns are illegal there.
A conquered people; probably not allowed to hunt on their own land, to the extent it’s theirs anyway. Support from the Great White Hunter gives ’em money to gouge on GWH’s poison food. What a shame. All their options were removed, and they’re kept around as corpulent, diabetic pets.
Upon seeing this post earlier this morning, I bought the book from the Google Play store and am looking forward to reading it.
The Indians suffer from a welfare state imposed on a tribal culture. You can see similar things in Africa where the white people have left and the remaining population does as decreed by the tribal leader.
Make no mistake that the Indians where somehow blameless in their fate, either. Their society was not always the high minded individuals found in Dances with Wolves.
What is currently killing our Constitutional Republic is the utter lack of regard the current ruling class has for the rule of law. Once the Rule of Law breaks, and make no mistake, we are allowing it, the society will soon fall.
Once the Rule of Law breaks, and make no mistake, we are allowing it
Worse, we are encouraging and rewarding it. There’s just no advantage to obeying the law, but there are big advantages to ignoring it. Just ask our own homegrown Mandela impersonator. He pushed a bad law through his puppet Congress, and then ignored it when it become inconvenient.
As are the hundred million or more who are ignoring his Obamacare website.
Very well put. And wholly true.
So an armed society is ‘free’er’ than a disarmed society, as all of mankind’s history illustrates?
Utter non-sense! (sarc)
Many Native Americans were and are Christians. Many learned English (and sometimes other European languages) very early on; some (usually those of partial African ancestry) were slaves. Some even owned slaves themselves.
One reason why some NA tribes were free among an ever growing America is more Americans were constitutionally minded (Andrew Jackson major exception here) back in the 18th and early 19th centuries. The U.S. Constitution recognizes N.A. tribes as nations. The lust for land and material wealth gets the better of most people and people groups when given enough time.
Yes, the indians were armed. But they were rugged individualists. Rugged individualists often times have trouble banding together against a common threat. The army and the settlers had no problems working together in a common cause.
Very oversimplified, but basically the truth. We see some of the same weak traits in today’s gun owners. State x has good gun laws. I live in state x so I don’t care what happens to those people in state y. Until it happens in state x. And like the Crow and The blackfeet too late they see the need to work together.
Your overgeneralization is not true for the eastern tribes. Look up George Washington and his experiences with the Seven Tribes (Osage, Huron) and their organized democratic government. Look at the Indians who owned most of the land around Atlanta (which tribe it was escapes me) who were ousted from their well-developed plantations by racist whites who wanted the land and used the power of the legislature to unlawfully expel them.
Might be Cherokee. They had farms and plantations and even owned slaves. Your point is taken about the Eastern tribes. If all the tribes, East and West, North and South had worked together how different would the outcome have been?
The final battles of the classic “Indian Wars” might have been fought in the 1950’s. Pure speculation of course.
If all the N, S, E, and W tribes came together to defend their land, they’d have four times as many people – defending four times as much land.
Whether the ratio is scaled up or down, few arms protecting many resources is hard to keep up.
Cherokee perhaps, or Chicamauga, or even Lower Muscogee.
The photo at the top of the story caught my eye, as they are almost certainly NOT from an Eastern tribe in appearance, and the wide, shallow stream is more typical of the West. You very rarely find those in the East.
I think they may be Shoshone.
They are Colorado Northern Utes (not the “My Cousin Vinnie” variety). Tap the pic for the link.
Being Christian or “civilized” still didn’t protect the Cherokee nation from blatant racism and greed. Trail of Tears, anyone?
And what should have happened instead? Georgia should have been left largely unsettled and unused and under the control of nomadic tribes? Serious question.
You mean under the control of the people who owned it? Uh…yeah. Just because they chose to use it differently than the European settlers did doesn’t make their claim to it any less legitimate.
And regardless of how poorly they utilized the resources, it can’t possibly justify genocide. Nothing can ever justify genocide.
No. However, some owned land, had their own homes, and even owned slaves. These, being free landholders, were allowed largely to remain. A few may have even fought in the War Between the States (War of Northern Aggression), but most were probably too level-headed to get involved in such a dubious cause.
Asking to be left alone involves forcing those who would force you to do things, to stop forcing you to do things, which is a use of force. So: liberty ≈ tyranny
/Sarc off…..
Columbus enslaved the natives, but there weren’t very many left once small pox went through. Then they started bringing in African slaves which had 2 distinct advantages over American Indian slaves, 1) rival tribes in Africa would line up to trade their POWs for rum, 2) they had no chance of crossing the Atlantic and freeing their buddies.
I’m amused by NPR- the plummy self-satisfied tones of the elite “we who are so much smarter than the rest of you” branch of the progressive-left. The sort of self-referential navel gazing when you’ve retired from your safe non-profit or academic job, and need to be reminded with doltery such as this Foucaltian pomo Tranzi mumbo-jumbo:
“JONES: I think we’re so used to talking about race – race relations, racial prejudice, a post-racial society – that we forget that race is a myth. Race is not real.”
Tell it to the kids in the gangs in Chicago, or in prison.
Wait until things get ugly- Depression ugly, and see how people act.
Tribal is the best of what we will be left with thanks to the Great Divider in Chief.