American Indians Colonize the Old world in 1250 BC

[Riley37]

There still is.

Yes. David Drake wrote an homage to Kuttner presuming that terraforming could bring about a Venus which matched the 1950s descriptions. But we digress; my point was whether contact could be anything other than colonialism.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_in_fiction

 

[Thomas Bowman]

Yes. David Drake wrote an homage to Kuttner presuming that terraforming could bring about a Venus which matched the 1950s descriptions. But we digress; my point was whether contact could be anything other than colonialism.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_in_fiction

There is a practical problem with hunter gather societies, they range over a large territory, so it is really hard to tell which land is theirs. They don't put up fences, and they don't put up signs. And then some settlers show up and they find some forest, and they shout, "Halooo! Is anyone there?!" and they hear their voices echo off of the mountainside, but they don't get any reply. They don't see any cultivated fields or farm animals, and again they shout, "Haloooo! Does anyone live here?" And their shouts echo off the mountain again. The farmer looks at his wife, and his wife shrugs her shoulders, and the farmer says, "Well I guess nobody lives here." So he pulls out his axe and starts chopping down trees to build a farm house." About a year later, it is autumn, the farmer family is bring in the harvest from their cultivated field which they cleared from the forest with a lot of back breaking work, and there is a large pile of chopped logs and uprooted stumps in the wood shed, and suddenly about 20 Indian Warriors come out of the forest onto the field armed with bows and arrows, and they tell them that they have intruded on their hunting ground. The farmer says, "Well I didn't see anyone living here!" The Indian explains that this land was kept in reserve for when they over hunted their other hunting ground. The farmer exclaims, "Well how was I supposed to know that?" I spend all this time clearing this land, planted the crops, built a log cabin and chimney, and now you are telling me and my family to move out of this house and freeze in the winter! The Indian says, "Sorry, but this is our land, now get out!"

 

[Riley37]

There is a practical problem with hunter gather societies

Alternate point of view: there is a practical problem with agricultural societies.

Is that story - "haloooo" - an accurate summary of what actually happened? With the conflict coming down to a single homesteading family, versus a traveling band of hunter-gatherers? Do you get that story, that scenario, from popular culture, such as Lone Ranger episodes, or from evidence-based historical accounts, or somewhere else?

Do hunter gatherer societies respect each other's territories, even when not immediately occupied? If so, how?

 

[Riley37]

The farmer looks at his wife, and his wife shrugs her shoulders, and the farmer says, "Well I guess nobody lives here."

Does this scenario accurately describe Columbus with the Taino?

Captain James Cook with the Hawaiians?

Mongol nomads with Polish farmers?

The Norse Vinlanders with the aboriginal Vinlanders?

The British with the Australian aborigines?

The Luba with the Batwa?

Village-dwelling Arabs and nomadic Beduin Arabs?

 

[TheCosmicKid]

Alternate point of view: there is a practical problem with agricultural societies.

If hunter-gatherer societies consistently lose their land to agricultural societies (and they do), then I have to concede that the hunter-gatherers are the ones with the practical problem.

Everything else you have to say about the questionable accuracy of the scenario is, of course, true.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

The Norse Vinlanders with the aboriginal Vinlanders?

Actually, it might be accurate for that one.

 

[Riley37]

Everything else you have to say about the questionable accuracy of the scenario is, of course, true.

But that was my only assertion! Otherwise, I asked questions. (No fair answering the easy ones and leaving Thomas with the hard ones.)

Mongols in 1200s present a divergent case, in which nomad does not equal hunter-gatherer, nor hapless victim. Beduin case also divergent, since nomads and village-dwellers both speak Arabic; I don't know the nuances of that relationship, neither as practiced in pre-industrial centuries nor as it stands today. I gather that the relationship between the Congo forest people (aka pygmies) and the village peoples (such as Bantu) has changed since Turnbull wrote "The Forest People", shifting from co-existence towards genocide, as industrialization accelerates deforestation (among other factors).

 

[Thomas Bowman]

Alternate point of view: there is a practical problem with agricultural societies.

Is that story - "haloooo" - an accurate summary of what actually happened? With the conflict coming down to a single homesteading family, versus a traveling band of hunter-gatherers? Do you get that story, that scenario, from popular culture, such as Lone Ranger episodes, or from evidence-based historical accounts, or somewhere else?

Do hunter gatherer societies respect each other's territories, even when not immediately occupied? If so, how?

My point is that its not obvious to a family of farmers that an apparently unoccupied piece of land is actually some nomadic tribe's hunting ground, and they make their decision assuming the land is unoccupied as there are no signs posted telling them other wise, and once they put the work into the land, clearing it and building a farm house, they are reluctant to leave. Wouldn't you be?

 

[Thomas Bowman]

Does this scenario accurately describe Columbus with the Taino?

Captain James Cook with the Hawaiians?

Mongol nomads with Polish farmers?

The Norse Vinlanders with the aboriginal Vinlanders?

The British with the Australian aborigines?

The Luba with the Batwa?

Village-dwelling Arabs and nomadic Beduin Arabs?

You have to describe each situation more specifically, as I have no idea. My point is the situation itself puts the two groups into conflict, neither side is responsible for the conflict in the case I just mentioned. As far as the farmer knows the land he wants to build a farmstead out of is unoccupied, he has no evidence to point out to him otherwise until the hunting party of Indians show up.

From the Indians' point of view, they always hunted here, and when the game got scarce, they moved on to some other hunting ground, allowing time for the game to replenish itself, and when the game at the other hunting ground becomes scarce, they move back here. There are not used to farmers or animal domestication, so when they return to this hunting ground, they find a farming family living here, having chopped down the trees, clearing the land for pastures and building fences and they don't like it! Some of the Indians might decide that some of the farm animals look good to eat and might hunt them in their pens, this gets the farmer mad, and he might want to call on some of his neighbors to gather a posse and hunt down those Indians that stole their cattle. This is how conflicts develop. It is very hard for one group to hunt and fish on the same land where another is trying to farm.

 

[tomBitonti]

You have to describe each situation more specifically, as I have no idea. My point is the situation itself puts the two groups into conflict, neither side is responsible for the conflict in the case I just mentioned. As far as the farmer knows the land he wants to build a farmstead out of is unoccupied, he has no evidence to point out to him otherwise until the hunting party of Indians show up.

From the Indians' point of view, they always hunted here, and when the game got scarce, they moved on to some other hunting ground, allowing time for the game to replenish itself, and when the game at the other hunting ground becomes scarce, they move back here. There are not used to farmers or animal domestication, so when they return to this hunting ground, they find a farming family living here, having chopped down the trees, clearing the land for pastures and building fences and they don't like it! Some of the Indians might decide that some of the farm animals look good to eat and might hunt them in their pens, this gets the farmer mad, and he might want to call on some of his neighbors to gather a posse and hunt down those Indians that stole their cattle. This is how conflicts develop. It is very hard for one group to hunt and fish on the same land where another is trying to farm.

Except that this neglects the capacity of both the Native American's and the Settler's to reason. I think that both sides will fairly quickly understand the inherent conflict of usage. Also, that within both societies there will be segments which look either to antagonism or to conciliation.

Thx!
TomB