American Indians Colonize the Old world in 1250 BC

[Thomas Bowman]

Not murder a bunch of people and steal their land? Find a peaceful means of co-existence borne out of mutual benefit? Is that really so much to ask of a society? Even if it was a path so rarely taken?

Your not listening are you, the settlers see empty land and some Indians that pay a visit on occasion, by the time the Indians show up, they already built their homes. You expect them to abandon their homes and die in the snow? They see themselves as defending their homes which they built with their own hands. What would you do if Indians showed up at your home and told you to get out? Would you leave? I can see you live in California, that was once Indian land you know. Are you going to respect that if they show up now? You are very judgemental of people you've never met, people who could be your own ancestors you know. If not for them, you wouldn't exist!

 

[dragoner]

you have to alter the land to make a farm, to have a hunting ground you leave it as it is.

Europeans hunted too, most Native Americans lived in towns and farmed, long before the Europeans came. I live in Indiana, a place named for the amount of Native Americans living here, the town here was called Ouiatenon or "Wea-Town" and before the US Army came through and burned their fields of crops and the town, there were an estimated 20-30,000 people here.

On 9 March 1791, U.S. Secretary of War Henry Knox issued orders from President George Washington to Brigadier General Charles Scott of Kentucky to lead a punitive expedition against the Wea settlements in the Wabash Valley. Just after noon on 1 June 1791, Scott with a force of 33 officers and 760 mounted Kentucky volunteers crested High Gap Hill and entered the Wea Plains. Perceiving two villages to the northwest, at two miles (3 km) and four miles (6 km) out, Scott sent a small detachment under Colonel John Hardin to destroy them while he and the bulk of his force continued north toward the main Ouiatenon village near the mouth of Wea Creek, where the smoke of cooking fires could be seen.

Rounding the fringe of trees at the bend in Wea Creek, Scott's forces found the Ouiatenon town in the bottom land near the Wabash and descended upon it, causing panic amongst the inhabitants. Some in canoes tried to escape to the Kickapoo village opposite, but were killed by riflemen before reaching the opposite shore; 41 women and children were taken prisoner; the remainder were killed, dispersed or escaped. Scott burned the town and several hundred acres of growing corn.

They were anything but Hunter Gatherers. Someone from the historical society said that the Army let the blacksmith and his family leave.

 

[Gradine]

Let's take this point by point.

Your not listening are you, the settlers see empty land and some Indians that pay a visit on occasion, by the time the Indians show up, they already built their homes. You expect them to abandon their homes and die in the snow? They see themselves as defending their homes which they built with their own hands. What would you do if Indians showed up at your home and told you to get out?

The point that you refuse to listen to is that the scenario you keep going on about never existed, and you've never once addressed the question, posed to you on multiple occasions, as to where you are drawing this account from in the first place. At literally no point in the history of westward expansion in North America were settlers ever moving into land they weren't well aware were already occupied, if not utilized at "peak agricultural efficiency" at the time, and your repeated attempts to fall back on this fantasy sounds a lot like using the "superiority" of European civilization to justify imperialism (up to and including wholesale slaughter of less agriculturally advanced cultures.)

Would you leave? I can see you live in California, that was once Indian land you know. Are you going to respect that if they show up now?

"Show up now?" They're already here my friend, and I have joined them to fight tooth and nail for every attempt to return local sacred land to tribal ownership. I spent five years working for a local tribal rancheria.

What have you done lately to reverse centuries of systemic violence and oppression?

You are very judgemental of people you've never met, people who could be your own ancestors you know. If not for them, you wouldn't exist!

My own ancestors came over in the 19th and 20th centuries from Sweden, and didn't really leave Minnesota until the 1950's. I'm not saying they were models of morality at any given point, and I don't necessarily hold them in any higher or lower regard personally as people than the ancestors; I'm sure I had plenty of ancestors who engaged in their bits of unnecessary wanton slaughter and violence, because, well, vikings.

Accurately judging the sins and mistakes of our forefathers is what allows us to grow beyond them.

 

[Thomas Bowman]

Let's take this point by point.



The point that you refuse to listen to is that the scenario you keep going on about never existed, and you've never once addressed the question, posed to you on multiple occasions, as to where you are drawing this account from in the first place. At literally no point in the history of westward expansion in North America were settlers ever moving into land they weren't well aware were already occupied, if not utilized at "peak agricultural efficiency" at the time, and your repeated attempts to fall back on this fantasy sounds a lot like using the "superiority" of European civilization to justify imperialism (up to and including wholesale slaughter of less agriculturally advanced cultures.)



"Show up now?" They're already here my friend, and I have joined them to fight tooth and nail for every attempt to return local sacred land to tribal ownership. I spent five years working for a local tribal rancheria.

What have you done lately to reverse centuries of systemic violence and oppression?



My own ancestors came over in the 19th and 20th centuries from Sweden, and didn't really leave Minnesota until the 1950's. I'm not saying they were models of morality at any given point, and I don't necessarily hold them in any higher or lower regard personally as people than the ancestors; I'm sure I had plenty of ancestors who engaged in their bits of unnecessary wanton slaughter and violence, because, well, vikings.

Accurately judging the sins and mistakes of our forefathers is what allows us to grow beyond them.

If it weren't for them, you wouldn't be here, you literally owe them your life! Why do you suppose they came to America, was it for opportunity or was it to kill Indians? Its one thing to raid coastal villages, steal loot and kidnap women, but if your a pioneer and you see vacant land, not an Indian village on that spot what do you think the typical Swedish family is going to do? It is much easier to build a log cabin, than to go into a village and start killing women and children. I think the typical pioneer family did not see themselves as killing innocent women and children when they started building that log cabin, all they saw were trees than needed chopping and lots of work to do, they had to get the fields cleared and planted so they would have enough food to last the winter. The macro-sociological effect on the American Indians frankly didn't occur to them. Instead they saw opportunities for their children and their grandchildren and of course having children helps take care of them in their old age. You think they just had blood lust and wanted to kill some people in front of their children?


I wonder what would happen if we stuck you in a time machine and had you confront your ancestors directly, what would you say to them?

 

[Gradine]

If it weren't for them, you wouldn't be here, you literally owe them your life! Why do you suppose they came to America, was it for opportunity or was it to kill Indians? Its one thing to raid coastal villages, steal loot and kidnap women, but if your a pioneer and you see vacant land, not an Indian village on that spot what do you think the typical Swedish family is going to do? It is much easier to build a log cabin, than to go into a village and start killing women and children. I think the typical pioneer family did not see themselves as killing innocent women and children when they started building that log cabin, all they saw were trees than needed chopping and lots of work to do, they had to get the fields cleared and planted so they would have enough food to last the winter. The macro-sociological effect on the American Indians frankly didn't occur to them. Instead they saw opportunities for their children and their grandchildren and of course having children helps take care of them in their old age. You think they just had blood lust and wanted to kill some people in front of their children?

Since you're just going to keep on ignoring that your scenarios are entirely fictional creations of your own imagination and nothing that ever actually happened in real history (and are not particularly justifiable even if one were to grant their veracity), I'm only going to address that last point, and leave event, from centuries later, this here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1860_Wiyot_massacre

Never underestimate the human capacity to commit evil, particularly on those considered "lesser than", by people motivated by little more than sheer bloodlust.

I wonder what would happen if we stuck you in a time machine and had you confront your ancestors directly, what would you say to them?

Very little, I imagine, as I don't speak the language, and I would figure far enough back I'd pose enough of an oddity to kill first and ask questions later (or more likely never). Maybe some particularly clever viking might make a trophy out of my jean shorts? One could hope.

That the nation that I enjoy the privilege of currently living in was built on the backs of a multitude of atrocities large and small does little to nothing to justify them. I would argue that both of us, or whichever humans a new confluence of ancestry would be afforded such a world, would be significantly better off living in an alternate timeline or reality with far less hatred, inequality, and historical blood on our hands. And I cannot more strenuously argue the notion of how much better the world we live in now would be were we, as a collective human race, to make more of an effort to recognize and accept the human costs of the atrocities that built our world into its current shape and took steps towards rectifying them.

 

[dragoner]

I wonder what would happen if we stuck you in a time machine and had you confront your ancestors directly, what would you say to them?

The irony of this statement is that what if you went back and found that they were Native Americans? Because we know, such as from the immigration records around here, that most of the immigrants were men, so what women were they marrying? Plenty of people here with very odd German sounding names, also have almond shaped eyes and straight dark hair. Why honor one side and not the other? What would you say to your Native American ancestors?

 

[TheCosmicKid]

Its called sarcasm.

So when you put those words in my mouth, you knew full well I meant nothing of the sort? What was your purpose in this?

 

[TheCosmicKid]

If it weren't for them, you wouldn't be here, you literally owe them your life!

And what is this supposed to prove? Do you believe that only people who have led blameless lives could have had children?

(I know you don't. My point in asking this is to highlight that it is a necessary hidden premise of the argument you're making, and since it is absurd, everything that follows is absurd. Just so you can see what it looks like to deploy "sarcasm" with purpose.)

 

[Thomas Bowman]

The irony of this statement is that what if you went back and found that they were Native Americans? Because we know, such as from the immigration records around here, that most of the immigrants were men, so what women were they marrying? Plenty of people here with very odd German sounding names, also have almond shaped eyes and straight dark hair. Why honor one side and not the other? What would you say to your Native American ancestors?

Because you do your fair share of honoring the Native American, and they don't need my help in arguing their case, however you are being unfair to everyone else, not just Caucasians, but black people and Asians as well. If your argument is that these people don't belong here, then what would you do about it? I am saying it is a morally gray area, you want to present it as black and white.

 

[Thomas Bowman]

And what is this supposed to prove? Do you believe that only people who have led blameless lives could have had children?

(I know you don't. My point in asking this is to highlight that it is a necessary hidden premise of the argument you're making, and since it is absurd, everything that follows is absurd. Just so you can see what it looks like to deploy "sarcasm" with purpose.)

Well if their crime is to live here and have children and that upset the Native American way of life, then you are part of that crime and so am I. As I value my own existence, I am going to say the issue is morally grey, otherwise I would be arguing to get rid of myself, because under your reasoning, I shouldn't exist.