The story of the European conquest of the Americas is the story of an aspect of humanity that many have long grappled with. The underlying premise of “might makes right” leaves those who believe in “fair play” - or in today’s parlance, equal rights or equity - very uneasy.
Over the millennia, philosophers have tried to address how to rein in this essential aspect of human nature to dominate others. Ultimately, it was left to the “law” to deal with - which it did by inventing doctrines that, for the most part, vindicated the political goals previously set. In those instances in which the law came down on the side of native rights, the decisions were generally ignored.
Perhaps the best that can be said is that the West identified the underlying moral question - unlike pretty much every other civilization - even if it found no particularly effective solution.
Taking a broader perspective, one might say that the Europeans were doing to the American Indian tribes what those tribes were doing to themselves, until their advances in technology and population turned a roughly “fair” fight into a one-way inevitability. In effect, the difference resolves to one of degree, not kind.
Put a bit differently, if one believes that, for instance, the Lakota Sioux tribes have a right to their ancestral homeland, the actual question would be “as of when”? They conquered the Black Hills (now considered by them to be their sacred land) and expelled the resident tribes only in the 1750s. Prior to then, their homeland had been around the Great Lakes from which they’d been expelled by the Mandan and others. And before then, who can say.
The latest intellectually fashionable theory of “settler colonialism” might reformulate a known problem but does not offer anything approaching a workable solution - and whatever credibility it might have has been significantly eroded by its arbitrary application to the Arab-Israeli conflict.
Consider the following uncontroversial sentence in this article which is as good an explanation of the settler-colonial dynamic as one might find, “Europeans sailed to lands they had never seen before, where they encountered peoples they had never known before.” When it comes to the Jewish people, not only is the very opposite the case, but unlike the Lakota, the Jewish homeland has been unchanged as a general matter for more than two millennia (I am not speaking of specific borders as that is, in fact, a relatively recent historical concept).
So the bottom line, I suppose, is that however we seek to rationalize it or feel guilty about it, there remains a will to dominate the neighbors that centuries of attempts to sublimate into a rule of law category has, for the most part, shown itself wanting.
In the end, it is the weak who seek to ensnare (for lack of a better term) the powerful in a web of restraints as the best way to protect their welfare and existence. The powerful generally consent to these fetters until, for whatever reason, they don’t.
Perhaps it’s all a calming fiction that we have created for ourselves but at the moment, it’s all we have.
Very well put. I agree that these things are not easy to deal with. Malays, for example, are not truly the native people of Malaysia (“negritos” are, and they are now a despised minority). Vietnamese are not the native people of South Vietnam, where they arrived roughly when the Europeans arrived in the New World. We could go on with examples. It pays to be careful with these discussions and don’t make easy assumptions about colonizers, settlers and poor hopeless natives.
Generally speaking, the meaning of most indigenous words for their ancestral homeland resolve down to something akin to “The People” (as a linguistic marker to set themselves off from the “Others”) or to some ancestor or patriarch whose exploits took place in the land now claimed as their own, thereby establishing the mythic connection.
Given all that, it is not without entirely unintended humor that the Palestinians have selected for themselves a name that, at its root in Hebrew (!), means “foreigner” or “invader”. At best, it is a foreign loanword imported to Arabic.
The current preoccupation with ‘settler colonialism’ and its associated division of humanity into noble victims and their wicked oppressors (and their descendants) will come to be seen as analogous to the early 20th century popular belief in scientific racism (debased social Darwinism). A simple lens through which political movements can attain and deploy power.
It loses most of its explanatory power when you look at the movements of peoples unconnected with European colonialism. The Vietnamese are ‘settler colonialists’ who dispossessed the Khmer of the Mekong delta. The Thais did the same from the north west. Look at any part of the world and we see tribes moving onto the lands of others. None of this is to deny the brutal expropriation carried out by Argentine, Australian and USA settler administrations. But let’s at least place them inside normal history.
Very good post! It is very interesting to read that the British opposed the expansion westward. In Florida, Britain gained control from Spain. Then the British armed and supported the Creek Indians who went into Florida and killed and/or enslaved many of the Indians.
I'm working on a book about the Calusas, who dominated SW Florida.
The Calusas never gave in to Spain, but diseases and the Creeks eventually defeated them. The Creeks the became the Seminoles.
I do wonder how the British justified their actions regarding Florida versus their take on westward expansion. Something to read about. Thanks
Yeah, well, the fact is that the early Zionists saw themselves as European colonists and were quite open about it. They didn’t base their claim to Palestine on indigeneity. Your unpleasant final comment about Palestinians, a variation on the “Palestinians don’t exist“ meme, obviously has nothing to do with David Roman’s article. Why don’t you delete it and go and do your daily hasbara somewhere else?
The story of the European conquest of the Americas is the story of an aspect of humanity that many have long grappled with. The underlying premise of “might makes right” leaves those who believe in “fair play” - or in today’s parlance, equal rights or equity - very uneasy.
Over the millennia, philosophers have tried to address how to rein in this essential aspect of human nature to dominate others. Ultimately, it was left to the “law” to deal with - which it did by inventing doctrines that, for the most part, vindicated the political goals previously set. In those instances in which the law came down on the side of native rights, the decisions were generally ignored.
Perhaps the best that can be said is that the West identified the underlying moral question - unlike pretty much every other civilization - even if it found no particularly effective solution.
Taking a broader perspective, one might say that the Europeans were doing to the American Indian tribes what those tribes were doing to themselves, until their advances in technology and population turned a roughly “fair” fight into a one-way inevitability. In effect, the difference resolves to one of degree, not kind.
Put a bit differently, if one believes that, for instance, the Lakota Sioux tribes have a right to their ancestral homeland, the actual question would be “as of when”? They conquered the Black Hills (now considered by them to be their sacred land) and expelled the resident tribes only in the 1750s. Prior to then, their homeland had been around the Great Lakes from which they’d been expelled by the Mandan and others. And before then, who can say.
The latest intellectually fashionable theory of “settler colonialism” might reformulate a known problem but does not offer anything approaching a workable solution - and whatever credibility it might have has been significantly eroded by its arbitrary application to the Arab-Israeli conflict.
Consider the following uncontroversial sentence in this article which is as good an explanation of the settler-colonial dynamic as one might find, “Europeans sailed to lands they had never seen before, where they encountered peoples they had never known before.” When it comes to the Jewish people, not only is the very opposite the case, but unlike the Lakota, the Jewish homeland has been unchanged as a general matter for more than two millennia (I am not speaking of specific borders as that is, in fact, a relatively recent historical concept).
So the bottom line, I suppose, is that however we seek to rationalize it or feel guilty about it, there remains a will to dominate the neighbors that centuries of attempts to sublimate into a rule of law category has, for the most part, shown itself wanting.
In the end, it is the weak who seek to ensnare (for lack of a better term) the powerful in a web of restraints as the best way to protect their welfare and existence. The powerful generally consent to these fetters until, for whatever reason, they don’t.
Perhaps it’s all a calming fiction that we have created for ourselves but at the moment, it’s all we have.
Very well put. I agree that these things are not easy to deal with. Malays, for example, are not truly the native people of Malaysia (“negritos” are, and they are now a despised minority). Vietnamese are not the native people of South Vietnam, where they arrived roughly when the Europeans arrived in the New World. We could go on with examples. It pays to be careful with these discussions and don’t make easy assumptions about colonizers, settlers and poor hopeless natives.
Generally speaking, the meaning of most indigenous words for their ancestral homeland resolve down to something akin to “The People” (as a linguistic marker to set themselves off from the “Others”) or to some ancestor or patriarch whose exploits took place in the land now claimed as their own, thereby establishing the mythic connection.
Given all that, it is not without entirely unintended humor that the Palestinians have selected for themselves a name that, at its root in Hebrew (!), means “foreigner” or “invader”. At best, it is a foreign loanword imported to Arabic.
The current preoccupation with ‘settler colonialism’ and its associated division of humanity into noble victims and their wicked oppressors (and their descendants) will come to be seen as analogous to the early 20th century popular belief in scientific racism (debased social Darwinism). A simple lens through which political movements can attain and deploy power.
It loses most of its explanatory power when you look at the movements of peoples unconnected with European colonialism. The Vietnamese are ‘settler colonialists’ who dispossessed the Khmer of the Mekong delta. The Thais did the same from the north west. Look at any part of the world and we see tribes moving onto the lands of others. None of this is to deny the brutal expropriation carried out by Argentine, Australian and USA settler administrations. But let’s at least place them inside normal history.
Very good post! It is very interesting to read that the British opposed the expansion westward. In Florida, Britain gained control from Spain. Then the British armed and supported the Creek Indians who went into Florida and killed and/or enslaved many of the Indians.
I'm working on a book about the Calusas, who dominated SW Florida.
The Calusas never gave in to Spain, but diseases and the Creeks eventually defeated them. The Creeks the became the Seminoles.
I do wonder how the British justified their actions regarding Florida versus their take on westward expansion. Something to read about. Thanks
Fascinating history.
The Courts …. Pfft.
American courts are law firms for the Elites.
Yeah, well, the fact is that the early Zionists saw themselves as European colonists and were quite open about it. They didn’t base their claim to Palestine on indigeneity. Your unpleasant final comment about Palestinians, a variation on the “Palestinians don’t exist“ meme, obviously has nothing to do with David Roman’s article. Why don’t you delete it and go and do your daily hasbara somewhere else?