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Whose Land – Indigenous Nations of North America

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Re: Whose Land – Indigenous Nations of North America

#51

Post by jessaustin »

seebetter wrote: post #13

[flagged]

Who suggests that any individual person walked "from Asia to North America"? Beringia itself was inhabited for millennia, even after the glaciers receded enough to allow walking south. Groups of humans could have moved a mile per year and covered the distance. (Although, it seems more likely that they moved back and forth much farther in a sort of Brownian fashion.) Also, many theorists suggest that much of the "fastest" migration was via watercraft along the west coast of the Americas.

America is something quite different from "the best country in the world". It would be more accurate (although still too simplistic) to say that we're the most successful "bad guys". Sure, there are other people who fight unnecessary wars of aggression for the commercial interests of privileged ruling-class assholes. It's just that we've fought so many, which have resulted in the violent deaths of so many millions. Eventually quantity has a quality of its own. It is interesting that one's response to this basically anthropological map would be "USA #1!?!"

Re: Whose Land – Indigenous Nations of North America

#52

Post by dang »

cpursley wrote: post #8
simonsarris wrote: post #4

Somehow I doubt the Russians, English, Spanish, French etc that arrived in the Americas landed on a Westphalian continent. I think maps like this give the wrong impression. Wabanaki (among others) invited French colonists to settle Quebec in part to check (and perhaps attack) the Mohawk, among other conflicts. ex: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beaver_Wars I think it is almost universally agreed that the French treate…

Please stop with the facts and history written by white men, it has no place in identity politics.

Please don't post any more unsubstantive comments and flamebait to HN. It helps nothing.

Re: Whose Land – Indigenous Nations of North America

#53

Post by krapp »

S33V wrote: post #44
krapp wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"indigenous people" comprises hundreds of tribes, with distinct cultures and beliefs. Talking about what was or wasn't a "foreign concept" in that context is like doing so for Africans or the kind of Indians that Columbus intended to find. It's difficult to come to an objective conclusion because so much of what's believed and reported about native culture is often done through appropriate by the descendents of Europ…

I agree, I do think it is disingenuous to make a blanket statement on Native American's knowledge of land ownership and border establishment. I was merely interpreting what the original comment said. Given your points, is there a more correct way to define the lands once inhabited by Native peoples?

I strenuously disagree with that part of hhernandez's premise and I don't think "native lands" is actually problematic at all. It's just a generic, umbrella term to me. You could say tribal lands, First Nations lands, aboriginal lands, it's all the same.

Re: Whose Land – Indigenous Nations of North America

#54

Post by pinkfoot »

neonate wrote: post #46
chrisco255 wrote: post #27

The idea of the stable borders is so new. The Ottoman Empire still controlled much of the middle east before World War I. The British Empire was also still quite expansive at the beginning of that war (and into WW2). The fact that so much of the world speaks Latin-derived languages (French, Spanish, Portuguese, Romanian, Italian...nearly 1 billion people in total) is a relic of the Roman empire's own expansive conque…

The problem is that arguments like this always end with an implicit "QED" that dismisses surviving grievances regardless of how legitimate they may be. What we need to do is hear each other. Responding by saying, "this happened on every square foot of the globe" is implicitly a refusal to listen, a denial of standing to the other. When I read a comment like this, it sounds like a judge tossing a case out of court. Yo…

It almost as if your definition of ‘hear me’ really means ‘silently agree with me and acquiesce to all remedies that I alone propose’.

Re: Whose Land – Indigenous Nations of North America

#55

Post by dang »

m0zg wrote: post #50

Wait until the indigenous folks start going back further in time and revising their own conquests. That should be fun to watch. Oh, and they had slavery too, in case where their enemies weren't exterminated outright or even eaten sometimes. Quote from Wikipedia: "Native American groups often enslaved war captives, whom they primarily used for small-scale labor. Others however would stake themselves in gambling situat…

Would you please stop posting in the flamewar style to HN? We've asked you so many times that I'm not sure why we haven't banned you yet. No doubt that's because you've also posted good things. Unfortunately, though, your account really stands out as damaging this place, and if you don't fix this, we're going to have to.

This thread is a great example because while there are commenters on both sides of the issue, your post is the one that stands out as really dragging the discussion down to nastiness.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Whose Land – Indigenous Nations of North America

#56

Post by idontwantit »

chrisco255 wrote: post #27

The idea of the stable borders is so new. The Ottoman Empire still controlled much of the middle east before World War I. The British Empire was also still quite expansive at the beginning of that war (and into WW2). The fact that so much of the world speaks Latin-derived languages (French, Spanish, Portuguese, Romanian, Italian...nearly 1 billion people in total) is a relic of the Roman empire's own expansive conque…

The examples of early natives torturing an executing people is a strange choice here.

Readers, don't forget that these people are the contemporaries of the perpetrators of chattel slavery, and the french revolution, to name a few popular examples.

The sordid atrocities committed all around the Americas by indigenous Europeans are very well-documented and continued beyond the 18th century, legitimized by the US society and government.

To bring such a thing up in defense of borders created during and with the help of those same atrocities is disingenuous, to put it kindly.

It appears to me that such a defense is an attempt to compare 18th century natives to modern US citizens, an obviously unfair comparison, much the same as if I were to compare modern native Americans to Columbus or 18th century slave-owners in the south.

Re: Whose Land – Indigenous Nations of North America

#57

Post by falcrist »

alistairSH wrote: post #37
Gunax wrote: post #18

So the case at hand is about the prosecution of a tribal member by the state court. While I think the SC made the correct legal decision, I am worried about the implications of this. Do we really want to have separate legal systems based on ethnicity or tribal membership? What if the tribe legalizes marijuana but the state doesn't? What if the punishments in one are more severe than another? Typically the jurisdictio…

SCOTUS left the door open for Congress to change or nullify the treaty that created the reservations in OK. If we (American society) decide we'd rather not deal with the complexities of a massive reservation that overlaps half of OK and includes one of OK's largest cities, we can ask Congress to change the rules.

SCOTUS can't close the door on congress changing the law, though. That's the purpose of congress.

Re: Whose Land – Indigenous Nations of North America

#58

Post by cmehdy »

This is a cool website, and if people go past the landing page they'll find a trove of information and good descriptions of the initiative, as well as rebuttal of the criticisms I've read here so far.

For example, the website is a collaborative effort between multiple entities, and re: map details, they state clearly that "These maps are fluid and ever changing and should be used as an education tool to create dialogue around reconciliation."[0]

They also don't claim to show every single thing on the landing page. For example, living in Quebec, clicking on "Where Am I?" lands me on a list of nations which I'm sure is limited but is at least a starting point for discussion. They specifically mention "There are 634 First Nations in Canada. Learn more about those closest to your location", which might not be directly reflected on the landing page but is acknowledged on the website itself.

Their relationship to acknowledgement being part of a process of reconciliation is not a personal attack on anyone, and it saddens me to think that some people would take it as such. Their FAQ also brings forth the kinds of questions that one might come up with when being made aware of First Nations and treaties and such.[1]

For reference, I am European and I moved to Canada. Perhaps the emotional distance allows for curiosity and a wish to understand as main drivers, rather than feeling attacked or threatened in any way. And I'm French, so technically this is history that I should know at least partially! (but was never taught in school, as the kind of history classes I experienced were very focused on our own belly buttons - Pre-history -> Egyptians -> Greeks -> Romans -> Medieval Europe -> Monarchies (so much time..) -> Industrial Revolution in Europe -> World Wars -> Cold war).

Canada is making efforts towards a better understanding and acceptance of its past without shying away from saying things that temporarily would appear "ego-damaging". In my country, a bit over a decade ago the president was going to a summit of African countries to tell them how irrelevant they are[2]. The humility shown in this website (and to a larger degree in Canada, as evidenced by Trudeau's recent acknowledgement of systemic racism) is as politically challenging as it is morally right in the long run.

The past can't be undone, but the present can acknowledge and work to build understanding and respect for the paths taken.

[0] https://www.whose.land/en/about

[1] https://www.whose.land/en/faq

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolas_Sarkozy_Dakar_address

Re: Whose Land – Indigenous Nations of North America

#59

Post by [deleted] »

pinkfoot wrote: post #54
neonate wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that arguments like this always end with an implicit "QED" that dismisses surviving grievances regardless of how legitimate they may be. What we need to do is hear each other. Responding by saying, "this happened on every square foot of the globe" is implicitly a refusal to listen, a denial of standing to the other. When I read a comment like this, it sounds like a judge tossing a case out of court. Yo…

It almost as if your definition of ‘hear me’ really means ‘silently agree with me and acquiesce to all remedies that I alone propose’.

[deleted]

Re: Whose Land – Indigenous Nations of North America

#60

Post by neonate »

pinkfoot wrote: post #54
neonate wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that arguments like this always end with an implicit "QED" that dismisses surviving grievances regardless of how legitimate they may be. What we need to do is hear each other. Responding by saying, "this happened on every square foot of the globe" is implicitly a refusal to listen, a denial of standing to the other. When I read a comment like this, it sounds like a judge tossing a case out of court. Yo…

It almost as if your definition of ‘hear me’ really means ‘silently agree with me and acquiesce to all remedies that I alone propose’.

Not at all. I mean hear as in really listen and take in what the other is saying. That's harder than it sounds. It's painful and frightening and almost no one is willing to do it, but I think it's the only way forward. Otherwise we're just going to get more violence and justification of violence, because no matter how deeply we try to suppress them, the grievances of the past will just keep reexploding.
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