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The Invasion of America: New Visualizations of Native American Dispossession

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Re: The Invasion of America: New Visualizations of Native American Dispossession

#61

Post by king_jester »

rayiner wrote: post #22
javert wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consistently ignored? Not at all. We are constantly reminded of this topic these days. It's very popular. For instance, all you hear about on Columbus Day is about how (supposedly) horrible Colombus was, and how people are insulted that we still celebrate him.

Columbus was awful and we should be ashamed for celebrating him. We also learn way too much about native Americans, in some weird cultural guilt trip for past misdeeds. That isn't new--much of my childhood was wasted on learning native American history in the early 1990's.

I had the exact opposite experience. Learning about native peoples and their history was extremely fascinating for me and I wouldn't like to have missed out on that knowledge. Learning more about other people is never a waste.

Re: The Invasion of America: New Visualizations of Native American Dispossession

#62

Post by dismal2 »

swatow wrote: post #24

Vaguely reminiscent of maps of Israel and Palestine. Of course in the case of Native Americans, they are primarily to blame for obstinately refusing to accept the very generous division of 1807, in which they had the majority of the land. Instead they attacked the European settlers, leaving them with no choice but to expand for the purpose of self protection.

because obviously the division terms would actually be upheld and followed, hah!

Re: The Invasion of America: New Visualizations of Native American Dispossession

#63

Post by dharmach »

b6 wrote: post #7

> It is high time for non-Native Americans to come to terms with the fact that the United States is built on someone else's land. Land has been changing hands more or less continuously, forever. Before North America was "seized" by the people who came to be called Americans, parts of it were being seized and re-seized and re-re-seized by various groups of people who lived there at that time. What is the author's reas…

>Land has been changing hands more or less continuously, forever. Before North America was "seized" by the people who came to be called Americans, parts of it were being seized and re-seized and re-re-seized by various groups of people who lived there at that time.

The scale and the speed were different. When a group of people moves in occupying part of the land, gradually over a long period is very different to one just moves in, kills all and takes everything.

Re: The Invasion of America: New Visualizations of Native American Dispossession

#64

Post by benbreen »

happyscrappy wrote: post #23
trextrex wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Ideally history taught in schools should present all sides in an unbiased manner without leaving parts out and go all the way to the present. But it happens all too often that parts of history are left out because of political agendas, ignorance, or lack of data. My understanding of the article is that the auther is pointing out one part of history that is consistently not taught (but should be).

They should also teach that Native Americans owned Negro slaves, but that doesn't fit the narrative.

Claudio Saunt, the historian who wrote the Aeon article above, is quite literally a leading expert on this exact topic (see his book "Black, White and Indian" with Oxford University Press).

Re: The Invasion of America: New Visualizations of Native American Dispossession

#65

Post by whybroke »

clavalle wrote: post #58
whybroke wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a party owns land the US, by what moral authority can they block others access to it? By what moral authority can they demand rent on threat of eviction? Why wouldn't any democratic agency simply have the right to take it from them without compensation? The reason this is a deeply interesting topic is because there are exceptionally strong claims to property rights made in the US and that same property was almost…

>that same property was almost entirely all stolen in the recent past. Was there some sort of native American title office that the European settlers missed? Was every square mile of what would become the United States occupied, used, and accounted for? The English were brutal, no doubt about it, but the French, for one, lived for a couple of centuries side by side with many native peoples in frontier areas without f…

And it wasn't just low intensity use by French trappers alongside natives but even higher intensity use such as the US southern states along side Chickasaw, Choctaw, and Seminole agricultural societies that was working perfectly well [1] (until it was annihilated by Andrew Jackson et al contrary to a supreme court decision prohibiting it)

And indeed those tribes very much had land title offices, legal system and even constitutions echoing the US document.[2]

[1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Civilized_Tribes

[2]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherokee#Treaties_and_governmen...

Re: The Invasion of America: New Visualizations of Native American Dispossession

#66

Post by CalRobert »

userulluipeste wrote: post #43
CalRobert wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Europeans destroyed them. It's a crime against history that can hardly be expressed. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_codices

I understand that it's simpler to say just "Europeans" instead of "European colonial powers", but before you know it you may cast an unjust collective accuse over an entire continent full of people, many of which had nothing to do with the sins of America's colonization.

OK, make that "A group of people who came to the Americas from Europe and behaved in a less than polite manner"

Re: The Invasion of America: New Visualizations of Native American Dispossession

#67

Post by Terr_ »

atlantic wrote: post #51
b6 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not at all. Nor am I "fine with" what happened to the natives. All I'm asking is, would it be any major abberration, considering human history? Or would it just be: after atrocious violence and savagery, land briefly under the control of vague human entity X now seems to be under the control of vague human entity Y, episode #37,093,840?

Violence and war are not unusual historically. But the speed and thoroughness with which a whole continent was cleared of its native inhabitants, and the survivors were subject to all kinds of institutionalized abuse until their culture and traditions were erased, is certainly exceptional, and in recent history only compares in severity with what happened to the aboriginals in Australia. Moreover, if there was offici…

> But the speed and thoroughness [...] is certainly exceptional

So? In a day, a modern celebrity can influence people with a "speed and thoroughness" that would be totally unthinkable to a Jewish celebrity 2000+ years ago.

... But that's due to technology, not due to the differences between Kim Kardashian and Jesus.

In 500 years, the bloody Annexation of Sol is going to be exceptionally speedy and thorough too, because it's easier to be speedy and thorough when you've got warp-drives and teleporters.

Re: The Invasion of America: New Visualizations of Native American Dispossession

#68

Post by WalterBright »

kylebgorman wrote: post #57
WalterBright wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Relatively little is known about pre-colonial history in North America, due to the absence of writing from those times. This is pretty much true of all peoples that did not have writing.

The Mayan rulers carefully documented their vicious wars of conquest (among other things). Some believe the Incas, with their "quipu" ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quipu ) recording devices, were on their way to a writing system. But that's really it re: pre-Columbian writing.

There is a fair bit known about the Mayans because of their writing (and a lot of that survived because it was carved into stone). But the N. American peoples did not have writing, and their lifestyle did not leave behind much for archeologists.

Re: The Invasion of America: New Visualizations of Native American Dispossession

#69

Post by JoeAltmaier »

WalterBright wrote: post #68
kylebgorman wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Mayan rulers carefully documented their vicious wars of conquest (among other things). Some believe the Incas, with their "quipu" ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quipu ) recording devices, were on their way to a writing system. But that's really it re: pre-Columbian writing.

There is a fair bit known about the Mayans because of their writing (and a lot of that survived because it was carved into stone). But the N. American peoples did not have writing, and their lifestyle did not leave behind much for archeologists.

Mounds, burials, artifacts (but mostly ephemeral e.g. bone and skin), some surviving culture.

Re: The Invasion of America: New Visualizations of Native American Dispossession

#70

Post by javert »

CalRobert wrote: post #42
rayiner wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Columbus was awful and we should be ashamed for celebrating him. We also learn way too much about native Americans, in some weird cultural guilt trip for past misdeeds. That isn't new--much of my childhood was wasted on learning native American history in the early 1990's.

Wasted? Seriously? If you live in the Americas it's a part of the history of your home. If you think all history is a waste, then sure, but to focus on just the history of the people who lived on a landmass for most of its populated history is a bit inconsistent.

No, it is a waste as a schoolchild to spend years and years studying Native Americans at the expense of everything else, when literally everything we know about them can be learned fairly quickly. There simply isn't that much information there.

Having also been a schoolchild in the 90s, I assume the same material was simply being repeated over and over and over. The American school system is busted like that.

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