We've had a few discussions of this cluster of topics in recent months. The standard view is that the intrusion of European culture into the Americas was a disaster for the Native Americans pathologically, demographically, economically, and culturally. In reply, revisionists have contended that the Native Americans were brutal and that Europeans brought both more civil traditions and better husbandry of the land, flora and fauna.

My view is that the consensus is correct: Europeans were a disaster for Native Americans. There are two sides to this argument: European civilization during, and after Columbus's, arrival in the Caribbean; and the effects of that arrival on the Americas.

First, the notion that European civilization was superior in the 15th, 16th, 17th, and early 18th centuries is inaccurate. Columbus's voyages coincided with the Inquisition in Spain, which was of course a human rights disaster for heretics, Jews, Muslims, and others considered "subhuman." The attitude of Columbus towards the Natives he encountered, as immortalized by his journal and his letters, fitted this European pattern quite closely. Native Americans were resources to be exploited or, like Jews and Muslims, eliminated.

Then came the religious conflicts in Europe, and the 30-Years War, in which marauding armies tortured and killed at will, reducing the population of Germany by about a third. The Enlightenment followed but despite the good it did, it also spawned the French Revolution and the sanguinary convulsions that tore the continent apart. That the Europeans who ventured to the Americans shared this moral code, or lack of moral code, especially towards Native Americans is evident if you read The History of the Five Nations, which describes the brutality with which the French in particular but also the British treated the locals, including the introduction of scalping (a French innovation) and the torturing of "Indians" to while away the long evenings around the campfires.

Second, how did the European colonization appear from the Native American perspective? Modern readers are often impervious to Columbus's own words and few people today have even heard of such records as the aforementioned History of the Five Nations. Put simply, it is hard to believe that people like "us," our ancestors, were so nasty to those Native Americans who, in any case, were running around in loin clothes shooting arrows. So... we weren't that bad and anyway they sort of deserved it.

I offer the following article as a more contemporary example of how Christian missionaries intruded into a new Native American realm a few decades ago.* More specifically, a fundamentalist Christian movement based in the US took it upon itself to go through the rainforests, find new tribes, and convert them to the one true God. They organized the groups they'd already controlled into armies who went and captured new tribes, kept the newcomers for years as effective slaves, and also sexually molested them. Meanwhile the pathogens the Americans and Europeans introduced to the area killed many of the native Americans and left others with permanent infections and illnesses. And all this happened in the 1980s and 1990s.

This shouldn't be surprising. When one group of people believes they are superior to another by dint of divine favor, genetics, or anything else, they almost invariably end up behaving like beasts. The fate of Spain's Jews and Muslims attests to this, as did the Germans ruined by the religious wars, the victims of France's internecine atrocities, the Nazi and Communist crimes of the last century, and the behavior of Americans and Europeans who comprise the New Times Mission and, after its name change, Ethnos 360 (donations welcome at their headquarters in Florida).

It's a bit like the Catholic Church. The problem is not the people per se, who are pretty much like everyone else. It is the structure of the organization and the ideology that creates two or more tiers of human beings. When that happens, horrors ensue. And that remains as true today as ever.



*https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-49264245

*https://www.survivalinternational.org/news/12198

Have you seen the movie "At Play in the Fields of the Lord"? It's one that I really like.

I've seen a few of those comments basically saying that being conquered, murdered and having their land stolen was really the best thing that could happen to the Native Americans. I haven't replied because I don't think that level of ignorance and patrimony deserve a response.

If the Western Civ chauvinists would only speak more plainly, then we could hear better what they are really saying:

“We’re superior because we are better at conquering, murdering, torturing, raping and pillaging; they’re inferior because they...let us. And God love us, it was for their own good.”

Western Civ chauvinist sheds a dandruff pile at this and cries straw man/reductionism. But do they really want to argue their superiority because Tiepolo painted pretty pictures?

Human

Richard,

I wish more people would speak up when the racist tropes come marching along. The ethnic supremacy, implicit or explicit, conscious or subconscious, needs to be challenged with actual facts. When people with some expertise (by which I mean you) stay quiet, the impression one gets of the board is less than ideal.

I know you and "anybody" and others are busy and have to decide how much time and energy to expend on these issues. I would hope the answer is more rather than less. Otherwise the ignorance goes unchecked and the simplistic thinking that has historically led to sequential atrocities prevails.

Lot's Wife,

Thank you for explaining everything wrong with Columbus and colonization. And I'm sorry I can't write posts calling out racism in posts as often as I want to. Part of it comes from being spooked by an aggressive troll and part of it is that the racist poster(s) are not interested in learning the truth; they just want to justify their behavior.

I know that posting the facts helps other lurkers, but I tend to sound stupid, rude, or both when I post replies.

Keep up the good fight. And sorry I haven't done more.

Ookami, thank you for your kind words.

I didn't conceive of this thread as anti-racist so much as getting the history right, explaining why particularly in the American case the intrusion of European influence was effectively, if not intentionally, genocidal. The point is to get at the historical misperceptions that we gleaned from Mormonism and that tend sometimes to survive the departure therefrom. But of course, that inevitably has implications for contemporary racism as well.

I share your feelings about the trouble inherent in posting about such things here. But regardless of how many of the controversial issues you decide to address, please know that a lot of your posts touch me deeply.

And, again, I love your moniker!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/13/2019 03:14AM by Lot's Wife.

...Might makes Right...

...The dust bin of history...

...Winners write the history books...

...If we are lucky enough NOT to learn from our history, we get to repeat it!!! Yay!!!



What I was thinking about, in the thread that birthed this one, was the plausible comparison of the hardships the Jewish people endured since Christianity required a 'fall guy', with the hardships endured by Native Americans since 1492.

Were the motivations for the elitist behavior similar? Were the means similar?

And why did the Jewish people come out, comparatively speaking, smelling like a rose? Again, it's a comparative measure...

Was it simply that they, the Jews, could pass for White, while we (meaning I'm part of the Native American experience; please send donations to 1 Rockefeller Center, NY, NY, made out to 'cash'), los morenitos, stick out like a brown boot at a Hampton's pre-Labor Day soiree? Is it that simple?

One is able to mindlessly pick out a Brown person in a crowd, but picking out the non-Chabadnik Jews in a crowd of White people takes motivation and a basic level of cunning. Bigots may often be lacking in intelligence, but pretty much never in motivation. And cunning is a word of art; two-year-olds know about cunning.



By the way, I'm looking towards that eventual day when 95% of us are coffee-colored, with varying amounts of cream, and the true palefaces are locked behind the gates of their ivory towers. Can you say homogenization?

" . . . Winners write the history books . . ."


So, with that in mind---Question Everything. I was so shocked to get the dirt on Columbus and Co. I couldn't even see straight. Putting it in context does not ease the horror for me.

One man's hero is another man's maniacal terrorist.

The need to be superior is killing us. Literally. And as soon as one group falls from favor as the lowest caste du jour to be shunned and taken advantage of, another takes its place. If we could only run out of people to hate, to be superior to, but, alas . . . The need to be superior, to be the king of the hill, the top of the heap, seems to consume enough of the people with the strength and charisma to act on it.

Back when I had a belief in the bible I thought that verse, "The first shall be last and the last shall be first," meant for sure us gays were going to the top in the end. Cuz we was pretty much last for a good long run.

They say you can't judge the past by today's standards. But you can. What has always been true is that many are willing to blow out another's candle in order to make their own appear to burn brighter. Or blow out a life.

And that is why "Imagine" will always be just a song. A song, that the religious feel okay about embracing as long as they change that one lyric to suit themselves. The winners--they re-write too.

elderolddog Wrote:
----------------------------
>
> By the way, I'm looking towards that eventual day
> when 95% of us are coffee-colored, with varying
> amounts of cream, and the true palefaces are
> locked behind the gates of their ivory towers.
> Can you say homogenization?

The most violent wars have been between peoples of the same or mostly similar coloration.

> The most violent wars
> have been between peoples
> of the same or mostly
> similar coloration.


If one looks at available data, it turns out that based on a percentage of total mortality, xxMo0's quoted statement is correct!!

But where I can continue to hang my positive thought is, if not on the 'homogenization' of skin color, then on the homogeniztion of culture.

This paper, https://towardsdatascience.com/has-global-violence-declined-a-look-at-the-data-5af708f47fba, shows data that indicates that the period between 1900 and 1960 was the least 'violent' in recorded history, in terms of percentage of war dead of the total population.

"As Pinker and others (notably Jared Diamond) have made clear, the “noble savage” idea is entirely false. People did not live peacefully with one another when they were organized in tribes and then become more violent as they were civilized, but the opposite: they were extremely violent in tribes and gradually became less so as larger civilizations were built and commerce started to connect the world (this highlights two of the drivers in the decline of global war — trade and powerful states — that we’ll look at shortly). Even accounting for the atrocities wrought by nation-states in the 20th century, rates of violent death appear to be lower now than at any previous point."


So maybe the more we travel and tweet, internationally, the better off humanity will be?

elderolddog Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> > The most violent wars
> > have been between peoples
> > of the same or mostly
> > similar coloration.
>
>
> If one looks at available data, it turns out that
> based on a percentage of total mortality, xxMo0's
> quoted statement is correct!!

It makes sense if you just think of most of the major conflicts in any region over the centuries ... nations mostly have conflicts with neighbors (who tend to look similar to them) over resources in an area as opposed to fighting someone in a distant land. This is true among Europeans, Americans, Africans, Asians. The more technology they have, the larger the area over which they will fight over limited resources.

I think this is just right. Europeans fought with Europeans, Rwandans with Rwandans, Japanese initially with Chinese and other Asians.

A related point was raised by the historian Michael Howard, who asserts that 90% of human conflicts have occurred in the same places. That makes sense because economic and military strongholds are the same over time. Troy was the home to nine cities, each of which was destroyed, because it controlled access to the Strait and the Black Sea. Jericho sat on the trade route from Egypt to Mesopotamia, so it has been the site of many wars. By contrast, few major engagements occurred in the Gobi Desert because there was almost nothing to fight for.

Like your racial/ethnic observation, this stuff is the application of common sense to history, which is almost always fruitful.

and it is remarkable how ephemeral history actually is, and how little is actually captured. It is analogous to a caricature of the human form, evaporating even as the cartoonist draws. So it is truly that history belongs to the one who writes it.

Perhaps you've encountered trunks of faded yellowing photographs of relatives past and have no idea of even their names, let alone what lives they lived. Yet they were once real people who lived real lives.

When attempting to grasp something on this global evolutionary scale, it is practically an impossible endeavor. The interpretation can only be written from the perspective of the mind (and time) of the one who braves an analysis - where even one degree of difference will result in a completely alternative conclusion, so that reasonable people may reasonably disagree.

Consider how what was commonly accepted even a few years ago, or even ignored, is now debated. Monuments to the Confederacy (in the USA) are but one of many examples.

But still, it is delicious to read something which is logically supported as is this. (And courageous to do so!)

Thanks, Doc.

As you note, all history is tentative and biased. The key is getting as close to the truth as possible. In this case there are reliable accounts--Columbus's own, those of others involved in the early expansion of European power, contemporary books such as the Five Nations, etc. There is also decent medical history based on real analysis. The victors left their own records, records that vitiate the Eurocentric perspective; and the vanquished left their bodies and the evidence of the ravages of Eurasian diseases. It is not hard to get ballpark accuracy by perusing those sources, which is why the "victor's truth" does not prevail completely in this instance.

Then one can add "controlled experiments" of the sort represented by the tribes contacted in the 1970s and 1980s, in which case we have records and interviews of both the colonizers and the colonized. If Christian missionaries behaved in the 1980s as their predecessors reportedly did in the 16th century, the evidence for the later gains credibility. So I think we can state with some confidence that we know the general outlines of what happened.

I would add that the Confederacy issue is somewhat different insofar as the underlying evidence has not changed. What has changed is the values of people today. Although related, historical revisionism is not the same thing as political re-evaluation.

Interesting that Joseph Smith and his cronies were 'men of their times' that totally espoused the notion that Native Americans - Lamanites - were such a benighted, inferior race that it was up to Smith's followers to convert the natives so that they could become white and delightsome. No divine inspiration needed to reflect the prevailing attitudes towards the natives in their time and place. It is unfortunate that attitude prevailed through generations of Mormons and no amount of revisionist history can change that fact.

Native Americans: Fighting terrorism since 1492

Ouch!

Its sad when one group/race of people believe themselves to be

superior to everyone else because of the color of their skin

I think its human nature for us to believe that because some

want to feel better in comparison. I've been on the recieving

end of racism. It made me millitant . No one is better than

another because of his skin pigment, the worst offenders of

that are totally oblivious of that fact though.

This is a well thought out perspective that I respect and enjoyed reading, and yes I suppose most of the posters probably agree with LW. I come to a completely differently conclusion on this subject though. And I'll explain some of that.

One of the main themes in the OP analysis is: "Europeans were a disaster for Native Americans." How were Europeans a disaster? America was a ginormous country, practically vacant, there were millions of buffalo roaming around everywhere, none of the land was being farmed, there were no irrigation ditches anywhere. And what did those Indians decide to do with their time? ...not much.

When the Europeans entered Massachusetts they were welcomed in. Squanto gave up his own people to live with the whites and taught them about the land and climate, survival skills. When the Mormons came the Indians once again welcomed them in! When Lewis and Clark sailed up the Missouri the Indians were so delighted by the white people that they actually gave their wives over to the white men to make babies with. The Indians knew a good thing when they saw it.

If we look around today I would say that the Indians are far better off today than they were in 1492. The life expectancy is much higher, nutrician is much better, they actually live in houses with plumbing and heat, internet, cable. They have casinos to spend their time in.

What more could they ask for?

Pie and ice cream?

n/t



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 08/13/2019 05:02AM by Nightingale.

Thanks for engaging, macaRomney. A few quick points.

The Americas were not empty when the Europeans arrived. Estimates vary but the number of Americans was probably 100 million and may have been as high as twice that figure. By way of reference, Europe's population was about 90 million. The continent very quickly depopulated due to disease, which killed 90% or more of the indigenous peoples. That alone qualifies as a "disaster."

Second, the Americas were culturally complex; farming was part of many local economies and the vast states in Central America had extensive irrigation systems and trading relationships. Those economies collapsed when the arrival of the European pathogens killed nine out of every ten people. That is why the continents appeared "practically vacant" and most of the indigenous civilizations poor and backward. They had never achieved anything approaching European technological sophistication because of their lack of contact with the rest of the world, but my heavens, Europe wouldn't have either if it were not for the preservation of ancient knowledge and modern science in the Islamic world; and the Americas were far more advanced before the arrival of Columbus than 20 years later. So culturally and economically as well as demographically, the arrival of the Europeans was "disastrous."

Finally, your understanding of Squanto's life is incorrect. He and others were kidnapped by force and taken to Europe, where he was sold as a slave in Spain and then repurchased and sent to England. In other words, there was nothing voluntary about his sojourn among the Europeans. He managed to get back to North America several years later, but in the meanwhile his tribe had been wiped out. What is one to do when his family and friends are dead, when he is an isolated outsider? With his experience in Europe, he chose to help a neighboring tribe manage its relations with the colonists. That was the most meaningful life available now that he was bereft of family and friend.

There are a lot of other issues with your account of American history, but I think I've made my point. The Americas were replete with people before the arrival of the Europeans, enjoyed a living standard that was probably not that far below the European peasantry, and in places had sophisticated governments with extensive irrigation systems. All of that was destroyed by the intruders from abroad; and as evidenced in Columbus's journals and letters, the accounts of missionaries that arrived soon thereafter, history books like the History of the Five Nations, and the life of Squanto, the Europeans treated the Native Americans as potential and, in many cases, actual slaves.

I think that is a firm factual foundation on which to assert that the American Indians experienced an unmitigated disaster at the turn of the 16th century.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/12/2019 11:22PM by Lot's Wife.

thank you for clarifying.

The population explosion of buffalo happened because the tribes that hunted them were wiped out by diseases brought by the Europeans. At least the Europeans were considerate enough to bring syphilis back with them.

I suppose they should be thankful that they can pop microwave popcorn and watch Dances with Wolves and Little Big Man on a flat screen TV.

Now we just need someone to conquer us so we can see how it feels.

In Southwest Utah there is a little town named Toquerville. The early Mormons named it after Chief Toquer who gave them permission to settle there. Soon Chief Toquer and his entire Band were dead of white man diseases for which they had no immunity.
But heck, they named the town after him so what more could they ask for.
(Just one of thousands of similar stories)

held notion that the town had been named after an early Mormon cannabis farmer.

Isn't Toquerville also the place where Mormons made wine (as in the Naegle Winery)?

Many early Toquerville pioneers referred to the chief as Chief Toker so perhaps everything that was going on wasn't recorded. Because of the natives early demise much may have been lost to history.
Gallons and gallons of sweet Dixie Wine were produced at Toquerville but I'm sure you know the wine was only produced to sell to the gentile miners at Silver Reef (wink! wink!)

well, consider that before Columbus you got to hunt & fish all day

"How were Europeans a disaster? America was a ginormous country, practically vacant"

Here are some facts:

"In 1545 disaster struck Mexico’s Aztec nation when people started coming down with high fevers, headaches and bleeding from the eyes, mouth and nose. Death generally followed in three or four days."

"Within five years as many as 15 million people – an estimated 80% of the population – were wiped out in an epidemic the locals named “cocoliztli”."

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jan/16/mexico-500-years-later-scientists-discover-what-killed-the-aztecs

"If we look around today I would say that the Indians are far better off today than they were in 1492. The life expectancy is much higher, nutrician is much better, they actually live in houses with plumbing and heat, internet, cable. They have casinos to spend their time in."

You have never been on a reservation have you?

What more could they ask for?

To be treated with dignity, perhaps?

To be shown respect for the way they tried to show us to respect nature as the Europeans usurped every thing in their greed disguised as advancement? How about that?

How about to not be given flour with ground glass?

To not be seen as less than as they always were by so many?


Sometimes, I dare say, MacaRomney, there are more important things in a life than internet, cable, and even plumbing.

Your post sounds to me like, "Well, they may have died by the millions, and had their land taken and their way of life denigrated, but by god, they can now have an iPhone to stare at like everybody else, so it's all even-Steven!"

Not in my book!

Why are so many unable to grasp why so many fight for the thing called "Equality?"

When I started to teach kids about Columbus, I was surprised to discover that the native Taino people had a really developed culture. Columbus and his men discovered hammocks from the Taino They were master boat builders. The Taino also had playing fields for a game similar to soccer along with balls made of rubber. And of course Columbus and his men treated them like garbage.

summer Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> When I started to teach kids about Columbus, I was
> surprised to discover that the native Taino people
> had a really developed culture. Columbus and his
> men discovered hammocks from the Taino They were
> master boat builders.

Yes! The other day I read that "hammock" is the only word from the Native Americans of that time which not only entered the English language, but also many other, disparate, languages around the world.

Every time, now, that someone anywhere says "hammock," it is a kind of homage to the Native Americans Columbus and his men encountered.

As if there wasn't always vast and dynamic activity in the Americas, involving massive cultural shifts, warfare, environmental changes, population rises and sharp declines, miscellaneous slaughter and famine, displacement, and so forth, long before any European ever arrived on the continent.


Over the two centuries leading up to Christopher Columbus' arrival in the Caribbean archipelago in 1492, the Caribs mostly displaced the Maipurean-speaking Taínos by warfare, extermination, and assimilation.

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


During the 9th century AD, the central Maya region suffered major political collapse, marked by the abandonment of cities, the ending of dynasties, and a northward shift in activity. No universally accepted theory explains this collapse, but it likely had a combination of causes, including endemic internecine warfare, overpopulation resulting in severe environmental degradation, and drought. ... Within a couple of generations, large swathes of the central Maya area were all but abandoned. Both the capitals and their secondary centres were generally abandoned within a period of 50 to 100 years.

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


Scholars have yet to determine the cause of the eventual extinction of the Olmec culture. Between 400 and 350 BC, the population in the eastern half of the Olmec heartland dropped precipitously, and the area was sparsely inhabited until the 19th century. According to archaeologists, this depopulation was probably the result of "very serious environmental changes that rendered the region unsuited for large groups of farmers", in particular changes to the riverine environment that the Olmec depended upon for agriculture, hunting and gathering, and transportation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olmecs#Decline


Most accepted the rule of the Inca as a fait accompli and acquiesced peacefully. Refusal to accept Inca rule resulted in military conquest. Following conquest the local rulers were executed. The ruler's children were brought to Cusco to learn about Inca administration systems, then return to rule their native lands.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inca_Empire#Expansion_and_consolidation

Okay, so bad things happened at other times and for other reasons. Sure. The same sort of thing occurred all over the world--see Collapse of Rome, Black Death, 30 Years War, French Revolution, World War One, World War Two. Does any one of those disasters diminish the magnitude of any other?

Also, did any of those result in the loss of around 90% of a population? Hint: no.

Re: thirty years war. The population of German region took a pretty good hit, some parts as much as 90%.

Yes, and in both the 30 Years War and the colonization of the Americas, some places would have suffered a 100% drop in population.

My comparison is an attempt at a broader perspective. Most historians think the 30 Years War killed 30-40% of Germany's population. The comparable estimates for the Americas is 90% with a fairly wide margin of error.

I think what xxMoO was trying to say is that the people who were native to the Americas were just as human and behaved just as human civilizations tend to behave. But yes, the conquest of the Americas by the Europeans was a disaster for the natives. And contemporary accounts how just how brutal the conquistadors were.

If that was his point, I agree. I am in no way stating that Europeans are morally inferior to others, just that they are not morally superior and that like all peoples they are responsible for the consequences of their actions.

Couldn't agree more.

Thanks for this thread LW. The context is so well laid out. I love the comments from the people who really care, BUT . . cynical me can't help but feel that when it comes to the very storied Columbus, that what most people care about deeply is whether or not October 14th a paid holiday and what is on sale.

I for one don't believe the key to atrocities never happening again is by looking at the atrocities of the past. "We must remember so we never let it happen again?" Hasn't worked so far.

There is something very territorial in the make-up of humanity. The need is deep to toss off those vagabond shoes, to be king of the hill, A-number one, and the top of the heap. And pushing your challengers down is one way to do that for many.

Plenty of us accept reality and do our best with what we have and gradually learn to appreciate the little things. But the ambitious, who have the strength and the charisma to conquer and divide in order for "winner to take all," will always be there. And somehow, with 8 billion people on the planet, it turns out you can't really herd cats, but yes, those people can herd humans.

We are still an Us-vs-Them planet.

The key is what EOD said. Everybody has got to mix it up like there's no tomorrow, cuz there may not be. Lots of animals and plants already have no today. Who's next?

Done & Done Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> . . . There is something very territorial in the make-up
> of humanity. . .
==========================================

So, is it perhaps the root of our destructive nature is an unquenchable sense of vulnerability?

I think territorialism goes back to our deepest survival of the fittest, survival at all costs, skills buried in our pre-historic gene pool. Some of it we just can't help. Or can we? A group naturally sub-divides and then begins to compete with other groups for the same prizes perhaps.

I'm no expert but those are what pops into my head.

Domination vs Reciprocity? Which is more advanced? Which will get us where we want to go?

Done & Done Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I think territorialism goes back to our deepest
> survival of the fittest, survival at all costs,
> skills buried in our pre-historic gene pool. Some
> of it we just can't help. Or can we? A group
> naturally sub-divides and then begins to compete
> with other groups for the same prizes perhaps.
>
> Domination vs Reciprocity? Which is more
> advanced? Which will get us where we want to go?
================================
You may be onto something.

It is interesting to observe that the radical left and the radical right are largely indistinguishable.

Futuristic Sci-Fi stories and movies have plots focused on domination of one group over another. Violence. Control. And again---Winner takes all. Of course a love story thrown in to soften the blow.

We are even writing our futures that way. How escapable is it?

Even Mormons have written their future that only they will be the winning, dominating, controlling beings of the future---forever and ever amen.

The CK is about more than green aprons and harems. Same plot as everyone else has, just with worse costumes.

Dr. No Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Done & Done Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> It is interesting to observe that the radical left
> and the radical right are largely
> indistinguishable.

Previously, I have been bewildered when I have read words to this effect, so I just Googled--and I discovered that the reference is to something I have never encountered before: "Horseshoe Theory."

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

Thank you, D&D. I've questioned these kinds of references before, in other contexts....I couldn't figure out then what was being referred to....and now--once I am able to fully wake up and reason again (I am definitely not a morning person!)--I will know.

Muchas gracias!

Took me a minute and to read it a couple of times for my mind to quit seeing your clever phrase as words battling each other, but. yes. I like the way you put that. NICE.

Thank you for this interesting thread, Lot's Wife, and I love your comments, Done & Done.
The Incas had amazing roads and paths systems that rivaled those of the Roman Empire. IMO, the Chasquis runners could easily have competed against any Olympic runner.
The Incas got pretty fed up with the Conquistadores and their thirst for gold and silver, so they treated some of them to a drink of molten gold or silver. But even that hospitality couldn't get the Conquistadores to pack up and leave.

OTOH, euros brought the indigenous americans lots of glass beads that the 'First Nations' people used to make excellent items with!

last night's Antique Roadshow, one item was appraised @ $450k to $500 k !


really, It actually happened....

Lot's Wife Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> This shouldn't be surprising. When one group of
> people believes they are superior to another by
> dint of divine favor, genetics, or anything else,
> they almost invariably end up behaving like
> beasts.

Not to derail your thread, but are these people (possibly descendants of conqueror Aryans) behaving like beasts?

https://www.indiatoday.in/magazine/cover-story/story/20180910-rakhigarhi-dna-study-findings-indus-valley-civilisation-1327247-2018-08-31

It reminded me of Mormons searching for DNA evidence for their precious myth of bringing Lamanites back their long lost truths.

Derailments are always welcome!

The Indo-European (Aryan) invasions have long been the stuff of political mythology. While the aim of your article is to cut through the politics, in some ways it fails. For example, the "invasions" were not really attacks by cattle- and horse-rearing, chariot-riding warriors but more likely the gradual movement of people with better agricultural technology into previously inhabited regions. That is why most of even northern India's DNA is pre-Aryan with a small admixture of "invading" genes from Central Asia.

Another problem is evident in the map, which shows the invasion/migration of Indo-Europeans into India and Europe but not Iran. This is wrong because the Iranian and Indian branches of that people were the most closely related, and among the earliest, to leave the steppe. In fact, they shared a particular pantheon with the same names for gods. So for some reason the authors of the study are dissing Iran, perhaps because they don't like Iran's claims to cultural and historical equality.

In any case, we all know that mythologies are reinterpreted to support modern political agendas. Fans of the Indo-Europeans like to depict them as a warrior people; and Hitler wanted them to be the original Germans. Likewise, as you note, today's ruling party in India insists against the facts that the Indo-Europeans were the original Indians because that supports their nationalistic agenda. Meanwhile the Hebrews/proto-Jews claimed that their reinterpretation of Canaanite and other "histories" gave them the right to dominate the land and peoples of Palestine.

So yes, modern Indian nationalists are doing exactly what people in other cultures do when they want to make themselves look superior. They are creating out of whole cloth a "history" that explains why they are cooler than their neighbors in India and abroad. And the parallel with the Mormon story is obvious: if the genetics don't prove that the Lamanites are Hebrews, God must have taken the DNA away as a test of people's faith.

Facts don't matter. The narrative matters.

I believe 'one thing' is certain:

If it wasn't CC that "discovered" the "new world" from Europe, it would have been someone else, in relatively the same time era.

All the speculation in the world doesn't matter about who that might have been & the following events.


Let's not beat up on CC, it's totally pointless.

GNPE Wrote:
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> I believe 'one thing' is certain:
>
> If it wasn't CC that "discovered" the "new world"
> from Europe, it would have been someone else, in
> relatively the same time era.

Agreed.


> Let's not beat up on CC, it's totally pointless.

On this point, I disagree. Columbus is an excellent, provably factual, actually lived, example of how complicated different, co-existing, facts and truths can be--and how difficult human history can be, looked at and analyzed either forwards OR backwards. (Thomas Jefferson is another, similarly morally and ethically problematic, case--along with, of course, many others in our near history.)

Columbus illustrates not only the conflicts of a particular era, but how we as a species "progress"--which often (simultaneously) includes a goodly measure of horrors, and evil, and human regression. (The medical experiments done on black females, both slaves and free women, in the United States, particularly as medicine "modernized" during the 19th century....Unit 731 of the Empire of Japan during WWII....the medical experiments inflicted on Jews, and also twins of a number of different ethnicities, during the Holocaust....)

It has been said, many times, by different people, that the scientific knowledge gained from these tortures was, in essence, worth whatever "costs" were incurred.

We still haven't figured this one out--and Columbus gives us another opportunity to try.

Even if, as happens with me re: Columbus (or any of these, or similar, situations), the result is another stomach ache (and a heart ache, too).



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 08/14/2019 03:41PM by Tevai.

GNPE Wrote:
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> Let's not beat up on CC, it's totally pointless.

GNPE Wrote:
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> Let's not beat up on CC, it's totally pointless.

I disagree. Columbus became the center of a series of mythologies. Belief that he was God's instrument informed Manifest Destiny, the doctrine that justified the eradication of Native Americans and their cultures. Mormonism went a step further, writing Columbus into scriptures and thereby reinforcing the whole Restoration tale. He is more than a man: he is a symbol.

Getting history right requires putting Columbus in his place, cutting aside the flora of mythology and seeing the man for the mortal he was. That's the first step in separating God from the intentional and unintentional disasters that befell the Americas as well as good practice for those of us who try to look through the gloss to the underlying facts of history.

I love this thread, very informative.

Not wanting to derail your thread either, and nervous of becoming political, but gross atrocities of war aside, I thought the French Revolution ultimately resulted in something good - the monarchy was overthrown and France is now a comparatively liberal country. I’m probably embarrassingly uneducated on the subject. But I certainly would prefer France now to how Britain is.
But then I’m a walking oxymoron: a Brit who is also a republican.

Why conquer and not just merely explore? Such arrogance. Perhaps as Done & Done suggests, this is a human trait and not just a European trend in history. Depressing either way, but a very interesting point.

I agree with everything else you’ve said. I especially liked the one comment made by babyloncansuckit: “Now we just need someone to conquer us and we can see how we like it”. Yes. Exactly.

If you start with the notion that people everywhere behave basically the same generally and when under extraordinary pressures, it becomes a question of power. The Han Chinese displaced earlier peoples as they expanded south; the Zulu conquered huge parts of Africa; and the occurrence of the Industrial Revolution occurred in Europe empowered countries there to assert dominance over much of the world. Expansionism is thus largely a matter of who has power at any particular moment.

Not to worry, though. The gods of economics have decreed the relative decline of the West as first China and then India become globally predominant.

:O

Anyone, Canadians perhaps, care to suggest why the European confrontation with Indians in Canada was so different from the US experience? End result perhaps the same but the process was to my understanding quite different and without the major wars for the most part.

Since people are hitting different train-track switches...

Latin America, Mexico to the tip of Sur America, mostly speaks Spanish, based on population. From, say, 1500 until maybe 1914, Iberians and Africans made up the bulk of immigrants. And they interbred with a certain set, or percentage, of the indigenous population, creating a 'skin of many shades' populace. I'm not aware of any attempt to force reservations upon one tribe or tribes.

I grant you that los gachupines (a derogative Mexicans call 'purebred' Spaniards) think that their version of genetic purity makes them something special compared to Los Mestizos, but these gachupines are few and far between.

I'm guessing that two factors created this difference in La Mescla, the mixing of the races:

1. So many more adventuring males came alone from Spain, compared to families

and

2. Relatively speaking the percentage of immigrants relative to the populace was so much lower than what was experienced north of the Gadsden Purchase. North of the border, there was never any incentive to marry into the Lamanite Tribes...


And maybe the Iberians were either more broadminded or hornier. Or some combination thereof.

Life is weird and then you die and either turn crispy black or CK white.

> And maybe the Iberians were either more
> broadminded or hornier.

I hope that redundancy was intentional.

You, madame, are a grace to your gender.

Was he calling Spaniards sexist?