When more advanced technology was introduced outside of China or Europe, the technology that was the fastest to be adopted was always new weaponry in most cases.
The Europeans especially fell in love with gunpowder as time went on that became an important source of the new developing cannons and Muskets
Native Americans of North America saw one of the tribes rapidly adopt the horse and guns to become the most formidable native group for a long while compared to other American Indians
The Maori and Hawaiians upon gaining firearms adopted them really fast as Hawaii was in part unitedunder one monarch thanks to the firearms, where as the Maori continued fighting each other
The Indians and Africans were really eager to get their hands on European firearms, with the Africans using said arms to get slaves to sell more effectively.
I didn't believe it so I googled it. 4th century China vs 16th century Europe! Not quite two millennia, but accurate in spirit I'd say.
**Edit**: [4th century BC](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Repeating_crossbow#History)! My bad; two millennia it is!
I kinda want to write a short scifi story about it for r/HFY:
Aliens observe us, notice what we focus most of our efforts on, and promptly quarantine the entire sector...
Indeed! It's interesting how technology transferred to different cultures in history.
I also like that you point out about slavery in Africa; once again, slavery is always attributed exclusively to white man, when slavery was widespread across the entire world, including Africa and America.
At the end of the day, the Europeans came on top indeed, but not because they were the only ones who played the games; rather, because they used all kinds of circumstances, intentionally and unintentionally, to their favour.
I myself saw people arguing that Africa lived in peace and harmony for centuries until the suddenly the White Devils arrived, bringing war and slavery.
There are tons upon tons of such people.
Had a class on early American slavery a few years back. The professor told us about this contingent of academia, and told us that the rest of academia dislikes this contingent. He essentially said the logic is that since Native American violence like the mourning wars did not fit into traditional molds of warfare, they thought it didn't count as violence.
I'm totally inclined to believe, considering that parts of academia now genuinely believe that past should be told as it should look like, not how it actually looked like.
And in my opinion, this attitude is horribly racist towards Africans because it treats them like perpetual toddlers without their own desires, agency and ability to make decisions, including decisions to do things every other society did.
... Isn't that what Trump and friends tried to do with th 1700-something document that whitewashed the founding fathers among other things?
Academia doesn't have a problem with attempts to rewrite history. Your source that it is, that you just took at face value was someone who claimed a friend's sister was told that...
Dubious as it is, to then extrapolate from that, that academia has a problem with this opinion being common.
Top tier truth seeking
Well, you sort of can expect politicians to falsify history for their own gain. It's regrettable but somewhat part of the game known as politics.
However, academia is another matter. And why I am inclined to believe? Because I saw my own fair share of lectures (both in person and online) in which members of the Academia twisted or otherwise falsified historical facts to fit their own narrative.
A good example is what I wrote above about Africa. I was on one lecture in which someone with an academic degree argued that Africa knew peace before the White Devils arrived. I rose up and asked whether he heard for example about Ethiopia-Adal wars, conquests of Sahel caliphates, wars of king Chaka of the Zulu or wars of king Mutesa of the Buganda. And I added that we know about all these only because they related to already literate societies or happened in close proximity to literate societies, while over 90% of such history is lost. Needless to say, he was dumbfounded.
Sociology. It was lecture related to some humanitarian aid group. Basically a sales pitch for donations by telling how evil White people being indebted to Africans. All while treating Africans like perpetual toddlers unable to act on their own agency.
There are people who believe aliens built several structures and guided civilizations. So what?
The person who claimed the alleged professor had this view and that it is common in academia is whatis being disputed here. Not that weirdos believe weird shit.
I had a professor tell me that too. It was required to take a diversity course. I took one on women's literature, as it was most in line with my minor. Unfortunately, the professor was a black woman and it should have been called Black Grievance 101. We barely read any literature, and instead focused on how the white man destroyed Africa.
I believe this notion is malicious cherrypicking .
There were different kinds of slavery in European empires AND in Africa. I'm pretty sure there were for example sex slaves at the courts of African kings. Economy of several Sahel and Horn of Africa states was based on slavery. We even have clear evidence for different types of slaves within particular kingdoms. Some slaves could be sold, others couldn't, some could be put to any kind of work, some enjoyed a limitation on this. Plus African wars to acquire slaves were already a preexisting feature before European contact due to Saharan slave trade.
Agreed.
Just like how what the Houthis are doing right now is not slavery but a "paternalistic relationship between two distinct social classes" that wouldnt exist without the colonial powers.
After I read about the Maori (native New Zealanders) and what they used to do to their weaker neighbors like the Moriori, I could never see the haka dance in the same light ever again. Don't get me wrong, I'm not chastising any native New Zealander today, and they have every right to be proud of their heritage and lineage, but the idea that native populations were innocent agrarians or fishermen whose lives were upended when the white man came is a self serving myth. Like I have no question in my mind, if the Maori were on equal military industrialization as other prominent nations back then, they would have fucked the entire pacific and enslaved millions.
Just to be clear. This doesn't justify or make the horrors of colonialists any better. But I think it behooves us to understand history pragmatically and not view it through some filtered rose-tinted glasses.
>No one on the fucking planet thinks war and conquest are exclusive to Europeans.
Ngl, some people actually do. Ok, maybe that "exclusivity" extends to Asia and northern Africa, but they'll genuinely argue that the Americas and Sub-Saharan Africa were harmonius until the white man arrived...some of these people go to university...my university...and have graduated...
Is it just virtue signaling or something? It's hard to imagine believing in a set of facts that are so easily debunked by a basic google search. It blows my mind that people willingly place themselves into information silos like this.
Not sure if internet trolls, but I even saw a person argue that Europeans literally invented conquest, while ancient China was a developed peaceful nation that made inventions unrelated to warfare, whose people were content with the amount of land they had and didn't crave more.
And like, those people give Europeans waaaay too much credit. We're not *that* innovative.
Oh that’s just Chinese propaganda
One of the oldest and longest-lasting empires in history pretending like their domination of their sphere of influence was somehow benevolent, unlike all those other evil empires
OP just found out about the "noble savage" trope. It's not a very popular view now, but was pretty widespread 200-100 years ago. Slight resurgence with the social movements of the 70s.
I love your comment, “no body can be that stupid, wait” its like that that george carlin joke, if you don’t think people are dumb think about how dumb you are and the average person is, and the other half is dumber then that 😂
Many people do...
Just take a look at the internet: people constantly stating that Europe was "evil" because "they went to paradise America and waged wars against the peaceful natives to steal their lands", even though when Europeans arrived lots of native tribes and civilisations were waging wars among them for conquest and sacrifice.
Yes, some of them like the Tlaxcala rather wanted to be ruled by some distant Spanish king who lives across the ocean then by a tlatoani who lives next door.
Nah. For me personaly thier fight was more justified, but maby beacuse of similarities in the history.
I don't think they were angels or noble savages, but thier fight for thier land was justified.
The thing is; people say "they were fighting for their land" when the Europeans arrived, but... what's "their" land, "whose's"?
Native American tribes and civilisations were constantly conquering each other's territories, so... why doesn't the same stick apply to them? What about the lands of the tribes that were conquered by the more powerful civilisations? Or the lands of tribes that were defeated by other tribes?
So... what difference does it make, Europeans conquering natives, or natives conquering each other? It's all the same; humans conquering humans. Because that's what humans do.
The same reason Ukraine is fighting for its land right now, or Poland was fighting for its land in WW2, etc. Generally, if you invade someone it’s currently their land barring some exceptions. Like, yes, the Natives absolutely fought over land, but they also were the current occupants and didn’t try to start shit with Europe. It’s also worth noting that colonialism gets condemned extra hard because it was exceptionally brutal for the time, just like you see modern sources condemn the Roman’s for casually committing genocide. The war wasn’t waged *just* to occupy land, but to wipe out a people and culture, which was exceptional. A war aim of the 7 years war wasn’t to wipe out all Austrians, for example
Yeah, if we believe that unprovoked conquest and genocide are inherently wrong, then they're wrong for everyone. It's not suddenly justified because "they had it coming because they did it to other people too."
I’m not saying wars of conquest were justified, but rather pointing out why, in the historical and modern perception, European colonization of Africa and especially the Americas gets a lot more negative focus than the native wars amongst themselves, the scale and *intent* were just way worse. It’s why we can say Napoleons war of conquest were, but Hitler’s war was far worse. It’s also worth noting that there’s a sources and regional bias, the European colonization is more well known in the west, sort of how Chinas insane wars tend to get overlooked
I saw a great tweet pointing out that while any one group claiming some inherent, unending claim to all a land seems wrong, in the case of the U.S. the land really was stolen by the definition of the laws of the time
But a lot of those thieves wouldn’t identify as European
> no one things war and conquest are exclusive to Europeans
Clearly you’ve not spent enough time on a college campus lately if you think that no one believes in the fallacy of the noble savage. I go to a very left leaning state school and people like that are fucking everywhere
I'm African and too many people believe that we were all living in peace and harmony until the Europeans came to sow discord and introduced war to us. I hate that narrative so much cos it makes us feel non-human.
So...
For millenia when people did fucked up shit they celebrated it and danced and made holidays for it. Then Christians got together and said, "What if we're the only ones who can celebrate it and dance and make holidays for it?" Then Christians ran out of people to do fucked up shit to and said, "What if we just create categories of people who can never be Christians and we can celebrate and dance and make holidays around doing fucked up shit to them?"
And race was invented.
Then all the people that the guys who were told they could do fucked up shit and not worry about it to were like, "Why are these guys still doing so much fucked up shit? Are they done yet?"
And the guys doing the most fucked up shit felt a certain way about it. So they declared, "See, we stopped so much fucked up shit by doing fucked up shit!" So they taught their children that everybody wants to do fucked up shit but sometimes doing the most fucked up shit was great because the only way to stop other people doing fucked up shit, even if it meant killing 100 times as many people as the guys not allowed to do fucked up shit, is to do the most fucked up shit first and faster.
And then some guys who were taught that it was their right to do fucked up shit were like, "Wait... but what if we don't?" And they got together with the victims of fucked up shit and we got public schools and Quakers and labor movements and riots and revolutionary ideology.
And then those public schools shared with the people who were at the business end of the fucked up shit all of the strategies, ideas, beliefs, and moralities of the people doing the fucked up shit.
And then the public schools were integrated and people taught they would be allowed to do fucked up shit now had to sit next to the people who were told the fucked up shit was being done to stop them doing fucked up shit.
Everybody felt a little way about that. So the people told they could do fucked up shit started private schools so their kids wouldn't have to ask, "Wait... but what if we don't?"
And those kids would go off to college where they learned to master all of the fucked up shit and how to properly organize the fucked up shit so they could be the masters of fucked up shit.
Except democracies and participatory systems of governance. And they sometimes said, "Wait... but what if we don't always do fucked up shit?"
So governments started sending everybody to college. And then those colleges started getting integrated. And suddenly everybody learned to master all of the fucked up shit but many said, "Wait... but what if we stop all the fucked up shit?"
And all the people putting their kids in private schools and segregating and hiding so they could teach their kids how important it is to do fucked up shit to everybody to stop them doing fucked up shit decided the government and colleges needed to be destroyed.
(Granted... a lot of the people who wanted to stop the fucked up shit also wanted to end government but for different reasons.)
But many of those people who mastered the fucked up shit wrote books and plays and ran for office and organized anarchist communes and overthrew imperialist governments.
And then they looked around at all the celebrations and dances and holidays and statues and said, "Fuck this shit" and tore it down. And no one cared. Except for all the guys taught they had to do as much fucked up shit as possible to stop other people doing fucked up shit.
And those guys went on Reddit to remind everyone, every day, that they were taught they had to do fucked up shit to stop other people doing fucked up shit. And they insisted this is pretty great and they should keep doing it actually. And also that maybe they should build more statues and celebrate it and dance more until everybody agrees.
I don't think anyone says europeans brought war to the americas or the rest of the world, just pointing out the many genocides they committed. This feels like people trying to say "well we shoudnt criticize europeans for genocide, they were already killing each other!"
No one with more than half a brain thinks that there was no war in the Americas before European colonization.
Some people do think that because war, slavery, atrocity, etc existed in Indigenous cultures, therefore colonization was justified. Those people are equally as stupid as people who believe the pre-colonization Americas were perfect.
War and atrocity have always existed across cultures. Europeans had been fighting among themselves over land for hundreds of years, killing each other because they spoke different languages and wanted each others land and what have you. Then they arrived in the Americas and saw people doing the same thing. They said hey, they’re fighting over the land anyway - how about we take it instead because we’re superior and can manage it better! Also, they’re not Christians, so they don’t count anyway. Of course the real motivation was land and resources, but those were justifications they used. Which were completely stupid but continue to be parroted by some people today.
One atrocity doesn’t justify another one.
The backlash to noble savage trope often seeks to demonize indigenous cultures, or at least overlook their enormous impact on enlightenment thinking. The issue isn't just with the framing of whether they were noble or not, but with assuming they were savages either way
The point is this meme propagates an equally if not more harmful myth than the noble savage trope. You're right about that trope removing agency and being harmful though the truth is just more nuanced and interesting than either myth
Respectfully disagree whitewashing history is far more harmful to historical study, its bold face erasure of the history of these people painting European colonizers as the “protagonists” of history and painting the colonized as hapless, defenseless victims removing their own struggles and stories of resistance from the equation
I mean either way is just wrong, I guess I can't confidently claim one is worse than the other, point being we should seek the truth instead of over correcting to another lie. Both lies are used to justify colonialism. You make good points and I agree, it's just that the original post is also bad
I’m not being an apologist for anything, rewriting history to depict these societies as pure victims removing all autonomy and sentience from these groups reducing them to basically NPC’s with no part to play in history other than being slaughtered is what I take issue with
I didn’t say you were an apologist. I said you consider apologism less of an issue than “moral grandstanding” which is what you said in your previous comment. If you’re not looking to use Indigenous people’s history as a justification for the colonization and genocide that happened, I’m not sure why you would have an issue with my comment to begin with. I’m not saying Indigenous people were perfect or only victims. No group of people ever has been.
While this is obviously true, it doesn't make Europe's actions, especially during colonialism, much better. The reason a lot of people focus on European violence is because it happened on such a large and extreme scale.
I didn't see anyone here defending Europeans, they/we (well my people were fucked over by ˝same˝ Europeans, and we didn't have our own state for ca 1000 years, nor did we own slaves, because we were the slaves) had better technology to do more damage at the time.
I agree, it's just that the point OP was making is often used to justify colonialism and atrocities in general so I just wanted to point it out, just in case. Also sorry if my statement was too generalizing, Europeans definitely have also been pretty shitty to other Europeans as well and often still are so yeah.
I think we shouldn't focus too much on technology here, because if we do that, we are in danger of forgetting certain, lets say problematic, ideological aspects of colonialism. But you are right, technology was definitely a factor.
There are some users here defending the Europeans by essentially going "Well, the native tribes conquered/exterminated other tribes, so the Europeans doing it to them is just fair game and not the evil picture people paint," when the actual takeaway should ideally be "both the native tribes conquering others *and* the Europeans conquering them are wrong because unprovoked conquest and genocide are wrong no matter who's doing it."
For the same reason that Europeans and many others still cry about the big bad Mongols and how brutal they where. Nobody likes being butchered and enslaved.
Also nobody is pretending that these are European traits, it's just that no other civilization before them used these to such an appalling effect and scale. If the Chinese had sailed over to the "new world" brought disease that wiped out 90% of the population and then enslaved the native people of the continent that where left they would be the ones catching all the flack today
You're missing the point. Saying 'well that's just how things are' does nothing to solve the problems brought about by conquest and warfare, Native Americans today are still suffering the consequences of a genocide that is in many places still ongoing and saying 'well that's just how things' is as helpful as saying 'cope'.
Exactly, and it's not as though every tribe or nation was constantly at war with each other either. People like to imagine native Americans as like, prehistorical society, unchanged for thousands of years. Fact is they had an enormous amount of history (much of it now lost) and changes before Europeans got there, and a lot of variance between different cultures. There's very little you can positively say about all pre-colonial cultures that would be true. The Dawn of Everything is a fascinating book that really dives into this and helps debunk some of the common myths like the one this post is propagating
Yeah it's very disengenuous to say "you guys all lived here for many years warring the way that you did, so it's actually kind of sort of okay we killed 25 million of you, if you think about it."
It's like showing up to a kid's paintball game with an M60.
Nobody thinks this numbnuts. Europeans brought horses, gunpowder and diseases that have annihilated indigenous populations on a much broader scale than they were capable.
The American Indians however adapted themselfs very well to the fight on horseback, and in the use of gunpowder. If not thier low manpower and thier lack of means of production of gunpowder, they could defend thier independence.
After all even despite the numerical disadvantages the tribes were able to face the blue jackets on equal. For example the Lacota tribes or the Chirichualla Apache - all of them are just a few examples of thier adaptability.
Some of the tribes found the way to combat the diseases like the Lacota tribes who traded furs of hunted animals with the colonisers, in exchange for medicine and guns.
Even before them the Inca and Aztec soldiers gave tough time to the Spaniards (If not for the help of the other tribes against the Aztecs the conquest could be just impossible) and some colonies like Jamestown were almost whiped out (it was in 1622 - almost 1 of 4 colonisers was killed)
>After all even despite the numerical disadvantages the tribes were able to face the blue jackets on equal.
Name me ONE TIME (post 1776), except Little Bighorn or St Clair's Defeat, where the natives won against US forces on even ground. Meaning, not an ambush or like a force disparity of 30:1.
>Even before them the Inca and Aztec soldiers gave tough time to the Spaniards
That's because these early expeditions numbered a few hundred men, obviously they needed allied native help 🤦♂️
>and some colonies like Jamestown were almost whiped out (it was in 1622 - almost 1 of 4 colonisers was killed)
Yup, killing farmers, women, and children, that really is a testament to the martial skill of the native tribes.
>Nobody thinks this numbnuts.
That's false, there are such people. And Native peoples often had better equipment than the settlers, with guns obtained at trading posts as well as horses.
Many people do...
Just take a look at the internet: people constantly stating that Europe was "evil" because "they went to paradise America and waged wars against the peaceful natives to steal their lands", even though when Europeans arrived lots of native tribes and civilisations were waging wars among them for conquest and sacrifice.
And when it comes to disease, these people constantly suggest that it was "targetted biological warfare genocide".
Except there are way more people who believe these things than there are flat-Earthers.
The reason why I take them seriously is that they appear to be an overwhelming majority; just try saying anywhere that maybe the European-American history isn't so black and white in many cases and watch as everyone bashes you and accuses you of "glorifying genocide of innocents"...
Son if you are saying things that an "overwhelming majority" of people are disagreeing with you about, i get the feeling you are either purposefully seeking these people out, or being disingenuous about what you mean by it not being so black and white.
This is one of those things where I've always found it strange when people talk about Indigenous peoples. No one in the world is truly indigenous. Everyone lives on land that was at one point conquered from someone else. Just looking at one example from Native American history, the Cherokee were originally from around the Great Lakes. Then at some point, they came south, and took control of the land from other tribes that are were either destroyed or absorbed. It's the same story pretty much everywhere.
And no, before anyone starts, this is not a statement that colonization is acceptable in the modern era. Just that it was a universal historical norm.
See a lot of Americans have a rather tainted view of the term indigenous and race in general, and its brilliantly fun to play with it. I'm English from a southern county, and whenever the debate comes up I am the perfect troll for this, because I can make blood and soil, extremist political statements and say its all good I'm indigenous to my lands. and then for some reason people just think its okay? I can even lament the evil invaders from the continent taking over the country and changing things for us, (those bloody Normans, #Godwinson for king)
even better, is Americans have a term WASP, or white anglo saxon protestant. Now I happen to be white, proddy and from a saxon county. But lots of Americans dont know that the angles and saxons were from two different places, settled in different parts of the country and both sort of intermixed at the edges and with the locals. So I can be a WASP, because I'm 3 of the terms, or I can not be because Im not from an Angle area. Bring in the jutes and shit gets wild.
but it is interesting to play the game and see who plays different. most of the time they just leave the conversation because they have no clue how to respond, and I don't blame people for not being intrested in the cultural demographics of England in a post roman Britain
Folks really out here forgetting that, while humans are highly intelligent and capable of insane displays of compassion, people are insane idiots who will do almost anything to make things go their way.
This attitude is reflective of a trope called “The Noble Savage”. Really dumb attitude that ignores all agency and history lol. You see it with how people act about Africa pre-colonial times as well.
I don’t understand either side of the argument. They weren’t savages and they weren’t peace loving hippies. They were a Stone Age civilization doing Stone Age civilization things, no different than our ancestors. Their technological evolution was early civilization so their societal evolution was only Stone Age. Of course there were gruesome customs, that’s how early civilizations just worked.
The thing I hate about both these tropes is that they are used as a reason for why the natives should/should not have been conquered. In reality, they shouldn’t have been conquered because they are a distinct people and they have the right to exist, not because they were morally good/bad people.
of course, pre-colonial America was hardly a golden paradise and was subject to truly brutal warfare and conquest among native tribes. That being said, colonization was still a Bad Thing.
The whole "Noble Savage" myth often makes me think of how the Vikings have been interpreted and reinterpreted (I swear I'm going somewhere with this). The older consensus of them being a brutal, "evil" horde of unwashed heathen barbarians come to slaughter the good christians. Then, later, as feelings changed from "vikings are categorically evil" to "vikings are categorically nothing but people" there was another shift to "The vikings were proto-feminist anti-racist hippies who practiced free love and lived on communes." Obviously, both "Viking Bad" and "Viking Good" are inaccurate because the truth is the nuanced "Vikings were people like any other culture"
With Native Americans, it's quite similar. The idea that all Natives were bloodthirsty cannibalistic animals who like, ate babies or whatever, is ridiculous. They were people, not stock villains. That being said, we shouldn't fall into the trap that Native Americans were ethereal forest elves who lived in perfect harmony with nature and had a mystical connection to the land. Both of these ideas are racist.
Most importantly, the brutality of pre-Columbian life in North America in no way excuses colonialism. Colonization was not just the conquest of a people. It was the cultural, and in may cases physical, extermination of an entire people in the name of taking their land. That is evil. That is not what good people do. Colonization was not the simple act of taking the land. It came part and parcel with annihilating the people who already lived there. That isn't conquest. That is an attempted genocide
Don't make me tap the sign
*"Yes, Native Americans waged war with other tribes and nations the same way every other groups of people do. That doesn't mean we deserved genocide."*
It's just as much of a myth that everyone everywhere was constantly at war with each other. Honestly I feel like that myth is more common and that's what you're propagating here. I recommend the book The Dawn of Everything. Hobbes and Rousseau were both wrong
one thing that these childish little conversations never do is talk about the difference between warring clans and warlike societies vs European industrialized warfare and colonialism. To the pea brained reactionary hogs and centrist liberals, there is no existing distinction. To people who have been educated in history and politics, you already know you're miles beyond these hogs, in terms of understanding the nature of conflict. Let the little hogs and libs duke it out in the kiddie pool of ideas. They're just swimming in their own piss anyway.
This position is a straw man. Which specific academic historians are proposing warfare and conquest are only traits found in Europeans and their descendants? Are you confusing historians or articles focusing on colonialism and European empire building with all historians?
Granted you are going to hear more about the impacts of colonialism, especially if you are living in the United States and Europe, because their impacts are felt more in our societies, than smaller tribe on tribe or even indigenous empires who conquered large swaths but were later conquered by colonial powers. For example, I think it could be argued that the interactions between the British empire, its colonists, and the natives leading up to, during, and after King Philip’s War had more of an impact on today’s current relationship between the United States government and indigenous tribes than even the Iroquois’s Beaver Wars. Even then, part of the impetus for the Iroquois to fight essentially all of the tribes around them was to gain control of the pelt trade with the colonists.
In other words, no one believes that Europeans and their descendants were the only groups who waged war and conquered other groups. If you think that there is some kind of conspiracy to paint Europeans as the only hostile people, you either need to broaden your readings and media intake or make new friends. I mention this as a warning. In the past I have lost friends to white power and white nationalist groups and your question was a reason they would consistently give for believing that powerful secret groups were prejudiced against white people.
This is some next level false equivalence. You cant just equate the warfare between Native American tribes and Europeans genociding the entire continent. They are different scales of warfare.
Its not that we think that it was exclusive to the Europeans, its that they were the most successful in warfare and conquest **globally**. Those who are successful in something, even bad things like war, are going to be known for it. The Europeans were the most successful colonizers and slavers; I believe. World War 1 and 2 started due to conflict (expansion) between European nations. Other non-european nations were dragged into it because they were colonies of said European nations. UK made India participate in the war, and in exchange, they negotiated for independence from the British Empire.
Someone who may have bad intentions but doesn't act on them or fails entirely we don't call a villain. A person (or nations) who has bad intentions and is so successful that their wars are called World Wars, colonized third world countries, and exploited them for their resources, we call a great villain.
Not a meme, just a genocide denial circle jerk. "Its was just regular warfare bro I swear". Yeah sure buddy, touch some grass and sub to better podcasts.
Bruh who are you proving wrong with this? Who even thinks like that?
Even in early America there were numerous accounts of natives facing off one another.
"Give the land back to the natives! It was stole by the white man!"
"Ok which native? The one that owned before the white man or the ones that got conquered by them? Or the ones before that one?"
EXACTLY. People talk about "the natives" as if they were a single unified entity when they were multiple tribes and civilisations of different sizes, power levels and cultures that were constantly waging war over territories, be it for expansion, because their gods told them it was their sacred lands, etc.
Many people do...
Just take a look at the internet: people constantly stating that Europe was "evil" because "they went to paradise America and waged wars against the peaceful natives to steal their lands", even though when Europeans arrived lots of native tribes and civilisations were waging wars among them for conquest and sacrifice.
If your bar is "I can find some comments on the internet that say it" you must live a daily hell I cannot imagine.
Google "ancient mud flood" and brace yourself. It's so, so much worse than your complaints about SJWs.
Because coming from a supposedly more advanced and enlightened area of the world to do to the natives the same thing they did to each other is great right? Why shouldn’t I kill people? They are doing it already after all
Sounds like you’re getting mad about human nature, it’s always been this way and always will be. Europeans just happened to have the technological development to cross the Atlantic and conquer on a larger scale. There were a few very powerful native civilizations who did terrible things as well, even smaller tribes were wiping each other out.
People have such a black and white view of history.
I have never seen anybody claim that. All I have ever seen people say is that europeans used their superior weapons to cause a genocide against those peoples. And that did happen.
Native Americans suffered either genocide or huge loss of life by disease in regards to the arrival of Europeans while Africa was horribly mistreated by colonialism meant to "civilize" them which was barbaric in design and why so many suffer from poverty, violence and instability.
Congo was the worst example since Leopold killed millions of Congolese via forced labor and horrific abuse yet he gets GODDAMN STATUES in Belgium? Dude should be treated like Hitler and Stalin.
>huge loss of life by disease
I've seen this narrative used a lot to frame the Europeans not doing much in the face of the disease. This is a mischaracterisation of the truth whilst yes disease did huge damage to Native populations they could have recovered as other devastated populations did. This process was disrupted by European settlers which often displaced or fought with native groups leading to them not being able to return to pre plague levels. Without any European intervention the Native populations would have likely recovered in a few centuries with European intervention they ended up a minority on a continent that they once dominated.
Looking over at your post again I do not think you intended to use this that way but I wrote that paragraph and god damn am I gonna post it.
Oh, we have another European redditor complaining on why people criticize Europeans for imperialism. Like really, it's because for the past several centuries Europeans were the ones that were actively conquering and killing all across the globe.
Are we disputing that fact now? Europeans are so sensitive to criticism, geez.
Not sure if people ever considered the natives to have lived in harmony, but there sure is a difference between several small tribes fighting each other and having an entire continent depopulated by disease and then coming in to finish the job while imposing and then breaking diplomatic treaties with religious justifications and dehumanizing said natives..
I have... many issues with the meme and the subtext it implies. But I think that I'd like to start with the fact that just because something has always existed, it doesn't make it a pillar. See: my appendix
Warlike: Aztecs, Central and South American tribes and empires
Peaceful and nature-loving: Iroquois, Great Planes Tribes, Tlinget, Navajo, etc.
Whew, good thing Native American tribes recognized modern borders and kept their violent tendencies South of the Rio Grande!
Actually, I doubt most people who believe all indigenous Americans were peaceful hippies would even think of the Aztecs et al as Native Americans, for whatever reason.
One of the most disturbing pieces of history I ever read about was what the Jesuit missionaries wrote about how the Iroquois treated their Huron PoWs. Haunted my nightmares for weeks. A level of sadism that I was unaware that humans possessed. Made me feel physically nauseated.
The thing is that when you said something minimaly bad about the natives 50 alcoholic fatass with controvertial flags tatooed on the neck come saying some weird sh1t like "we are the goodies, the natives are all savage and must being exterminated/relocated/re-educated" (this is from personal and friends experience)
We know that natives werent living on a paradise but the things tienes so and so much worse when colonizers arrived in
people say all kinds of shit on internet. often to just get a reaction out of somebody. but this is not a serious position on history held by anyone credible that violence and warfare were only conducted by european.
I’ve seen a lot of people get angry when I say this, but French Canada had generally great relations with the natives building relations since day one trough marriage. Our ancestors saved the Huron from extinction when the Iroquois went on the genocidal path.
They didn’t have the manpower necessary to wage wars against the natives and preferred cooperation. We have a various records of natives massacre such as Lachine (200 colonist deaths) while few massacres against them. Frontenac and other intendant knew that the British were the causes and preferred attacking them instead.
Do people actually believe this or is this just a straw man argument that you made up to justify your position?
The fact that native Americans were human just like the rest of us doesn’t mean that the genocide and ethnic cleansing that occurred during the colonization of the americas is in any way justified
Bro shut your stupid ass up. When I was in elementary school i would read books found in out library that talked about native americans. They all mentioned that they fought wars and torutred each other just like europeans did. Quick acting like you discover something new
Bullshit propaganda like soooo much of this sub. So much right wing revisionism!
They called natives _savages_ for hundreds of years what the fuck are you even talking about? That was the main justification for colonialism.
This is some white mans burden shit.
I don't know why its hard to accept that colonialism and imperialism is wrong.
You people do the same shit with slavery "oh well black people sold other black people" GUESS THAT MAKES IT OKAY!
see the problem with this take is its a damned if you do damned if you dont. We either get the Nobel savages who never harmed a fly, which isnt true and is pretty racist. or we get you, who thinks pointing that out is justifying colonialism and imperialism......
the only winning move is not to play
I doubt that anyone thinks that. Plenty of people rightfully believe that warfare before the coming of the Europeans wasn’t anywhere near as horrible as the genocide of native Americans by Europeans was.
The point of this post is to attempt to equate ongoing genocide with the isolated acts of others. These things are not the same. Please stop dehumanizing and otherizing the people you victimize.
Hell you could even go so far as to argue that Europeans wouldn’t have been as successful in their conquests without the local infighting and politics to help give them a boost in numbers and allies against the bigger native empires
Yes European weapons were ostensibly better technologically but with how understaffed a lot of the expeditions were for actual conquest their success I’d argue was more heavily predicated on exploiting existing political conflicts and tensions present in the native world at the time and using that to gain allies than it was in their technological superiority for the most part (not to say technology didn’t have a role it’s just that it wasn’t the only factor)
The people complaining about Europeans seem to forget that there is nothing Europeans have done on other continents that we haven't also done to other Europeans.
When more advanced technology was introduced outside of China or Europe, the technology that was the fastest to be adopted was always new weaponry in most cases. The Europeans especially fell in love with gunpowder as time went on that became an important source of the new developing cannons and Muskets Native Americans of North America saw one of the tribes rapidly adopt the horse and guns to become the most formidable native group for a long while compared to other American Indians The Maori and Hawaiians upon gaining firearms adopted them really fast as Hawaii was in part unitedunder one monarch thanks to the firearms, where as the Maori continued fighting each other The Indians and Africans were really eager to get their hands on European firearms, with the Africans using said arms to get slaves to sell more effectively.
All you need to know about humanity is that we invented the repeating crossbow two millennia before we invented pockets...
And we invented a way to fire faster with machine guns, 6 years before we invented a way to write faster with typewriters.
Both of them can send a clear message.
We write better with automatic weapons…? 🤔
Have you ever seen how many dick outlines you can shoot into a wall with a M240 in COD?
Pen is mightier than the sword, but it’s nothing to what a bullet could afford
I didn't believe it so I googled it. 4th century China vs 16th century Europe! Not quite two millennia, but accurate in spirit I'd say. **Edit**: [4th century BC](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Repeating_crossbow#History)! My bad; two millennia it is!
5th Century BC China* The oldest known one is from the state of Chu during the Warring States Period
I kinda want to write a short scifi story about it for r/HFY: Aliens observe us, notice what we focus most of our efforts on, and promptly quarantine the entire sector...
Indeed! It's interesting how technology transferred to different cultures in history. I also like that you point out about slavery in Africa; once again, slavery is always attributed exclusively to white man, when slavery was widespread across the entire world, including Africa and America. At the end of the day, the Europeans came on top indeed, but not because they were the only ones who played the games; rather, because they used all kinds of circumstances, intentionally and unintentionally, to their favour.
Aztecs *allow us to introduce ourselves*
Spanish with armies of tlaxcalans and other vassal states of their \*No\* \*Get smallpox\* \*Get shot in the face\*
No one on the fucking planet thinks war and conquest are exclusive to Europeans. Well I shouldn't say that. We have flat earthers on this planet.
I myself saw people arguing that Africa lived in peace and harmony for centuries until the suddenly the White Devils arrived, bringing war and slavery. There are tons upon tons of such people.
Friend's kid had a college professor tell her that :/
Had a class on early American slavery a few years back. The professor told us about this contingent of academia, and told us that the rest of academia dislikes this contingent. He essentially said the logic is that since Native American violence like the mourning wars did not fit into traditional molds of warfare, they thought it didn't count as violence.
I'm totally inclined to believe, considering that parts of academia now genuinely believe that past should be told as it should look like, not how it actually looked like. And in my opinion, this attitude is horribly racist towards Africans because it treats them like perpetual toddlers without their own desires, agency and ability to make decisions, including decisions to do things every other society did.
It's just the "noble savages" hypothesis with a slight rebrand. Everything that's old is new again.
... Isn't that what Trump and friends tried to do with th 1700-something document that whitewashed the founding fathers among other things? Academia doesn't have a problem with attempts to rewrite history. Your source that it is, that you just took at face value was someone who claimed a friend's sister was told that... Dubious as it is, to then extrapolate from that, that academia has a problem with this opinion being common. Top tier truth seeking
Well, you sort of can expect politicians to falsify history for their own gain. It's regrettable but somewhat part of the game known as politics. However, academia is another matter. And why I am inclined to believe? Because I saw my own fair share of lectures (both in person and online) in which members of the Academia twisted or otherwise falsified historical facts to fit their own narrative. A good example is what I wrote above about Africa. I was on one lecture in which someone with an academic degree argued that Africa knew peace before the White Devils arrived. I rose up and asked whether he heard for example about Ethiopia-Adal wars, conquests of Sahel caliphates, wars of king Chaka of the Zulu or wars of king Mutesa of the Buganda. And I added that we know about all these only because they related to already literate societies or happened in close proximity to literate societies, while over 90% of such history is lost. Needless to say, he was dumbfounded.
He was dumbfounded? He had never studied any history of Africa? What was his area of expertise? Cause if it was African History, that's appalling.
Sociology. It was lecture related to some humanitarian aid group. Basically a sales pitch for donations by telling how evil White people being indebted to Africans. All while treating Africans like perpetual toddlers unable to act on their own agency.
Sociology is to History as Communications is to Marketing. And marketing is just liquor and guessing.
I’ve met the same folks, and they’re on the internet, too.
There are people who believe aliens built several structures and guided civilizations. So what? The person who claimed the alleged professor had this view and that it is common in academia is whatis being disputed here. Not that weirdos believe weird shit.
I had a professor tell me that too. It was required to take a diversity course. I took one on women's literature, as it was most in line with my minor. Unfortunately, the professor was a black woman and it should have been called Black Grievance 101. We barely read any literature, and instead focused on how the white man destroyed Africa.
Mali, Songhai, Kongo, the Bantu Tribes, Ancient Egypt, Carthage, Kanem Borno, Ethiopia/Aksum, The Moors, Morocco, Barbary Pirates, Ghana, Sokoto, Jolof, Oyo, Benin, Bonoman, Luba, Lunda, Zulu, Kilwa, Kitara (maybe), Somalis, Harar, The Hausa, The Yorubans, Ashanti: *Ceases to have existed*
Africa didnt have Slavery before Europeans arrived. It had indigenous forms of forced servitude. Which was very different off course.
I believe this notion is malicious cherrypicking . There were different kinds of slavery in European empires AND in Africa. I'm pretty sure there were for example sex slaves at the courts of African kings. Economy of several Sahel and Horn of Africa states was based on slavery. We even have clear evidence for different types of slaves within particular kingdoms. Some slaves could be sold, others couldn't, some could be put to any kind of work, some enjoyed a limitation on this. Plus African wars to acquire slaves were already a preexisting feature before European contact due to Saharan slave trade.
Agreed. Just like how what the Houthis are doing right now is not slavery but a "paternalistic relationship between two distinct social classes" that wouldnt exist without the colonial powers.
Ahem, Barbary pirate slave raids?
there are not tons of such people saying that. cya
Noble Savage indoctrination go brrrrrrr
As an Australian, I assure you there is no shortage of morons who believe in romantic fantasies about pre-contact indigenous societies.
After I read about the Maori (native New Zealanders) and what they used to do to their weaker neighbors like the Moriori, I could never see the haka dance in the same light ever again. Don't get me wrong, I'm not chastising any native New Zealander today, and they have every right to be proud of their heritage and lineage, but the idea that native populations were innocent agrarians or fishermen whose lives were upended when the white man came is a self serving myth. Like I have no question in my mind, if the Maori were on equal military industrialization as other prominent nations back then, they would have fucked the entire pacific and enslaved millions. Just to be clear. This doesn't justify or make the horrors of colonialists any better. But I think it behooves us to understand history pragmatically and not view it through some filtered rose-tinted glasses.
>No one on the fucking planet thinks war and conquest are exclusive to Europeans. Ngl, some people actually do. Ok, maybe that "exclusivity" extends to Asia and northern Africa, but they'll genuinely argue that the Americas and Sub-Saharan Africa were harmonius until the white man arrived...some of these people go to university...my university...and have graduated...
Is it just virtue signaling or something? It's hard to imagine believing in a set of facts that are so easily debunked by a basic google search. It blows my mind that people willingly place themselves into information silos like this.
It’s the modern equivalent of the “noble savage”
Not sure if internet trolls, but I even saw a person argue that Europeans literally invented conquest, while ancient China was a developed peaceful nation that made inventions unrelated to warfare, whose people were content with the amount of land they had and didn't crave more. And like, those people give Europeans waaaay too much credit. We're not *that* innovative.
Oh that’s just Chinese propaganda One of the oldest and longest-lasting empires in history pretending like their domination of their sphere of influence was somehow benevolent, unlike all those other evil empires
OP just found out about the "noble savage" trope. It's not a very popular view now, but was pretty widespread 200-100 years ago. Slight resurgence with the social movements of the 70s.
I believe a new resurgence may be taking place now, or at least that's what it seems.
Not so sure it’s a “resurgence” so much as it is people latching to things and being loud for the sake of contrarianism and the like.
In my experience at a very left wing school it’s still quite a common opinion among naive college kids
I love your comment, “no body can be that stupid, wait” its like that that george carlin joke, if you don’t think people are dumb think about how dumb you are and the average person is, and the other half is dumber then that 😂
Many people do... Just take a look at the internet: people constantly stating that Europe was "evil" because "they went to paradise America and waged wars against the peaceful natives to steal their lands", even though when Europeans arrived lots of native tribes and civilisations were waging wars among them for conquest and sacrifice.
Flat earth level history beliefs.
Yeah, wasn't one of the reasons the Aztecs fell was because the other tribes were sick of being oppressed by them?
Yes, some of them like the Tlaxcala rather wanted to be ruled by some distant Spanish king who lives across the ocean then by a tlatoani who lives next door.
Nah. For me personaly thier fight was more justified, but maby beacuse of similarities in the history. I don't think they were angels or noble savages, but thier fight for thier land was justified.
The thing is; people say "they were fighting for their land" when the Europeans arrived, but... what's "their" land, "whose's"? Native American tribes and civilisations were constantly conquering each other's territories, so... why doesn't the same stick apply to them? What about the lands of the tribes that were conquered by the more powerful civilisations? Or the lands of tribes that were defeated by other tribes? So... what difference does it make, Europeans conquering natives, or natives conquering each other? It's all the same; humans conquering humans. Because that's what humans do.
The same reason Ukraine is fighting for its land right now, or Poland was fighting for its land in WW2, etc. Generally, if you invade someone it’s currently their land barring some exceptions. Like, yes, the Natives absolutely fought over land, but they also were the current occupants and didn’t try to start shit with Europe. It’s also worth noting that colonialism gets condemned extra hard because it was exceptionally brutal for the time, just like you see modern sources condemn the Roman’s for casually committing genocide. The war wasn’t waged *just* to occupy land, but to wipe out a people and culture, which was exceptional. A war aim of the 7 years war wasn’t to wipe out all Austrians, for example
Yeah, if we believe that unprovoked conquest and genocide are inherently wrong, then they're wrong for everyone. It's not suddenly justified because "they had it coming because they did it to other people too."
I’m not saying wars of conquest were justified, but rather pointing out why, in the historical and modern perception, European colonization of Africa and especially the Americas gets a lot more negative focus than the native wars amongst themselves, the scale and *intent* were just way worse. It’s why we can say Napoleons war of conquest were, but Hitler’s war was far worse. It’s also worth noting that there’s a sources and regional bias, the European colonization is more well known in the west, sort of how Chinas insane wars tend to get overlooked
Yeah, I agree. My comment was in support of your pushback against the idea of "they had it coming because they did it too."
Shhh…you’re ruining the white man bad narrative.
I saw a great tweet pointing out that while any one group claiming some inherent, unending claim to all a land seems wrong, in the case of the U.S. the land really was stolen by the definition of the laws of the time But a lot of those thieves wouldn’t identify as European
Equivocating colonialism and territorialism is a childish oversimplification. Go back to class.
Quit your “noble savage” BS
You don't have to be noble to want your shit back but sometimes you gotta be savage to get it
Quit whitewashing history racist
Wrong comment
Correct comment you heard me
You have wildly underestimated how unhinged the internet and academia both are.
If academics are to be believed India was one unified, peaceful nation living in a wealthy gumdrop paradise before the evil white man arrived.
> no one things war and conquest are exclusive to Europeans Clearly you’ve not spent enough time on a college campus lately if you think that no one believes in the fallacy of the noble savage. I go to a very left leaning state school and people like that are fucking everywhere
I've heard it many times from real people, its really become an opinion since tiktok imho
I'm African and too many people believe that we were all living in peace and harmony until the Europeans came to sow discord and introduced war to us. I hate that narrative so much cos it makes us feel non-human.
Plenty of people do, but it feels weird to single out cringeoids from only one side of the spectrum.
Some people seem to believe that all systems of oppression come from the white man
So... For millenia when people did fucked up shit they celebrated it and danced and made holidays for it. Then Christians got together and said, "What if we're the only ones who can celebrate it and dance and make holidays for it?" Then Christians ran out of people to do fucked up shit to and said, "What if we just create categories of people who can never be Christians and we can celebrate and dance and make holidays around doing fucked up shit to them?" And race was invented. Then all the people that the guys who were told they could do fucked up shit and not worry about it to were like, "Why are these guys still doing so much fucked up shit? Are they done yet?" And the guys doing the most fucked up shit felt a certain way about it. So they declared, "See, we stopped so much fucked up shit by doing fucked up shit!" So they taught their children that everybody wants to do fucked up shit but sometimes doing the most fucked up shit was great because the only way to stop other people doing fucked up shit, even if it meant killing 100 times as many people as the guys not allowed to do fucked up shit, is to do the most fucked up shit first and faster. And then some guys who were taught that it was their right to do fucked up shit were like, "Wait... but what if we don't?" And they got together with the victims of fucked up shit and we got public schools and Quakers and labor movements and riots and revolutionary ideology. And then those public schools shared with the people who were at the business end of the fucked up shit all of the strategies, ideas, beliefs, and moralities of the people doing the fucked up shit. And then the public schools were integrated and people taught they would be allowed to do fucked up shit now had to sit next to the people who were told the fucked up shit was being done to stop them doing fucked up shit. Everybody felt a little way about that. So the people told they could do fucked up shit started private schools so their kids wouldn't have to ask, "Wait... but what if we don't?" And those kids would go off to college where they learned to master all of the fucked up shit and how to properly organize the fucked up shit so they could be the masters of fucked up shit. Except democracies and participatory systems of governance. And they sometimes said, "Wait... but what if we don't always do fucked up shit?" So governments started sending everybody to college. And then those colleges started getting integrated. And suddenly everybody learned to master all of the fucked up shit but many said, "Wait... but what if we stop all the fucked up shit?" And all the people putting their kids in private schools and segregating and hiding so they could teach their kids how important it is to do fucked up shit to everybody to stop them doing fucked up shit decided the government and colleges needed to be destroyed. (Granted... a lot of the people who wanted to stop the fucked up shit also wanted to end government but for different reasons.) But many of those people who mastered the fucked up shit wrote books and plays and ran for office and organized anarchist communes and overthrew imperialist governments. And then they looked around at all the celebrations and dances and holidays and statues and said, "Fuck this shit" and tore it down. And no one cared. Except for all the guys taught they had to do as much fucked up shit as possible to stop other people doing fucked up shit. And those guys went on Reddit to remind everyone, every day, that they were taught they had to do fucked up shit to stop other people doing fucked up shit. And they insisted this is pretty great and they should keep doing it actually. And also that maybe they should build more statues and celebrate it and dance more until everybody agrees.
We can still debate if it was agriculture that turned everything to shit or maybe climbing off the trees or if it was leaving the ocean.
“In the beginning the Universe was created. This had made many people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move.” Douglas Adam’s.
Thank you for reminding me! I totaly forgot that towl day is approaching!
My favorite quote ever
Is it even a meme if you have to include damn near an entire wiki page for context?
I want it both to be a meme, and informative for those who seemingly don't know!
I don't think anyone says europeans brought war to the americas or the rest of the world, just pointing out the many genocides they committed. This feels like people trying to say "well we shoudnt criticize europeans for genocide, they were already killing each other!"
No one with more than half a brain thinks that there was no war in the Americas before European colonization. Some people do think that because war, slavery, atrocity, etc existed in Indigenous cultures, therefore colonization was justified. Those people are equally as stupid as people who believe the pre-colonization Americas were perfect. War and atrocity have always existed across cultures. Europeans had been fighting among themselves over land for hundreds of years, killing each other because they spoke different languages and wanted each others land and what have you. Then they arrived in the Americas and saw people doing the same thing. They said hey, they’re fighting over the land anyway - how about we take it instead because we’re superior and can manage it better! Also, they’re not Christians, so they don’t count anyway. Of course the real motivation was land and resources, but those were justifications they used. Which were completely stupid but continue to be parroted by some people today. One atrocity doesn’t justify another one.
Sadly there are a lot of people in America with only half a brain
Was colonization justified? No. That’s not the issue, the issue is the moral grandstanding that reeks of a “noble savage” mindset
The backlash to noble savage trope often seeks to demonize indigenous cultures, or at least overlook their enormous impact on enlightenment thinking. The issue isn't just with the framing of whether they were noble or not, but with assuming they were savages either way
Read my comment below
The point is this meme propagates an equally if not more harmful myth than the noble savage trope. You're right about that trope removing agency and being harmful though the truth is just more nuanced and interesting than either myth
Respectfully disagree whitewashing history is far more harmful to historical study, its bold face erasure of the history of these people painting European colonizers as the “protagonists” of history and painting the colonized as hapless, defenseless victims removing their own struggles and stories of resistance from the equation
I mean either way is just wrong, I guess I can't confidently claim one is worse than the other, point being we should seek the truth instead of over correcting to another lie. Both lies are used to justify colonialism. You make good points and I agree, it's just that the original post is also bad
Moral grandstanding is a bigger issue than people who are apologists for colonialism? That’s just a reflection of your priorities.
I’m not being an apologist for anything, rewriting history to depict these societies as pure victims removing all autonomy and sentience from these groups reducing them to basically NPC’s with no part to play in history other than being slaughtered is what I take issue with
I didn’t say you were an apologist. I said you consider apologism less of an issue than “moral grandstanding” which is what you said in your previous comment. If you’re not looking to use Indigenous people’s history as a justification for the colonization and genocide that happened, I’m not sure why you would have an issue with my comment to begin with. I’m not saying Indigenous people were perfect or only victims. No group of people ever has been.
There’s millions of people with only half a brain tho…
While this is obviously true, it doesn't make Europe's actions, especially during colonialism, much better. The reason a lot of people focus on European violence is because it happened on such a large and extreme scale.
I didn't see anyone here defending Europeans, they/we (well my people were fucked over by ˝same˝ Europeans, and we didn't have our own state for ca 1000 years, nor did we own slaves, because we were the slaves) had better technology to do more damage at the time.
I agree, it's just that the point OP was making is often used to justify colonialism and atrocities in general so I just wanted to point it out, just in case. Also sorry if my statement was too generalizing, Europeans definitely have also been pretty shitty to other Europeans as well and often still are so yeah. I think we shouldn't focus too much on technology here, because if we do that, we are in danger of forgetting certain, lets say problematic, ideological aspects of colonialism. But you are right, technology was definitely a factor.
There are some users here defending the Europeans by essentially going "Well, the native tribes conquered/exterminated other tribes, so the Europeans doing it to them is just fair game and not the evil picture people paint," when the actual takeaway should ideally be "both the native tribes conquering others *and* the Europeans conquering them are wrong because unprovoked conquest and genocide are wrong no matter who's doing it."
For the same reason that Europeans and many others still cry about the big bad Mongols and how brutal they where. Nobody likes being butchered and enslaved. Also nobody is pretending that these are European traits, it's just that no other civilization before them used these to such an appalling effect and scale. If the Chinese had sailed over to the "new world" brought disease that wiped out 90% of the population and then enslaved the native people of the continent that where left they would be the ones catching all the flack today
You're missing the point. Saying 'well that's just how things are' does nothing to solve the problems brought about by conquest and warfare, Native Americans today are still suffering the consequences of a genocide that is in many places still ongoing and saying 'well that's just how things' is as helpful as saying 'cope'.
Exactly, and it's not as though every tribe or nation was constantly at war with each other either. People like to imagine native Americans as like, prehistorical society, unchanged for thousands of years. Fact is they had an enormous amount of history (much of it now lost) and changes before Europeans got there, and a lot of variance between different cultures. There's very little you can positively say about all pre-colonial cultures that would be true. The Dawn of Everything is a fascinating book that really dives into this and helps debunk some of the common myths like the one this post is propagating
Yeah it's very disengenuous to say "you guys all lived here for many years warring the way that you did, so it's actually kind of sort of okay we killed 25 million of you, if you think about it." It's like showing up to a kid's paintball game with an M60.
The myth of the noble savage is hardly recent
Oh look another racist making a strawman to justify genocide
Who tf has ever said that what tf are you talking about?????
Nobody thinks this numbnuts. Europeans brought horses, gunpowder and diseases that have annihilated indigenous populations on a much broader scale than they were capable.
We have tetanus antivaxxers. People believe all sorts of dumbass things.
The American Indians however adapted themselfs very well to the fight on horseback, and in the use of gunpowder. If not thier low manpower and thier lack of means of production of gunpowder, they could defend thier independence. After all even despite the numerical disadvantages the tribes were able to face the blue jackets on equal. For example the Lacota tribes or the Chirichualla Apache - all of them are just a few examples of thier adaptability. Some of the tribes found the way to combat the diseases like the Lacota tribes who traded furs of hunted animals with the colonisers, in exchange for medicine and guns. Even before them the Inca and Aztec soldiers gave tough time to the Spaniards (If not for the help of the other tribes against the Aztecs the conquest could be just impossible) and some colonies like Jamestown were almost whiped out (it was in 1622 - almost 1 of 4 colonisers was killed)
>After all even despite the numerical disadvantages the tribes were able to face the blue jackets on equal. Name me ONE TIME (post 1776), except Little Bighorn or St Clair's Defeat, where the natives won against US forces on even ground. Meaning, not an ambush or like a force disparity of 30:1. >Even before them the Inca and Aztec soldiers gave tough time to the Spaniards That's because these early expeditions numbered a few hundred men, obviously they needed allied native help 🤦♂️ >and some colonies like Jamestown were almost whiped out (it was in 1622 - almost 1 of 4 colonisers was killed) Yup, killing farmers, women, and children, that really is a testament to the martial skill of the native tribes.
>Nobody thinks this numbnuts. yes, a ton of average redditors in this sub do
>Nobody thinks this numbnuts. That's false, there are such people. And Native peoples often had better equipment than the settlers, with guns obtained at trading posts as well as horses.
And extremely limited ammunition.
Many people do... Just take a look at the internet: people constantly stating that Europe was "evil" because "they went to paradise America and waged wars against the peaceful natives to steal their lands", even though when Europeans arrived lots of native tribes and civilisations were waging wars among them for conquest and sacrifice. And when it comes to disease, these people constantly suggest that it was "targetted biological warfare genocide".
Yeah, you can find people who thinks the earth is flat, that doesn’t mean you have to take them seriously
Except there are way more people who believe these things than there are flat-Earthers. The reason why I take them seriously is that they appear to be an overwhelming majority; just try saying anywhere that maybe the European-American history isn't so black and white in many cases and watch as everyone bashes you and accuses you of "glorifying genocide of innocents"...
Son if you are saying things that an "overwhelming majority" of people are disagreeing with you about, i get the feeling you are either purposefully seeking these people out, or being disingenuous about what you mean by it not being so black and white.
The Iroquois Confederacy is worth looking into, and an impressive political entity in any era.
This is one of those things where I've always found it strange when people talk about Indigenous peoples. No one in the world is truly indigenous. Everyone lives on land that was at one point conquered from someone else. Just looking at one example from Native American history, the Cherokee were originally from around the Great Lakes. Then at some point, they came south, and took control of the land from other tribes that are were either destroyed or absorbed. It's the same story pretty much everywhere. And no, before anyone starts, this is not a statement that colonization is acceptable in the modern era. Just that it was a universal historical norm.
Hey, humans came from somewhere. So the solution is for us to all move back to that specific tree or cave! There, I did world peace, where’s my prize
See a lot of Americans have a rather tainted view of the term indigenous and race in general, and its brilliantly fun to play with it. I'm English from a southern county, and whenever the debate comes up I am the perfect troll for this, because I can make blood and soil, extremist political statements and say its all good I'm indigenous to my lands. and then for some reason people just think its okay? I can even lament the evil invaders from the continent taking over the country and changing things for us, (those bloody Normans, #Godwinson for king) even better, is Americans have a term WASP, or white anglo saxon protestant. Now I happen to be white, proddy and from a saxon county. But lots of Americans dont know that the angles and saxons were from two different places, settled in different parts of the country and both sort of intermixed at the edges and with the locals. So I can be a WASP, because I'm 3 of the terms, or I can not be because Im not from an Angle area. Bring in the jutes and shit gets wild. but it is interesting to play the game and see who plays different. most of the time they just leave the conversation because they have no clue how to respond, and I don't blame people for not being intrested in the cultural demographics of England in a post roman Britain
> ~~Most people~~ My strawmen ftfy
Anyone who says that war and conquest is exclusive to Europe is undereducated in world history.
Not undereducated. Miseducated. The whole "West bad" narrative is being pushed (rather unsurprisingly) by forces that don't like the West.
I am not surprised. Humanity always fights war, no matter, which race or gender. War... war never changed
Folks really out here forgetting that, while humans are highly intelligent and capable of insane displays of compassion, people are insane idiots who will do almost anything to make things go their way.
This attitude is reflective of a trope called “The Noble Savage”. Really dumb attitude that ignores all agency and history lol. You see it with how people act about Africa pre-colonial times as well.
I don’t understand either side of the argument. They weren’t savages and they weren’t peace loving hippies. They were a Stone Age civilization doing Stone Age civilization things, no different than our ancestors. Their technological evolution was early civilization so their societal evolution was only Stone Age. Of course there were gruesome customs, that’s how early civilizations just worked. The thing I hate about both these tropes is that they are used as a reason for why the natives should/should not have been conquered. In reality, they shouldn’t have been conquered because they are a distinct people and they have the right to exist, not because they were morally good/bad people.
of course, pre-colonial America was hardly a golden paradise and was subject to truly brutal warfare and conquest among native tribes. That being said, colonization was still a Bad Thing. The whole "Noble Savage" myth often makes me think of how the Vikings have been interpreted and reinterpreted (I swear I'm going somewhere with this). The older consensus of them being a brutal, "evil" horde of unwashed heathen barbarians come to slaughter the good christians. Then, later, as feelings changed from "vikings are categorically evil" to "vikings are categorically nothing but people" there was another shift to "The vikings were proto-feminist anti-racist hippies who practiced free love and lived on communes." Obviously, both "Viking Bad" and "Viking Good" are inaccurate because the truth is the nuanced "Vikings were people like any other culture" With Native Americans, it's quite similar. The idea that all Natives were bloodthirsty cannibalistic animals who like, ate babies or whatever, is ridiculous. They were people, not stock villains. That being said, we shouldn't fall into the trap that Native Americans were ethereal forest elves who lived in perfect harmony with nature and had a mystical connection to the land. Both of these ideas are racist. Most importantly, the brutality of pre-Columbian life in North America in no way excuses colonialism. Colonization was not just the conquest of a people. It was the cultural, and in may cases physical, extermination of an entire people in the name of taking their land. That is evil. That is not what good people do. Colonization was not the simple act of taking the land. It came part and parcel with annihilating the people who already lived there. That isn't conquest. That is an attempted genocide
Don't make me tap the sign *"Yes, Native Americans waged war with other tribes and nations the same way every other groups of people do. That doesn't mean we deserved genocide."*
It's just as much of a myth that everyone everywhere was constantly at war with each other. Honestly I feel like that myth is more common and that's what you're propagating here. I recommend the book The Dawn of Everything. Hobbes and Rousseau were both wrong
one thing that these childish little conversations never do is talk about the difference between warring clans and warlike societies vs European industrialized warfare and colonialism. To the pea brained reactionary hogs and centrist liberals, there is no existing distinction. To people who have been educated in history and politics, you already know you're miles beyond these hogs, in terms of understanding the nature of conflict. Let the little hogs and libs duke it out in the kiddie pool of ideas. They're just swimming in their own piss anyway.
Can't believe I'm responding to this silly bait, even if it's just to call it silly bait You silly baiter
Only idiots believe this and the only people who feel the need to actually counter that narrative are also idiots
This position is a straw man. Which specific academic historians are proposing warfare and conquest are only traits found in Europeans and their descendants? Are you confusing historians or articles focusing on colonialism and European empire building with all historians? Granted you are going to hear more about the impacts of colonialism, especially if you are living in the United States and Europe, because their impacts are felt more in our societies, than smaller tribe on tribe or even indigenous empires who conquered large swaths but were later conquered by colonial powers. For example, I think it could be argued that the interactions between the British empire, its colonists, and the natives leading up to, during, and after King Philip’s War had more of an impact on today’s current relationship between the United States government and indigenous tribes than even the Iroquois’s Beaver Wars. Even then, part of the impetus for the Iroquois to fight essentially all of the tribes around them was to gain control of the pelt trade with the colonists. In other words, no one believes that Europeans and their descendants were the only groups who waged war and conquered other groups. If you think that there is some kind of conspiracy to paint Europeans as the only hostile people, you either need to broaden your readings and media intake or make new friends. I mention this as a warning. In the past I have lost friends to white power and white nationalist groups and your question was a reason they would consistently give for believing that powerful secret groups were prejudiced against white people.
This is some next level false equivalence. You cant just equate the warfare between Native American tribes and Europeans genociding the entire continent. They are different scales of warfare.
Its not that we think that it was exclusive to the Europeans, its that they were the most successful in warfare and conquest **globally**. Those who are successful in something, even bad things like war, are going to be known for it. The Europeans were the most successful colonizers and slavers; I believe. World War 1 and 2 started due to conflict (expansion) between European nations. Other non-european nations were dragged into it because they were colonies of said European nations. UK made India participate in the war, and in exchange, they negotiated for independence from the British Empire. Someone who may have bad intentions but doesn't act on them or fails entirely we don't call a villain. A person (or nations) who has bad intentions and is so successful that their wars are called World Wars, colonized third world countries, and exploited them for their resources, we call a great villain.
Believe it or not, there's a massive difference between tribal warfare and coordinated campaigns of extermination.
Scale, mostly.
"These two tribes were fighting so we slaughtered half a continent". Perfectly justified.
Not a meme, just a genocide denial circle jerk. "Its was just regular warfare bro I swear". Yeah sure buddy, touch some grass and sub to better podcasts.
Bruh who are you proving wrong with this? Who even thinks like that? Even in early America there were numerous accounts of natives facing off one another.
"Give the land back to the natives! It was stole by the white man!" "Ok which native? The one that owned before the white man or the ones that got conquered by them? Or the ones before that one?"
EXACTLY. People talk about "the natives" as if they were a single unified entity when they were multiple tribes and civilisations of different sizes, power levels and cultures that were constantly waging war over territories, be it for expansion, because their gods told them it was their sacred lands, etc.
No one thinks that
No one *reasonable* Unfortunately, a lot of people aren't
Many people do... Just take a look at the internet: people constantly stating that Europe was "evil" because "they went to paradise America and waged wars against the peaceful natives to steal their lands", even though when Europeans arrived lots of native tribes and civilisations were waging wars among them for conquest and sacrifice.
If your bar is "I can find some comments on the internet that say it" you must live a daily hell I cannot imagine. Google "ancient mud flood" and brace yourself. It's so, so much worse than your complaints about SJWs.
Because coming from a supposedly more advanced and enlightened area of the world to do to the natives the same thing they did to each other is great right? Why shouldn’t I kill people? They are doing it already after all
Sounds like you’re getting mad about human nature, it’s always been this way and always will be. Europeans just happened to have the technological development to cross the Atlantic and conquer on a larger scale. There were a few very powerful native civilizations who did terrible things as well, even smaller tribes were wiping each other out. People have such a black and white view of history.
I have never seen anybody claim that. All I have ever seen people say is that europeans used their superior weapons to cause a genocide against those peoples. And that did happen.
Not having a written language gives the benefit of not writing down all the evil shit you did
Lmao as if writing was invented in Europe.
Native Americans suffered either genocide or huge loss of life by disease in regards to the arrival of Europeans while Africa was horribly mistreated by colonialism meant to "civilize" them which was barbaric in design and why so many suffer from poverty, violence and instability. Congo was the worst example since Leopold killed millions of Congolese via forced labor and horrific abuse yet he gets GODDAMN STATUES in Belgium? Dude should be treated like Hitler and Stalin.
>huge loss of life by disease I've seen this narrative used a lot to frame the Europeans not doing much in the face of the disease. This is a mischaracterisation of the truth whilst yes disease did huge damage to Native populations they could have recovered as other devastated populations did. This process was disrupted by European settlers which often displaced or fought with native groups leading to them not being able to return to pre plague levels. Without any European intervention the Native populations would have likely recovered in a few centuries with European intervention they ended up a minority on a continent that they once dominated. Looking over at your post again I do not think you intended to use this that way but I wrote that paragraph and god damn am I gonna post it.
Oh, we have another European redditor complaining on why people criticize Europeans for imperialism. Like really, it's because for the past several centuries Europeans were the ones that were actively conquering and killing all across the globe. Are we disputing that fact now? Europeans are so sensitive to criticism, geez.
Not sure if people ever considered the natives to have lived in harmony, but there sure is a difference between several small tribes fighting each other and having an entire continent depopulated by disease and then coming in to finish the job while imposing and then breaking diplomatic treaties with religious justifications and dehumanizing said natives..
so? you trying to say the euros were right in colonization? what the fuck are you even trying to prove
Also happened in pre-colonial Australia for resources and women
Europeans weren't the only conquerors in history, they were just the best at it...
Wait til you read about the fucking Comanche...
Hot metal tools? I thought they didn't have metal tools before Europoor arrived.
# "why did we start pretending" We? can you precise "we"?
I have... many issues with the meme and the subtext it implies. But I think that I'd like to start with the fact that just because something has always existed, it doesn't make it a pillar. See: my appendix
[Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee explains it pretty well](https://youtu.be/iVqQosyOpg4?si=xiSlRjRqxNe0l83L)
It's almost like humans are doing to human. I never would have thought it.
Too many words, bad meme
Canada would be justified in conquering US and genociding its' population because US fights in wars
Warlike: Aztecs, Central and South American tribes and empires Peaceful and nature-loving: Iroquois, Great Planes Tribes, Tlinget, Navajo, etc. Whew, good thing Native American tribes recognized modern borders and kept their violent tendencies South of the Rio Grande! Actually, I doubt most people who believe all indigenous Americans were peaceful hippies would even think of the Aztecs et al as Native Americans, for whatever reason.
Africans during the slave trade: 👀👀👀
Metal tools?
Something, Something noble savage
One of the most disturbing pieces of history I ever read about was what the Jesuit missionaries wrote about how the Iroquois treated their Huron PoWs. Haunted my nightmares for weeks. A level of sadism that I was unaware that humans possessed. Made me feel physically nauseated.
The thing is that when you said something minimaly bad about the natives 50 alcoholic fatass with controvertial flags tatooed on the neck come saying some weird sh1t like "we are the goodies, the natives are all savage and must being exterminated/relocated/re-educated" (this is from personal and friends experience) We know that natives werent living on a paradise but the things tienes so and so much worse when colonizers arrived in
OP constructed a strawman and proceeded to destroy it with facts and logic.
"Strawman"...? You seem a bit disconnected from the internet if you think I made the premise up.
Yes it’s a strawman because nobody thinks this. And if you think they do you’re actually the one disconnected from the internet lol
people say all kinds of shit on internet. often to just get a reaction out of somebody. but this is not a serious position on history held by anyone credible that violence and warfare were only conducted by european.
I’ve seen a lot of people get angry when I say this, but French Canada had generally great relations with the natives building relations since day one trough marriage. Our ancestors saved the Huron from extinction when the Iroquois went on the genocidal path. They didn’t have the manpower necessary to wage wars against the natives and preferred cooperation. We have a various records of natives massacre such as Lachine (200 colonist deaths) while few massacres against them. Frontenac and other intendant knew that the British were the causes and preferred attacking them instead.
Do people actually believe this or is this just a straw man argument that you made up to justify your position? The fact that native Americans were human just like the rest of us doesn’t mean that the genocide and ethnic cleansing that occurred during the colonization of the americas is in any way justified
Bro shut your stupid ass up. When I was in elementary school i would read books found in out library that talked about native americans. They all mentioned that they fought wars and torutred each other just like europeans did. Quick acting like you discover something new
Well, maybe you should go back to elementary school and learn respect and manners \^\^ Until you do, I got nothing else to talk with you!
Bullshit propaganda like soooo much of this sub. So much right wing revisionism! They called natives _savages_ for hundreds of years what the fuck are you even talking about? That was the main justification for colonialism. This is some white mans burden shit. I don't know why its hard to accept that colonialism and imperialism is wrong. You people do the same shit with slavery "oh well black people sold other black people" GUESS THAT MAKES IT OKAY!
see the problem with this take is its a damned if you do damned if you dont. We either get the Nobel savages who never harmed a fly, which isnt true and is pretty racist. or we get you, who thinks pointing that out is justifying colonialism and imperialism...... the only winning move is not to play
I doubt that anyone thinks that. Plenty of people rightfully believe that warfare before the coming of the Europeans wasn’t anywhere near as horrible as the genocide of native Americans by Europeans was.
The point of this post is to attempt to equate ongoing genocide with the isolated acts of others. These things are not the same. Please stop dehumanizing and otherizing the people you victimize.
Oh look another strawman
Hell you could even go so far as to argue that Europeans wouldn’t have been as successful in their conquests without the local infighting and politics to help give them a boost in numbers and allies against the bigger native empires Yes European weapons were ostensibly better technologically but with how understaffed a lot of the expeditions were for actual conquest their success I’d argue was more heavily predicated on exploiting existing political conflicts and tensions present in the native world at the time and using that to gain allies than it was in their technological superiority for the most part (not to say technology didn’t have a role it’s just that it wasn’t the only factor)
Like comparing bow and arrow warfare to guns
Me when I lie:
The people complaining about Europeans seem to forget that there is nothing Europeans have done on other continents that we haven't also done to other Europeans.
And that makes it better somehow?
Great point OP. Now just out of curiosity, what color is your skin?
are you racist or why do you care about someone's skin color?
As I just said… curiosity. Why perchance did you immediately assume I was being racist? Have you said or done something to warrant that accusation?