American Indians: Who to blame?

My bottom line is that Europeans conquering and killing Europeans is not worse than Europeans conquering and killing non-Europeans. Unfortunately, some seem much more disturbed by the one and willing to offer a defense of the other.

Yes and I agree many do put a great emphasis on the former rather than the latter.

Secondly, although the term Manifest Destiny may not have been an official state policy, it was certainly a de facto policy, and you cannot deny that feelings of racial and cultural superiority contributed to American treatment of Native peoples in all of the incidents we have discussed.

Yes it was de facto, but your statements are still inaccurate. True MD was later used as a justification, but was it the cause of? I still assert there were greater socio-economic forces in play here. Its particulary inaccurate to talk about MD prior to 1800 as American hegemony west of the Alleghenies didn’t exist then. So prior to that what was the motivation? It couldn’t be purely racism as the whites coexisted with certain tribes, but not others. If you are so racist that you want to exterminate an entire race you don’t make peace with and therefore let exist many of the people you hate.

Agent_Smith,

Despite our voluminous writings to the contrary, we really don’t disagree on all that much as far as the facts are concerned. In a way, we have been talking past one another because we are analysing two different aspects of the same question. You seem to be primarily concerned with the hard facts of each individual case, while I am more concerned (in this instance) with the philosophical and moral underpinnings of the communities involved and how that contributed to their behavior in a broader sense. Historical case study vs. historical survey, if you will.

This being the case, I suggest that we take a repast from the battlefield, and concentrate on other endeavors. I, for one, have finals to grade (and unfortunately, most of their authors are not as erudite a yourself! :wink: ) In any case, well met, my friend!

P.S. - I’ll mention your last remark to my Pequot friend. Amazing how this fact has escaped the US government! You’d think they’d be more careful in their classification.

I’ll mention your last remark to my Pequot friend. Amazing how this fact has escaped the US government! You’d think they’d be more careful in their classification.

Well don’t push it too hard most people don’t take too kindly to being called a fraud. :lol: The US gov’t sort of has its hands tied because these people do have a claim of sorts as Pequots because they are descendants of those Pequot who did intermingle with whites. However, there was no Pequot tribe for quite a long time recognized or seeking recognition.

This being the case, I suggest that we take a repast from the battlefield, and concentrate on other endeavors. I, for one, have finals to grade (and unfortunately, most of their authors are not as erudite a yourself! ) In any case, well met, my friend!

But does this have to necessarily be antagonistic? Are these high school finals or college finals? If these are college finals perhaps I should transfer to your school, take your class and you can give me an A. :wink:

I have finals to take, but I’m barely going to study, get little sleep beforehand, and probably still get an A. Ahh, the fun of college.

Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t take it as being antagonistic! In fact, it has been fun. :D Quite honestly, if I had more time, I’d love to do a point by point rebuttal and keep it going. Unfortunately, after I get these finals graded, I have to start right away teaching a summer one course. You’d certainly get your A. I always tell my students, you can disagree with me or the text as vociferously as you like, so long as you can support your contensions with verifiable facts. Perhaps we’ll renew this discussion in July. I’m not teaching any summer two courses (that I know of).

You never answered me or perphaps you did, was this a college level course? If so what school?

darthmaul, your hostility is very unnecessary.
im not “giving you my approval” and i dont “consider myself the authority” on it. i was expressing disapproval over people who have one “native” american ancestor, and try to exploit that by taking advantage of things granted to native americans (such as the right to open a casino).
i meant no disrespect to you, and sorry if i somehow offended you, but you know what, F*** off. you want to be offended by it, fine, go ahead

Did you all miss the post where he said he’s a teacher? I believe possibly a college teacher, and in that case he either has a Masters/PhD or is working on one. Can any of you worker ants say the same.

If Darth Maul was using his heritage for anything it was to take an absolutist position against white colonialism in North America. I take it by your response you feel White actions were wholy justified.

@Janus:

i meant no disrespect to you, and sorry if i somehow offended you, but you know what, F*** off. you want to be offended by it, fine, go ahead

Janus, this line will pay off dearly for you, i guess.

@Janus1:

i meant no disrespect to you, and sorry if i somehow offended you, but you know what, F*** off. you want to be offended by it, fine, go ahead

Boy Janus, you sure picked the right name (i.e. the two faced god of Graeco-Roman mythology). Are you bi-polar or what? “Sorry if I offended you, but f*** you!”. Double your dosage buddy, and don’t bust a blood-vessel being so FED-UP! :lol:

Now if you and your moronic buddy will excuse me, I’ve got to get back to hitting the bottle and shooting craps at my casino on your tax dollar. :wink:

Agent_Smith - Its a small college, but I won’t get into which one. Too many psychos on the internet! :roll: Sorry I didn’t specify, but I thought that “college” was implicit in my statement about the summer semester. And yes, I’m in the abd phase of the Phd. You are correct that I was taking an absolutist position, but I thought that this simplistic and addle-brained poll/thread lent itself to such. My first instinct was to steer clear of it, but at least some intelligent discourse was generated.