Native Peoples of North America

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Well, the African slaves were an obvious replacement for the Indians. The Europeans already were tapping into the African slave trade before they came to the West-Indies, involving Africans as traders too. Because of their knowledge of African-slaves, Europeans observed, that some Africans could provide more productivity then the more fragile inhabitants of the West-Indies. This was, because a lot of Africans were themselves were farming and mining in European style, while for many natives, that was an unknown concept, which they were not used to. An observation obviously shared also by more humane slave holders like Las Casas. As the Indians therefore died at a rapid pace, because of the hard work and the unbelievable treatment and ofcourse the new arrived deseases, they quickly were exctinct. So the Africans were the logical substitude. Open up a giantic new market with vast, before unkown, possibilities. Which on the other side had severe consequences for Africa.

Going from Depaaras point, yes, it can't be changed now and the point in doing it was simply, because it was possible. The same would happened to the inhabitants of China, Japan and India, but those were able to defend themselves versus anything like this. The American-natives and Africans could not. So, it happened. And that's all. It just belongs to western-civilization.

As you cite Las Casas. I think his reports about the treatment of the Indians and later the Africans are pretty on par whith what later happend in concentration-camps. And would bring Spanish legislation about to end this, but Spain and its laws are far away, when you're in America.

As for comparison with what happened in later day in North-America compared to the south, those things happened in completly different eras. The Spaniards (and Portuguese) were driven by the fury of Santiago and proudly named themselves conquerors. And that's what they were about, conquer the land and the people they found, turn them to christans and péons. This also, with people like Las Casas at the beginning, led, amongst other developments, to the development of freedom-theology and the involvment of the natives in culture. They could fucundate eachother. And by the way, the Spanish did too, ally themselves with tribes, to conquer other tribes. As the Portuguese would ally in Africa with the people there, to enslave other people there. As their successores would do.

The settlement of North-America gained speed in different times, as Europe was suffering form overpopulation. The goal of this later era wasn't driven by the "conquest"-mentality, but by the drive to escape the old-continent, which could not sustain his people any longer, and cultivate in new lands. The natives in this cases weren't used as ressources themselves, but merily seen as obstacles and pushed away. So the conversion to christianity didn't play such an important role anymore. In this age, Europeans would gladly break crosses and spit on them in Asia, to prove, that it's business they came for and not to spread their believes. Which of course was true.

 

My husband worked for a certain aboriginal organization for a year and a half. He was invited in to teach traditional jewellery making because, although his is not Canadian native, he is Mexican native. There were several large differences that he noticed between his traditional native culture and the Canadian one.

My husbands mother is a historian in Mexico city. His father, grandfather, great-grandfather etc have passed down the tradition of artisan on to him. When he makes jewellery, every twist of the wire and every pattern that is applied has a meaning. If you know how to read it, you can read a whole story in a well crafted piece of jewellery. These ancient symbols are very important to his culture and highly valued because they teach the new generations about their history. My husband was working with several Canadian Aboriginals in this organization and several of them were involved in making the traditional costumes of the aboriginal dancers. These costumes have a lot of designs on them made with beads and feathers and leather among other things. When my husband asked these people what the designs on their costumes meant, he was met with a shrug and the words "I don't know, they are just designs."

One other thing that greatly shocked him was when he attended a lecture given by a guest speaker about the history of aboriginal art in Canada. This lecture was designed specifically for young troubled native youths. What upset him was that the content of this lecture revolved more around why white people are bad, then the actual history of native art. Although this organization was funded by the government to help troubled native youths it became apparent to my husband that the funds were being badly misused.

I do not want to stereotype Canadian aboriginals. Every pocket of every culture has its differences depending upon what kind of influences they have had. I do however believe that the people in the group I referred to were claiming that they were trying to preserve traditional aboriginal culture. They did some traditional things but most of the time was spent working towards their own individual advantages.

On a side note my husband left the organization soon after he discovered that they were not doing what they were telling the government they were doing.

 

I don't think that this word is proper for these people. Don't forget that this word was used in a humiliating way to name an Australian native. And if i recall correctly this word means not original, a sub product, something less than human.
Secondly Aztecs were indeed a brutal tribe but i fear that they had good rivals for the first place in Europe. Romans or Greeks or Egyptians or Gaels or Celts or Vikings you name it have done many big attrocities but at that time they weren't considered so. Don't forget that in Europe only Greeks (especially with Alexander the Great) and Romans tried to use a civilised way to conquer enemies. (not killing anyone respecting some tribal taboos and absorbing leading memebers of the society in the govermential system). But during that times things were far more harder and the fear of retaliation was big, so massive killings of the memebers of the defeated tribe was common practice in the ancient era.

Colombus like everyone, did not even imagine that there was a continent between Europe and Asia if you sailed towards West. So Colombus when he saw that island he (logically for his knowledge) persumed that it was part of Asia that specific island. Don't forget that Colombus never managed to set foot on the continent. He managed only two trips back to America and not for a long period of time.

 

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aboriginal - I don't think that this word is proper for these people
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Actually that is their name of choice. First they were called "Indians" which in now considered politically incorrect, then they were called "Natives" now it politically correct to call them "Aboriginals" Although in my opinion maybe each group should be called by their appropriate names such as "Cree" or "Sioux" or whichever tribe they are from and otherwise just be called Canadians. (If they are from Canada that is... hehe)

 

I don't understand what all this political corectness (aka euphemisms) is about. I'm white, so I probably don't understand, but I wouldn't care whether someone called me White, Caucasian, Whitey, Honky, Pasty, etc.

 

Every word gets used for a while and then becomes politically incorrect. I'll cite one example -- for people of African ancestry, a common term used to be "colored" -- as in "the new guy is colored". Say that today and you'll get your head kicked in, right? Yet the organization that fights for the rights of people of African descent is -- wait for it -- the NAACP: The National Association for the Advancement of COLORED People. If their own orginization used the term, why can't the everyday man? The answer is simple: guilt. North Americans of European descent are constantly bombarded with the message that they should feel guilt -- guilt about the Native Americans, guilt about the Africans, guilt about women in general, guilt about . . . everything. Now, to me, guilt is something that you feel when YOU have done something wrong. Given that I have never owned a slave, denied a job to anyone (hell, I've never even hired anyone!) beaten anyone, or stolen from anyone, I feel NO FRIGGING GUILT!
I just want to be left alone to make my way in life, and I refuse to feel guilty for what my ancestors did. And until there's more proof than just shifting political correctness, I won't mbe labelled a racist based merely on word usage -- especially word usage that the group in question feels free to use themselves (and here I'm talking about words like "nigger", which is FREQUENTLY heard from the lips of the group in question.)

 

To go *slightly* (but in a direction that this thread could be heading anyway, since SOMEONE has to pay for all this cultural maintenance that's going on), I have to say that I agree whole heartedly with LKD when it comes to reparations. When slaves were being kept in the States, MY ancestors were dirt farmers in Lithuania. So where does the descendant of anyone who was repressed back in the day get off telling ME that I owe them money? grrrrr....

 

Not that I do not think that it's not an issue of people living in countries with different ethniticies to find a common ground between the different ethniticities.

For me, the Indians will remain "Indians".Where I live, I do not think that the word "aboriginal" or "American native" will ever replace the word "Indian", like Japan will stay Japan and not become Nippon. Mostly because exact names for people and countries so far away have no real relevance. For people living in the Americas, that is a different thing, I think. But do you know how difficult those different names and tabus are, if American English is a foreign language ?

As for "who gained" from slave trade and so on. The "white" people in the Americas, the Europeans and the Asians. So, in case of repaiments, the Aisans and Europeans would have to pay too. Yes, the Aisans too, because the profit from the West-Indian-companies went to the East-Indian-companies, which were used to trade with the Asians, so the Asians participated in the trades too.

As for Lithunia. Lithunia profited too. The ships on the of the big seafaring nations were mainly build through material which came from the baltic sea. So the profits went to the baltic countries too. To the whole of Europe actually. But then again, not every Dutch and British or European made a fortune through colonies and slave-trade, a lot of them stayed poor.

And that's all actually to say in short, I do not think anyone should pay repaiments. But countries with different ethnicities should find some common ground. And I am happy to not be confronted with the problem of having different ethnicites in my country.