Maps like these give the false impression that nearly every square mile of land - even inhospitable desert regions, were once occupied by some native polity.
Reality check: Most indigenous peoples lived in Mesoamerica, with < 10 million in what is now USA/Canada and that's being generous. There are regions of North America today that have no residents. By what grounds are these native lands - because some nomads once wandered through there?
This is why Adverse Possession has been a principle of law for thousands of years.
Without such a concept, there can be no private ownership of land. Because someone can always come out of the woodwork with an old document that says the land your family has owned for tens or hundreds of years is actually their land.
Arguably that reason makes less sense now, given that record keeping and accessibility is much better. It should now be relatively trivial to ensure you own any given land in the land registry.
The bigger argument for it now is making land use more efficient.
For one thing, it's incredibly chauvinistic to dismiss pre-colombian society as "some nomads," and their mobility patterns as having "wandered". Nomadic life-ways aren't the thoughtless ramblings of a child at play, or a sub-sentient beast in simple reactionary pursuit of greener pastures. They summer here, winter there, raise children in these parts, and visit those for sport, trade, or agriculture. Their relationship with the land is purposeful, and maintained by cultural artifacts we'd recognize as Almanacs.
One isn't "wandering" just because they haven't poured concrete.
For another thing, the pre-colombian americas weren't the Gardens of Eden, magically and effortlessly producing sustenance, and materials for us to enjoy. They were cultivated, sculpted, and gamed into those forms which facilitated our survival. There's evidence enough of that in the ways that restrictive intra- and under-growth have returned to the forests indigenous populations kept pruned for their traversal.
Lastly, biomes are big systems, and interconnected. I may have only a small garden, but it's fed from massive watersheds. If I am to survive, the mountains which constitute that watershed must be recognized as "mine" in some regard. So it goes with all the lands which feed into, and out of, those through which "some nomads once wandered."
I hope you can see, now, how myopically your "reality check" frames the situation.
>Nomadic life-ways aren't the thoughtless ramblings of a child at play
In 11th century eastern europe, Kipchaq nomads did the same - "wandering" as in following seasonal patterns within their lands. But it was not until the 17th century that the steppes were settled - and the settlers weren't Kipchaqs.
Imagine if a modern day Ukrainian was presented with a similar indigenous map based on nomadic groups that once roamed his country - it would stretch from the Danube to the Volga! Should we convert the entire pontic-caspian steppe into an indigenous zones for Nogais and Tatars who are related to the historical kipchaqs?
Is it written into Ukraine's laws (and then quietly ignored) that they should respect those groups' territories and negotiate treaties to resolve issues? Fun fact: British Columbia barely has any treaties because people have ignored the issue for decades. This is incredibly slow going: http://www.bctreaty.ca/negotiation-update.
Edit: Read about Nogais and Tatars instead of spewing nonsense :)
Nomadic lifestyles don’t scale. It’s not that “living off the land” is somehow trivial or dumb. In order to treat people with complex diseases, develop medicines, avoid famines during the cold, etc, a civilization needs to move beyond a nomadic lifestyle technologically.
By what right did the the land belong to the native Americans? Do you think all the native tribes spilled out of Alaska and then neatly fitted themselves into mutually-recognized non-overlapping territories never to be disturbed?
Indigenous people have been in NA for an extremely long time and have sorted themselves into nations over that time just like any where else in the world.
If there are overlapping disagreements between Indigenous Nations about land title, as there are with all sorts of modern nations around the world, there are lots of modern mechanisms to settle that.
Not sure how any of this has any relevance or should be used as a justification colonialism and for pushing people off their lands.
It seems like you are trying to avoid the question. What gives indigenous peoples any moral high ground over later settlers? The indigenous* conquered land from each other and moved - an obvious fact which too often gets left out of the conversation. Then, the Europeans came along and possessed the lands for themselves. And you'll find the same story repeated on every corner of the earth. Continual occupation is just not a thing.
* As I've mentioned in another comment, true "indigenous" Alaskans are no more, having been replaced by an unrelated group of people in a later migration to the Americas.
You are brushing off the systematic, mass genocide of native people and dispossession of their land by essentially saying that its happened throughout history, that it’s normal. I’m not really sure how this argument justifies anything. The colonization of America is recent. NA indigenous people are still alive and have special designated land that they were forced to move to. They weren’t even given citizenship by default until 1924–less than one hundred years ago
> continual occupation is just not a thing
I’m not sure where you are getting this. At what point is an occupation over? When the genocide is complete? That hasn’t even happened yet, NA indigenous people are still alive. Do you just expect they to submit, assimilate, and abandon their culture completely?
And you're brushing off all the conflict that Native Americans brought to bear against white settlers (do read some accounts of Apache or Comanche raids some time), and the concessions given to Native Americans after they were conquered (namely their own sovereign nations and plenty of carveouts to hunting and other laws so they can continue to practice their culture unhindered).
They "weren't even given citizenship" because they were considered citizens of their own sovereign nations, not because the US gov't were acting maliciously. For this reason they also weren't required to register for Selective Service to be drafted into WWI (despite this, many non-citizens waived their exemption and registered anyway - maybe they didn't hate the country as much as some might suppose).
I don't know what you expect the US gov't to do when attempts at peaceful coexistence between white settlers and the natives tribes failed. Run away as far as the Apache would chase them (to the Atlantic)? No, they went to war as needed, and even allied with other tribes in doing so.
Random comment - I assume your username is an attempt at wit, but even I did a double take
Suffice to say it was complicated. I was reading about the tribes that aligned with the Confederacy and the fate of black slaves owned by tribes post-Civil War.
My handle dates back to the 90s, when people barely rolled their eyes at a pun in poor taste.
It's probably at its apex of hilarity right now, given the sheer number of folks pissing their pants because of a delusion that there are innumerable secret members of a looooong-dead political party hiding under every bed.
> It's probably at its apex of hilarity right now, given the sheer number of folks pissing their pants because of a delusion that there are innumerable secret members of a looooong-dead political party hiding under every bed.
Huh, "wild coincidence" that a user with the name "waffle_ss" spends their time posting about crime statistics and how killing indigenous people is whatever. I'm sure it has nothing to do with your politics.
> And you're brushing off all the conflict that Native Americans brought to bear against white settlers
Given that you're the first person to bring this up, accusing your parent for "brushing this off" is not coming across as an attempt to have a good faith conversation.
> and the concessions given to Native Americans after they were conquered (namely their own sovereign nations and plenty of carveouts to hunting and other laws so they can continue to practice their culture unhindered).
The US often didn't honor the terms of these concessions.
The parent painted a picture of a one-sided, contemplative genocide when it was far from it. Neither was it a conflict uniquely faced by the United States - read up on the history of Mexico and the Apache for instance. If you want a short biopic version just read about Geronimo's life and what he thought about Mexicans.
> The US often didn't honor the terms of these concessions.
I agree, not in all cases. But before we could talk reasonably about this we needed to swing the conversation back from the idea that the US gov't was operating a land-stealing, genociding steamroller (and for apparently no reason at all, no less).
> The parent painted a picture of a one-sided, contemplative genocide when it was far from it.
No he didn't. To put it bluntly, you're reading things that aren't there. We're all welcome to our interpretations of comments, but untentatively asserting your interpretation is a component of "not having a good faith conversation".
> Neither was it a conflict uniquely faced by the United States - read up on the history of Mexico and the Apache for instance.
And why the need to point this out, when the comment you responded to never suggested otherwise? There is, in fact, implicit acceptance of other genocides in the comment.
> But before we could talk reasonably about this we needed to swing the conversation back from the idea that the US gov't was operating a land-stealing, genociding steamroller (and for apparently no reason at all, no less).
Who exactly are you talking about here? The comment in question never implied "apparently no reason at all".
You're arguing against a nonexistent entity. And the point of my responding to you is to get you back to the reality of the thread, not an imaginary conversation that others here cannot see.
Of course he/she did. The entire premise is based on the notion that the nations before the US were somehow just and the US was not, despite the fact that they were all built on just as much violence and conquering.
> the entire premise is based on the notion that the nations before the US were somehow just and the US was not
No, it’s not. It’s based on the premise that massacres and the legislative dispossession of native lands is wrong. I don’t see why this is a controversial stance
> despite the fact that they were all built in just as much violence and conquering
This is a false equivalency. There was never a single group which built a transcontinental empire, killing, displacing, and ultimately forcing assimilation upon all other groups using organized state violence, all in a few hundred years. The tribal violence in some regions on North America just isn’t the same thing and doesn’t justify the genocide. Even if it was the same thing, it still doesn’t justify genocide. Justifying genocide with genocide doesn’t really make much sense to me
"It's so obvious I cannot point where the person said it".
> The entire premise is based on the notion that the nations before the US were somehow just and the US was not
The commenter in question both implicitly and explicitly has said that is not the premise.
I can only repeat what I said to the other person:
> You're arguing against a nonexistent entity. And the point of my responding to you is to get you back to the reality of the thread, not an imaginary conversation that others here cannot see.
>I’m not really sure how this argument justifies anything.
My argument is not that europeans are in the right because they inflicted upon others what those others inflicted upon still others. My argument is that nobody has a clean record. If your position is that what happened to natives is wrong, then what the natives did to each other is also wrong.
>I’m not sure where you are getting this. At what point is an occupation over?
What I'm saying is you will be hard pressed to find a territory that has been continually occupied by one group since the arrival of humans. At some point each territory was probably wrested from some prior group via the usual means. Exceptions apply. Isolated islands come to mind.
Just because the genocide didn't fully succeed in exterminating every last Native American doesn't mean it somehow wasn't a "systematic mass genocide", for the same reason that just because Nazi Germany didn't successfully wipe every last Jew off the face of the Earth doesn't mean that wasn't a "systematic mass genocide", or how just because the VRS didn't exterminate every last Bosniak doesn't mean the Bosnian genocide wasn't a genocide.
Like, there's nothing mixed about that message at all. The United States systematically displaced or outright exterminated countless Native Americans, and yet some did survive and will hopefully have a chance to recover from that genocide and reclaim some of their lost lands.
Nazi Germany didn't wipe out every last jew because they lost the war. Had nobody stopped Germany I don't see a reason why they wouldn't have succeeded.
Supposing the U.S. did institute a systemic native genocide policy in the past, what prevented it from succeeding? Why are there still natives?
> Had nobody stopped Germany I don't see a reason why they wouldn't have succeeded.
Barring complete world domination they would have no chance of doing so, given the existence of Jews beyond Germany's reach (including those who escaped the Holocaust). Yet, we still consider that a systemic mass genocide.
Same deal with the US and its eradication of in some cases entire tribes; just because the US stopped engaging in systemic mass genocide (for whatever reason) or otherwise didn't succeed in killing or sterilizing every last native doesn't mean my country didn't engage in systemic mass genocide at all.
Hell, even by the incorrectly-narrow definition you seem to be using, there are quite a few tribes that are nowadays entirely extinct, e.g. the Karankawa people in Texas and the Yahi people in California.
Nazi Germany did wipe out almost every last jew in the areas they controlled, in the ~4 years of the Holocaust. 90% of Poland's 3 million jews were killed.
After centuries of supposed genocide, the US Native American population is over 6 million, which is probably similar to what it was before colonization.
The biggest massacre I'm aware of¹ in the US is the 146 killed at Wounded Knee in 1890. The US had complete military superiority, and could have killed everyone at will, but mostly didn't. If this is a genocide, it's a very poorly executed one.
What makes this a bit confusing is that first contact did often result in 90% of the native population dying in both North and South America. But that was an unintentional and unforeseen effect of old world diseases hitting new world populations that had completely unprepared immune systems. Maybe the biggest "random" event in world history!
So what you're trying to say that the dislocation and genocide of people of indigenous nations by colonial nations was morally fine because you assert that the indigenous people probably did something similar in the past? Good grief.
Settlers knew what they were doing and their actions against indigenous people were not moral. They do not need defending.
You're putting words in my mouth as a red herring.
I pointed out how practically everyone is living on conquered land - yes, even the native americans who wrested it from each other, though you cast shade on this inconvenient fact. So does whose.land, which rationalizes the overlapping amerindian borders like so: "Often, boundaries between territories overlap because the Indigenous Nations were continuously sharing the land and negotiating agreements through their own diplomatic and legal systems." Hmmn...No mention of war or genocide - everyone just got along diplomatically apparently.
No you're trying to give settlers a pass on amoral behaviour.
It doesn't matter what conflicts indigenous nations may have entered into (and to be clear, you are completely speculating that they did). It does not justify the behaviour of the settlers that came after.
Effectively your argument is a childlike "well he did it therefore I should be able to". Have higher standards.
A critical component of those modern mechanisms is that land claims can be put to rest. That after a border's acknowledged for a long time, it becomes the border, and everyone has to respect it even if we can't condone the process that created it. Under a standard where territorial claims can be resurrected at any time - where Mexico can declare it owns California, and Britain can declare it owns the Eastern Seaboard, and the US can declare it owns Phillipines - modern mechanisms won't function.
What? Russia claimed it owns part of Ukraine earlier this decade. Sudan split into two countries. There’s an ongoing dispute over islands between China and Japan. There’s also Hong Kong, and Taiwan. The Kurds get pushed around by the 4 nation-states who each claim part of their ancestral territory. India, Pakistan, and China all claim Kashmir.
Last century, Israel was created after a war. The Ottoman Empire was partitioned. Tibet was claimed by China. Germany was split in half and then reunited. The USSR split apart. The US annexed part of Samoa, and made states out of Oklahoma, Arizona, New Mexico, Alaska and Hawai’i. Carving Africa into lines started in 1880. There are dozens of other examples, some administrative and some violent.
Your claim boils down to “a border is a border, until it isn’t.” How is that different from how it’s always been?
I'm not sure I follow the question. A lot of the disputes you mention here are terribly violent, which is why I so strongly oppose efforts to create more of them. A border should almost always remain a border - the process of unmaking a border is so inherently dangerous that only the most extreme circumstances can possibly justify it.
I guess I’m questioning how much the establishment of “more fixed borders” changes anything. I for one don’t know how frequently the indigenous nations in the Americas had fights over territory.
People being people, my suspicion is that it wasn’t all that different from today: peaceful agreements about who uses what land when, with bouts of violence or negotiation when circumstances changed. Wars take a high toll, so they aren’t pursued for fun, especially when they involve a much larger portion of a nation’s population than they do today.
How would this apply to Europe and Asia, where the land has been conquered dozens of times? I frankly don't see how indigenous people have any more rights to "their" land than say the descendants of any random tribe, kingdom or empire that once controlled Anatolia or England.
cool well I hope China invades your country and puts you and your family in education camps since you seem to think this is cool and good and there's nothing wrong with this.
I can't respond to this specifically unless you give specific links. Sometimes, there are extremely bad comments which we've missed—we don't come close to seeing everything that gets posted here (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...). Other times, though, people put extreme labels on comments they don't like, and basically want us to ban everyone they disagree with. Also, no matter where one draws the lines, there are borderline cases that require judgment calls and interpretation, making it impossible to please everyone.
How is what I said racism? It's maybe culturalism, and weak if that. It might have been very sad that Ottomans have once conquered Constantinople, or that Anglo-Saxons displaced Celts and were in turn conquered by the Normans, or that Romans or Arabs conquered Jerusalem and then later after a bunch of other people Israelis have (re-?)conquered it, or that China controls large parts of what was historically Mongolian land after the Mongols used to control a bunch of China, or whatever. The race has nothing to do with it. Wars used to be normal, and still are to an extent, however unfortunate that is. The fact that somebody conquered somebody 200 years ago and broke treaties has no bearing on anything whatsoever.
Or, if you think it does, it's YOUR job to articulate how, but in a manner than can be applied consistently in the general case, e.g. for the examples above.
Even the land that was occupied by what we call "natives" was previously occupied by various flora and fauna. The previous settlers had no right to migrate to the area anymore than the Europeans did.
Maybe no one owns the land then? Owning land by purchasing a title registered in the State's land registry can hardly be a stronger claim than being a nomad wandering through.
Reality check: Most indigenous peoples lived in Mesoamerica, with < 10 million in what is now USA/Canada and that's being generous. There are regions of North America today that have no residents. By what grounds are these native lands - because some nomads once wandered through there?
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