Many on the left- and cultural egalitarians often denounce the American policy of warfare with the Indians as racist, incensitive, and an aggressive genocide fueled by cultural bigotry. Andrew Jackson and Polk are often demonized as racist statesman who oppressed the helpless indians who just wanted to live in peace.
But is this all just a distraction. For example, ive read a lot of quotes by american politicians at that time, who wanted to agressively drive indians from their land, and it had very little to do with racism. The US military and state department treatment of indian tribes, was just an example of the incompetence and hatred people in the government had for property rights. From my understanding many of the indians just didn’t want to live by the rules of the federal government, and the government could not tolerate people who didnt pay taxes and obey their contracts. Racism was a problem back then, but i think the rabid attitude towards the way predominately white Americans treated Indians- is a distraction from the true nature of how state power works.
I would say the same about segregation. There were whites and blacks that wanted to interact, whether it be marriage or trade, but were not allowed to do so because the State wouldn’t let them. The problem wasn’t that whites were racist against blacks, but that that racism was expressed via the State as laws that made blacks “second-class citizens”. Also, the labor unions favored laws that excluded blacks from the rest workforce; the same way they favored laws that excluded young people from the workforce. I suppose the civil rights revolution in the 1960s opened the United States to blacks, but we must remember that is was the State that created the problem to begin with. Same goes with slavery: slavery was legal, but it should never have been made legal by the State.
There probably was racism, but I never really came across that as being the initiator of force by the State. It was a property issue for the most part. Lots of pride in the age old conqueror mentality as well. The Lakota were giving the westward expansion a heck of a time in the Montana, Idaho region. They were actually winning some skirmishes. So here comes General Custer thinking he’s the pinnacle of civilized, heroic man and he got crushed. Americans sympathized with Amerindians on numerous occasions but the State propaganda and false flags. They used them back then too such as against Tecumseh blaming his brother for initiating a fight, but it was actually General Harrison who started the false rumor. This turned a huge public opinion around who had been in favor of the Amerindians who were performing peaceful disobedience all along the western frontier at the time (around the Mississippi River). One the largest coordinated peaceful disobedience ever performed on earth. Tecumseh went north and south from the Great Lakes to the Gulf Coast talking to all the various tribes/nations. Then Gen. Harrison performed his stunt cause their was money and property to be gained in what become the state of Indiana. He later became the President due to this campaign of his. The whole “manifest destiny” was mainly over property. The start of the French and Indian War was because the Virginia Governor who had part ownership in the Ohio Company expanded into Western Pennsylvania to grab that property to provide for the continued use of indentured servitude to the State. The pay at the end of the servitude was promised land by the State. Virginia was running out of land. So the Ohio Company lead by George Washington went out and through various battles with the French and Indians expanded into Western PA and Ohio after the war. This is also were the incident of germ warfare occurred in the Fort Pitt area (now Pittsburgh) in which the British gave blankets with small pox to the local Amerindians to kill them off and make the land vacant. Etc, etc, the whole gold aggression in the Black Hills to take away this considered sacred property by the Lakota. It was all about property basically. The whole they are savages is a usual State’s way of making such killing legitmate in the eyes of most people who prized their ‘civilized’ way of living, too, but I would say this was more to arouse the emotions and hate for the goal was “manifest destiny” from sea to shining sea as the song goes.
It’s just another version of the ancient “we want your land and you aren’t going to stop us”. The Romans did that to the Alpine peoples, Charlemagne to the Saxons, the Angevin kings of England to the Welsh, the Teutonic Knights to the Old Prussian tribes just to quote a few examples. In each case a stronger centralized power subjugated “less civilized” and generally military weaker peoples using all kind of excuses like the supposed cultural and/or racial inferiority of the conquered.
In short it’s yet another version of the bullyish attitude “what are you going to do to stop us? Who is going to help you?” which props up governments everywhere. Once you feel so strong and “invincible” you can disregard property rights, individual rights and even divine retribution: history is written by winners. And they generally weren’t the ones of the right side of the fence.
Some of the problems with the “the white man is the blue-eyed devil who enslaves people” theory is that:
The Arabs enslaved the blacks first.
The black (see note) Egyptians enslaved the white Jews.
The black Africans enslaved the blacks and sold them to the white Europeans.
Every civilization has been enslaved at by another at one point or another.
There were blacks in America who owned black slaves.
Some slaves in America were white.
Almost no one owned slaves in America.
Note: For arguments sake, we will assume that they were black since many “the white man is the devil” theorist also say that the Egyptian Pharoahs were black
True to a point. Didnt most tribes not even have a concept of private property? Frankly I dont see why the Choctaw should ‘own’ the entire area of Oklahoma.
Even with the native population there was plenty of space in North America for european settlers. And many early colonies were bought from the Indians.
But the plains Indians were actually displace tribes already driven from their ancestral farmlands who reverted to nomadic hunters.
And some with the British. The French and Indian War tore the Iroquois Confederacy apart. Some nations went with the French and some with the British. It was the pinnacle factor to the decline of this strong counter force against both the French and the British in the region.
It just reminds me of the same point the border nationalists make. ‘Our land!’ etc, etc. But yet, most tribes didnt even believe in private property; so in my view much of it was homesteadable.
Well if they weren’t using the land of course. But if they were their hunting grounds due to the buffalo moving through, then just as the lobstermen off the coast of Maine have homesteaded sites to trap their lobsters so would they have rights to hunt their buffalo in certain areas. But if all of their property rights are not property then they have no claim to the land.
It’s obvious that hunter-gatherers or shepherds are more likely to have a different idea of “our land” from farmers or landowners. My livehood depends on following buffalo herds or finding acorns for my pigs, not on growing corn or tobacco: I need much more space, I need to move often. The two groups are bound to come to blows sooner or later, no matter how many treaties you sign and strictly you enforce them, that’s in the nature of things. It’s a very delicate issue that’s been debated for centuries and I frankly I have better things to do in my life than researching it.