Why are there reservation lands for native people in America and Canada?

It is a terrible tragedy because you don't want them around your feet, that's why, but instead you gave them land to guild the pill of taking their lands and killing their people by force. You have segregated them way too bad.

I am pretty sure Lebrok is a Canadian Polish immigrant, and so he has nothing to do with oppressive things Canadians have done in the past. Even if he has Canadian ancestors who massacred innocent people he doesn't deserve the blame.
 
The Swedish (Finns and Swedes) of New Sweden interacted the best with the natives;
http://explorepahistory.com/displayimage.php?imgId=1-2-53C
http://people.virginia.edu/~mgf2j/finns.html

Old settlers remenisced to Peter Kalm in 1747 that with "no other people to associate with than the native Indians" the settlers "soon began to differ in their actions and manners from the Europeans and old Swedes and began to resemble the Indians. At the arrival of the English," Kalm said, "the Swedes to a large extent were not much better than savages."

The Slash & Burn method of agriculture was even adopted by the natives; And the "Susquehanna" even allied themselves with the Swedish and declared a protectorate as the protectors of the Swedes.
 
I am pretty sure Lebrok is a Canadian Polish immigrant, and so he has nothing to do with oppressive things Canadians have done in the past. Even if he has Canadian ancestors who massacred innocent people he doesn't deserve the blame.

This is a good point. It's less useful to play blame games about people's ancestors than it is to discuss things as they are, and it's even less useful to play blame games about the historical sins of a nationality. There's rarely continuity. For example, an ancestor of mine was a militia captain who enforced the Trail of Tears. Have his moral values been passed directly to me? Hardly. So blame may rest with him, but not me.

What's even more grating to me is bickering about which nationality treated the natives worse. People get defensive about things that they shouldn't even be blamed for to begin with. Was Spain or Britain worse? I don't know, what's worse, the higher levels of slavery and serfdom under the Spanish, or the higher levels of forced displacement under the British? Both are bad, and disease has both the Spanish and British beat anyway, in terms of how many suffered and died.
 
This saying of yours ain't politically correct. Restate.

I'll restate it for him.

Unlike the Bronze Age Greeks, who probably murdered or enslaved the people that they conquered, the British created a reserve system where Natives could keep their language and culture, and provided some economic support, a practice that the Canadian government has continued. So, while most of us have the freedom to work or starve, Natives are guaranteed some degree of financial support by the government.
 
This is a good point. It's less useful to play blame games about people's ancestors than it is to discuss things as they are, and it's even less useful to play blame games about the historical sins of a nationality. There's rarely continuity. For example, an ancestor of mine was a militia captain who enforced the Trail of Tears. Have his moral values been passed directly to me? Hardly. So blame may rest with him, but not me.

What's even more grating to me is bickering about which nationality treated the natives worse. People get defensive about things that they shouldn't even be blamed for to begin with. Was Spain or Britain worse? I don't know, what's worse, the higher levels of slavery and serfdom under the Spanish, or the higher levels of forced displacement under the British? Both are bad, and disease has both the Spanish and British beat anyway, in terms of how many suffered and died.

I think that's a fair summary of things. What was worst, the behaviour of the Spanish or the behaviour of the British? Answer - in both cases they behaved very badly, as conquerers have done, in various ways, ever since us hairless apes came down from the trees and started fighting over land.
 
Lebrok this needs to stop

I think you made some great arguments on this thread but the way you express them is wrong. I think everyone has good incentive but we take insults and dis respect from others to seriously, and it causes us to make the same mistakes.

What I have noticed your intolerance is like


When politics are the subject your usually tolerant only to people who agree with you or anything that fits your agenda(openly against negative prejudice towards homosexuals but not negative prejudice towards religious people) and call it tolerance. You can't stand people who don't have your political agenda which explains many of your outbursts, and you accuse them of being the only ones with intolerance. You are also commonly intolerant towards people for reasons outside of politics like their personality(i.e.,Echetlaeus).

A great way you can stop childish fights before they happen is if you don't insult anyone. It is not very difficult to stop with the insulting, dis respect, and intolerance, because it is the right and the smart thing to do.

I'm tolerant to tolerant people. Intolerant individuals don't deserve tolerance of others, otherwise they are abused by intolerance.

You should be tolerant to everyone no matter what(there are some acceptations). If you dis agree with someone, they are dis respectful to you, you think there are errors in the way they think, etc., you should give your opinion in a respectful way. You should want to improve them in the areas you think they need improvement, not be their enemy, and not have a goal to destroy them.
 
The Swedish (Finns and Swedes) of New Sweden interacted the best with the natives;
http://explorepahistory.com/displayimage.php?imgId=1-2-53C
http://people.virginia.edu/~mgf2j/finns.html

Old settlers remenisced to Peter Kalm in 1747 that with "no other people to associate with than the native Indians" the settlers "soon began to differ in their actions and manners from the Europeans and old Swedes and began to resemble the Indians. At the arrival of the English," Kalm said, "the Swedes to a large extent were not much better than savages."

The Slash & Burn method of agriculture was even adopted by the natives; And the "Susquehanna" even allied themselves with the Swedish and declared a protectorate as the protectors of the Swedes.

Interesting, I didn't have an idea about this Swedish and Finnish emigrants so early on. It was amazing how well adopted these axe wielding people to local wilderness. Perhaps it is not surprise when we are dealing with Europeans of most ANE and WHG proportions. If it would have been done by Sardinian emigrants I were shocked, lol.
 
I think you made some great arguments on this thread but the way you express them is wrong.


What I have noticed your intolerance is like


When politics are the subject your usually tolerant only to people who agree with you or anything that fits your agenda(openly against negative prejudice towards homosexuals but not negative prejudice towards religious people) and call it tolerance. You can't stand people who don't have your political agenda which explains many of your outbursts, and you accuse them of being the only ones with intolerance. You are also commonly intolerant towards people for reasons outside of politics like their personality(i.e.,Echetlaeus).
I stated before that I'm intolerant towards intolerant people, and don't dream that it will change ever. I have no respect, tolerance, friendship or any fuzzy feeling towards them and they better avoid me or there will be war.
Having said that, do you think Echetlaeus could be posting here if I were really intolerant?

ou should be tolerant to everyone no matter what(there are some acceptations). If you dis agree with someone, they are dis respectful to you, you think there are errors in the way they think, etc., you should give your opinion in a respectful way. You should want to improve them in the areas you think they need improvement, not be their enemy, and not have a goal to destroying them.
I guess he lost my respect some time ago. Unfortunately, not like Angela, I don't have liberty to use Ignore button and don't read his crap anymore. Someone needs to keep an order here.
 
The Scandinavians were hunter-gatherers for so long they probably felt a kinship with the Natives.
 
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Interesting, I didn't have an idea about this Swedish and Finnish emigrants so early on. It was amazing how well adopted these axe wielding people to local wilderness. Perhaps it is not surprise when we are dealing with Europeans of most ANE and WHG proportions. If it would have been done by Sardinian emigrants I were shocked, lol.

Well even the Sardinians have ~17% WHG and at one point (within the TRB frame) Sardinian-like peoples (Neolithic Farmers) interacted just fine with the SHG (Scandinavian Hunter-Gatherers) for Gök2 was 12% more hunter-gatherer admixed than Ötzi; Plus the entire archaeological spectrum that goes along with the TRB culture in Scandinavia (all pre-Indo-European of course);

The Swedes and Finns of New Sweden are most def. a good example on how things could have also been i.e. an alternative model during the colonial era; Not only did they understood and adapt to the nature but also to the native peoples; Learning their language and customs to the point they were considered as 'brothers' by the natives;
 
I stated before that I'm intolerant towards intolerant people, and don't dream that it will change ever. I have no respect, tolerance, friendship or any fuzzy feeling towards them and they better avoid me or there will be war.
Having said that, do you think Echetlaeus could be posting here if I were really intolerant?

I mainly dis agree with you but some situations I would agree. I guess for most situations we will have to agree to dis agree.

I guess he lost my respect some time ago. Unfortunately, not like Angela, I don't have liberty to use Ignore button and don't read his crap anymore. Someone needs to keep an order here.

I don't understand why you dis like Echetlaeus so much.

This is where I strongly dis agree. Echetlaeus is not a rabble-rouser, and I think your definition of an 'enemy" and an "intolerant person" is too wide and includes mostly people who honestly want to find the truth but think in a way differently than you. This mind set in people is discrimination in disguise, and many people with power in the western world use it in an attempt to destroy the right.
 
When the British and their descendants in North America conquered and took the land of Native Americans (a process that has happened repeatedly throughout world history), they didn't think the Native people were ready to become part of their society, because of the racist assumptions that most of the British had.

Do you really think the Native people were ready to become part of their society?
A few maybe, most were not, and above all, were not interested. They just wanted to persue their traditional lifestyle, which was not compatible with the lifestyle of the colonisers.

And - beside the subject of this thread - I'm fed off with those who blame racism for whatever goes wrong.
 
Do you really think the Native people were ready to become part of their society?
A few maybe, most were not, and above all, were not interested. They just wanted to persue their traditional lifestyle, which was not compatible with the lifestyle of the colonisers.

And - beside the subject of this thread - I'm fed off with those who blame racism for whatever goes wrong.

I think one needs to consider the level of social development of Europeans at the time of first contact with Natives. Most Europeans were illiterate or semi-literate farmers or landowners with very narrow horizons, and the more educated part of the social and political elite was a very narrow group. Many of the people who first came to North America were traders and adventurers, some of them failed members of the social elites but others very rough individuals. And the farmers who first settled in North America would generally have been poorly educated, probably with narrower horizons than most of the Native people they met. One advantage they had was iron tools and firearms, but the main advantage for settlers was the initial lack of immunity by Natives to European diseases - that really thinned the ranks of the Native people. But during the early period, it wouldn't have been difficult for the two cultures to merge if either side had wished it - remember that most Native people in eastern North America were subsistence farmers, just like most Europeans, but without the same tools or livestock. I doubt if either side was interested in integrating, for the most part, but in the southeastern U.S. there were some Native tribes, especially the Cherokee, who adopted European ways and tried to become part of American society. They were forcibly removed to the west, with great loss of life. It's one of the most shameful episodes in American history. And here in Canada, although British and later Canadian authorities did try to accommodate Native people to some extent, as long as they didn't prevent white expansion, many white individuals were quite hostile to Native people and in some parts of the country they still are.

Of course, Native people aren't blameless, and they're the ones who now cling to the reserve system, and they often have a very negative attitude toward white people. Racism unfortunately seems to be part of the human condition. We tend to favour our tribe, however it's defined, and to fear "the other", however it's defined. And that less than admirable human trait has certainly been a major factor in relationships between Natives and others here in North America.
 
I'll restate it for him.

Unlike the Bronze Age Greeks, who probably murdered or enslaved the people that they conquered, the British created a reserve system where Natives could keep their language and culture, and provided some economic support, a practice that the Canadian government has continued. So, while most of us have the freedom to work or starve, Natives are guaranteed some degree of financial support by the government.

Oh, what a scholar!
 
I stated before that I'm intolerant towards intolerant people, and don't dream that it will change ever. I have no respect, tolerance, friendship or any fuzzy feeling towards them and they better avoid me or there will be war.

Having said that, do you think Echetlaeus could be posting here if I were really intolerant?

I guess he lost my respect some time ago. Unfortunately, not like Angela, I don't have liberty to use Ignore button and don't read his crap anymore. Someone needs to keep an order here.

The ignore button system has a flaw from my point of view; if I start reading the activity thread before I sign in, I'm done for, because then the beginning of the post shows up. Often, I then don't have the self-discipline to "ignore" it on my own. For the sake of my blood pressure, I am now trying to remember to sign in before I look at it. :) Poor you, you have to wade through it all: the spams, the silly, the uninformed, the propaganda, and the outright malicious. I don't envy you.

Of course, "ignoring" certain posters then means that misinformation can go unchallenged, and we all know from Dr. Goebel's, that master propagandist, that a lie repeated often enough will be accepted as truth. It doesn't even have to be a lie...it can just be error, or bias, or adherence to one's published opinions because one's reputation depends on it. So, that's the dilemma.
 
The ignore button system has a flaw from my point of view; if I start reading the activity thread before I sign in, I'm done for, because then the beginning of the post shows up.
My browser appears to be signed in all the time, or at least when I open Eupedia Forum page. Perhaps you want to mark "Remember me" option at the sign in page. Should be located close to User and Password.

I wonder, if you blocked someone, can you still see the blocked person writing when others are citing them (blocked person) in their posts?
 
Well even the Sardinians have ~17% WHG and at one point (within the TRB frame) Sardinian-like peoples (Neolithic Farmers) interacted just fine with the SHG (Scandinavian Hunter-Gatherers) for Gök2 was 12% more hunter-gatherer admixed than Ötzi; Plus the entire archaeological spectrum that goes along with the TRB culture in Scandinavia (all pre-Indo-European of course);
I don't have doubts that we can find few Sardinians who love wilderness and could pull it off, however to do such switch to hunter lifestyle en masse only could be done by people of North. I think we have to look with statistical eye on such phenomena.
 
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My browser appears to be signed in all the time, or at least when I open Eupedia Forum page. Perhaps you want to mark "Remember me" option at the sign in page. Should be located close to User and Password.

I wonder, if you blocked someone, can you still see the blocked person writing when others are citing them (blocked person) in their posts?

Yes, you can, unfortunately. :)
 
I think one needs to consider the level of social development of Europeans at the time of first contact with Natives. Most Europeans were illiterate or semi-literate farmers or landowners with very narrow horizons, and the more educated part of the social and political elite was a very narrow group. Many of the people who first came to North America were traders and adventurers, some of them failed members of the social elites but others very rough individuals. And the farmers who first settled in North America would generally have been poorly educated, probably with narrower horizons than most of the Native people they met. One advantage they had was iron tools and firearms, but the main advantage for settlers was the initial lack of immunity by Natives to European diseases - that really thinned the ranks of the Native people. But during the early period, it wouldn't have been difficult for the two cultures to merge if either side had wished it - remember that most Native people in eastern North America were subsistence farmers, just like most Europeans, but without the same tools or livestock. I doubt if either side was interested in integrating, for the most part, but in the southeastern U.S. there were some Native tribes, especially the Cherokee, who adopted European ways and tried to become part of American society. They were forcibly removed to the west, with great loss of life. It's one of the most shameful episodes in American history. And here in Canada, although British and later Canadian authorities did try to accommodate Native people to some extent, as long as they didn't prevent white expansion, many white individuals were quite hostile to Native people and in some parts of the country they still are.

Of course, Native people aren't blameless, and they're the ones who now cling to the reserve system, and they often have a very negative attitude toward white people. Racism unfortunately seems to be part of the human condition. We tend to favour our tribe, however it's defined, and to fear "the other", however it's defined. And that less than admirable human trait has certainly been a major factor in relationships between Natives and others here in North America.

Very well said, Aberdeen.

I do think, however, that the case of the Cherokee is proof of the fact that it wouldn't have much mattered whether the Native Americans in larger numbers tried to adapt to "European" culture. The increasing numbers of European settlers wanted their rich lands, and they took them. Once the flood gates to European immigration opened and the massive increase in population began, it was over. What happened to the advanced civilizations of Mexico and Peru is another example. The Spanish wanted their wealth and their lands, and thanks to their iron weapons and the diseases they happened to carry and for which the natives had no immunity, they got them. The same thing happened with the Portuguese in Brazil. Nor, in my opinion, should we expect any civilization to take kindly to "integration" at the point of the gun of invaders.

I also don't see the reservation system as at all motivated by any benign intent, unless one were to say that not setting out deliberately to exterminate these people is benign. (And yes, at least the the Native Americans in North America weren't enslaved, as were the Amerindians of the Caribbean and Mexico and South America.) The Sioux provide a pertinent example of how the reservation system worked in practice, I think. They had reservation lands in the Black Hills of the Dakotas, but then gold was discovered there. So, they were forcibly moved to barren lands incapable of sustaining agriculture even had they wished to adopt it. Or, take the Indians of the American southwest. Has anyone ever been on those reservations for any length of time? It's heartbreaking. There are no sources of water, for God's sake. It's a desert. How were they supposed to adopt agriculture? And the Dawes Act was, in my opinion, a joke. Those poor people had no concept of individual land ownership. Within a few years, most of them had sold their land to Europeans for a pittance.

Just from a legal standpoint, the treaties that were signed with the Native Americans weren't worth the paper they were written on, as they were routinely abrogated. As for the reservation system, all it meant was that the Native Americans were progressively shunted on to poorer and poorer land, land incapable of sustaining any kind of agriculture even had they wished to adopt it.

As for the Indian schools as an "integration" tool, the record is very mixed, in my opinion. I will admit that the impulse was benign in that there was a desire to integrate them into "modern" culture. However, when the children stubbornly clung to the language and the culture of their parents, and the dormitory system was enforced, we're talking about a different thing. Forcibly tearing children away from their parents, and sending them to schools where they were routinely whipped for speaking in their native languages is not the way to win hearts and minds.

In terms of integration, the best results were probably those from the Mission system which was used to some extent in the west, including California. Of course, it could be said that in that case the Amerindians were little better than serfs.

I'm sure you're familiar with all these sources, but for those who aren't:
The Cherokee Nation and the Trail of Tears:
http://www.amazon.com/Cherokee-Peng...d_sim_b_1?ie=UTF8&refRID=0H3VFWETMV35EAX61N7R

The Trail of Tears and the Forcible Removal of the Five Civilized Tribes:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Trail-Tea...d_sim_b_4?ie=UTF8&refRID=0H3VFWETMV35EAX61N7R

Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, primarily about the Sioux, forever changed the way that I view this issue.
http://www.amazon.com/Bury-My-Heart...d_sim_b_3?ie=UTF8&refRID=0H3VFWETMV35EAX61N7R

There are also some excellent videos and movies:
http://www.amazon.com/Trail-Tears-A...d_sim_b_2?ie=UTF8&refRID=0H3VFWETMV35EAX61N7R

The last two chapters of Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee made into an Emmy Award winning documentary narrated by Aidan Quinn.
http://www.amazon.com/Bury-My-Heart...d_sim_b_3?ie=UTF8&refRID=1HPWAEHJPE4DN8CT1BG8

One of the finest and most honest movies ever made, in my opinion, about the encounter between Europeans and Native Americans: The Mission. It also has an extraordinary musical score by Ennio Morricone and great performances by Robert DeNiro, Jeremy Irons, and Aidan Quinn.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mission_(1986_film)

As an antidote, just so that we don't romanticize Amerindian culture: Black Robe
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Robe_(film)

Of course, it goes without saying that this kind of behavior shouldn't be laid entirely at the door of "Europeans", much less solely "Anglo-Saxon" Europeans. This is, unfortunately, to one degree or another, human behavior.
 
Just a word about "racism".

If some group invades my country, and tries to kill me and take my land, is it "racism" to hate them? Now, if I am a descendent of those people, and I hate the descendents of those invaders in general without any indication that they share those attitudes, is it "racism" to hate them? Most people would probably say yes. On the other hand, if I find that the modern day descendents as a general rule share those "attitudes", is it "racism" to hate them?

I know that this is perhaps annoyingly abstract, but once modern examples are used, logic tends to go out the window, to be replaced by emotion, and that's as true for me as it is for anyone else.

I try to reserve the term "racism" for a belief that other "ethno groups" are inherently inferior to one's own, and therefore it is acceptable, or perhaps even admirable to disrespect them, to violate their human rights if one has the power to do so, and even to, in extreme situations, attempt to exterminate them as a "people".
 

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