Re: That Royal Connection


T.M. Sommers wrote:
Indians (they are no more (or less) native than the rest of us;
their ancestors just immigrated earlier) did tend to favor the
British, but not very actively. They really would have preferred
for both sides to go away.

Using your logic, all of us are merely East Africans who wandered away
at different times. Should we call ourselves "Africans" in today's
world (the question being addressed to people not living in Africa
today)? Leaving Native accounts aside and focusing only on the current
state of archaeological theory, evidence from Pedra Furada, Brazil,
places humans in Brazil about 48,000 years ago. Chile Verde, Chile,
provides a date of about 24,000 years. If you are going to cite the old
10-12,000 year limit, that was banished some years ago. Let's look at
Europe 48,000 years ago. Seems like modern humans (Africans) were still
encroaching onto Neanderthal territory. So, then, how long must a
population be in place to not be "just immigrants"? Perhaps East Africa
is the only place in the world without an immigrant population
(although the modern humans presently there are probably not a direct
line from palaeolithic populations in the same place).


Which isn't that bad (relatively speaking, that is) when you
consider that Europe did not have large and powerful sections
that were pro-slavery, and didn't have large slave populations
that would have to be taken care of somehow. It's easy to be
sanctimonious when there is little cost.

Perhaps not in EUrope - but certainly in its colonies. My own Scottish
great-great-grandfather was a slaveholder in the British West Indies -
not a point of pride, but one of fact. He left Carriacou for Canada in
1840 because he was no longer allowed to have slaves work his
plantation. When you add Spanish slavery in Mexico, Central America and
South America, the picture of "New" World slavery under European
authority is massive. In fact, Columbus is personally credited with
beginning a trans-Atlantic slave trade and enslaved "Indians" to help
reimburse the Spanish Crown.

And don't forget that the US included the abolition of the slave
trade in the 1787 Constitution (to take effect in 1808), long
before Europe did it.

But slavery continued in the north and the south until the Emancipation
Proclamation in 1862. When you speak of the enslavement of Native
Americans, it continued in the west, including California, until the
1870s. Children were kidnapped from their homes to be placed in the
homes of wealthy people as workers.

Oh, please. Give me a break. It was the English who began
grabbing land from the Indians. It was the English who
established slavery in North America and the islands. As for
westward expansion, Britain ruled Canada until 1867, and the
English queen still rules it. Are you going to tell me that the
western provinces are inhabited solely by Indians? Shall we go
into Britain's record in the rest of the world?

The difference is that England wanted to do its stealing in an
organized manner. The colonists wanted to just rush in and grab what
they could. Native American populations were obviously more willing to
deal with a nation that at least gave lip service to respecting law and
order. I don't think anyone is suggesting that English colonization did
not include genocide and deceit. But the "great experiment" of the US
was openly genocidal as a matter of policy (using the UN definition of
genocide that is not only the outright killing of a targeted population
but includes measures to prevent births and the involuntary
indoctrination of children outside of their native culture). Was every
English person, even every English leader, a person of law and order?
Of course not. Was every colonist a raving madman? Of course not. Was
every "Indian" a helpless victim? Of course not. As for Britain's
history, ask the Native people of Tasmania - if you can find one. -
Bronwen

.

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