Quote:
Originally Posted by lifer
Most Natives are infinately better off right now than they would have been if Europeans had never shown up in North America. I dont' see too many of them drinking untreated water, I've seen many getting medical treatment in clinics and hospitals, I've passed them onthe highway when they're driving cars rather than horses...the list goes on an on of what they have because of the European settlement, but all they do is want more. It's sickening, and their continued walking around demanding handouts isn't doing much to challenge the stereotypes around their people.
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Ah, the ethnocentric armchair historian arises into the debate.
'Infinately better off'? I wish people were as shocked by this post as they were by my (hoped) obvious sarcasm. This is so catagorically false I really had to reread it to make sure I wasn't getting caught in my own sarcasm trap. But, as I now believe this to be a serious post, let me offer a rebuttal.
Your assertion that Natives are in 'infinately' better condition than they were 500 years ago can be interpreted on many levels. The tone of this post reflects primarily the perceived advantages of bringing natives from the 'stone age' to the 'iron age' as another poster so eloquently put it. What are the perceived advantages of such upward mobility of civliziation? Do they attain new economic advantages, types of education and strong governmental bodies founded on the begining ideals of democracy?
If that was the case, why did so many Europeans
flee European colonies to join the neighbouring tribes? This isn't one or two people we're talking about here, we're talking thousands of settlers in a short period of time preceding the start of the American Indian Wars. In the words of Benjamin Franklin (who would later use the Iroquois Five Nations as the basis for a proposal for a Union, which became the America we know today),
"No European who has tasted Savage Life can afterwards bear to live in our societies." 'Indianization' was so tempting, that various european societies made it punishable by death, including Pilgrim settlements.
Natives societies were so advanced, that captured tales of women tell of the envy for the equality native women enjoyed in their societies. Testimonials of Explorers (and the european societies that interacted with them for hundreds of years) tell of the non-hierarchical structure of native society. Though there were natives tribes where chiefdom was largely hereditary, the meritocracy and egalitarianism of their societies was far more advanced than European societies of the day, and one could argue with plenty of amunition, that they were more meritocratic and egalitarian than our present north american society. It was in the 1740s that the Iroquois nation even suggested to these selfish, bitter colonies to form a union so that trade and interaction would be easier. Congress even wrote, in a letter to the, at this point, Six nations, that, "The Six Nations are a wise people,"..."Let us harken to their council and teach our children to follow it."
I don't think it's even worth explaining the declining state of the health of natives physically or emotionally. Prior to European contact, North American natives were the healthiest humans had ever been up to that point, and the healthiest they've been since. That's not something that is up for debate. You're clearly wrong, and I really wish you would read up on north american native history. Read some Ward Churchill.