01-10-2014, 06:39 AM
Imperialism is absolutely not "a European Concept". The Iroquois were the political giants east of the Mississippi and were steadily overtaking and subsuming their neighbors at the time that Europeans arrived. There were neighboring tribes that were under their thumb who essentially payed tribute. The book "The League of the Iroquois" published in 1851 casually reported that early in their history as a nation they fought a war that sort of defined them. Seems they had a beef with some people called the Adirondaks who had been giving them grief. No prob. They killed them off in the end, as in no more Adirondaks. Of course political correctness at that time allowed them to be proud of this part of their history. Also, Native Americans were all genetically more closely related to each other than Europeans typically were to other Europeans, so these people weren't of a different race. Phew, that was close! They nearly committed genocide! Fortunately due to this technicality it was only fratricide.
The Iroquois invented a system that worked. Gang up on your enemies. Well, reinvented one, for the 1,000th time. Then the United States invented it for the 1,001st time when we patterned ourselves after them. See, it's all in how you view things.
The Comanches, the Sioux, the Iroquois, and many more killed people to take their stuff. Kamehameha killed lots of other Hawaiians to take their stuff. Anthropological studies of grave sites in the plains from the 1300s, long before significant European contact, showed how shockingly prevalent scalping was. 60% of victims were men. That means 40% were women and children. Survival after scalping was not all that unusual and was evident from healing of the bone where the scalping weapon had scored it. One grave contained the body of a young boy who had survived scalping only to be killed in a later raid.
Pick the most sleazy example of human misbehavior by which you would measure the evils of imperialism. Your heros from the past? Been there, done that.
The Iroquois invented a system that worked. Gang up on your enemies. Well, reinvented one, for the 1,000th time. Then the United States invented it for the 1,001st time when we patterned ourselves after them. See, it's all in how you view things.
The Comanches, the Sioux, the Iroquois, and many more killed people to take their stuff. Kamehameha killed lots of other Hawaiians to take their stuff. Anthropological studies of grave sites in the plains from the 1300s, long before significant European contact, showed how shockingly prevalent scalping was. 60% of victims were men. That means 40% were women and children. Survival after scalping was not all that unusual and was evident from healing of the bone where the scalping weapon had scored it. One grave contained the body of a young boy who had survived scalping only to be killed in a later raid.
Pick the most sleazy example of human misbehavior by which you would measure the evils of imperialism. Your heros from the past? Been there, done that.