It seems like you are trying to avoid the question. What gives indigenous peoples any moral high ground over later settlers? The indigenous* conquered land from each other and moved - an obvious fact which too often gets left out of the conversation. Then, the Europeans came along and possessed the lands for themselves. And you'll find the same story repeated on every corner of the earth. Continual occupation is just not a thing.
* As I've mentioned in another comment, true "indigenous" Alaskans are no more, having been replaced by an unrelated group of people in a later migration to the Americas.
You are brushing off the systematic, mass genocide of native people and dispossession of their land by essentially saying that its happened throughout history, that it’s normal. I’m not really sure how this argument justifies anything. The colonization of America is recent. NA indigenous people are still alive and have special designated land that they were forced to move to. They weren’t even given citizenship by default until 1924–less than one hundred years ago
> continual occupation is just not a thing
I’m not sure where you are getting this. At what point is an occupation over? When the genocide is complete? That hasn’t even happened yet, NA indigenous people are still alive. Do you just expect they to submit, assimilate, and abandon their culture completely?
>I’m not really sure how this argument justifies anything.
My argument is not that europeans are in the right because they inflicted upon others what those others inflicted upon still others. My argument is that nobody has a clean record. If your position is that what happened to natives is wrong, then what the natives did to each other is also wrong.
>I’m not sure where you are getting this. At what point is an occupation over?
What I'm saying is you will be hard pressed to find a territory that has been continually occupied by one group since the arrival of humans. At some point each territory was probably wrested from some prior group via the usual means. Exceptions apply. Isolated islands come to mind.
And you're brushing off all the conflict that Native Americans brought to bear against white settlers (do read some accounts of Apache or Comanche raids some time), and the concessions given to Native Americans after they were conquered (namely their own sovereign nations and plenty of carveouts to hunting and other laws so they can continue to practice their culture unhindered).
They "weren't even given citizenship" because they were considered citizens of their own sovereign nations, not because the US gov't were acting maliciously. For this reason they also weren't required to register for Selective Service to be drafted into WWI (despite this, many non-citizens waived their exemption and registered anyway - maybe they didn't hate the country as much as some might suppose).
I don't know what you expect the US gov't to do when attempts at peaceful coexistence between white settlers and the natives tribes failed. Run away as far as the Apache would chase them (to the Atlantic)? No, they went to war as needed, and even allied with other tribes in doing so.
> And you're brushing off all the conflict that Native Americans brought to bear against white settlers
Given that you're the first person to bring this up, accusing your parent for "brushing this off" is not coming across as an attempt to have a good faith conversation.
> and the concessions given to Native Americans after they were conquered (namely their own sovereign nations and plenty of carveouts to hunting and other laws so they can continue to practice their culture unhindered).
The US often didn't honor the terms of these concessions.
The parent painted a picture of a one-sided, contemplative genocide when it was far from it. Neither was it a conflict uniquely faced by the United States - read up on the history of Mexico and the Apache for instance. If you want a short biopic version just read about Geronimo's life and what he thought about Mexicans.
> The US often didn't honor the terms of these concessions.
I agree, not in all cases. But before we could talk reasonably about this we needed to swing the conversation back from the idea that the US gov't was operating a land-stealing, genociding steamroller (and for apparently no reason at all, no less).
> The parent painted a picture of a one-sided, contemplative genocide when it was far from it.
No he didn't. To put it bluntly, you're reading things that aren't there. We're all welcome to our interpretations of comments, but untentatively asserting your interpretation is a component of "not having a good faith conversation".
> Neither was it a conflict uniquely faced by the United States - read up on the history of Mexico and the Apache for instance.
And why the need to point this out, when the comment you responded to never suggested otherwise? There is, in fact, implicit acceptance of other genocides in the comment.
> But before we could talk reasonably about this we needed to swing the conversation back from the idea that the US gov't was operating a land-stealing, genociding steamroller (and for apparently no reason at all, no less).
Who exactly are you talking about here? The comment in question never implied "apparently no reason at all".
You're arguing against a nonexistent entity. And the point of my responding to you is to get you back to the reality of the thread, not an imaginary conversation that others here cannot see.
Of course he/she did. The entire premise is based on the notion that the nations before the US were somehow just and the US was not, despite the fact that they were all built on just as much violence and conquering.
"It's so obvious I cannot point where the person said it".
> The entire premise is based on the notion that the nations before the US were somehow just and the US was not
The commenter in question both implicitly and explicitly has said that is not the premise.
I can only repeat what I said to the other person:
> You're arguing against a nonexistent entity. And the point of my responding to you is to get you back to the reality of the thread, not an imaginary conversation that others here cannot see.
> the entire premise is based on the notion that the nations before the US were somehow just and the US was not
No, it’s not. It’s based on the premise that massacres and the legislative dispossession of native lands is wrong. I don’t see why this is a controversial stance
> despite the fact that they were all built in just as much violence and conquering
This is a false equivalency. There was never a single group which built a transcontinental empire, killing, displacing, and ultimately forcing assimilation upon all other groups using organized state violence, all in a few hundred years. The tribal violence in some regions on North America just isn’t the same thing and doesn’t justify the genocide. Even if it was the same thing, it still doesn’t justify genocide. Justifying genocide with genocide doesn’t really make much sense to me
Random comment - I assume your username is an attempt at wit, but even I did a double take
Suffice to say it was complicated. I was reading about the tribes that aligned with the Confederacy and the fate of black slaves owned by tribes post-Civil War.
Just because the genocide didn't fully succeed in exterminating every last Native American doesn't mean it somehow wasn't a "systematic mass genocide", for the same reason that just because Nazi Germany didn't successfully wipe every last Jew off the face of the Earth doesn't mean that wasn't a "systematic mass genocide", or how just because the VRS didn't exterminate every last Bosniak doesn't mean the Bosnian genocide wasn't a genocide.
Like, there's nothing mixed about that message at all. The United States systematically displaced or outright exterminated countless Native Americans, and yet some did survive and will hopefully have a chance to recover from that genocide and reclaim some of their lost lands.
Nazi Germany did wipe out almost every last jew in the areas they controlled, in the ~4 years of the Holocaust. 90% of Poland's 3 million jews were killed.
After centuries of supposed genocide, the US Native American population is over 6 million, which is probably similar to what it was before colonization.
The biggest massacre I'm aware of¹ in the US is the 146 killed at Wounded Knee in 1890. The US had complete military superiority, and could have killed everyone at will, but mostly didn't. If this is a genocide, it's a very poorly executed one.
What makes this a bit confusing is that first contact did often result in 90% of the native population dying in both North and South America. But that was an unintentional and unforeseen effect of old world diseases hitting new world populations that had completely unprepared immune systems. Maybe the biggest "random" event in world history!
> Had nobody stopped Germany I don't see a reason why they wouldn't have succeeded.
Barring complete world domination they would have no chance of doing so, given the existence of Jews beyond Germany's reach (including those who escaped the Holocaust). Yet, we still consider that a systemic mass genocide.
Same deal with the US and its eradication of in some cases entire tribes; just because the US stopped engaging in systemic mass genocide (for whatever reason) or otherwise didn't succeed in killing or sterilizing every last native doesn't mean my country didn't engage in systemic mass genocide at all.
Hell, even by the incorrectly-narrow definition you seem to be using, there are quite a few tribes that are nowadays entirely extinct, e.g. the Karankawa people in Texas and the Yahi people in California.
You're putting words in my mouth as a red herring.
I pointed out how practically everyone is living on conquered land - yes, even the native americans who wrested it from each other, though you cast shade on this inconvenient fact. So does whose.land, which rationalizes the overlapping amerindian borders like so: "Often, boundaries between territories overlap because the Indigenous Nations were continuously sharing the land and negotiating agreements through their own diplomatic and legal systems." Hmmn...No mention of war or genocide - everyone just got along diplomatically apparently.
No you're trying to give settlers a pass on amoral behaviour.
It doesn't matter what conflicts indigenous nations may have entered into (and to be clear, you are completely speculating that they did). It does not justify the behaviour of the settlers that came after.
Effectively your argument is a childlike "well he did it therefore I should be able to". Have higher standards.
* As I've mentioned in another comment, true "indigenous" Alaskans are no more, having been replaced by an unrelated group of people in a later migration to the Americas.