Do you think manifest destiny is just another way of saying unjustifiable aggression?

[Q Classic]

if you'd read my initial post, you'd see what i said about this matter:

in the end, it doesn't matter. what are you going to do? roll back everything we did? are you going to donate and give your time and money to the millions of native peoples who are living below the poverty line?

**** happens. it's a pity the natives didn't have more sophisticated weapons to fight back, but progress will always crush someone else. life, unfortunately, is a zero-sum game.

[Kidicious]

Originally posted by Albert Speer
yes but kidicious... the Mexicans asked Americans to settle in Texas. They advertised it and gave them real cheap land. The only condition was that the Americans in Texas had to convert to Catholicism which sparked anger and led to the Texas rebellion

Did they ask them to come and annex it? No

[PeteH]

'Civilization' is all about seperating humanity from nature, it says that we've taken control of out 'destiny' and can make our goals what we want. We don't kill people because we're destined to, we kill them because we choose to.

This is perhaps the most educational comment I've ever seen on this board, for the amount of truth contained in few words.

So many on this post (and in general) mistake the history of civilized humans as all of human history, or at least the only important part. The growth of civilization will meet the only fate possible - extinction. It will be a brief blip of human history, surrounded by hundreds of thousands of years of people living within the rest of the earthly community (unless in its dying breaths we manage to irradiate or otherwise make unsuitable for humans the whole planet.) The only real question is how much more damage civilization will do before it dies to the rest of the ecosystem.

On a more timely topic related to the subject:
http://www.freespeech.org/fsitv/html...umbusday.shtml

has several good programs up today, but you should especially watch the Rocks at Whiskey Trench (it's 2 parts, each about an hour) about halfway down, especially those who like to think all these horrible things are in the past (and this was in Canada even, good thing it wasn't the US or it probably would have been bullets instead of rocks

[Kidicious]

Originally posted by Albert Speer
and in any event, your usage of words like "decimating extermination" to describe western expansion proves my point. This was not some fiendish, Hitlerian plot to destroy the 'red-skins'.

Actually, there were serious attempts at complete genocide. In many instances the natives were starving on the reservations and would steal food. The Anglos would then hunt them down and kill them. It wasn't planned like that by the government, but the government can't claim ignorance of the effects of their policies towards the natives.

[Arrian]

"Manifest Destiny," as JohnT pointed out, isn't exactly a term currently used. It's a term that was used over 100 years ago. Now we learn about it in history class. And I think it's pretty obvious that, with the benifit of 20-20 hindsight it was a bullshit justification for aggression (merely one of many). Was it right? No. Same as the imperialist policies of the other major powers at the time. I guess the only difference would be whether or not those other powers had similar mumbo-jumbo justifications for it (methinks they probably did).

-Arrian

[General Ludd]

Originally posted by Kidicious

It wasn't planned like that by the government

In some cases it was. They tried to hunt Buffalo to extinction because the natives relied on the herds to live.

[Al B. Sure!]

kidicious:

huh? the Mexican gov't actively sought Americans to settle in texas. Later, the Mexican gov't forced the Texans to convert to Catholicism which sparked the Texan rebellion. The Texas fought its independence for the right of free worship

[MrFun]

This thread is interesting in that it was initiated while I am in the middle of my choice for one of my research projects -- the historiographical changes in studies of the Western frontier.

One of the authors I'm including of course, is that of Frederick Jackson Turner. I have two other authors of different time periods of the 20th century.

[Kuciwalker]

What's the point of this thread?

[Odin]

Originally posted by Albert Speer
kidicious:

huh? the Mexican gov't actively sought Americans to settle in texas. Later, the Mexican gov't forced the Texans to convert to Catholicism which sparked the Texan rebellion. The Texas fought its independence for the right of free worship

No, the anglo immigrants gave a promise they would obey the laws of Mexico. When the Mexicans tried to enfoce the promise the americans rebeled and used the "natural law" excuse. I veiw the guys at the Alamo as oppurtunistic hypocrites, not heroes. Converting to catholicism was part of the origional agreement, not something the Mexicans tacked on later.

Skywalker, we are bashing the US's hypernationalists.

*waits for Sloww*

[Kuciwalker]

Easy solution to the problem: yes, Manifest Destiny sucked; no, we can't do anything about it; why bother?

[MrFun]

Skywalker -- so the study of history in general is a waste of time??

We should never try to come to understand past historical events or developments??

[Kuciwalker]

No - it's just getting emotional over it is rather pointless.

[MrFun]

I agree with you on that -- no use in bemoaning about Amerindians losses and portraying them as having had idyllic, utopian societies before Columbus came.

But that does not mean that we cannot study and take an interest in Amerindian cultures, and their perspective of the westward expansion.

There is also no good use in whitewashing the history of westward expansion, keeping in mind that atrocities came from both sides. But also remembering that white settlers were anything but civilized in most cases towards Amerindians.

[Ramo]

huh? the Mexican gov't actively sought Americans to settle in texas. Later, the Mexican gov't forced the Texans to convert to Catholicism which sparked the Texan rebellion. The Texas fought its independence for the right of free worship

That's totally false. The initial Anglo settlers were asked to convert to Catholicism before they could settle (which they didn't), but that was pretty much the end of it. Mexcio never tried to forcefully convert the settlers.

Actually, Texas fought its independence because Santa Anna pulled of a centralist coup against his liberal VP in '35, which provoked wide-scale rebellion in Mexico. Texas was simply the most successful of the rebelling provinces.

Your view is about as twisted as most textbooks. Anglos moved into those states and then rebelled. It's not like the Mexicans rebelled and joined the US.

Certainly not in California, but Mexicans did play an important part in the Texas rebellion. For instance, the first Texan VP was a Mexican.

[Dr Strangelove]

Originally posted by Odin


No, the anglo immigrants gave a promise they would obey the laws of Mexico. When the Mexicans tried to enfoce the promise the americans rebeled and used the "natural law" excuse. I veiw the guys at the Alamo as oppurtunistic hypocrites, not heroes. Converting to catholicism was part of the origional agreement, not something the Mexicans tacked on later.

Skywalker, we are bashing the US's hypernationalists.

*waits for Sloww*

There was also the little matter of the abolition of slavery expeditied by Santa Anna. Santa Anna had been born a slave an grew up in a Mexico that had freed itself from Spain but still permitted slavery. Santa Anna led a revolt, seized control of the government, and outlawed slavery. The resulting civil war was excessively bloody. When land owners resisted his army Santa Anna would order his buglers to play the tune immortalized in the Disney version of "The Alamo" to signal to his troops that no mercy was to be given to the resistance. Santa Anna left Texas alone for years simply because he was busy crushing the opposition in Mexico. Eventually he demanded that the "Texicans" give up their slaves also. Mind you Santa Anna also had a reputation for exacting revenge even after the landowners had volunatarily freed their slaves.

[Ramo]

Mexico abolished slavery (in the provinces excluding Texas) years before Santa Anna siezed power. Santa Anna never tried to abolish slavery in Texas.

Santa Anna seized power mostly because the church was afraid of property seizures and landlords were afraid of land reform that were occuring under the gov't, so they backed him in his coup against his VP.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Albert Speer
kidicious:

huh? the Mexican gov't actively sought Americans to settle in texas. Later, the Mexican gov't forced the Texans to convert to Catholicism which sparked the Texan rebellion. The Texas fought its independence for the right of free worship

As Ramo, has already pointed out, this is false. Man, beat me to the punch.

The intentions of the Texans were haf-pure, but they had nothing to do with religion and more to do with divorcing themselves form the Santa Anna dictatorship, and keeping their slaves.

As far as I could tell, Manifet Destiny WAS the term used at the time (1840's and early 50's mainly), like in the whole Oregon dispute with the UK.

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Ted Striker
man this topic is soo freshman in college trying to reconcile his new world view with his old one

let's talk about lesbians or something

Why, do they have some land we can steal?

[Sikander]

Originally posted by St Leo
The point isn't that the land you are living on is stolen. The point is that you can stop the cycle of theft and counter-theft NOW!

There is no way I'm going to let some redskinned heathen take my property. It's time to stop the cycle of theft!

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Kidicious


Your view is about as twisted as most textbooks. Anglos moved into those states and then rebelled. It's not like the Mexicans rebelled and joined the US.

What the fvck are Anglos?

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Q Cubed

Quote:

today though, all we hear is of how evil white men stole from the indians. we need some balance.

well, as you say that it provided no benefit whatsoever to the natives, how was forcing them onto reservations after years of decimating extermination not evil?

and imperialism, by and large, was bad.
half the ethnic conflicts in africa could probably have been avoided had the euros not created such arbitrary and artificial borders, forcing different and mutually hostile ethnicities in one "country"? or the end result of british rule in india, which is a rather unstable region in south asia, created by way of millions of hindus and muslims dead, and continuing poverty in much of the region?

i'd like to know one instance where imperialism did good for the natives.

the natives over here certainly got a raw deal.

Half the ethnic conflicts in Africa started before the Europeans got there. The Europeans brought much more peace than war to Africa, though if you fought the Europeans you were likely to take a lot more casualties than in a skirmish with fellow Africans. The peace brought to Africa allowed a lot of formerly "unproductive" (in reality undefensible) land to be brought into production, and reduced the debilitating effects of slave raids by making them less profitible. As for British rule in India, are you implying that things would have been better there if the Brits had never been there? There would certainly be many more states on the subcontinent, and many more wars. How much progress would have been made over the years in education, food production and distribution, etc. if the Moghuls were still more or less in charge?

As for other examples, certainly the Roman empire had some desirable benefits for its subjects. It's easy to forget that empires often bring peace. And not only the general absence of state to state conflict, but much more importantly the absence of the sort of endemic small scale conflict that is debilitating to the economic well-being of a people. This is why there is often so little resistance to being brought into an empire. The local group who was used to beating up on everyone else might resist for a time, but everyone else is happy to be left alone and build. Throwing a few shekels in the direction of the imperialists every year is a much better proposition than girding yourself for another attack at harvest time.

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Albert Speer
Q Cubed:

medicine, european law institutions (which, at the risk of being 'ethnocentric', actually is often times much better than native law systems; a jury system for example is better than arbritary judges/chiefs), european taboos (helped curb female circumcision in parts of africa), infrastructure building, etc.

it's silly to say no good came out of it. the general effect was negative but that don't negate the few notable goods.

and in any event, your usage of words like "decimating extermination" to describe western expansion proves my point. This was not some fiendish, Hitlerian plot to destroy the 'red-skins'. Western expansion (which i thought was the neutral, official word for this period not Manifest Destiny) happened gradually a settler at a time until the US Army got involved following native attacks on settlers and the cavalry basically sped the native decline up.

the point is though this was not some fiendish, thought-out plan.

Good post Albert. In fact not only wasn't there a consensus amongst Americans of the 19th century to exterminate the Indians, there was a fairly wide body of opinion on the subject, with a majority tending to be sympathetic to the Indians if ignorant of the situation in the West. As you say much more happened one settler at a time than in big moves by the Federal government.

Another good point you make is that calling the westward expansion "Manifest Destiny" is confusing. Manifest Destiny is a concept that is predominately aimed at Europeans. It simply holds that it was the destiny of the United States to expand from East to West and take control of a huge chunk of the North American continent, British, Spanish, Russian, French or Mexican claims notwithstanding. The Indians were thrown in with the bargain, but weren't considered a serious impediment to the general trend. Whether God handles destiny or someone else does, the fact is that this was the destiny of the United States.

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Kidicious


Actually, there were serious attempts at complete genocide. In many instances the natives were starving on the reservations and would steal food. The Anglos would then hunt them down and kill them. It wasn't planned like that by the government, but the government can't claim ignorance of the effects of their policies towards the natives.

Every death is complete genocide for somebody, but that's about as close to the truth as your post comes. Seriously, you can't conflate incidents like you describe into attempts at "complete" genocide. Very few people actually bought into "the only good Indian is a dead Indian" sort of talk. Government action was used as often to reign in white settlers as it was to protect them from Indians, and much more often for that pupose than to take part in genocide wittingly or not.

And again, what do you mean by Anglo above? Are you sure that it's the right term for this conversation that we're having in english about Manifest Destiny?

[Nubclear]

You don't have to have an individual post for each reply.

[Dis]

[MrFun]

Originally posted by Comrade Tassadar
You don't have to have an individual post for each reply.

But he thinks it makes him look cool.

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Comrade Tassadar
You don't have to have an individual post for each reply.

It makes me look cool.

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Dissident

You live in Las Vegas.

[Theben]

You could also look at it as divine justice. After all, we whities were being persecuted by Arabs during the dark ages, when Europe was a shithole and the Islamic conquests were at full height. They certainly weren't hindered by pangs of guilt when they overran North Africa and Spain, and purchased tens of thousands of European slaves (mostly slavic; slav=slave) They thought they were bringing progress to the "white barbarians" of the North.
Ditto with the Chinese. They didn't think to much of what anyone around them thought when they carved out their empire, and weren't impressed by Polo's description of Europe.

So Europe's and America's rise to power is just getting even for centuries of oppression by arab and oriental societies!

*hides*