How planned was the US government's dispossession of the Native Americans?

How planned was the US government's dispossession of the Native Americans?

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  1. 10 months ago
    Anonymous

    Same as the starvation of the Irish by the British: not planned per se but, c’mon man, it’s like free land, just need to clear it a little first

  2. 10 months ago
    Anonymous

    No. Most of the land had low population density to begin with. It was probably more organized in the Midwest since they had more concentrated trade societies. And obviously the trail of tears.

  3. 10 months ago
    Anonymous

    Not very in the beginning. There weren't many in the North beyond one or two population centers, but they were ran through by disease so a majority of the land in the East that was colonized was empty once it really got going. The further west you got the more there were, and that's when it had to get organized

  4. 10 months ago
    Anonymous

    It was piecemeal and not entirely planned at the outset.

  5. 10 months ago
    Anonymous

    Rural people wanted to spread out, and then the government's hands were tied trying to defend them.

    The land was already low density due to disease.

    Andrew Jackson types did exist.

  6. 10 months ago
    Anonymous

    Not planned at all. The indians initiated aggression against white settlers who wanted to be left alone. After tolerating dozens of unprovoked massacres whites finally had enough and put the savage indians in their place.

    • 10 months ago
      Anonymous

      leave

  7. 10 months ago
    Anonymous

    It was intended from day 1 to take over as much of the continent as possible and give the land over to anglo settlers

    One of the grievances that they voiced while rebelling against Britain was that the government was preventing them from invading past the mountains

  8. 10 months ago
    Anonymous

    For most of US history, there was this belief that the Native Americans would just die or go away.
    So most of US Indian policy was about getting more land from the Natives.

    Though this became a bit more complicated after the Trail of Tears, which disgusted many Americans and made land acquisition a tad more political.

  9. 10 months ago
    Anonymous

    yeah the feds systematically reneged on almost every treaty they ever signed with the Indian nations, they needed a railroad, etc it adds up

    • 10 months ago
      Anonymous

      That doesn’t necessarily imply a plan though, just people being people: indifferent, selfish, violent, and venal. It’s just how we do

      • 10 months ago
        Anonymous

        >That doesn’t necessarily imply a plan though, just people being people: indifferent, selfish, violent, and venal. It’s just how we do
        Stupid fricking moron. This self-interested behavior is one of the ways collectives of people link up, and these disembodied collectives DO possess wills and plans of their own.

        • 10 months ago
          Anonymous

          Still not direct evidence of a coherent plan. Try harder

          • 10 months ago
            Anonymous

            Japs getting rid of the Ainu is probably the best comparison to Indian Removal imo.

    • 10 months ago
      Anonymous

      Not surprising that they wouldn't honor anything they signed when whoever is in charge on the other side of the line changes constantly and some other tribe as different perceptions about to whom what land belongs.

  10. 10 months ago
    Anonymous

    Indian Removal (which deported most of the peoples living east of the Mississippi to Oklahoma) was explicit, openly advocated US policy, written into federal statute. That's probably the most blatant, "planned" example.
    But the US is a big place and different peoples got dispossessed in different ways, with varying degrees of federal involvement, over a period of centuries

  11. 10 months ago
    Anonymous

    >freelancers kill natives and steal their land
    >the state recognises the land as the rightful property of the settlers and upholds those property rights

    • 10 months ago
      Anonymous

      So it's pretty clear the state set up an incentive structure that would create the dispossession of the natives

  12. 10 months ago
    Dirk

    >map of Amerindian land changes over time
    >Pre-1776: the contiguous 48 us states
    Why do they do this

  13. 10 months ago
    Anonymous

    >How planned was the US government's dispossession of the Native Americans?
    Those frickers were actually exterminated, by being herded onto lands which could not support their numbers, and removing the Buffalo.

    The key thing for population density is agriculture. If a society is nomadic, it has a low population, because the resources are thin. An agricultural society has 10 or 100 times the population density, because it can support it. Most of the disease deaths from smallpox came in the 17th century, and the Native populations generally rebounded by the 18th century, as people acquired immunity. Genocide of agricultural people is much, much worse than genocide of hunter-gatherers, because it is an intensive robbery of land, and massacre of people by starvation and resource war. Genocide of hunter-gatherers can be understood as displacement of hunter-gathering traditions by more advanced agricultural practices, and it can incorporate the few hunter-gatherers organically into a growing population. With agricultural people, there is no space. You must kill to take the land.

    The result is that the entire population of the 17th century East Coast, which is certainly as dense as any other agricultural society, it’s millions of people, and the nomadic central regions, was reduced to a few hundred thousand by 1900. The remaining Natives were herded into camps to erase their culture.

    It's pretty bizzare that my fellow americans pussyfoot around this stuff, and try to deny that it ever happened, because it's really fricking awesome in retrospective, however sad it might be.

  14. 10 months ago
    Anonymous

    Indian policies of famous Americans:

    President George Washington "The immediate objectives are the total destruction and devastation of their settlements. It will be essential to ruin their crops in the ground and prevent their planting more."

    President Thomas Jefferson "This unfortunate race, whom we had been taking so much pains to save and civilize, have by their unexpected desertion and ferocious barbarities justified extermination and now await our decision on their fate."

    President John Quincy Adams "What is the right of the huntsman to the forest of a thousand miles over which he has accidentally ranged in quest of prey?"

    President James Monroe "The hunter or savage state requires a greater extent of territory to sustain it, than is compatible with the progress and just claims of civilized live . . . and must yield to it."

    President Andrew Jackson "They have neither the intelligence, the industry, the moral habits, nor the desire of improvement which are essential to any favorable change in their condition. Established in the midst of another and a superior race, and without appreciating the causes of their inferiority or seeking to control them, they must necessarily yield to the force of circumstances and ere long disappear."

    Chief Justice John Marshall "The tribes of Indians inhabiting this country were savages, whose occupation was war, and whose subsistence was drawn from the forest. . . That law which regulates, and ought to regulate in general, the relations between the conqueror and conquered was incapable of application to a people under such circumstances. Discovery {of America by Europeans} gave an exclusive right to extinguish the Indian title of occupancy, either by purchase or by conquest."

    You should read some accounts from the era, there's a lot like this. Weird stuff.

    • 10 months ago
      Anonymous

      >"The immediate objectives are the total destruction and devastation of their settlements. It will be essential to ruin their crops in the ground and prevent their planting more."
      Right off the bat this is disingenuous as frick. He said this as a matter of war policy against Indians he was at war with, who had been raiding and slaughtering white settlements.
      The Jackson quote also comes from an annual message in which he explicitly wants to avoid that happening.

      • 10 months ago
        Anonymous

        >He said this as a matter of war policy against Indians he was at war with, who had been raiding and slaughtering white settlements.
        How different was it from the general policy towards the Native Americans?

    • 10 months ago
      Anonymous

      >"What is the right of the huntsman to the forest of a thousand miles over which he has accidentally ranged in quest of prey?"
      Say what you want about how they were treated but the fact that the total native population of North America was around 2 million when the Pilgrim's landed proves that it was an empty continent. Often a single tribe with a population of a thousand or two would claim to have territory over a land area the size of a small state. That ridiculous assertion is what JQA was referring to in this quote.

      Also, if the early Americans had really wanted to genocide the native tribes they could have done so. Easily. Natives were so small in number and were at such a disadvantage technologically that it could have been accomplished in less than a generation.

  15. 10 months ago
    Anonymous

    Not planned in any long-term fashion. In the beginning it was mostly settlers themselves crossing the Proclamation line despite warnings and seething from local British governors. Skirmishes started by settlers almost always involved people who were in violation of some sort of government order.
    The question of what to do with the Indians shifted over time between various administrations. Before the 19th century there were very few Indians in the East to worry about after disease thinned them out and the US maintained relationships with the local "civilized tribes". Many Cherokee fought for the Confederacy.
    After buying Louisiana and taking the West, they ended up in more wars that required some brutal tactics.
    >but this is cope
    The Plains/SW Indians couldn't be subdued in the same manner that other agricultural societies could. They couldn't be integrated into sedentary life as it was known.
    >but what about muh scalping
    Largely carried out by private individuals and depended on the law of the state in question.
    >muh trail of tears
    Would you consider it a genocide if your enemy was waging unrestricted warfare on you involving torture and you carried out direct orders under active combat? The army did the dirty work, but there was never some executive order put out by the US declaring that all of this land be barren and lifeless by noon.

    • 10 months ago
      Anonymous

      >Would you consider it a genocide
      Yes. ''They deserved it'' or ''it just went like that'' doesn't mean it's not a genocide.

  16. 10 months ago
    Anonymous

    It feels sad that there will enver be any native american nations. They really got the short stick.

    • 10 months ago
      Anonymous

      if they couldnt create their own "nations" in thousands of years what makes you think they would have if we didnt invervene?

      • 10 months ago
        Anonymous

        You can't be this moronic. Of course they had that, all over the continent you absolute moron. The propaganda and erasure of them and their socio-political structures is not reality you absolute mong.

        >"What is the right of the huntsman to the forest of a thousand miles over which he has accidentally ranged in quest of prey?"
        Say what you want about how they were treated but the fact that the total native population of North America was around 2 million when the Pilgrim's landed proves that it was an empty continent. Often a single tribe with a population of a thousand or two would claim to have territory over a land area the size of a small state. That ridiculous assertion is what JQA was referring to in this quote.

        Also, if the early Americans had really wanted to genocide the native tribes they could have done so. Easily. Natives were so small in number and were at such a disadvantage technologically that it could have been accomplished in less than a generation.

        Full moron. Your statements are contradictory - it is fact that many, and I mean MANY settlers were actively trying to exterminate indigenous populations. They couldn't finish the "job" because the populations were much higher than 2 million. They consistently lied and cried back to the colonial powers before independence because it was better to lie and say that it was better that they be exterminated rather than tell the truth and have more benevolent powers (which is absurd on its own) back on the European continent prevent their complete annihilation.

        For whatever reason, any time Europeans/old worlders arrived in the "American" continents, the first impulse was complete genocidal savagery of theh ighest kind, including kidnapping etc. The only reason we did not have an active salve trade of indigenous populations is because they got sick too quickly, but rest assured they certainly tried. Especially the ~~*Portuguese*~~.

        • 10 months ago
          Anonymous

          You're an idiot and know nothing about history. First of all I'm talking about English colonization of North America. The Spaniards arrived in Mexico first and brough disease with them. Those diseases then spread to North America killing 90% of the population. When the Pilgrims landed they found a native village completely deserted due to the fact that the population had perished from disease. Most early settlers, like the Pilgrims, also had a cordial, if not friendly, relationship with natives and often traded with them. By the time America was founded there were far more Europeans in North America than natives and, though atrocities did take place, complete and utter genocide of the natives was never a goal America pursued. If it was there would simply be no natives today. Also the natives often provoked a military response by doing some massacring of settlers themselves. History is complicated. Seldom black and white. Good guy vs bad guy. You have the mind of a college freshman.

    • 10 months ago
      Anonymous

      The reservations they have now basically amounts to nations though since they have their own cops and so on.

  17. 10 months ago
    Anonymous

    Often times it just happened.

  18. 10 months ago
    Anonymous

    definitely planned, the savages needed to be driven out for lebensrum

    funny, the israelites were the prominent "indian traders" at the time

    not only did they double cross everyone at every point in history

    they sold smallpox blankets to the indians they built trust with, then after the french indian wars they claimed massive territory in the midwest

    land is money obviously

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