"Before our white brothers arrived to make us civilized men…"

[ismnotwasm]

53. I don't romanticize Native Americans

Last edited Mon Feb 25, 2013, 02:21 AM - Edit history (1)

But I do wonder what would to them have happened if allowed to develop without genocide. It doesn't necessarily follow that they would have gone the way of the West or East, with its massive conquering warfare. Many bands had developed a type of socialism already. They had crafts, orchards, many skills of course. More importantly they're religions weren't religions as we know them---religions of submission and fear. Even the word religion doesn't necessarily apply

Many bands had tribal councils rather than a single leader. Women, had a political voice in many bands.

One thing to remember is we are talking about many diverse peoples with ways of their own. What white people did, besides wholesale murder, was kill off a potential culture that might have looked very different than what we have today, a more egalitarian way of life and governing if Native Americans had been allowed to develop and grow.

We'll never know now. There is a band in the northwest-- the Duwamish people, who were first to greet the whites and welcome them when the ship hit the shore. To this day they are denied recognition as a tribe. The attempts genocide continues with a thousand cuts in the legal system.t