Lexi ♉| Dame (Knight) of Space |Hobbyist digital "artist". Into videogames, fiction books, comics & zoology pattern from cairovercoat, header drawn by suko-hen :)
These continents were already tamed by the indigenous inhabitants. And had been for tens of thousands of years.
Over 80% of the Native Americans were dead by diseases brought over by Columbus’ crew long before the Pilgrims arrived in North America. The Native Americans suffered an apocalyptic catastrophe that made the European Plague look like a bad cold season. This was not done on purpose but it was inevitable that it would have happened eventually.
So what we had here was a Post-Apocalyptic world being resettled by a technologically more advanced civilization. Anthropologically speaking, there was no other outcome possible but what occurred, not on the grander scale of it, anyway. That a bunch of political and religious refugees turned a culturally devastated land into the greatest bastion for freedom, self-rule, and scientific advancement this planet has ever seen is nothing to be sorry for.
Smallpox blankets
The effort to eradicate bison specifically to starve the Sioux
The trail of tears
Residential schools
Bounties for scalped Native Americans in Pennsylvania
The multiple broken treaties to respect Native Land
Please dont fucking act like Native genocide was some kind of unfortunate accident. It was a series of deliberate, violent acts that took advantage of the aftermath of the plagues Europeans brought with them.
“Refugees”
i love how white people like to act like they weren’t dying from dysentery and dumb as shit before they met us indigenous peoples. u fuckers couldn’t bathe your ass properly and u want to tell me u helped us “advance technologically?” we already had advanced structures and a method of doing things before u came here and infected us and assimilated our people. kindly shut the fuck up.
My dad was born in 1956 and remembers mysterious boxes showing up on their doorstep with food and blankets/clothes. They once gave the family dog the food and it died.
He also said people would try to hit his brothers and him with a car while they were walking to school.
His dad was allowed to die over appendicitis in a hospital. He suffered for days while the staff did NOTHING.
His uncles disappeared and the police did NOTHING. Their car was later found in a canyon, full of bullet holes. The bullets were military issue.
His eldest brother also died under mysterious circumstances.
My great grandmother, the last of our tribe to be born traditionally, outside, owned 5000 acres in northern California. Active imminent domain left her with 1 ACRE. Which they later took to build a post office.
That same grandma, who I’m named after, was kidnapped as a child and held as a slave in a white mans house. She had a wire put through her ear that tethered her so she could only go from her bedroom to the kitchen. Her dad found her and rescued her, ripping the thing out of her ear. My dad said her earlobe was forever split in two pieces.
In church when I was a kid people alienated my family and my dad got jokey death threats all the time. My mom, who was white, was told she was too good for my dad. I was told I was dark but I would hopefully lighten up if I stayed out of the sun. At school we read a story about a “drunken injun” and I cried in class while my classmates mockingly did a raindance and chanted. My first boyfriend said he wished he wasn’t a white guy because Indians get free college.
This shit was recent and current. Go look up suicide, sexual assault, and drug addiction statistics within Native American communities.
White people came to this country and slaughtered us. Your white ancestors did this. Maybe even your grandparents.
America wasn’t won, it was stolen. Native Americans aren’t better off because we have electricity. I’d rather have my people back.
Fuck Donald Trump. Fuck his voters. And fuck white people who try to downplay what happened here.
Me: I wish I could afford basic living necessities and medical care.
Baby Boomer:
Baby Boomer: Well, when I was your age I already worked, had a house, a car, a degree, three children, made a million dollars, was married, was an astronaut, revived a dinosaur….
Conversation that happened between my sibling & me because one of my holiday gifts was a charm bracelet that fits a bit tight in comparison to my mother’s…
Me: “So basically Mom said it wouldn’t fit if I grew, but I haven’t grown in years so I’m pretty sure she meant ‘if I got fat’?”
Them: “Well yeah. If you ever get fat I’m going to bully the shit out of you until you lose weight. Cuz you looked really ugly when you were overweight.”
M: “Umm, that’s actually a pretty mean thing to say? With my self esteem, I’d probably end up self harming? I’d rather you didn’t since that would hurt me pretty bad. Plus, I’m encouraging rather than making fun of you whenever you go on a diet…”
T: “Yeah whatever but you don’t have the discipline (wtf?) to lose weight so I’m doing it anyways!”
I learned in a Latin Studies class (with a chill white dude professor) that when the Europeans first saw Aztec cities they were stunned by the grid. The Aztecs had city planning and that there was no rational lay out to European cities at the time. No organization.
When the Spanish first arrived in Tenochtitlan (now downtown mexico city) they thought they were dreaming. They had arrived from incredibly unsanitary medieval Europe to a city five times the size of that century’s london with a working sewage system, artificial “floating gardens” (chinampas), a grid system, and aqueducts providing fresh water. Which wasn’t even for drinking! Water from the aqueducts was used for washing and bathing- they preferred using nearby mountain springs for drinking. Hygiene was a huge part if their culture, most people bathed twice a day while the king bathed at least four times a day.
Located on an island in the middle of a lake, they used advanced causeways to allow access to the mainland that could be cut off to let canoes through or to defend the city. The Spanish saw their buildings and towers and thought they were rising out of the water. The city was one of the most advanced societies at the time.
Anyone who thinks that Native Americans were the savages instead of the filthy, disease ridden colonizers who appeared on their land is a damn fool.
just a note, we don’t think of old european cities as ruins, because those civilizations continued and kept building over the old–there are no abandoned ruins for us to visit & photograph. when we picture those old cities, we have only mental images drawn from our own assumptions & prejudices–images that tend to glorify ‘civilized’ europe.
since victors write history, our image of native american cities was created by colonizers motivated to uphold the ‘native savage’ myth. when we think of these civilizations now, we think of ‘uncivilized’ (rough, broken, abandoned) ruins, because that’s what remains. ruins are the only thing left. because of the destruction wrought by western invaders, these civilizations never had a chance to continue building. they were destroyed, and all we have left is an unimaginative shadow of their former glory.
went to peru and visited some of their museums and learned inca history that american schools don’t teach you. basically you know why they were beaten out by the spanish invaders? because incas were mostly scientists and not warriors. they had advanced medicine, farming and science technology. THATS what they were good at - tech - not building weapons to most efficiently kill people. the spanish were good at that. so they won. basically the real savages and thugs won and murdered a bunch of scientists, and their technology and advancements are lost forever. it took into the 20th century for colonizer technology to advance in the field of medicine and agriculture to the level of the incas. colonizers literally set human knowledge back like 500 years.
