Explanation: For those of you who are not aware of European colonial history in the Americas, the First Nations ‘agreed’ to move only at gunpoint - when, of course, they were not shot outright and agreements eschewed completely. The phrasing here makes it sound much less like ethnic cleansing, when, you know, it was ethnic cleansing.
It really makes you ask the question, what if. What if the sickness that ravaged the continent before the colonists came hadn’t happened? There’s a reason the continent wasn’t settled by Vikings first. Colonizers were truly the ignominius btutalistic cherry on top.
Well, the Viking settlers were a handful of outcasts with marginal skills and no pressing economic motivation other than timber, who were difficult to resupply.
But yeah, had disease not ravaged the Americas, it’s likely that the process of colonization would have looked very different, even if the technological disparity remained great. Pre-modern societies don’t just ‘bounce back’ from massive population drops like that, it takes centuries - centuries the Native polities didn’t have with European colonizers breathing down their neck.
The Irish population still has not recovered from the 1850’s potato famine
They also had also had a really small colony (Greenland) as a starting point to send expeditions from, and a rather small homeland (Iceland).
There’s a reason the 15th century Basque and Breton fishers didn’t colonize the Americas either despite often visiting it. This was a difficult and costly project that necessitated significant investments. Even France failed like half a dozen times, losing most of its colonists to the long cold winter each time, before starting to be successful with the Port-Royal, Tadoussac and Québec colonies.
I think that then North America would look like central and South America, in terms of demographics.
While South America would look like east and south-east Asia.
HEY sometimes it was because Europeans gathered too much from an area and it could no longer sustain gatheribg as a way of getting food.
A guy comes up to me in the alley with a gun and demands my wallet. It’s not a crime due to the fact that I AGREED to give it to him.
The US was built on always having the option to just fucking die, and the only way they’re taking that back is from my cold, dead hands!
SO you agree to die. Got it.
And Canada, since this is from a Canadian textbook.
This sort of thing in this sort of context really should be a crime.
Philosophy Tube recently uploaded a great video called “Rationalising Colonialism - How the US Stole Indigenous American Land” that’s genuinely horrifying even if you think you already know a lot about the subject.
crash course native american history: https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8dPuuaLjXtNNaritQa7QqwEJeQHH0TxX
its not done yet and currently ongoing, but its really good <3
wow, they finally got around to that. they beat CGP grey to it too…
Lol.
Future humans are going to be so fucking stupid.
Even though we invented the tool to provide every last human on this planet with all human knowledge.
Such an embarrassing species.
I’m gonna show up at this author’s house with a gun and get him to agree to let me fuck his wife.
What can he do? You need space.
They needed lebensraum.
They agreed that they wanted to live… somewhere else.
Literally sounds like a satirical Onion cartoon…
