Are Americans living on stolen land acquired by nefarious means? Jeff Fynn-Paul, professor of economic and social history at Leiden University and author of Not Stolen: The Truth About European Colonialism in the New World, dispels this misleading and destructive myth.
Script:
If you attended college this is what you were likely taught:
America was founded through acts of genocide, accompanied by larceny on the grandest scale.
Columbus, and the Europeans who followed him, sailed to the New World with the intention of exploiting whomever they found—and, if necessary, enslaving or exterminating them.
Soon afterward, they began importing black bodies from Africa. They then built the world’s richest country out of a combination of slave labor, stolen land, and environmental destruction.
Did I miss anything?
As a historian, I can assure you this view is inaccurate in most particulars.
But getting the story wrong is only part of the problem. The bigger problem is this: if you teach generation after generation that their country, their society, and their history are uniquely awful, they are likely to believe you. This is a sure route to societal failure.
This has consequences not only for America but the entire world. Many in the US seem to have no clue just how much of a ‘city on a hill’ the US is still perceived to be, and how important that American beacon is to millions of people living under autocratic regimes.
If the image of the US is fundamentally delegitimized, if its entire raison d’être—its reason for being—is tainted, then increasing numbers of people will wonder whether democracy itself is worth the trouble.
So, let’s correct the record before it’s too late.
The narrative of the “stolen country” or “Native American genocide” does not stand up to scrutiny by any honest historian. It is a dangerously myopic and one-sided interpretation of history.
It puts one hundred percent of the burden on Europeans, who are held responsible for nearly all historical evil, while so-called indigenous people are mere victims—saint-like, innocent martyrs whose civilizations were close to ideal.
This is simplistic, anti-historic thinking that has gained currency only because most practicing historians and history teachers have either given into groupthink or else have been cowed into silence by fear of losing their jobs.
There is hardly a single civilization on Earth, which did not displace natives, or which did not engage in nasty wars or ethnic cleansings at many points during its history.
No matter who “discovered” the New World, it is inevitable that a large proportion of its inhabitants would have died within the first few decades after first contact.
The New World population was smaller and more homogenous than the Old World population. Thus, its people had less immunity to disease than the people of the Old World, where communities from Africa, Asia, and Europe had been intermingling for millennia.
For the full script, visit: https://l.prageru.com/3rzGNeS
#history #christophercolumbus #usa
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Trail of tears. Custer's slaughter of the indigenous, Columbus and church tortures. This is what about- ism is bogus. Like the Whiteman bringing civilization to the blackman. Sugarcoat it all you want, but don't lie.Conquest is still conquest and isolating indigenous people to poverty-stricken ghettos is a crime against humanity. The truth will set you free. TRUTH? YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH……
As an immigrant from a 3rd world country, this is my country. The US is far from perfect, but it is by no means anywhere near as bad as other places. This is truly the greatest country on Earth. People who don't appreciate it should leave. I hear Iran is a great place.
Every country in the world is
Leftists: Illegals have the right to steal America, because we stole the land of the Indians.
Prager U: Well then by that logic we had the right to steal land from the Indians because they stole it from each other.
Leftists: You monsters!
If Europeans wanted to commit genocide, there would be no natives alive today. Nothing would have stopped them.
I think the better narrative is that there were diverse intentions in the early colonial era, and many good relationships with unfortunate disease spreading, but then the empire building of the westward expansion was a particularly awful period for the natives
NO I was not taught America was stolen. No one is taught this, at least not in Virginia. Schools are very clear about the wars we fought to take land. Justified or not.
Native Americans came from Asia across the Bering strait they stole it. They would have killed each other off in time
The Iroquois, a nation of 'primitive farmers, invented Federalism, which the States still uses today. They also stole the Iroquois' symbol of national identity (the eagle).
Bro, idk who got tought that, but I’m in COLLEGE in NYC and I never got tought that lol
usa never had democracy.
Does this mean if mankind keeps voting democrat we will get back to the party of the " KKK"?
Or as one woman said who lost her son to gang violence the party that keeps them on the plantation.
Ask a Blackfoot
Stolen lands? Like getting a title of the lands without the original owners not knowing about it? The correct term is "conquered lands". People in all history have lived in conquered lands. They got it with blood and sweat. And if their lands were conquered by others, they got it back and defended it with blood and sweat.
“Everyone wants to go to countries ruled by White Europeans because their cultural norms were superior. I don’t shrink from the word ‘superior.'” – Prof Amy Wax
At what point do people claim land? There's ongoing ethnic cleansing today of European indigenous peoples on the land of their ancestors in Europe by invasion of Africans and Middle Eastern peoples promoted by Western Globalists who call Europeans racist white supremacists. Europeans are submitting because they were made to feel guilt and self-loathing.
The point is not that Western Civilization is inherently evil…they didn't invent slavery and they themselves were taken as slaves by the Islamic marauders, it's that it was the best civilization that has existed thus far in world history because of its Judeo-Christian roots. It was morally introspective to the point that irredeemable guilt is producing national, cultural suicide thus returning the world to barbarism and totalitarianism.
Rob Peter to pay Paul, more like rob Mexico and the natives to pay England and Britain! Almost every partnership made between natives and Americans has ended poorly, the natives had treaties broken such as the Klamath Indians who lost 1 million plus acres to settlers, or Mexico that lost its most valuable territories, gold mines, and natural resources by an unconstitutional and inhumane war. Rather than dig our heads in the dirt, it’s better to reconcile and solve loose ends that still exist to this day. Unless you lived under a rock, native Americans are still not happy with us being here, and Mexicans as well not very fond of the hand we dealt them, unless we want this to spiral out of control and go back to the old western days of shootouts wars and crime, it’s time to make redress and teach a better more realistic history than our books and media tends to leave out
If it were stolen, then almost all the land across the globe has been stolen by whoever conquered it and now guards its borders. It's an idiotic assertion. There may have been people living on those lands, but there was no known "country" there. And for the sake of consistency, this is also why Israel owns the land and the Palestinians don't, because there was no such country known as Palestine until after Israel was re-established in the same region they once were as a country. That the Brits and the UN could carve it up and then give it away to them is proof that there was no known country there.
:59
Wtf are you talking about?
All of those things are true. That doesn't make it unique at all. Columbus WAS uniquely brutal. He was convicted by his own people for being so.
2:05
Whether or not indigenous culture was 'ideal' is entirely irrelevant. We came here and committed genocide. Fact.
4:17
It belonged to the tribes, period. It sure af didn't belong to Spain or England or France.
Using your disgusting ass logic Serbia and Kosovo are fighting a border dispute, therefore it's perfectly fine for me to go over there and take all the land for myself.
Anywhere a border dispute occurs it's perfectly fine for a third party to come along kill anyone and claim the land for themselves.
Because, hey why not.
4:33
No. It is NOT true today! It is a war crime to invade another country and steal their land.
Using your disgusting logic again. I have the physical ability to slap you in the mouth beat the ever living f out of you and take your wallet. Therefore it is perfectly fine for me to do so, and everyone should be ok with it. It has happened all throughout history.
4:42
Yeah, and Caesar was also a POS.
The does not want a democracy and certainly doesn't want a constitutional republic.
They want a socialist dictatorship with them at the top and everyone else in dire poverty thinking, saying, doing what the Leftists demand.
Stolen land is what people say to downgrade what we done. It’s called fought and conquered it. I’m sure y’all countries has a nice bamboo home with a shit river next to it if y’all wanna complain.
Someone left out the human sacrifice parts… 😳