Posted on 07/08/2015 3:50:43 PM PDT by Falcon4.0
In this PJTV series, we look at whether America is a country of hostility or prosperity. The first episode covers the treatment of Native American's. Should we be ashamed of the way our ancestors treated them?
Or the contact didn’t happen until modern medicine and vaccines were invented.
Either way, fate was not kind to them.
My ancestors conquered a continent and built the richest, most powerful nation on earth.
No. I am not a bit ashamed.
Bingo.
Okay, sorry, read too fast, blood boiled too early, GOOOSEFRABAHHHHH (anger management). Thanks for correcting me.
I’m legendarily descended from Opechancanough, half brother of Chief Powhatan. How that came to be wasn’t pretty, and it happened in 1622.
If I remember right, he may well have been the chief that launched the big massacre, after the death of Powhatan.
But is it realistic to believe that modern medicine would have preceded the sailing ship.
He was, and why he didn’t kill Mary Sizemore instead of merely raping and impregnating her was something of a mystery. Some claim he was Don Luis in his youth, and a product of rape himself, Powhatan mother, Spanish missionary father.
Simon Kenton. Great book.
I’m a descendent of John and Alice Proctor. John was in England conducting business when the massacre happened. Alice was on their plantation, which was one of the westernmost of the settlements.
She and her household successfully held off the attacks for many days. They only left the plantation when English officers threatened to burn the whole place down around them if they didn’t return to Jamestown.
After that they lived at Pace’s Paines, across the river. They had quite the reputation as being extremely well armed. The Indians wouldn’t come anywhere near them.
LOL
“Euro-American losses could thus be replaced, while the Indians, living in a subsistence economy with a low population replacement rate, could not.”
That’s it in a nutshell.
Despite occasional slaughter, the story of European settlers and native tribes was more coexistence to the point of intermarriage and genetic swamping than anyone getting killed off, truthfully. There’s a reason practically all old, native southern families have some legendary claim of indian ancestry. It’s because they do, way back, seventeenth century.
You can only camp out so long in a spot with fifty to a couple hundred people (and horses) before the latrines overflow, the game is thinned out or wary, the berries are picked, the flies get thick, and the campsite begins to smell of ammonia. Fresh grazing for the horses is a good thing, too. Strike camp and move.
Being semi-nomadic (within a known area and relatively small range) had definite advantages.
Buffalo jumps were feasts, but at some point the smell of decaying meat would suspend operations and off over the next hill you go.
I am sure that the environment could recover, once left alone, and so long as there were relatively small populations and plenty of room it worked.
Sedentary populations were limited by warfare and disease, much like Medieval Europe in the Dark Ages.
{Invention of flush toilets was in the future for the 'invaders', too, who were not far from the same situation of stressed resources and limited land area, only expanding some because the Black Death had killed off so many in Europe, and here because their options there were limited or to pursue wealth.}
Those who figured out crop rotation, sanitation, and who advanced medicine (some gleaned from the natives) were the real enablers of urbanization.
The Natives had had large cities (50K or more), but those were mostly gone by the time the Europeans got there, likely due to disease, famine, or cultural collapse.
Some may be smug in our civilization, but really, we are only a few choice events and a short time from being back in tribal units struggling to survive (and none too 'enviro-friendly' ones, either).
A few critical systems' breakdown and the thinning veneer of Civilization would fall away as humanity would enter a new Dark Age.
My 13th great grandfather was John Rolfe, the man who married Pocahontas. I have another 13th great grandfather that lived in Jamestown in the early 1600’s with him, John Price. My family, or a few branches of anyway, have been here for a long time. Nonetheless, I refuse to feel guilty for any wrongs my ancestors may or may not have done. In fact, I feel quite the opposite. I am proud to be about to claim such a legacy, that my family helped found this once great country. They were greater men than me, to be sure.
Hey, we could be related. I think I have seen the Proctor name on some of the cousin lines.
Also have Pocahontas in the family tree.
On my dad’s side they first came here in the early 1620’s. I know the ship and the year but I never post that info. They were originally in the Virgina area.
Almost certainly related.
Howdy cousin!
Have you read "That Dark and Bloody River" by Eckert? It's about the settlement of the Ohio River valley and the Shawnee.
My ancestors came here in the 1600’s. In the 1830’s I had a relative killed by Indians. His younger brother made guns after that. I guess I am one of those badass injun killers.
But I am calm as a kitten.
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