The “truth” doesn’t hurt me. Colonization is not necessarily a bad thing, overall, though sometimes the specifics involved are.
For example, I have lived much of my life near the “Trail of Tears” the Shawnee had to endure when forced off their lands. There is no excuse for what was done to these people: They could have been moved much more humanely.
And yet, the sometimes ugly process of the US becoming a great world power lead to one of the greatest forces for good on the planet.
We treated some - a relative few, actually - of the Filipinos badly / worse than they deserved. But we also left the country, at least in the late 1940’s into the early 50’s, with democracy, as good friends (with occasional disagreements), and as the “Tiger of the Pacific”, economically. Unfortunately, it appears we did not stay in control long enough to erase the former Spanish and certain tribal tendencies thoroughly enough.
Most Puerto Ricans want US statehood, not secession.
And so on.
I live in Calgary and, as I’ve noted several times on FR, the Treaty 7 self-described ‘First Nations’ (FN) were treated badly by the Canadian government and still remain badly treated. While the ‘numbered treaties’ were never outright broken and the FN were not forced to move after the Treaties were established, the people were neglected and badly treated, more by d’Ottawa than the Government Agents on the ground.
AFA, my comment about the truth hurting, it was directed at the very thin skinned individual who whined about growing up in Canada. The gentleman to whom I first responded, seemed to forget, or ignore the history of American colonization, be it good or bad. Every ‘major power’ in the world has had colonies, the US included.
FWIW, I do agree that colonization can be a positive thing. All the former colonies of Great Britain were left with well organized governments and well established rule of law. The fact that most of the former African colonies turned out so bad is a function of the new ‘rulers’ being unwilling to follow the rule of law as established under former British rule.