American history: is this true?

Don't you dare presume to speak for the attitudes of all Jews or most Jews. You do not speak for me, or for anyone I know.

Lay off the holier than thou crap. All it does is make bigots think that it justifies their assumptions about us.

I was raised on Long Island. Where I attended college, and law school, and am now attending graduate school, are none of your business. Most of my family and friends are also New York born and bred.

But this isn't about me or about them; it's about your utterly unfounded assumptions.

You don't know WTF you're talking about.

KAK from Abuzz in all her unglory.

Returning to the topic, or at least to the historical account provided by Setanta: I think it says something about the nature of mankind that Indian tribes joined colonists in their "wars" with other tribes.

Clearly the allying tribes recognized the colonists to be far more different from themselves than the members of the tribes with which they were in conflict, but the stark physical and cultural difference weren't enough to repel them from forming alliances to defeat members of their own "race" with whom they had been warring for years, decades and possibly longer.

With enough foresight they may have decided differently and united with opposing tribes to drive the "white man" from their lands before he could establish a foothold (or at least try), but I don't think it's in our nature to think so far ahead,even had it been possible to foresee the decimation of their people.

The immediate goal was to defeat an enemy tribe and if the strangers could help, so be it. Perhaps they thought from the outset that they would deal with the white man once their enemy was done away with, but their first reaction wasn't fear and loathing of the "the other."

I suppose this could mean that racism isn't necessarily an inherent trait of mankind, but that's hardly something to celebrate when we realize that these tribes were only too happy to slaughter their enemies with help from the colonists.

The European colonists who eventually became "Americans" were motivated by the same desires as the tribe with which they allied: Possession of the land best suited to support their people, their tribe. Along the way all sorts of psychopaths were involved in the effort, I'm pretty sure the same can be said for the Indians. The notion of noble savages in any context is absurd.

Europeans and Americans are the subject of hatred,disdain and shame for a certain group of people, but, really, only because they were better at war than those they conquered. If Europeans never came to the New World, does anyone believe that the Indians would have formed some sort of paradise?

It always happens . The Romans conquered the Celts the same way .

Racism is not inherent, in my opinion, but tribalism is. This is offered only as opinion, and i don't think history supplies the answers to such questions--just data which one may employ in formulating or articulating an opinion. In Mexico, it was even more dramatic. As Cortes marched over the mountains from the coast, he was attacked by the Tlascalans. It later turned out that they had considered him an ally of the Aztecs, called Mexicans by the other tribes. When Cortes had come to an agreement with the Tlascalans, they provided about 5000 troops of high quality, and 2000 porters. These along with the Spaniards, crossed the rest of the mountain range into the central plateau of Mexico. Leaving aside a lot detail and rise and fall of Spanish fortunes, Cortes was eventually joined by the forces of the other major cities around Tenoctitlan (what we would call Mexico City), and after a brutal 22 months campaign, conquered the city, slaughtering most of the inhabitants.

Cortes never commanded even as many as 1500 Spaniards--the conquest could not have been carried out without his aboriginal allies. The advantages of European technology didn't count for much, especially when cities in Mexico could muster armies in the tens of thousands. The Aztecs had conquered their neighbors, and imposed tribute on them. The Spaniards represented a unifying locus to which the other tribes could adhere, laying aside their mutual mistrust. To them, i am certain, the Spaniards were just another tribe, from further away. I see that as describing how many aboriginal tribes saw the Europeans elsewhere in North America. It's not "race" (the concept didn't then exist), it's tribalism.

(See The Conquest of New Spain (Historia verdadera de la conquista de la Nueva España), 1568, Bernal Diaz (a participant in the campaign), always available in English, and, i believe, never out of print; History of the Conquest of Mexico, William Prescott, Boston, 1843, in three volumes. Prescott remains the English language source for the Spanish monarchy from that ditzy blonde Isabella to her great grandson Philip II, and the conquests in the New World.)

Ain't that the ugly truth.

Amen, brutha. It's always wrong to generalize.*





*Tongue fully in cheek there.

PLEASE, send me any credible reference material to indicate, suggest or prove Vikings were fighting Natives, as I had requested.

What the hell is the matter with you? Did you not read and understand the opening post of this thread? Apparently not--no one participating in this thread has claimed that "Vikings" went to war with aboriginal Americans.

Your reading comprehension sucks.

I did read years ago that the Norse (aka, Vikings) had a colony in Newfoundland (aka, Vineland) that lasted for 500 years. Just when the Spanish were building forts along the Pacific coast, the Norse were abandoning the colony they held for 500 years that was dedicated to fur trapping. The Norse did not get along with the natives, and supposedly had a massacre of a native village, while the men were out hunting. That resulted in an all out effort to mete out retribution to the Norse. The colony was not that profitable, so they just left at that point. It wasn't really a war. It was more like continual harrassment by the natives? The colony was made up of all males that shared in the profits, and paid a Norse woman to do the domestic chores. It was a co-operative business venture of sorts. At least this was one authors perception.

Miller, you are the most shameless liar. You read that the other day? Where, what book, who was the author? Liar.

http://www.athropolis.com/arctic-facts/fact-skraelings.htm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skr%C3%A6ling

I couldn't find the sources Athropolis Productions Limited used. Your idea, Ionus? (Besides sagas, I mean.)

(Though I've done some researches in Hedeby ("Haithabu"), I've read (better "seen") an original of Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiae pontificum (the earliest source reporting the discovery of coastal North America by the Vikings) by Adam of Bremen in Vienna)

Just google Skraelings but be careful about some sites as they have entered modern mythology . I think a fight between Skraelings and Vikings is mentioned in the saga "Eric the Red" from memory...but dont quote me...

It's mentioned in the Eiríks saga rauða as well as in the Grænlendinga saga.
Both together are called Vinland-Sagas.


But as I wrote before: Adam of Bremen's writing are the earliest written sources about this - or do you know it better?

You are quite the interrogator. I read so much (you know that Jews have been literate for a few milleniums), who remembers the specific book, author, etc.

Now please sit down in the first row, so you can be called on when there is a needed question to be answered.

Kiss my ass, Miller, you hateful bitch of a bigot. Liar.

The Groenlendinga Saga is highly unreliable, and was probably compiled well after the events it describes. For example, it describes the Thorvald Eiriksson, Freydis Eiriksdottir, Thorfinn Karlsefni voyage as three separate voyages, and yet has Freydis with Thorfinn Karlsefni as he explored the west coast of the Long Range Mountains--which is internal contradiction. It is contradicted again and again by the Eiriker Saga and the Thorfinn Karsefni Saga. There is absolutely no reason to think that the Norse (not "Vikings") ever sailed south of what we now call Newfoundland. Again and again when Norse mariners were blown south of Newfoundland, they were then driven east by the prevailing westerlies. Thorhall the Hunter was a part of Thorvald Eirkisson's crew, and while out in the afterboat of Thorvald's knorr, was driven east to Ireland, where his nasty mouth and ill-temper got him murdered. The rumor of his murder by the Irish is, i believe, recorded in the Islendingabok--at any rate, it is corroborated by Icelandic sources.

Skaeling is a term the Norse (rather ironically) applied to anyone they considered barbarians or savages. They applied the term to the Irish tribesmen, too.