January 28, 2009

Did Indians "colonize" America?

We occasionally get goofball comments that I have to respond to. Here's one from "Go Back Where You Came From":The "natives" are descended from Asian colonisers, just like the Anglo-Celtic Americans are descended from the Europeans who founded and built America. The fact the Europeans came after the Asians does not make those descended from the prior Asian colonisers "natives".My response:

If the Americas were uninhabited when the Paleo-Indians arrived, "colonization" isn't the right word. The Paleo-Indians didn't colonize the land, they settled it.

Here's the dictionary definition of "colony":[A] group of people who leave their native country to form in a new land a settlement subject to, or connected with, the parent nation.If there's no connection to the parent nation, there's no colony. So the "colonization" claim is flatly wrong.

Sorry, but the length of time Indians have lived here does make them "native." When your origin is so ancient that it's lost in the mists of history, you're essentially indigenous or native. The distinction between coming here 10,000 or 20,000 or 50,000 years ago and originating here is infinitesimal and irrelevant.

Again, here's the dictionary definition of "native" that applies:[B]elonging by birth to a people regarded as indigenous to a certain place, esp. a preliterate people.Note the word "regarded." Europeans regarded the Indians they met as indigenous and the Indians regarded themselves as indigenous. Even if scientists discovered something different centuries later, that doesn't change this longstanding regard.

For more on the subject, see Kennewick Man, Captain Picard, and Political Correctness.

Below:  The first Americans.

1 comment:

modest-goddess said...

based on his own definition white people colonized Europe since all humans come from Africa originally