Do you think manifest destiny is just another way of saying unjustifiable aggression?

[Q Classic]

if you'd read my initial post, you'd see what i said about this matter:

in the end, it doesn't matter. what are you going to do? roll back everything we did? are you going to donate and give your time and money to the millions of native peoples who are living below the poverty line?

**** happens. it's a pity the natives didn't have more sophisticated weapons to fight back, but progress will always crush someone else. life, unfortunately, is a zero-sum game.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Albert Speer
yes but kidicious... the Mexicans asked Americans to settle in Texas. They advertised it and gave them real cheap land. The only condition was that the Americans in Texas had to convert to Catholicism which sparked anger and led to the Texas rebellion

Did they ask them to come and annex it? No

[PeteH]

'Civilization' is all about seperating humanity from nature, it says that we've taken control of out 'destiny' and can make our goals what we want. We don't kill people because we're destined to, we kill them because we choose to.

This is perhaps the most educational comment I've ever seen on this board, for the amount of truth contained in few words.

So many on this post (and in general) mistake the history of civilized humans as all of human history, or at least the only important part. The growth of civilization will meet the only fate possible - extinction. It will be a brief blip of human history, surrounded by hundreds of thousands of years of people living within the rest of the earthly community (unless in its dying breaths we manage to irradiate or otherwise make unsuitable for humans the whole planet.) The only real question is how much more damage civilization will do before it dies to the rest of the ecosystem.

On a more timely topic related to the subject:

http://www.freespeech.org/fsitv/html/eyes_columbusday.shtml

has several good programs up today, but you should especially watch the Rocks at Whiskey Trench (it's 2 parts, each about an hour) about halfway down, especially those who like to think all these horrible things are in the past (and this was in Canada even, good thing it wasn't the US or it probably would have been bullets instead of rocks

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Albert Speer
and in any event, your usage of words like "decimating extermination" to describe western expansion proves my point. This was not some fiendish, Hitlerian plot to destroy the 'red-skins'.

Actually, there were serious attempts at complete genocide. In many instances the natives were starving on the reservations and would steal food. The Anglos would then hunt them down and kill them. It wasn't planned like that by the government, but the government can't claim ignorance of the effects of their policies towards the natives.

[Arrian]

"Manifest Destiny," as JohnT pointed out, isn't exactly a term currently used. It's a term that was used over 100 years ago. Now we learn about it in history class. And I think it's pretty obvious that, with the benifit of 20-20 hindsight it was a bull**** justification for aggression (merely one of many). Was it right? No. Same as the imperialist policies of the other major powers at the time. I guess the only difference would be whether or not those other powers had similar mumbo-jumbo justifications for it (methinks they probably did).

-Arrian

[General Ludd]

Originally posted by Kidicious

It wasn't planned like that by the government

In some cases it was. They tried to hunt Buffalo to extinction because the natives relied on the herds to live.

[Al B. Sure!]

kidicious:

huh? the Mexican gov't actively sought Americans to settle in texas. Later, the Mexican gov't forced the Texans to convert to Catholicism which sparked the Texan rebellion. The Texas fought its independence for the right of free worship

[MrFun]

This thread is interesting in that it was initiated while I am in the middle of my choice for one of my research projects -- the historiographical changes in studies of the Western frontier.

One of the authors I'm including of course, is that of Frederick Jackson Turner. I have two other authors of different time periods of the 20th century.

[Kuciwalker]

What's the point of this thread?

[Odin]

Originally posted by Albert Speer
kidicious:

huh? the Mexican gov't actively sought Americans to settle in texas. Later, the Mexican gov't forced the Texans to convert to Catholicism which sparked the Texan rebellion. The Texas fought its independence for the right of free worship

No, the anglo immigrants gave a promise they would obey the laws of Mexico. When the Mexicans tried to enfoce the promise the americans rebeled and used the "natural law" excuse. I veiw the guys at the Alamo as oppurtunistic hypocrites, not heroes. Converting to catholicism was part of the origional agreement, not something the Mexicans tacked on later.

Skywalker, we are bashing the US's hypernationalists.

*waits for Sloww*

[Kuciwalker]

Easy solution to the problem: yes, Manifest Destiny sucked; no, we can't do anything about it; why bother?

[MrFun]

Skywalker -- so the study of history in general is a waste of time??

We should never try to come to understand past historical events or developments??

[Kuciwalker]

No - it's just getting emotional over it is rather pointless.

[MrFun]

I agree with you on that -- no use in bemoaning about Amerindians losses and portraying them as having had idyllic, utopian societies before Columbus came.

But that does not mean that we cannot study and take an interest in Amerindian cultures, and their perspective of the westward expansion.

There is also no good use in whitewashing the history of westward expansion, keeping in mind that atrocities came from both sides. But also remembering that white settlers were anything but civilized in most cases towards Amerindians.

[Ramo]

huh? the Mexican gov't actively sought Americans to settle in texas. Later, the Mexican gov't forced the Texans to convert to Catholicism which sparked the Texan rebellion. The Texas fought its independence for the right of free worship

That's totally false. The initial Anglo settlers were asked to convert to Catholicism before they could settle (which they didn't), but that was pretty much the end of it. Mexcio never tried to forcefully convert the settlers.

Actually, Texas fought its independence because Santa Anna pulled of a centralist coup against his liberal VP in '35, which provoked wide-scale rebellion in Mexico. Texas was simply the most successful of the rebelling provinces.

Your view is about as twisted as most textbooks. Anglos moved into those states and then rebelled. It's not like the Mexicans rebelled and joined the US.

Certainly not in California, but Mexicans did play an important part in the Texas rebellion. For instance, the first Texan VP was a Mexican.