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

[Dr Strangelove]

Originally posted by Odin


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*

There was also the little matter of the abolition of slavery expeditied by Santa Anna. Santa Anna had been born a slave an grew up in a Mexico that had freed itself from Spain but still permitted slavery. Santa Anna led a revolt, seized control of the government, and outlawed slavery. The resulting civil war was excessively bloody. When land owners resisted his army Santa Anna would order his buglers to play the tune immortalized in the Disney version of "The Alamo" to signal to his troops that no mercy was to be given to the resistance. Santa Anna left Texas alone for years simply because he was busy crushing the opposition in Mexico. Eventually he demanded that the "Texicans" give up their slaves also. Mind you Santa Anna also had a reputation for exacting revenge even after the landowners had volunatarily freed their slaves.

[Ramo]

Mexico abolished slavery (in the provinces excluding Texas) years before Santa Anna siezed power. Santa Anna never tried to abolish slavery in Texas.

Santa Anna seized power mostly because the church was afraid of property seizures and landlords were afraid of land reform that were occuring under the gov't, so they backed him in his coup against his VP.

[GePap]

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

As Ramo, has already pointed out, this is false. Man, beat me to the punch.

The intentions of the Texans were haf-pure, but they had nothing to do with religion and more to do with divorcing themselves form the Santa Anna dictatorship, and keeping their slaves.

As far as I could tell, Manifet Destiny WAS the term used at the time (1840's and early 50's mainly), like in the whole Oregon dispute with the UK.

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Ted Striker
man this topic is soo freshman in college trying to reconcile his new world view with his old one

let's talk about lesbians or something

Why, do they have some land we can steal?

[Sikander]

Originally posted by St Leo
The point isn't that the land you are living on is stolen. The point is that you can stop the cycle of theft and counter-theft NOW!

There is no way I'm going to let some redskinned heathen take my property. It's time to stop the cycle of theft!

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Kidicious


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.

What the fvck are Anglos?

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Q Cubed

today though, all we hear is of how evil white men stole from the indians. we need some balance.

well, as you say that it provided no benefit whatsoever to the natives, how was forcing them onto reservations after years of decimating extermination not evil?

and imperialism, by and large, was bad.
half the ethnic conflicts in africa could probably have been avoided had the euros not created such arbitrary and artificial borders, forcing different and mutually hostile ethnicities in one "country"? or the end result of british rule in india, which is a rather unstable region in south asia, created by way of millions of hindus and muslims dead, and continuing poverty in much of the region?

i'd like to know one instance where imperialism did good for the natives.

the natives over here certainly got a raw deal.

Half the ethnic conflicts in Africa started before the Europeans got there. The Europeans brought much more peace than war to Africa, though if you fought the Europeans you were likely to take a lot more casualties than in a skirmish with fellow Africans. The peace brought to Africa allowed a lot of formerly "unproductive" (in reality undefensible) land to be brought into production, and reduced the debilitating effects of slave raids by making them less profitible. As for British rule in India, are you implying that things would have been better there if the Brits had never been there? There would certainly be many more states on the subcontinent, and many more wars. How much progress would have been made over the years in education, food production and distribution, etc. if the Moghuls were still more or less in charge?

As for other examples, certainly the Roman empire had some desirable benefits for its subjects. It's easy to forget that empires often bring peace. And not only the general absence of state to state conflict, but much more importantly the absence of the sort of endemic small scale conflict that is debilitating to the economic well-being of a people. This is why there is often so little resistance to being brought into an empire. The local group who was used to beating up on everyone else might resist for a time, but everyone else is happy to be left alone and build. Throwing a few shekels in the direction of the imperialists every year is a much better proposition than girding yourself for another attack at harvest time.

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Albert Speer
Q Cubed:

medicine, european law institutions (which, at the risk of being 'ethnocentric', actually is often times much better than native law systems; a jury system for example is better than arbritary judges/chiefs), european taboos (helped curb female circumcision in parts of africa), infrastructure building, etc.

it's silly to say no good came out of it. the general effect was negative but that don't negate the few notable goods.

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'. Western expansion (which i thought was the neutral, official word for this period not Manifest Destiny) happened gradually a settler at a time until the US Army got involved following native attacks on settlers and the cavalry basically sped the native decline up.

the point is though this was not some fiendish, thought-out plan.

Good post Albert. In fact not only wasn't there a consensus amongst Americans of the 19th century to exterminate the Indians, there was a fairly wide body of opinion on the subject, with a majority tending to be sympathetic to the Indians if ignorant of the situation in the West. As you say much more happened one settler at a time than in big moves by the Federal government.

Another good point you make is that calling the westward expansion "Manifest Destiny" is confusing. Manifest Destiny is a concept that is predominately aimed at Europeans. It simply holds that it was the destiny of the United States to expand from East to West and take control of a huge chunk of the North American continent, British, Spanish, Russian, French or Mexican claims notwithstanding. The Indians were thrown in with the bargain, but weren't considered a serious impediment to the general trend. Whether God handles destiny or someone else does, the fact is that this was the destiny of the United States.

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Kidicious


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.

Every death is complete genocide for somebody, but that's about as close to the truth as your post comes. Seriously, you can't conflate incidents like you describe into attempts at "complete" genocide. Very few people actually bought into "the only good Indian is a dead Indian" sort of talk. Government action was used as often to reign in white settlers as it was to protect them from Indians, and much more often for that pupose than to take part in genocide wittingly or not.

And again, what do you mean by Anglo above? Are you sure that it's the right term for this conversation that we're having in english about Manifest Destiny?

[Nubclear]

You don't have to have an individual post for each reply.

[Dis]

[MrFun]

Originally posted by Comrade Tassadar
You don't have to have an individual post for each reply.

But he thinks it makes him look cool.

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Comrade Tassadar
You don't have to have an individual post for each reply.

It makes me look cool.

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Dissident

You live in Las Vegas.

[Theben]

You could also look at it as divine justice. After all, we whities were being persecuted by Arabs during the dark ages, when Europe was a ****hole and the Islamic conquests were at full height. They certainly weren't hindered by pangs of guilt when they overran North Africa and Spain, and purchased tens of thousands of European slaves (mostly slavic; slav=slave) They thought they were bringing progress to the "white barbarians" of the North.
Ditto with the Chinese. They didn't think to much of what anyone around them thought when they carved out their empire, and weren't impressed by Polo's description of Europe.

So Europe's and America's rise to power is just getting even for centuries of oppression by arab and oriental societies!

*hides*