"Savage" is not the gist of the story. "Savage" was and still is just a tool. The big story is about the land and its resources. "It's a very rich country; and we want it."
The only problem here is your assumption that “savage was and still is
just a tool” for material gain. Take out the word "just" and you are closer to something you can defend. Suspicion often follows culture clashes and other unfamiliarities and thus negative characterizations and stereotyping irrespective if someone wants to take something from the other person or group. Take the centuries long witch hunt phenomenon. There is no proof that material theft or acquisition was anything close to the dominate motive for these negative characterizations and persecutions. Very often these women were loners and not even the least bit well to do. But they were different and margainalized, from whence come fears, superstition, and hatred, mistrust, then panic. So where is the material profit motive behind the thought processes? So much for the Marxist economic theories which are often quite speculative and too simplified to explain complicated sociological realities. You haven`t even begun to prove that motivations to take property are always causative to the "they are savages" mindset in the New World. But since you are so big on concrete, primary source evidence to back up historical assertions perhaps you are about to give it a try...
Really? And not just "some" but "most"? And you know this how? There are, what, a billion or so Catholics in the world and you purport to *know* that most of them go through the motions with no real connection? Interesting indeed.
LOL There you go making things up again. Post the whole quote in context and it`s clear I was offering opinion. There can be no other in the matter of the condition of another`s heart. Yet the bible gives us clues such as the teaching of the camel and sewing needle. Few find the way. The wheat grows up with the tares thus false professors are among the genuine. Also those who habitually practice sin will not enter the kingdom no matter their profession (1 Corinthians 6-9-11, Galatians 5-19-21, Revelation 22-15) in spite of the popularity of Antinomian imaginations.
So? You not only read the minds of the world's Catholics but also of the world's Protestants?
Facts are fine without mind reading. Are you prepared to prove that anything like the majority of Protestant settlers in the New World, or if you will, within the confines of what became the U.S.A. were practicing believers in transubstantiation or Luther`s consubstantiation, eg. "it`s bread and wine but also real blood and flesh at the same time"? If so give it a try. To find Protestants who thought they were drinking Christ`s actual blood and eating his actual flesh you can focus on Lutheran migrants and perhaps some High Church Anglicans. However the 1662 revision of the
Book of Common Prayer, which stood until the 20th C., reinstated the disclaimer, that the actual presence of the blood and flesh of Christ is not implied in the ritual and that the same is only found in heaven, not at Church altars. And the Protestant Episcopal Church in their
39 Articles (1801) rejects notions of transubstantiation while nothing along the lines of consubstantiation is described or confirmed.
Then there are of course many other groups, including the Congregationalists, Presbyterians, and other Reformed groups along with Baptists, Quakers, and the Methodists who all tend to take spiritual/symbolic approaches. And there were the two "Great Awakenings," the first of the 1730s and 40s which largely disenfranchised the Church of England in many colonies in the East. The second in the early 1800s expanded out West and resulted in the Baptists, Methodists, and Presbyterians (a distance 3rd) as the most prevalent religious groups in the land. Yes, there were some French and Spanish (Catholic culture) settlements, notably in the Gulf but ultimately the Anglo culture became dominant in colonial America as is most evidenced by the language we speak. So yes, reports of the practice of cannibalism among the Natives likely would have been very strange to many as well as viewed as primitive and barbaric.
And, I `ll add, that another poster offered some primary reports on cannibalism, one involving the Iroquois which, even though within the geographic boundaries of what would become the USA, you tried to dismiss as irrelevant because the source predates the Declaration of Independence (Post 142). Such an objection is positively ludicrous, as if the USA and all it`s socio-political and other cultural dynamics spontaneously appeared in a vacuum in 1776. I`ll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you are just desperate to quash evidence as otherwise you just haven`t a clue about the social sciences at even a secondary school level.
And the punishment was for what crime again?
Witchcraft, not that that matters. Again, since when is capital punishment a ritual sacrifice to the gods? Some used to really take the bible literally and such were capital offenses, to rid the society of perceived menaces. You are likewise reaching here trying to cover another one of your sweeping and unsubstantiated assertions, and in this case, a forced parallel. Of course we haven`t seen any primary sources or any kind at all to back it up.
I'm not worried about "the settler's" racistic world views; they were products of their own time and long gone.
I don`t believe you. It is obvious from your posts that you resent even what happened long ago, based of course on your slanted interpretation of it...
I'm more worried about my apologetic contemporaries who indiscriminatingly subscribe to and keep alive that same racist world view. That is inexcusable.
That`s fine, as long as you know what you deem as "racist" or "inexcusable" may not coincide with the convictions of others, and these matters are typically open to debate in democratic societies.
I repeat. "Putting yourself in the world of the people you study" does not mean indiscrimatingly adopting their world view.
LOL Let me know when you find someone who has made that argument.
It means that no solid historian today will adopt the word "squaw" and use it outside direct period quotes.
Most of this use of the word "squaw" controversy is a recent phenomenon. The idea that it cannot ever be used appropriately is still very much debated as the word has a Native Am etymology and it`s still used by a Native tribe to designate a traditional dance. So it`s obviously one of those situations where the word itself isn`t the issue but who is using it and with what intent. I was speaking colloquially in this informal setting to describe an Indian woman and with no pejorative as an intent. Your complaint is an ad hominem and a rabbit trail. Stick to the issues which involves supporting your numerous questionable claims.
Do you have anything to substantiate this? Or is this again one of your own notions, or perhaps one of your favourite "settler's" notion?
LOL Why should I have to substantiate something on this point? It`s you that asserted that rape and prostitution were unknown in North America before introduction by the settlers so it is your job to "substantiate." More on this in a moment.
　
I`m going to summarize beginning with a few additional quotes from you.
You say
“Yes, let's not waste our time on scalping as it was widely practiced and endorsed in North America by men of every skin hue.”
And you have in no way established that this issue is a "waste of time" as related to the historical question, "what dynamics influenced the savage perception?" A good place to start would be to show that the practice was imported and part of the Western Euro culture of the era. Can you do that? Otherwise it can be argued that the settlers were acting in retaliation to a practice that long pre-existed in the Americas. "Give the savages a taste of their own medicine".... I mean to lighten the burden on the Natives Ams you bring the far fetched claim that the settlers introduced rape and prostitution to the region... Why can`t we operate this in reverse in the matter of scalping? Not that there is any basis for believing that scalping was part of the Euro culture of this era... But this one no doubt stays on the table though the thesis is not dependant on it. There are a number of observable peculiarities that can factor into their perceptions and the historical question.
You also say
“Many euro-american sexual and arguably "savage" practices, such as prostitution and rape, on the other hand, were alien to North American native population.”
Wow, and when asked for proofs what you offered was particularly interesting. In post 128 you write...
"From the fact that money did not change hands before the euro-americans introduced the practice and from the fact that generally speaking, other cultures do not share our Judeo-Christian notions of sex and sexuality...?"
OK.... Two points here. First you tell us that money is a necessary accompaniment to prostitution.
Lets try a definition.
Prostitution:
offering sexual intercourse for pay
wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn
Deerskins were often pay in the Native American economies were they not? So where do you get the idea that prostitution never happened? Are you noble savaging again?
Second point, you say the Native Ams weren`t Christians like that is supposed to prove something in this matter. Is prostitution somehow specific to Judeo-Christian cultures? I must say you have done a horrible job of supporting your assertions, ironic indeed for someone who demands decisive primary source evidence from others.
Other than this, your idea of some national, government inspired agenda to wipe out all the Native Ams remains unproven and largely refuted.
Your claim that the Salem witch trials and subsequent executions equate to some ritual sacrifice to a deity hasn`t begun to find wings.
Nor has Buffalo Bill.
Your claim that the "savage" designation was just manfactured as a utility, and all subsequent to and the effect of greed motives still remains unproven speculation and one that has been effectively called into question.
Your attempt to bar Colonial American information and sources and others related to nearby territories such as that which became Mexico from the discussion was not only exposed as obfuscation but just folly given the questions at hand.
You were also shown to be ignorant of a most basic point of geography.
Your insistence that others back up their historical claims with solid source material was shown as hypocritical, "do as I say, not as I do"....
On a positive note, you did come around to acknowledging that there was evil on both sides of the equation. Though you haven`t provided any practical scenarios as to how the conflicts could have been avoided. It is the thesis of myself that the interaction was inevitable as was winners and losers and subjugation given the differing cultural
makeups, eg. "irreconcilable differences" particularly on matters related to possession and use of property. This thesis was supported, hardly challenged, and certainly never overturned. It`s called migration, an ancient phenomenon and most integral to the human experience. Sometimes it isn`t pretty. The right or wrong of it we ultimately leave to the ministers and philosophers. What happened, when, where and why is the job of the historian.
I invite you to answer every point in these recent posts, without cherry picking, cutting out arguments, distorting context, or weaving straw men. There is a lot here with numerous direct challenges. Take on each one if you wish to command my attention here.
　
　
