[Athos]

the point that you have a narrow definition of civilization

My definition is the truth - a notion you right-wing Republicans have abandoned.

[tomder55]

Well I'll go with every news source that reported that the Aussie Aboriginals are the oldest civilization on earth .Those sources include CNN, Guardian, Smithsonian. The Euro definition is used as a pejorative against what they call primitive societies and are used as an excuse to abuse 'primitive people' .

But to use your definition ,the Aussie aboriginals were still in fact a civilization . They were not nomadic. They lived in villages near food sources . Their homes were often connected . The homes were domed shape contructed of cane reed and palm leave roofs . In Western Australia stone walls were used in the construction .



Each group had a governing structure and land they occupied . Their laws were pass on from ancestral beings over the years .They called it 'dreamtime' or 'Tjukurrpa'

.They traded with other tribes ,they warred with other tribes . But it was not to take territory . The ancestral beings prescribed the roles of men and women for all aspects of life, religious and secular ; marriage, child bearing, death as well as the economy of the group. They also warned of the consequences if the taboos were not adhered to and had laws to enforce them.

[Athos]

Well I'll go with every news source that reported that the Aussie Aboriginals are the oldest civilization on earth .Those sources include CNN, Guardian, Smithsonian.

Every one of your sources are wrong. CNN and The Guardian each cited the same genomic study that examined the relation of Australian Aborigines to other groups in the area and examined their origins. The study was based on DNA. The Smithsonian cited The Guardian. NOWHERE IN THE ORIGINAL STUDY DOES THE TERM "CIVILIZATION" EVER APPEAR!

Your sources simply added the word - carelessly, I might add - as a catch-all for "culture". It is common to use the words interchangeably, but not when a specific society is being examined to determine whether its culture could be classified as "civilization". That is the situation here.

Your other marks – trading, warring, gender roles, religious and secular life, marriage, childbearing, and death, etc. – are all signs of a culture. All societies possess these. In addition to the cultural signs you mentioned, civilizations possess far more characteristics as I outlined in post #27.

[jlisenbe]

I don't think you see the validity of any argument other than your own. What the British did in many places is lamentable but doesn't change anything. The British didn't come up with the idea of manifest destiny, that is an American notion. the British came up with Terra Nullius, an entirely different notion. Manifest destiny is the idea that one nation is superior and has the right to rule whatever lands they lay claim to. Terra Nullius is the idea that the land belongs to noone as there are no established settlements there and therefore they have the right to lay claim to it

So you can take land from native peoples as long as it's called Terra Nullius rather than manifest destiny? Your approach seems to be that it's OK as long as it was done in Australia, but wrong when done in the U.S. If you take the land that people are living on and dependent on, then call it what you will, it is still wrong. Their numbers are about a third of what they were when white settlers began to arrive. They were not given the right to vote until 1962. It has been a history of oppression and mistreatment.

"By the 1870s all the fertile areas of Australia had been appropriated, and Aboriginal communities reduced to impoverished remnants living either on the fringes of European communities or on lands considered unsuitable for settlement."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Histor...us_Australians

Every one of your sources are wrong.

Everyone is wrong. Only Athos is right. Why am I not surprised?

[paraclete]

Tom, aboriginals are not a civilisation, very few ever lived in villages or built huts, they constructed temporary shelters, their game moved so they moved, the idea that they stayed long term in one place is false and would only have been possible for coastal people. Torres Strait Islanders are a whole different issue, a different people. After colonisation, many died out either from disease or warfare. Because there were limited populations in any place, there were perhaps 20,000 killed, there was very limited organised resistance which could be expected if a civilisation existed. There were no capital cities to be conquered.

[jlisenbe]

I have a suspicious feeling that the aboriginals of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries would have had a somewhat different outlook than yours, and that suffering so much loss under the principle of Terra Nullius rather than manifest destiny would have made but little difference to them.

Because there were limited populations in any place, there were perhaps 20,000 killed, there was very limited organised resistance which could be expected if a civilisation existed.

An absolutely incredible statement which is being used to justify the crimes carried out against these largely defenseless people since, after all, they were supposedly not a civilization. Just incredible. Hopefully you misstated that.

[Wondergirl]

Indigenous peoples believe the land isn't owned, but is open to and free for everyone's use.

Civilization -- NOUN

• the stage of human social development and organization which is considered most advanced.
  
  "they equated the railroad with progress and civilization"
  synonyms:
  human development · advancement · progress · enlightenment · edification · culture · cultivation · refinement · sophistication
  
  • the process by which a society or place reaches an advanced stage of social development and organization.

[jlisenbe]

which is considered most advanced.

Then plainly the American Indians were not civilizations, for they were FAR removed from being the most advanced or anything even close to it.

I'll say it again. There was unquestionably no more advanced, "human social development and organization," on the Australian continent that the Aborigines.

Indigenous peoples believe the land isn't owned, but is open to and free for everyone's use.

Weren't the American Indians indigenous peoples? If so, then the land was not owned and was free for everyone's use, so then how was manifest destiny wrong?

I don't agree with that idea since I thoroughly disagree with your basic premise.

[Wondergirl]

Weren't the American Indians indigenous peoples? If so, then the land was not owned and was free for everyone's use, so then how was manifest destiny wrong?

Yes, they were -- and are.

Manifest Destiny said the land is for everyone's use? No land will be sold and will be enjoyed by all?

"Manifest Destiny was the concept that the United States had a God-given right to take over territory all the way to the Pacific Ocean. The phrase "Manifest Destiny" was created in 1845 by a newspaper writer named John L. O'Sullivan."
https://simple.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manifest_destiny

[jlisenbe]

Yes, they were -- and are.

Manifest Destiny said the land is for everyone's use? No land will be sold and will be enjoyed by all?

MD did not say that, but you did. I was using YOUR definition. "Indigenous peoples believe the land isn't owned, but is open to and free for everyone's use." Now you say they were, and are, indigenous peoples, so wouldn't that mean the land, according to your definition, "isn't owned, but is open to and free for everyone's use?"

[Wondergirl]

Native Americans: "We believe the land isn't owned, but is open to and free for everyone's use."

Manifest Destiny: "Explore this great land and crash through whatever you have to in order to get to the west end of it. Cheat or even kill anyone who gets in your way. Meanwhile, grab and hold on to as much land as you can."

[jlisenbe]

Manifest Destiny: "Explore this great land and crash through whatever you have to in order to get to the west end of it. Cheat or even kill anyone who gets in your way. Meanwhile, grab and hold on to as much land as you can."

Well, that's your version of it. It was not, however, completely accepted nationwide.

"Historians have emphasized that "manifest destiny" was a contested concept—Democrats endorsed the idea but many prominent Americans (such as Abraham Lincoln,^[9] Ulysses S. Grant,^[10] and most Whigs) rejected it.^[11] Historian Daniel Walker Howe writes, "American imperialism did not represent an American consensus; it provoked bitter dissent within the national polity ... Whigs saw America's moral mission as one of democratic example rather than one of conquest."^[12] Historian Frederick Merk likewise concluded: "From the outset Manifest Destiny—vast in program, in its sense of continentalism—was slight in support. It lacked national, sectional, or party following commensurate with its magnitude. The reason was it did not reflect the national spirit. The thesis that it embodied nationalism, found in much historical writing, is backed by little real supporting evidence."^[13]"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manifest_destiny

Now as I've said, I think our treatment of the Natives was terrible. It is likely something we should address as a nation, but your view of how indigenous people looked at the land certainly leaves MD as an ethical possibility since, after all, you cannot take land from people who do not consider it to be their property.

Might add that, so far as I know, MD was never an official government policy.

[Wondergirl]

We stole land that was their living space, waterways, and hunting grounds. They didn't understand the concept of selling land.

[jlisenbe]

They didn't understand the concept of selling land.

I think they understood better than you think. They certainly made treaties that involved swapping land for payments of one sort or another.

The core of this whole thing went back to the Australian treatment of the Aboriginal people which was every bit as bad as our treatment of the Native tribes, but only on a smaller scale.

[Wondergirl]

They certainly made treaties that involved swapping land for payments of one sort or another.

Yup, once they figured out what those white guys were up to. And they still got screwed --and, to this day, STILL ARE getting cheated....

[paraclete]

I think they understood better than you think. They certainly made treaties that involved swapping land for payments of one sort or another.

The core of this whole thing went back to the Australian treatment of the Aboriginal people which was every bit as bad as our treatment of the Native tribes, but only on a smaller scale.

Yes we didn't send regiments into the field to murder them

[jlisenbe]

Yes we didn't send regiments into the field to murder them

I suppose that makes the taking of their lands and the enormous diminishing of their numbers a little more palatable for you, but there is really not much difference, and especially considering this.

"On the mainland, prolonged conflict followed the frontier of European settlement.^[62] In 1834, John Dunmore Lang wrote: "There is black blood at this moment on the hands of individuals of good repute in the colony of New South Wales of which all the waters of New Holland would be insufficient to wash out the indelible stains."^[63] In 1790, an Aboriginal leader Pemulwuy in Sydney resisted the Europeans,^[64] waging a guerrilla-style warfare on the settlers in a series of wars known as the Hawkesbury and Nepean Wars, which spanned 26 years, from 1790 to 1816.^[65] In 1838, twenty eight Aboriginal people were killed at the Myall Creek massacre; seven of the convict settlers responsible, six white men and one African man, were tried, convicted and hanged for the murders. Many Aboriginal communities resisted the settlers, such as the Noongar of south-western Australia, led by Yagan, who was killed in 1833. The Kalkadoon of Queensland also resisted the settlers, and there was a massacre of over 200 people on their land at Battle Mountain in 1884. There was a massacre at Coniston in the Territory of Central Australia in 1928. Poisoning of food and water has been recorded on several different occasions. The number of violent deaths at the hands of white people is still the subject of debate, with a figure of around 10,000–20,000 deaths being advanced by historians such as Henry Reynolds. However the methodology behind figures such as this one has been criticised due to the fact that only white deaths were documented in frontier conflicts, forcing historians to estimate a country-wide white-black death ratio in violent confrontations and infer from this the number of Aboriginal deaths.^[66] Reynolds, and other historians, estimate that up to 3,000 white people were killed by Aboriginal Australians in the frontier violence.^[67] By the 1870s all the fertile areas of Australia had been appropriated, and Aboriginal communities reduced to impoverished remnants living either on the fringes of European communities or on lands considered unsuitable for settlement."

You might as well face up to it. Your example of how to treat indigenous people is a pretty sad and selfish one, and sadly similar to ours.

[talaniman]

Native Americans had about as much choice as imported slaves. Take the deal or die. Some choice. This has been repeated throughout the history of man with pretty much the same outcome. Conquest of land and resources and the suppression, subjugation and oppression of the conquered peoples. The labels and names for those actions have changed and varied to justify such actions and protect the conquerors.

Works every time until Hitler got carried away.

[paraclete]

You might as well face up to it. Your example of how to treat indigenous people is a pretty sad and selfish one, and sadly similar to ours.

Once again, it was the British who did these things, my own family were free Irish settlers who had a good relationship with natives in a remote corner of New South Wales. Even then the British did not march armies across the land to dispossess the natives so while there was violence and bad things happened, what happened here was not on the same scale as what happened there. Saying all the fertile areas had been appropriated is only saying that parts of the coastal fringe and some grass lands had been taken over. There were vast forests, rugged mountain ranges and an inhospitable inland.

[jlisenbe]

while there was violence and bad things happened, what happened here was not on the same scale as what happened there.

That's already been said, so we can agree on that. But you neglected to note that, "By the 1870s all the fertile areas of Australia had been appropriated, and Aboriginal communities reduced to impoverished remnants." Being reduced to "impoverished remnants" says a lot. "Reduced" indicated a large reduction in population, and "impoverished" says poverty, poverty, poverty, so neither Australia nor the U.S. has anything to boast about in their treatments of native populations.