Manifest Destiny, Segregation, and Lebensraum

when there is money/land/gold/etc involved, Christian Heritage means nothing..what were the numbers in Canada? I would guess a lot less whites up there?

 

I'm not at all sure what our "Christian Heritage" had to do with it. Certainly we could have done better and argueably should have.

Early on the British had problems of a similar nature. The French were more interested in trading than in colonization. That predisposed them to get along with the Indians. The British didn't seem to be as intersted in building up the European population either especially after the revolution. That doesn't mean that they didn't have some significant Indian problems though. Indeed like I think was mentioned earlier the one documented case of trying to infect the Indians with blankets was conducted by a British Army officer.

Again I would disagree. The Spanish colonies did have a strict class system with the Indians at the bottom but extermination was never the plan from anything I've seen. From what I recall reading (and this dates back to middle school I think) even full blood Spanish who weren't born in Spain were not considered first class citizens.

Eugenics is hardly a corruption of Origin of the Species indeed it is a logical outgrowth of the work of Mendel. The problem with it is the same as it's application to many dog breeds. The traits that were bred for were often cosmetic (or even non genetic) and little real attention was paided to traits that might best be described as enhancing "fitness" (of course I'm not sure the tools or knowledge to do so was present at the time either and even now just what should be included in such a defintion would likely spark considerable debate).

 

They had less warfare, but they still shoved the Indians onto reservations and those places are as miserable as any in this country. Yet, Indians on both sides of the border have the same opportunity as any other American or Canadian - they can move into town, get a job and join the rat race.

Yes, of course it was about land and resources - just like every other square inch of the planet! That's how every nation was formed, and that's how nations across the globe continue to unravel and reform. Look at Ukraine, Syria, Iraq, (Kurdistan) - different cultures, religions, political entities are squabbling over land and resources. There was nothing unique about North America. We wanted it and they had it. We fought over it and they lost.

Yet, unlike the Nazi (attempted) expansion, we didn't make slaves of them or commit genocide. There were no "smallpox infected blankets" it was just that Europeans had been exposed to these diseases for thousands of generations and had developed a resistance. The natives here had no such resistance and tended to die from the same diseases that Europeans took in stride.

As far as bans on language and forcibly trying to make them "white" well, it may have been poorly and even cruelly implemented at times, but it really was the kindest route. Look at Indians on the reservations and look at Indians who have merged into the dominant culture and ask yourself who is better off.

 

did the NAs really ''have''/own it?? didn't they war among themselves for land/hate/etc? did they own the whole of North America?? were there ''property'' lines?

 

There are 190 (depending on source) independent nations on earth. All of them were taken from somebody else. Most of them have changed hands many, many times. I fail to see why anyone should feel any angst about that. It's history.

 

I am sorry, I can't find any evidence of the United States developing a systematic genocide of Natives from the Western frontier. To claim the ideologies were similar, basing Nazism vs Christianity in the US is, IMO, is an error.

 

many 'groups' wanted/want to destroy others' cultures.....

 

But the original idea of Lebensraum didn't incorporate or at least explicitly mention the elimination or enslavement of the Slavs did it? How closely they resemble each other may depend on just what you ascribe to "Lebensraum" for that matter I'm not sure the concept of "Manifest Destiny" addressed what to do with the Indians at all. Certainly the American policies/plans for their new lands in the west were no where near as evil as what the Nazis planed for their new conquests.

 

what they did shows their culture/way of life of some tribes<>war/torture.........fight fire with fire and more

 

"Lebenstraum" and "Manifest Destiny" are clearly similar concepts and have the same roots. Remember, that slavery was also in the nazi plan and certainly the Spanish felt the natives were good for nothing except slave labor. (Actually, they weren't very good at it and died off, so the Spanish brought in African natives.) What was the "General Government" section of Poland in WW2 except a large reservation? People don't realize that the idea of Aryan Supermen and the "Manifest Destiny" to conquer the world from East to West was very much an English/American/North European belief system very popular in the USA during the last half of the 19th Century and somewhat into the 20th. It had nothing to do with Christianity but co-existed with it. The nazi ideology was built off these beliefs and took them a step or two farther. That's why they are similar but not identical. I also said earlier that there wasn't a industrialized murder component to the American version, but there was a cruel indifference as to whether these people lived or not.

 

The Christianity part came in under Grant, who appointed Quakers to run many of the Indian reservations. He felt they'd be less corrupt than the political cronies who had caused so much trouble in the past. Grant was right. They were less corrupt. Other religious groups got dragged in and all of them pushed a policy of assimilation (Christianity, English language, vocational skills) over the Indian way of life. That caused resentment that lasts right up until the present day, but they were right. Those natives that assimilated into the white culture did, and still do, much better than those who still sit on the reservations collecting a check.

 

I see a significant difference...different eras/cultures/technology/etc

 

I most definitely see your argument. There is a common similarity between Lebensraum and manifest destiny. However when you start talking about ideological dogma I believe that's where the roads divide. This definitely got me thinking. As KB said previously in this thread unfortunately this is a common place practice throughout history. Especially when a more modern and technologically advanced people are confronted with who they deem as an "inferior people".

That wasn't the case with the National Socialist Movement. The Jewish community was considered inferior because of political and religious beliefs, not because they just wanted to expand their dominion and. They were specifically chosen to be "removed" any way possible from the European continent.

 

Back in the 1860s and 70s Darwin's theories were used as a basis for all sorts of ideas. The idea of Aryan supremacy and manifest destiny became quite in vogue about that time and were quite racial in nature. Many of them were believed by many in the US. These same ideas were used as the basis for nazi ideology (with additions). Therefore, our policies and actions would be similar to the nazis because the thinking was very close to the same. The sad treatment of the NAs, often murderous, and the nazi movement all went down within the span of one human lifetime. They were still very much believed at the turn of the century when we went into the Philippines-a very sad chapter for the U.S. Army.

 

The European culture was superior. I know that's a dangerous thing to say, and easily interpreted as being racist, but in point of fact, they (us) were 1000 years ahead of the native Americans, and most of the rest of the world. Please understand that I'm not arguing that other cultures were not capable of such achievement, because obviously other cultures had reached a high degree of advancement back when Europeans were still spearing animals for a living. Yet, in the 18th and 19th centuries it was the turn of the western culture(s). And that's when all of this occurred.

Just compare in terms of scientific and industrial development. Though, you could throw in art and music and medicine and dozen other soft disciplines as well. So, of course they felt superior - the streets were lit with gas lamps and messages were crossing the continent via telegraph, steam was running factories and trains. In the meantime, stone age people were standing in the way of turning the plains into wheat farms and connecting the coasts by railroad. Boat loads of people were arriving that wanted to farm and build. Try to put yourself in that time and appreciate that it was absolutely inevitable that millions of people were not going to squat on the coast when an entire continent full of arable land, mineral wealth, timber sat empty.

And remember too, Indians were killing each other for the same reasons - for land, for resources.

We were just better at it than them.

 

http://quod.lib.umich.edu/p/plag/5240451.0001.009/--did-the-us-army-distribute-smallpox-blankets-to-indians?rgn=main;view=fulltext

 

Darwin had little to do with the rise of "Manifest Destiny".

In 1830, President Andrew Jackson signed into law the Indian Removal Act, that would move all Native Americans West of the Mississippi...Darwin was still attending Christ's College in Cambridge, and he would not begin his journey of the Beagle for another year or so.

 

Prescott Bush, Averill Harrimen (FDR's special envoy during the war), the Rockefellars, all believed in and supported Eugenics dating back to the 19-teens and 1920s, they wanted blacks, criminals, etc. sterilized, and Nazi thinkers and ideologists used Americans as sources for ideas and concepts.

 

most every race has people like this...no race has a monopoly on evil/etc....some races just don't have the power/technology to put their beliefs into practice, or long range /long term practice [ as Kody stated ]