The Last Pirate of New York
commentarymagazine.com
commentarymagazine.com
I'm not one to scream about micro-aggressions, but look at that opening sentence. It implies that no "crime" was even possible before the arrival of Europeans, that prior to contact native populations did not commit crimes. Either the native were innocent children in a garden of eden, or they were wild animals with no justice system.
Perhaps this was the first crime involving Europeans ... but even that suggests that the Europeans themselves had not committed any crimes prior to this deal. That's a big can of worms. I'd say, at best, this is the first documented case of real estate fraud in the land that would become NY.
You are somehow missing the context both of that threadbare joke, and the context of the paragraph it is in, and the article as a whole, leading you to ascribe implications that aren’t in any way present in the writing.
I don't know whether that's accurate, but it doesn't seem too unreasonable. Pre-colonization records are sparser than post.
Sounds like a fun weekend project, go interview tribal historians for the tribes of that region for crimes that predate the first-"known" crime from TFA and submit it such that the author can publish a retraction.
Then why approach a piece with a pedantic, argumentative, intentional misreading of the first sentence?
Congratulations, you missed the joke.