Comment by tdba | Hacker News Reader

Comment by tdba | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

When you're getting colonized, I don't know if it really matters whether the colonizers honor their promises more or less. Consider the Maori, the gold standard for a colonized people who managed to get a full treaty with the British very early on, even securing representation in government in the mid-1800s. Are they meaningfully any better off as a result of these agreements, relative to other indigenous groups? Not really, and in recent times they even seem to have slid back on many important welfare and quality of life metrics, despite changes in NZ policies towards Maoris that should have had the opposite effect. Sure the Maori may have built up "trust" in the colonizers' treaties, but since they were an out-group it didn't affect their day-to-day interactions, so they didn't reap the benefits that go with being part of the high trust society.

My point is that in-group relations is not the same as out-group relations. High trust is about how you treat members of your in-group. Enslaving foreign people is most certainly a "low trust" move (how can I possibly enter an agreement with you when I know you might just show up one day and enslave me?) but it's fully possible and consistent for the perpetrator to belong to a high trust society.

I think you'd be surprised by just how possible it would be to enter into a successful and good faith agreement with a warring tribe which has enslaved or massacred your people. Spanish colonists in New Mexico did so with the Comanche despite the Comanche holding hundreds of captive New Mexicans who they had kidnapped. How did this work? The New Mexicans honored their treaty, and the Comanche established a degree of personal trust with their governer, Juan Bautista de Anza. This treaty was signed in the wake of massacres on both sides, and the captives were not returned. The Comanche continued to raid and kidnap in other regions of New Spain after the treaty was signed. Part of the reason you might find something like this hard to believe is because of your own cultural attitudes about war and slavery, but these are not universal attitudes.

Your example of the Maori is perfectly analogous to what happened in Canada/ But regardless of how things turned out, why did the British honor treaties when they had no incentive to do so? How do you account for this difference in a world dominated by purely rational decision making when interacting with those outside of your culture?

Why did they honor treaties rather than just continuing with open conflict? The juice wasn't worth the squeeze. In general you only fight a war when a) you're being attacked or b) there is something to be gained by doing so that, in expectation, is more valuable than the cost of the war. If there'd had been mountains of gold in Canada to be won, or if the indigenous peoples had put up less of a fight (imposed less of a cost), you can bet the British would not have signed any treaties. Same with New Zealand.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com