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Comment by pcl | Hacker News Reader

From the researcher quoted in the article:

”Native Americans undoubtedly had earlier grave markers (perhaps made of wood that did not survive), but they were not made of carved stone. Nor did the English settlers have the technology and skills to cut and engrave tombstones; that is why they imported them.”

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also in defense of the title, Native Americans certainly did not consider themselves Americans around this period, some still don't feel like they are afforded the protections of other Americans. These were two nations entirely culturally separate but geographically overlapped

> two nations

500+ nations within the current US boundaries alone

Take a look at a map of Europe around the 1600s with all the free cities and sovereignties, and imagine that an undocumented version of North America looked like that as well

Its been too reductive to group the indigenous populations into one native american group, and one trend of "land acknowledgements" has been helpful in revealing that in a digestible way

> Take a look at a map of Europe around the 1600s with all the free cities and sovereignties

To be fair, those European states, groups, and entities were still extremely interconnected (in comparison) and shared societal, cultural, and religious traits. They viewed themselves as part of a single "Christian civilization," at least in very broad terms. I don't think such an argument could be made for North American societies.

And yeah viewing all Native Americans (I mean in the 1600s, not necessarily now) as belonging to some single "nation" seems like a purely European projection. That seem pretty superficial and essentially erases all of those diverse cultures (which is what is what ended up happening...).

Will admit there was an oversimplification on my part but it was (poorly) calculated considering how many non-Americans frequent the board. I'm American and aware that Native American tribes and nations remained (and still remain) distinct cultural and political entities. The degree of unity varied greatly depending on the time period and region.

I just don't believe this negates that there was a gradual movement towards greater unity among Native American tribes and nations, especially in response to external threats. This process occurred over centuries and varied by region.

This is a bit a matter of semantics. Using the term nation may potentially confuse those who have no experience with Native American history, true. They had many nations. Regardless, though, as the natives faced increased threat of elimination there did become a central united Native American community gradually and then explicitly. Thinking of things like the American Indian Movement (of course started considerably later than the event the OP is referring to, though)

native americans do not have a central united native american community and certainly are not a single nation, nor are they facing any threat of elimination; you're the one that's confused here. nobody considers any two of the nahuatl, the quechua, the guaraní, and the mapuche to be the same nation, nor did the american indian movement ever make any serious effort to include any of them

it's not a question of semantics but one of ontology

you remind me of an arabic taxi driver i had once who tried to convert me to islam on the assumption that i was christian, just because i'm white

I'm a white American. Have studied Native American history fairly extensively and spend a lot time around natives.

pretty sure the taxi driver had spent a lot of time around christians too, but apparently you have no idea why the official name of bolivia is 'the plurinational state of bolivia'

on the contrary: to the extent that they knew the word, native americans considered themselves americans, and the colonists did not consider themselves americans, but rather spanish, portuguese, english, or dutch, as the case may be

"America" as it was, was simply an idea at that point that europeans were buying in on. And it was not the idea of the natives. Natives identifying as American or something close came much further down the line than the period mentioned in OP. The American Indian Movement is where this all finally crystalized.

"america" was the name the europeans gave to the continent (or pair of continents) discovered by columbus, which he thought was indonesia, but which amerigo vespucci proposed was a new continent. vespucci proposed this after exploring parts of america, specifically parts of venezuela, what is now the dominican republic, and some of the coast of brazil. the name "america" gained currency in europe over the period 01507–01538, 89 years before the tombstone in question and 430 years before the founding of the american indian movement in 01968

the idea that native americans were native to that continent (or pair of continents) was not in any way novel to them; what was novel was that there were other continents such as europe, and thus that there was a distinction between america and the world

so everything you have said is completely unrelated to the truth

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