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Comment by doodlebugging | Hacker News Reader

Seems like one conclusion that can be drawn is that the indigenous people who get colonized should just shut up and enjoy their new reservations. The political, societal, and economic benefits of colonization were not intended to help them. Those changes were only to help those who did the colonizing build a new society that was free from the institutions that prevented them having a voice in how they were able to conduct their lives back in the old (European monarchy) country. Shit rolled downhill in the new country and the oppressed became the oppressor.

It worked out in the end though for those who survived since they now have representative government with members elected who are beholden to the people and who remember the main lesson of the past - grassroots organization against oppression is the only tool that works to preserve freedom for the majority of the people in a country.

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i don’t fully understand your post, but I don’t think

“grassroots organization against oppression is the only tool that works to preserve freedom for the majority of the people in a country”

is a good takeaway for native americans and i struggle to imagine a counterfactual where native americans having this knowledge at the start of colonization would make any significant difference to the course of events

In most settler-colonial situations during history, unless strict separation between races and nations was maintained, the conquerors intermingled with the conquered so thoroughly that you cannot tell them apart nowadays (Who is a Norman and who is an Anglo-Saxon? Who is a Roman and who is a Celt?). That included a lot of Amerindians in the US.

This is pretty much the norm across the ages. You could probably say that it is wise from the vanquished to adapt at least partially the culture of the conquerors; after all, it might be better suited for victories in wars, and that was a major factor in survival until recently. (In some places, still is.)

Well it’s kind of a moot point if we only care about “those who survive”.

> Seems like one conclusion that can be drawn is that the indigenous people who get colonized should just shut up and enjoy their new reservations

Colonial institutions ARE extractive.

This is a fairly prominent point in Acemoglu, Simon, and Robinson's works.

Their seminal book literally opens with explaining how most colonial institutions were created to extract the wealth of natives and slaves, institutions that live on today through the authoritarian regimes that inherited them.

> indigenous people who get colonized

Academic talking points. Talk about the indigenous Irish who got "colonized" by the Celts, or the Britons who got "colonized" by the Saxons, Danes, and Normans, or the native American tribes who got "colonized" by other tribes, or the Gauls who got "colonized" by migrant tribes.

The fact is, everyone is on "stolen land" including the "indigenous." The Spaniards were more exploitive than the English and other northern Europeans (look up "Potosi"), but that doesn't make the latter perfect.

The New World was going to be integrated with the Old World sooner or later, no matter who did it.

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