Settlers and Colonizers
Back in November, the Young America's Foundation organized an event where they invited Michael Knowles of DailyWire to present his ideas on Colonialism. In part of his presentation, he was quoted as saying;
“All regimes in history have been established by settlers and colonizers of one kind or another. Not since Adam in the Garden of Eden have any people sprouted out of the ground, and Adam, you might recall, had a little bit of help in the process, as well,”
We encourage you to click through and watch all of Michael Knowles' speech at Vanderbilt University
Knowles went on to make the larger point that even before European influences had taken hold in central and western North America the Native Americans were themselves engaged in their own brand of Colonialism as they colonized and conquered whole regions of North, South, and Central America. He used the example of the Lakota Sioux who conquered and colonized Cheyenne lands and its people in 1776 Minnesota. His example inspired us to go deeper to try and understand if the Colonialism of the Lakota Sioux over the Cheyenne is a unique outlier of North American Colonialism or if it was more prevalent than one might think.
Removing European influences
One of the reasons we wanted to look deeper into this issue was because honestly 1776 Minnesota was not entirely independent of European influences. A little-known fact that is not highlighted in early American history, regarding the Native Americans of the 18th century, is that the great-grandparents of the oldest living Native Americans of that time had no memory of a North America without Europeans. This fact is not highlighted in our history because it doesn't support the historical narrative that Native Americans were suddenly and quickly overwhelmed by Europeans on this continent when in reality European migration took hundreds of years. So it was very important to dig even further back in time, to a time when Europeans had not yet encountered North America. Our goal is to see if Native American Colonialism truly pre-dated all European influences.
As we researched modern-day historical records two things became painfully obvious: #1 Native Americans, before European influence, behaved in very similar ways in their North American migrations as did Europeans during their migrations into North America, and #2 Historians of today have a tendency to frame Native American actions romantically as adventurous "migration" while framing European actions as oppressive "Colonialism". We will now look at three significant Native American migrations showing that the only real difference between Migration and Colonialism, as it is historically presented today, is actually the ethnicity of those who are migrating.
Mound-Builder Cultures and the Cahokia people (circa 600-1400 AD)
Several independent mound-building cultures had existed for hundreds of years all along the Mississippi River, stretching from present-day Arkansas moving northward to southern Illinois. Starting in about 600 AD the Cahokia mound-builders of Illinois began to expand and colonize southward and for about 700 years dominated all of these mound-building societies by using what historians call … complex social, economic, and religious activities… in reality, this was Colonialism. Being that these were Native Americans who were colonizing, modern-day historians are more likely to call these actions exercising influence. Therefore it's better to say that the Cahokia people exercised influence over these other independent peoples that they dominated for 700 years. However, if we were to say that the Europeans had dominated what would become known as the Eastern United States by "exercising influence" over its Native American population for 400 years we would be castigated.
Ancestral Puebloans and Chaco Canyon (circa 850-1150 AD)
The Ancestral Puebloan people, often referred to as the Anasazi began dominating the cultures of the Four Corners region of what would become known as the United States in 850 AD. Being that Chaco Canyon, in present-day New Mexico, was considered a significant cultural and religious center of the time, the Anasazi people began to migrate into the region intent on dominating it and exploiting its population, economy, and resources. They were successful in doing so for 300 years. However, being that the period encompassing their Reign over this region represented a paradigm shift culturally, creating what was an expansive and modernized culture that included an extensive network of roads and the construction of grand houses. This Colonialism is said to have been achieved through the utilization of complex social dynamics. However, to say that the early European colonies that created villages that represented a cultural paradigm economically and culturally for the regions in which they existed were accomplished through "complex social dynamics", which is true, would be considered a product of a white supremacist patriarchy.
The Mexica Peoples of Aztlan (the Aztecs) and Mesoamerica (circa 1000-1521 AD)
The Mexica/Aztec people are thought to have migrated from a place that was located somewhere in the present-day southwestern United States. Their ancestral lands were called Aztlan. Over several centuries the Mexica, along with other Nahuatl-speaking groups, migrated southward, dominating and colonizing several cultures along the way. Eventually, they arrived in the Valley of Mexico and, according to legend, saw an eagle perched on a cactus with a snake in its beak and were inspired to make the location their capital, Tenochtitlan. The colonization of Mesoamerica by the Aztecs lasted for about 200 years from 1325 to 1521 AD at which time the Tlaxcala people, who had been fighting for their independence from the Aztecs, entered into negotiations and formed an alliance with Hernán Cortés and the Spaniards who, in turn, themselves colonized Central Mexico.
The Aztecs were known for their brutality as they colonized most of central and much of northern Mexico. But yet, again, modern historians treat the Aztecs as really not so bad after all because not only did they allow conquered people, who were willing to pay tribute and provide thousands of Native people to be offered as religious sacrifices, to remain more or less autonomous, they were also accomplished artists and builders, created intricate codices (manuscripts), crafted elaborate sculptures, and built impressive structures. I mean we could easily say the same thing about the European expansion into the Americas. They too were "accomplished artists and builders, created intricate codices (manuscripts), crafted elaborate sculptures, and built impressive structures"; but if we said that left-wing historians' heads would explode.
Summary
Our point here is not for a moment to excuse European exploitation of Native Americans during the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries, or the quasi-genocide of the 19th century. Even though Europeans were not sacrificing tens of thousands of Native Americans to some unknown god, in a very real way they were sacrificing Native Americans to serve their own selfish purposes which to many was their god. This reality makes them at the very least equal to the Aztecs and many other Native American peoples in this respect. Having said that however, it's very important we're honest about our history and that we realize that Europeans did not introduce the concept of selfish expansion through Colonialism to the world or to North America. Further, we must recognize, as Michael Knowles alluded to; (paraphrasing) that every Civilization on Earth from the beginning of time involves someone migrating, colonizing, and establishing some form of governance without which civilization itself would've never taken place. Yes, we understand that there is a moderately large segment of our population that wishes civilization had never occurred and is actively trying to reduce civilization to a point where their worldview can be executed, by force, on a virtually powerless population. Which is a strategy that ironically would ultimately use the exact same methods employed by both European and Native American Colonialists during their migration to and across the Americas.
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