Take Up The White Man's Burden

Columbus has become somewhat of a polarizing figure for a lot of people in recent decades. Weighing in on the "Columbus: Cruel conqueror or Noble discoverer" debate is Edward Hudgins, who provides what is in essence a "White Man's Burden" argument in defense of Columbus and the european settlers who came to America in his wake.

From the Washington Times:

Many critics argue Christopher Columbus gave us a devil's bargain. In October 1492 that Italian explorer, working for Spain, opened America to his fellow Europeans. The result: We got a prosperous New World by impoverishing, enslaving and murdering the natives who were already here.
But this fails to distinguish between two types of exploitation, one over other humans and the other over nature. The former should be expunged from our moral codes and civilized society, the latter is the essence of morality and civilization.

It's interesting that the exploitation of nature is the "essence of morality and civilization." That's a very assertive, very pat statement, and Hudgins seems to feel that it needs no defense. It's also interesting because the critical opinion that Hudgins sets up in his first paragraph does not mention natural exploitation at all. The criticism is, in Hudgins' own words, the impoverishment, enslavement and murder of native people in service of our colonizing this country.

But according to Hudgins, we actually did those injuns a favor.

Let's put aside the wars between tribes, the outright brutality and the like, and just look at the daily lives of the Indians before Columbus. Life was lived simply, in primitive cycles. Natives inhabited crude hovels and hunted or used subsistence farming to sustain themselves. Yes, they could enjoy family and friends, tell tales of bringing down buffalo, and imagine that the stars in the sky painted pictures of giant bears and other creatures. The ancestors of Europeans did the same.

But true human life, either for an individual or society, is not an endless, stagnant cycle. Rather, it is a growth in knowledge, in power over the environment, and in individual liberty.

Let's ignore, for a moment (but just a moment) the blistering condescension ladled generously over those words, and discuss the truth behind them.

Hudgins writes: "Natives inhabited crude hovels."
Reality: Early pueblo holdings in the American Southwest often included individual structures and community buildings. Before the arrival of Spanish immigrants, native people of the area had constructed villages, sometimes including large apartment block buildings and some of which remain in use centuries later. LINK
And here's a mock-up of what an Iroquoian longhouse community looked like. Hovel-esque, no? No?

Hudgins writes: "Natives... hunted or used subsistence farming to sustain themselves."
Reality: While Native Americans did hunt for buffalo, they also created irrigation systems, crop-farmed for fruits, vegetables and tobbacco, and constructed storehouses to maintain the freshness of their foods - including grains, meats - over the winter months. LINK

So, the man is wrong. But (and here's where the condescension thing comes in) the worst part is how smugly wrong he is. The American Indians were not "Stagnant" in their culture, nor lacking power over their environment or over their individual liberty. Their societies chose to integrate their needs with nature, in a respectful and religious symbiosis that seems "stagnant" or powerless to Hudgins because he is evidently of the belief that it is our moral imperative to take what we wish from the earth.
His presumption that, because they were not as mechanically advanced as their European counterparts, the Indians were also not as culturally, socially, or philosophically advanced is shockingly wrong-headed. But enough of me...More of the Hudgster!

Perhaps many pre-Columbian natives were content with their lot in a simple, animal-like existence.

Ouch. Yes, perhaps, with their stone-paved roads, advanced mathematics, and still-mysterious building methods, those pre-Columbian natives were content.

But what of young Indian children who wondered why family members sickened and died and if there were ways unknown to the shamans to relieve their pain or cure them;

Perhaps if they had asked the men who brought those pox-infected blankets as "gifts," they would have known the name of the disease used to kill them.

if there were ways to build shelters that would resist bitter winters, stifling summers and the storms that raged in both seasons;

Such as the aforementioned Pueblos? Perhaps the longhouses? Maybe a Wickiup? Or, if need be, A Tipi?

whether there were ways to guarantee food would always be abundant and starvation no longer a drought away;

Native Americans Taught settlers irrigation, farming techniques

and whether they could ever actually fly like birds and observe mountains from the height of eagles? Where were the opportunities for these natives?

This last statement is almost jaw-droppingly bold on Hudgins' part. Where were their opportunities? Well, they certainly were given a number of "opportunities" by Columbus. Namely, death or slavery. Other than the opportunity to give up their deeply-held religious beliefs, their hunting grounds, and their homes to a bunch of white guys with guns, I'm sort of at a loss for what opportunities us Europeans brought over for them.

The clash between the cultures of pre-Columbian natives and European immigrants certainly produced injustices for natives. But it would have been unjust for those natives to expect the immigrants to hold themselves to the level of primitive cultures and beliefs. The true long-term tragedy is that so many descendants of the pre-Columbian peoples in North America ended up on reservations rather than integrated into a society that offers opportunities for each individual to excel.

Its amazing...with each new statement Hudgins makes, I find myself getting angrier. It would have been unjust of THEM to expect us to respect their "primitive cultures and beliefs." That statement is so horribly wrong that it stuns the mind, just a bit. It takes might brass hubristic balls to call a culture primitive when you've displayed a remarkable lack of knowledge about that culture. And it makes you look like an ignorant, racist buffoon to assert the superiority of your ancestors culture as a legitimate excuse for the "clash between the cultures."
What Hudgins is implying here, at the end, is that its the fault of the Native Americans, for not getting with the program and joining "civilized" society. That line of thinking is vomitous, and is not only unworthy of discussion, but of mention.

Columbus opened a whole new land for those who would tame nature and build a new, free and prosperous nation. We should celebrate the opportunity for America that he gave us -- not apologize for it.

I feel no need to defend, or apologize for, Columbus' behavior. He's been dead for hundreds of years, and he doesn't need the publicity. But I am surprisingly offended by this editorial. Its the sort of thing that boorish people say at dinner parties when they've been tippling a bit too much. Asserting that there is no need to apologize for the actions of Columbus or the American settler by writing off a deeply vibrant, complex and decidedly non-stagnant culture as "primitive" is the sort of thing that race purists and effete, spoiled trust fund babies do.

(courtesy of alicublog)