• Rickety Thudds@lemmy.ca
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    4 months ago

    I’m all for the general gist, but “no criminals?” Bullshit.

    They had slavery. Don’t imagine it was a utopia just because colonizers hadn’t made it worse yet.

    • mozz@mbin.grits.dev
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      4 months ago

      WTF

      I was all set to type up a little semi agreeing comment about how it was a continent-spanning complex mixture of very different tribes with different cultures and practices, only some of whom practice slavery

      But I don’t really know what I’m talking about so I read a little and I got distracted by this

      Several tribes held captives as hostages for payment.[2][3] Various tribes also practiced debt slavery or imposed slavery on tribal members who had committed crimes; full tribal status would be restored as the enslaved worked off their obligations to the tribal society.[2][3]

      Slaves would sometimes be killed in potlatches, to signify the owners’ contempt for property.[citation needed]

      And this

      Captive-taking was most often used to replace a dead loved one within the family with a new person. The captive would then take on this deceased person’s sexual or labour-related capacities.

      What the fuck was going on with the Native Americans

    • iheartneopets@lemm.ee
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      4 months ago

      Who exactly are you talking about when you say “they”? Indigenous peoples weren’t all the same culture and didn’t have all the same cultural practices.

        • Psychodelic@lemmy.world
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          3 months ago

          Uh that was my first comment. How did I move the goalposts? How would you have asked the question? The other comment gave a decent answer. Not sure why you’re offended. It’s a legit question

      • ArgentRaven@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        Not until white people, no.

        Source: am Cherokee and we didn’t have chattel slavery until we were deemed “the south” and tried to fit in. Then some (that were rich enough) got slaves, and treated them horribly. Before that, “slaves” were more like indentured servants in that they could conceivably get freedom and were considered part of the tribe.

        There was a huge exhibit in Tahleqah in the Cherokee courthouse museum last summer all about it. Even named names.

    • rockSlayer@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      Criminality as we understand it is a European concept. Native Americans had relatively advanced societies before the colonial settlers came through and genocided hundreds of tribes. Their politics were pretty complex, but they didn’t have criminals the way we understand the term.

  • Harbinger01173430@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    Meanwhile, the imperialistic native Americans of my side of the Americas were conquering everything that moved left to right before the conquerors from the other side of the world did the same to them. Lol. Skill issue.

          • pingveno@lemmy.ml
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            4 months ago

            Imperialism: a policy of extending a country’s power and influence through diplomacy or military force

            I don’t see how you build the Aztec Empire without it.

            • ComradeChairmanKGB@lemmygrad.ml
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              4 months ago

              Imperialism: a policy of extending a country’s power and influence through diplomacy or military force

              This is any state ever. Diplomacy or force are literally the only tools by which they can see to their interests. Seriously diplomacy? That’s imperialism? Are you insane?

              Is this communism@lemmy or neoliberal Wikipedia readers @lemmy? Colonialism is a prerequisite of imperialism. The aztecs weren’t great, but they definitely weren’t imperialist.

  • FiniteBanjo@lemmy.today
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    4 months ago

    Really cool quotes but they also didn’t have much in the way of academics and professional specializations. Simple solutions to complex problems are doomed to fail and cause harm.

    • psud@aussie.zone
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      4 months ago

      They also fought each other over access to land. We are so much more peaceful than any pre-industrial civilisation

      • Glytch@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        They also fought each other over access to land. We are so much more peaceful than any pre-industrial civilisation

        Said without irony as the IDF slaughters thousands in order to control access to Gaza. Not to mention Russia and Ukraine and the dozens of other conflicts that the media doesn’t cover because their not in places where the West can profit. Industrialization only increased our killing capacity.

      • spiderplant@lemm.ee
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        4 months ago

        We’re still doing that and I would argue that we are no more peaceful, we just now have a NIMBY approach to conflict

  • Dr. Bob@lemmy.ca
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    4 months ago

    Every group had their own culture. There is no universal First Nations/ Native American culture. Beware of anyone expressing pan-indigenous viewpoints.