On Jul 3, 2007, at 2:54 PM, harriott lomax wrote:
> ....., "Doesn't it make you angry...hate white people...etc...?"   
> My response was "My African ancestors were brought here to work  
> uncompensated for my English ancestors who stole the land from my  
> American ancestors, how am I suppose to feel?"

An interesting but not quite complete point. I was reading and  
agreeing until the last bit before the how am I supposed to feel part.

There are a few points i would like to bring up for consideration.  
She stopped with  "my American ancestors" whereas the completed  
picture would be "my American ancestors who took it from my other  
American ancestors". The Powhatans had not long been in the Virginia  
Tidewater and had conquered other tribes already in possession of the  
land. The archaeological record cannot at this point show who was  
here earlier tribally and cannot really demarcate tribal identity  
from artifacts yet anyway. It may be possible but would take a lot  
more effort than has thus far been put to it.

Stronger groups push out, subsume or otherwise eliminate other less  
strong groups. Whether that's in Africa, Asia, the Middle East,  
Europe, North, Central or South America, Australia, etc. that's the  
way humans have operated when there were enough of them to force  
their will upon others. It increases group/tribal/chiefdom/city state/ 
region/country, etc. wealth, widens the gene pool, and increases  
productive territory so that more little tribal members are produced.  
Your basic Darwinism.

Each of these groups has something that it considers valuable. Gold  
to the Aztecs and Inca wasn't wealth, it was a metal that could be  
made into things that had value as things, not for the material from  
which they were made. Gold to Europeans was something else entirely.  
Copper to the Powhatans was valuable. To the English, it was nothing.  
The records show that for a tiny scrap of copper, Europeans were able  
to get food, women, or whatever the Powhatans had that they wanted.  
Copper flooded the market so devaluation occurred. Glass beads worked  
the same way in the fur trade for a while, then became totally  
worthless.

I once read a science fiction story wherein earthlings went to  
another planet and found the ground to be covered with diamonds,  
rubies, emeralds, etc. As these were so plentiful, the inhabitants  
valued something the earthlings had in abundance but was mundane on  
earth and of little material value there. Real estate people talk of  
"location, location, location" to determine value and the answer to  
"what is a house worth?" is "what you will pay for it". Simple,  
simplistic, but that's the reality.

So we switch to the Native American-English interaction sphere that  
was Jamestown and early Virginia of the 17th century. The English  
viewed the Powhatans as unsophisticated savages and the Powhatans had  
exactly the same view of the English. Smith was able to "treat" with  
the Powhatans because he had experience with the Muslim world that  
operated in some ways similarly to the Powhatans. Each side got more  
or less what it wanted from the other. Manhattan was sold to the  
Dutch for $24 worth of beads and doubtless other transactions took  
place. In each one of these, both sides got what they considered  
valuable. The Dutch got a chunk of real estate from the Indians who  
undoubtedly thought they'd pulled one over on the credulous Euros and  
the Dutch doubtless did likewise.

1) Acquisition of territory by purchase using "currency" that both  
sides agree is worth the deal will stand in any court of law,  
assuming both sides are of equal mental capacity. 2)Acquisition of  
territory by military means is what was also done, whether right,  
wrong or indifferent to the standards of the day or now. 3)  
Acquisition of territory by treaty between nations is the third  
mechanism of land ownership transfer.

The welfare state analogy in a previous post was not on point for  
that post but is slightly illustrative. If a majority has mistreated  
a minority in the past and said minority now enjoys the full legal  
benefits of the majority and is thus on an equal footing, I am quite  
mystified as to why there should be attempts made to make me feel  
guilty for events that my ancestors did not perpetrate, and in fact  
died to stop, but because I am a Virginian and white, seemingly  
automatically assumed to have been a de facto oppressor. Further,  
given the dire straits that my ancestors appeared to have lived in in  
all of their generations prior to my father's, I am also mystified as  
to why it is felt necessary to provide additional benefits/ 
opportunities beyond those enumerated by the Declaration of  
Independence. The DOI does not guarantee everyone anything but an  
equal opportunity to succeed. This country was brought into being by  
that document that we had an opportunity to "pursue" rather than to  
"have" success. Again, I am writing about Virginia history, not the  
broken treaties of the 19th century farther west. It seems to me  
demeaning to the people who are quota-ized because it assumes that  
without "help" they on their own cannot exceed the threshold. But, I  
suppose we can all become Serbs who bemoan the loss of a battle 800  
years ago and hold grudges forever.

Lyle Browning