DSK wrote:
Jeff Rigby wrote:
".... When the english and dutch sought to colonize this country there
were many unclaimed lands."


Really? How come there is no mention of that in any land title documents?

Usually land grants were given by the king, who owned the land by right
of conquest or divine providence, depending... or the large land
grantees also posted ownership claims based on grants & purchases from
Indian tribes.


Floyd Davidson wrote:
So you are saying they ignored occupancy, but you insist that it
should have been mentioned if it happened? That isn't logical.


Not at all. I'm saying that nobody claimed land based on lack of
occupancy, which is what Jeff said happened.

Okay. Except of course that has nothing to do with the
statement quoted above. He did *not* claim that anyone made
land claims based on occupancy, he just state that ".... When
the english and dutch sought to colonize this country there were
many unclaimed lands." Which is true to the extent that the
previous claimants were either all killed by disease, or
weakened to the point were forcible removal was easy.

If you know of any land titles originated by a European settler arriving
in North America, and stating "There was nobody here, so it's my land
now," I'd be interested to see it.
Ahem, try taking a look at the history of the Mayflower's
landing at Plymonth Rock. And keep in mind that that was 200
years *after* de Soto depopulated what is now the eastern US.

There were definitely Indians living around the Plymouth colony. Who do
you think fed the Pilgrims thru the first winter?

They occupied a recently "abandoned village", where there were
no survivors. None, not a one. There was exactly one living
person who had been from that village. He had been taken as a
slave to Europe, managed to escape and return.

That's not to say that they *weren't* affected by plagues brought by the
Europeans, because tehy definitely were. But the Pilgrims certainly
didn't move into uninhabited land, nor did they claim it because it was
empty of humans.

Wrong. They not only moved into an entire village, with no
inhabitants, there is a surviving copy of sermon preached on
Sunday, thanking their Christian God for removing the previous
inhabitants to make room for them, and requesting of course that
such divine assistance continue.

The only correction needed there is that of course it wasn't
pre-1700 and it wasn't the Spanish. But the Native populations
of Alaska suffered just about the exact same depopulation that
happened elsewhere. Due to the remote access it happened later,
but by about 1900 it was in full fury, and lasted well into the
life times of living people.
...(snip for brevity)...


I wonder if the plagues in the far north were made worse by climate &
diet, too.

The disease free nature of the Arctic prior to high technology
travel is in fact an attribute of climate and diet.

--
Floyd L. Davidson http://www.apaflo.com/floyd_davidson
Ukpeagvik (Barrow, Alaska)

Floyd Davidson wrote:
Okay. Except of course that has nothing to do with the
statement quoted above.

It does if you can parse relatively simple sentences in English.

... He did *not* claim that anyone made
land claims based on occupancy, he just state that ".... When
the english and dutch sought to colonize this country there were
many unclaimed lands."

Along with a few other statements which added up to what I said: that
Jeff thinks many white settlers grabbed land that was totally empty
(possibly true but rare enough that it's hard to find references to it)
and legally justified their ownership based on lack of previous
inhabitants (false as far as I've been able to determine, and you
certainly haven't gotten far with this one either).

... Which is true to the extent that the
previous claimants were either all killed by disease, or
weakened to the point were forcible removal was easy.


In a few cases, sure. In many other cases the Indians were numerous and
strong enough to push white settlers out of their tribal lands, and even
held off outright military invasion for a while at least.


DSK

On Thu, 10 Nov 2005 07:53:43 -0500, DSK wrote:



In a few cases, sure. In many other cases the Indians were numerous and
strong enough to push white settlers out of their tribal lands, and even
held off outright military invasion for a while at least.

Columbus's arrival sure did change the Indians way of life. For instance,
the Great Plains Horse Culture, wasn't. Besides all the disease, the
horse came back over with the white man. I've always been curious about
Indian history before the white man arrived, but there doesn't seem to be
much written on it. At least, that I have been able to find.

"thunder" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 10 Nov 2005 07:53:43 -0500, DSK wrote:



In a few cases, sure. In many other cases the Indians were numerous and
strong enough to push white settlers out of their tribal lands, and even
held off outright military invasion for a while at least.

Columbus's arrival sure did change the Indians way of life. For instance,
the Great Plains Horse Culture, wasn't. Besides all the disease, the
horse came back over with the white man. I've always been curious about
Indian history before the white man arrived, but there doesn't seem to be
much written on it. At least, that I have been able to find.

This doesn't fit the bill, but you might still find it interesting:

"A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies", by Bartolomé De Las
Cassas
Written in 1552. The author (IIRC) was a priest who accompanied Spanish
invaders.

... I've always been curious about
Indian history before the white man arrived, but there doesn't seem to be
much written on it. At least, that I have been able to find.


True, and there really isn't a lot of data to base these depopulation
figures on. Nobody really knows what the population numbers were.

The link that you posted yesterday was very interesting, thanks.

Doug Kanter wrote:
This doesn't fit the bill, but you might still find it interesting:

"A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies", by Bartolomé De Las
Cassas
Written in 1552. The author (IIRC) was a priest who accompanied Spanish
invaders.


I have read parts of this. It's appalling how brutal the Europeans were.
For example, to coerce the men to work on plantations, they would round
up all the people in a village, using attack dogs & arson, and start
chopping off the women's hands & noses until the men agreed.

It's no wonder that when the next explorers came thru after DeSoto, the
Indians stayed as far away as they possibly could. Was the countryside
totally depopulated?

DSK

DSK wrote:
Floyd Davidson wrote:
Okay. Except of course that has nothing to do with the
statement quoted above.

It does if you can parse relatively simple sentences in English.

Apparently you can't.

... He did *not* claim that anyone made
land claims based on occupancy, he just state that ".... When
the english and dutch sought to colonize this country there were
many unclaimed lands."

Along with a few other statements which added up to what I said: that

What he said is quoted above. That you didn't understand it is
obvious, and you are now trying to defend that misunderstanding.

Jeff thinks many white settlers grabbed land that was totally empty

It certainly did happen exactly that way!

One obvious example is Plymouth Rock, where the colonists on the
Mayflower eventually settled, after looking at more promising
locations and deciding to move on because of a potentially
hostile Indian population.

They selected Plymouth Rock simply because it was *not*
populated.

(possibly true but rare enough that it's hard to find references to it)

A second example that is well documented is the Willamette
Valley in Oregon. There were no people there when the settlers
arrived, but they found cleared fields... which is why they
settled there.

(Just as with Plymouth Rock, the Willamette Valley had been
depopulated by diseases introduced by the first European
explorers, in the immediate years prior to the arrival of
colonists.)

and legally justified their ownership based on lack of previous
inhabitants (false as far as I've been able to determine, and you
certainly haven't gotten far with this one either).

Legal justification was not the issue. That's just your strawman.

... Which is true to the extent that the
previous claimants were either all killed by disease, or
weakened to the point were forcible removal was easy.


In a few cases, sure. In many other cases the Indians were numerous and
strong enough to push white settlers out of their tribal lands, and even
held off outright military invasion for a while at least.

The operative words are "for a while at least", and of course then
the diseases and the genocide ended all resistance.

--
Floyd L. Davidson http://www.apaflo.com/floyd_davidson
Ukpeagvik (Barrow, Alaska)

"Harry Krause" wrote in message
...



We can't even stabilize a country we've been occupying for three years
with 150,000 troops, and you want us to do the same with a dozen other
countries?

The other countries are the ones working to destabilize the one we're
already fighting in. Cut off the head and the body will wither away and
die.


You're in a dream world, and obviously have no idea of what the word
"destabilize" means. Bush marched into that country without a plan, and
his crooked vice president said we'd be met with garlands of flowers.
What is going on in Iraq right now is the fault of the United States and
its incompetent, arrogant, deceitful President and his henchmen.

Harry, here is an example of why you (democrats) are loosing in this
country. It would have been better to have said, Bush marched into a
country without a realistic plan for after the war. The entire
administration, including Cheney, the vice president are nieve and
uneducated as to the realities of the Islamic culture. They have been
quoted as saying that our troops would be "greeted with garlands of flowers
for freeing the people of Iraq from a brutal dictator". We can not have an
administration that is this nieve when we are fighting a war of ideas and
hearts.

Now I respond with, I agree with the presidents policies but you are right,
he got a reality wakeup call. Going into Iraq was a good idea, the
implementation was flawed because we didn't understand the culture, we
projected ourselves into their position. We would have stepped up to the
plate to restore services and order without a gun being held to our heads.
The culture is broken by our standards and needs to be fixed. An example is
necessary for the rest of the middle east and Iraq could be a lesson for
change, provided we are smart enough to take advantage of this opportunity.