England Should Not Have Colonized North America

Now to look at the colonization of North America from a different viewpoint, the viewpoint of the Native Americans. I will be arguing that England should not have colonized North America because they had no right to do so and, in hind sight, led to the death of millions of people. When Europeans began arriving in North America, there already existed hundreds of American Indian Tribes (1). These tribes had history going back thousands of years which produced unique cultures, languages, belief systems and tales of war and conquest (1). In other words, when the Europeans came to the Americas, they were arriving in lands that were occupied by another civilization. Their views on land were very different from that of the arriving Europeans. To the people of North America; “The Indians had no concept of "private property," as applied to the land. Only among the Delawares was it customary for families, during certain times of the year, to be assigned specific hunting territories. Apparently this was an unusual practice, not found among other Indians. Certainly, the idea of an individual having exclusive use of a particular piece of land was completely strange to Native Americans. ” (2) In my opinion, if the colonizing Europeans had peaceful intentions in the Americas they would have strived to respect the existing culture of the people currently living on those lands, Ie. live on the land, but you do not own it. Instead what we see are Europeans making claims to the land of North America, without consideration. An early example of this was the Treaty of Tordesillas in 1494 which sought to divide the “new” lands between European countries (3). Treaties of this nature continued to be produced and to my knowledge the nations/tribes that occupied those territories were not consulted or given consideration. To summarize this section, England should not have colonized North America because they did not have the right and they were not seeking to join the existing culture, but to extend their own. In hind sight of the colonization of North America led to the death of millions of people through disease (4) and their treatment by the United States of America did nothing to help these people rebuild their society. In fact there are treaties with the USA that remain broken to this day, such as the Treaty of Fort Laramie in 1868 (5). “the United States recognized the Black Hills as part of the Great Sioux Reservation, set aside for exclusive use by the Sioux people. ” (5) Later when gold was discovered on that land the United States confiscated the land. To this day this remains a legal dispute between the USA and the Sioux Nation (5). In 1980 the US Supreme Court held that “the taking of property that was set aside for the use of the tribe required just compensation, including interest. ” (6). The Sioux have refused the compensation and are demanding the return of the land this treaty specifies. . http://www.ushistory.org... . http://www.wvculture.org... . http://en.wikipedia.org... . http://en.wikipedia.org... . http://www.ourdocuments.gov... . http://en.wikipedia.org... Rebuttals I went very long in my opening so I will try to keep this very short. I agree with Pro that there were religious, economic and demographic issues in England at the time. I don’t however see how those problem would give them the right to make claims on property, especially property that others live on. PRO “Once there were many colonies, they began to unite through the Committees of Correspondence. They were strong and solved problems, such as the Townshend Acts [1], together. Leaders, such as Thomas Paine and John Adams, had ideas of freedom and independence few had thought of [2], and they wouldn't have thought of, without colonizing America. Colonizing America eventually benefited everyone. ” Con The idea of independence did not originate with Thomas Paine and John Adams. In fact in 1320 Scotland declared itself an independent and sovereign state by send the Declaration of Arbroath to Pope John XXII (7). I’ll agree the American Revolution was an inspiration to many, but I don’t think it should be used, after the fact, to justify the colonization of North America. . http://en.wikipedia.org...