On Balance, the British Conquest of Native American Lands was Justified

Round theme: http://www.youtube.com...=Framework=We should look to the ethics of the actions taken to conquer British North America to determine if the conquest was just. Pro wants us to look at the results of the conquest so that we can invoke our status quo bias. It's flatly impossible to determine what an unmolested Native American society would've looked like. Period. We can, at best, make speculations. I'll show why Pro's speculations are unlikely, but the more important thing to look at is that it's impossible to determine if actions undertaken four centuries ago are beneficial simply by looking at cherry picked "results". History doesn't work like that, the world as we know it would be so radically different without the British conquest that speculation on which world is better does nothing except to expose the biases of the debaters and readers. We can only look at whether an action is just or unjust on its own merits.=Case=Most of my offense will come from turns off the Pro case--it's his BOP after all, but I'll make a small case of my own.I. Cultural superiority Almost all evidence we have suggests that life in Native societies was vastly superior to European life. The Omohundro Institute[1] explains that: "By the close of the colonial period, very few if any Indians had been transformed into civilized Englishmen. Most of the Indians who were educated by the English - some contemporaries thought all of them - returned to Indian society at the first opportunity to resume their Indian identities. On the other hand, large numbers of Englishmen had chosen to become Indians - by running away from colonial society to join Indian society, by not trying to escape after being captured, or by electing to remain with their Indian captors when treaties of peace periodically afforded them the opportunity to return home." Whites taken into Indian society loved it and never wanted to return, Indians taken into white society hated it and wanted to go back. Pro talks about maximizing "benefit", but there's nothing more beneficial than a life well lived. Who exactly was superior to whom? II. Actionsa) Even if it was justified to conquer the Natives, the way the British conquered them was unjust. They used the Scots-Irish, a population they had oppressed and forced into poverty by evicting them from their home on the borderlands and onto poorly planned Northern-Irish "plantations" where they suffered grinding poverty, as human shields[2]. So desperate were these people to get out of Ireland that they were willing to move to the back country and fight the Indians while the colonial elites sat safely in their coastal cities.b) The British not only conquered the Natives, they enslaved a great number of them and, when these slaves perished, eventually indentured servants and African and Irish slaves. c) The British utilized biological warfare[3].d) The Americans, in an act of extreme spite and in an effort to starve innocent Indian civilians, slaughtered the Buffalo herds and almost drove the animal to extinction[4]. e) The "five civilized tribes" who had adapted well to modern society were evicted from their traditional lands when the Americans decided they wanted more. They were forced onto the trail of tears to Oklahoma where thousands died[5]. Their ownership of this land was legitimate even under Pro's extreme Lockeanism.f) The United States flagrantly violated almost every treaty it made with the Indian nations[6]. g) There is absolutely no evidence that conquest was necessary to gain Pro's benefits. Trade and limited settlement would've been a more just alternative.h) The Indians committed no sin worthy of cultural genocide. At best for Pro, the conquest was amoral.=Pro's case=Hands down, the biggest issue with Pro's case is the painting of the Indians with far too broad a brush. In reality, the Natives constituted hundreds of tribes with a variety of cultures and hundreds of languages. C1) Thefta) Pro's contention that Native Americans had no concept of property rights is flat out wrong and contradicted by his own example of Natives agreeing to sell their land to the Dutch. The Foundation for Economic Education[7] explains how farming Indians utilized the concept of property. b) Even if you buy Pro's argument that the Natives didn't privately own land, they certainly collectively owned tribal territory. There's no reason for communal ownership to have been considered any less valid, common land was an integral part of English husbandry until the enclosure acts in the late 18th century[8]. c) One can *own* property without having any concept of property. An infant who's parents died is not denied inheritance just because they cannot understand property. This right was well understood--when an infant or child would succeed the throne, their house would not be overthrown, instead a regency would be appointed until they came of age. d) Pro argues that the Natives didn't actually own their land because they conquered parts of it too. This is another example of painting an entire race with too broad a brush. The Hopi Indians are estimated to have lived in approximately the same territory since 500 BC[9]. Of course war-like tribes such as the Sioux were more likely to conquer territories, but until Pro proves that the majority of Indian territory was swapped back and forth constantly with no sense of ownership, the conquest was not, on balance, justified. Moreover, turn this argument: The Sioux invaded the Black Hills because they were "...pushed west out of Minnesota and Wisconsin by European settlers..."[10].e) Even if you buy Pro's argument that the Native Americans constantly invaded and took over each others land, which some of them certainly did, that still doesn't justify the outside party of England or the US taking it over, because the territory was still legitimately owned by the aggrieved party. Pro's logic would mean that Saudi Arabia has an equally valid claim to Berwick-upon-Tweed as England does because the town swapped hands between England and Scotland constantly. f) Pro's argument that the Native Americans were constantly fighting and scrabbling for territory is contradicted by his argument that "...the Indians lived on more land that they could possibly use or cultivate." Which is it? g) Pro argues that we should defer to Locke. First, Pro doesn't justify why we should care about what Locke has to say. Locke thought rights come from God. Is Pro prepared to defend the necessary theology to support this claim? The claim that land is inherently worthless is obliterated by the existence of entire societies that lived through hunting the boundless buffalo herds, and even if we buy this argument we still vote Con because the Natives did farm and utilize their land. The pilgrims survived because an Indian farmer taught them how to work the land. h) Pro justifies Locke by arguing that we should give land to people who could create the most benefit. This justifies the conquest of the United States by a vegetarian foreign nation because we could feed 800 million more people by refraining from raising livestock[11]. Pro also gives no metric to measure benefit. This is untenable and not what Locke actually argued. C2) Warfarea) This is a purely defensive argument. I don't contend that Natives were all peaceful "children of the Earth", many were warlike. Atrocities were committed on both sides. b) Cross-apply my argument that the British used a historically oppressed population to do the dirty work of fighting for them, which was unjust. c) Pro's argument that smallpox killed most of the Native population makes the conquest even more unjust. Already not a match between equals, with disease raging conquering the Indians was a matter of kicking a people while they were down and had little opportunity to fight back. There is also at least one documented instance of European settlers utilizing biological warfare against their Native enemies.C3) Aftermath a) Pro has yet to prove why we should prefer to look at these issues using consequentalism. Prefer my framework where I argued that since assessing the effects are impossible, we should look to the ethical underpinnings of the actions themselves. If I murder a man, the action is unjust. Maybe his grandson would've been a new Hitler, but we'll never know. History already happened, and we have no way of telling which world would be better. b) There is absolutely no reason to assume that Native American cultures would've been unable to develop into modern societies without European "help". The five civilized tribes were well on their way to doing so before their lands were taken and they were forced into poverty. The Aztecs created a powerhouse civilization who's cities even had running water[12], a commodity unknown in Europe. Pro gives no evidence of white superiority in creating societies. I challenge Pro to name a single civilization that has undergone no changes since 1492, then explain why the Natives would've experienced a similar non change. The specific Indian lifestyle Pro decries was very similar to the way Scottish Highlanders and rural Irishmen lived during the early stages of the conquest. c) Pro is again painting all Natives with too broad a brush. I promised myself I wouldn't pull the race card, but honestly the portrayal of all the Indians as savage, stupid brutes is offensive. d) Virtually all evidence we have suggests that life in Indian society was vastly preferable to life in European society, so there's no reason to buy Pro's simplistic rhetoric.Vote Con. Sources:1. http://tinyurl.com...2. Webb, James. "Born Fighting." 3. http://tinyurl.com...4. http://tinyurl.com...5.http://tinyurl.com...6. http://tinyurl.com...7.http://tinyurl.com...8. http://tinyurl.com...9.http://tinyurl.com...10. http://tinyurl.com...11.http://tinyurl.com...12. http://tinyurl.com...