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

Before I do my line by line rebuttal, let's see how this debate is going to go. =Framework= Throw out the entirety of Pro's C3 and any other utilitarian impacts. Pro responded to my framework just as I hoped he would--that is, he makes no response to the *logic* behind the argument. Pro doesn't dispute that it's flatly impossible to determine what the results of a conquest free America would've been and therefore *impossible* to look at the consequentialist impacts. Pro doesn't just get to say "Look! Technology and living standards have advanced in the 400 years since the conquest, God save the queen!" We have to assess the balance of actions on their own merits. What impacts does Pro have on this standard? Precious few. Remember, even if you buy his argument that the Indians had no right to their land, that doesn't make the conquest *justified*, it makes it *amoral*, and given the multitude of incidences of absolutely ghastly behavior from the conquering party, it seems now very difficult for Pro to come back and say that on balance the process was justified. The trap has swung shut. The only way for Pro to win without having access to the consequentialist impacts is if you buy that a) The Indians had no right to their land because they weren't utilizing it properly--a frankly bizarre and dangerous view of property rights--and b) conquest and oppression were the *most just* way to access whatever benefits Pro gets on justice. I already explained how trade and limited settlement would've been a superior and more just alternative, and Pro provides us an example of land purchasing. If America was really so vast and under populated, surely this would've been a preferable and easier solution than open warfare. I. Cultures Pro totally misunderstands the argument and makes the baffling assertion that Indian culture could've somehow survived when they were stripped of their traditional lands and sources of livelihood. It really is difficult to determine which cultures are "superior" from an outside perspective since these matters are so subjective and we're so biased. So let's look at inside perspectives. Unfortunately for Pro, the evidence shows that we have tons of examples of people who were totally and completely biased against Indian culture since they were at war and brought up to view them as savages--many of whom were literally brought in as prisoners--loving it and not wanting to go back and so few Indians brought into English culture who didn't run off at the first opportunity that many contemporaries literally didn't think any "civilized" Indians existed. This is really powerful evidence--this is not some middle class 21st century kid waxing poetics about how great the Indians were, it's the sum of the actions of people who actually experienced both cultures, and every decision went one way. Again, who was superior to whom? Pro talks about technology but there's absolutely no warrant to the argument that the comforts of technology outweigh the sum of all other cultural factors. Given the decisions made by people when given a choice, evidently it wasn't and the technological differences back then really weren't that vast. This is a short argument, but it's absolutely devastating for the Pro case. Stripped of his consequentialist impacts, one of the only ways Pro can win is to prove the fundamental justness of spreading civilization. If it's even slightly debatable that Indian civilizations were better, that assumption rests on very shaky ground. If any conquest was warranted, the Indians should've conquered us. II. Actions Pro says that he shouldn't have to defend every action by the British. The problem is, while he doesn't have to defend every atrocity, if he wants to win the debate he has to outweigh them somehow to meet his burden. Pro *totally* misses the point of the Scots-Irish argument, so extend it. His argument that the Scots-Irish settlements often got massacred is more evidence on my side, because they should've never had to endure the brunt of the Indian assault. They could've lived happily in the borderlands had the English left them alone. The Scots-Irish were lowland Scots who were evicted from the borderlands when the English decided they wanted to conquer Ireland and used as human shields in Irish "plantations". Conditions there were so bad that they were willing to move en masse to America and face down the Indian tribes while the English landowners sat safely on the coast. This is taking an oppressed minority, ruining their lives, and giving them chance at a better life at the cost of fighting Indians. The conquest cannot possibly be justified when the soldiers used to do the actual conquest were unjustly derived. Pro tries to explain away the incidence of biological warfare, but seriously, the evidence is very damning: "I will try to inocculate the Indians by means of Blankets that may fall in their hands, taking care however not to get the disease myself."[1]Pro argues that the Indians were no angels in warfare themselves, and they weren't. But this argument works against him...all those European deaths could've been avoided had the English just left well enough alone. Pro is looking at this issue incorrectly. It's not a debate of "who was worse?" in war, it's a debate of "was it just for the English to start the war?" Every death, every atrocity on both sides falls squarely into my corner because the English were clearly the aggressors and started a war where none would've existed.Pro totally misses the point that even if he wins that there was nothing unjust about taking the Indians lands, he has to prove is was still *just* not *amoral*. The British could've stayed home. Pro also suggests that we shouldn't consider the Trail of Tears, because it isn't conquest but rather a "consequence" of conquest. First, turn: If we want to use this standard and only look at the *conquest*, Pro loses the debate handily. Second, relocating a population at gunpoint so you can take their land is literally conquest. Pro thinks he can gain benefit from 21st century technology but I don't get this impact? Nonsense. Pro doesn't really argue against the Five Civilized Tribes adapting well to modern before the Trail of Tears, so extend that. This was clearly unjust and so unnecessary. He drops the example of the Americans slaughtering the Buffalo herds so that the Indian women and children would starve to death.Pro ignores all of the violated treaties.Pro never responds that there were other courses of action rather than conquest. What makes war so great?Pro will accuse me of cherry picking bad things, but it's impossible to sum up Native-White relations over hundreds of years in 10,000 characters. What I'm doing here is establishing a narrative based on the evidence we have. Where are Pros counter examples of kindness?=Pro Case=1) Property/LockePro has basically dropped his other contentions, this will be the major flash point of his case. Pro's conception of property rights is not logical. Pro argues that you shouldn't be allowed to just find random land, claim it's yours, leave forever, and then prevent anyone else from using it (so basically what every explorer did). This is why the home part of homesteading is important. Even under Locke, ownership is gained through cultivating virgin land, which the Indians did. This argument that we should award land ownership to whoever adds the most value is totally antithetical to private property rights. If Pro believes this, he should welcome with open arms our new vegetarian overlords who will convert our pastureland to farms which will feed more people. It's also untenable--who decides who adds the most value to land? The "value" added by Western society vis-a-vis sustainable cultures is destroying the environment. Some "benefit". Pro acts like Westerners immediately brought over factories to the New World, in reality they brought over trading posts and farms. Not much different from the Indians they replaced. Pro destroys this argument himself by arguing that such a vegetarian conquest of the US would be unjust because we already have a "concept" of property rights. If conception of property is all that's needed for conquest to become unjust, he's just lost the debate because the Indians *did* conceive of property. Let's take a few quotes from the Foundation for Economic Education on Indian land ownership[2]: "crop land was often privately owned", "Prior to European contact, other Indian tribes recognized...ownership of these lands by not trespassing.", "In the Southeast...private ownership of land was common.", "Hunting groups...recognized family and clan hunting areas". Overkill, but this wins me the debate. Pro concedes that conquest in unjust if the population understands property. The Indians understood property. Thus the conquest was unjust. Period. Vote Con. Pro says Indians who farmed were "rare". No statistics exist, but let's take a sample to see how many tribes farmed. How about the tribes Pro mentions? Lenape? Farmed[3]. Shawnee? Farmed[4]. Other Pennsylvania tribes? "They borrowed from each other, improving their technologies for farming, fishing, hunting, and pottery making and developing the means of long distance travel and communication with each other. They traded and warred with each other long before Europeans entered the scene."[5]. The idea that a tribe can live and farm a territory for millennia and not own it is just laughable. Pro makes no response to the validity of common land under English custom. If communal land was valid in England, the English weren't even following their own ethics when they stole Indian land.Pro made no attempt to weigh conquest against any other option like trade. Why was conquest the answer? Vote Con.Sources:1. http://tinyurl.com...2. http://tinyurl.com...3. http://tinyurl.com...4. http://tinyurl.com...5. http://tinyurl.com...