One of the most pervasive and insane lies of the past few decades is that the American Indians were living in peace…
Summary
The thread argues that Native Americans were not peaceful before European contact, citing high rates of violence, torture, and warfare both within tribes and against Europeans, and claims modern leftists misrepresent this history due to "Cultural Marxism" ideology that rejects hierarchies and blames Europeans for all conflict.
Summarized by ThreadOut AI from the full thread. May miss nuance — read the thread below.
- #1
One of the most pervasive and insane lies of the past few decades is that the American Indians were living in peace and harmony until those nasty Europeans showed up and killed them while “stealing” their land It’s nearly totally false, and is rooted in Cultural Marxism 🧵👇
- #2
First, as to the peace loving part, it’s probably the most idiotic myth While an occasional tribe here or there might have been less violent than others, on the whole they were quite violent And that’s not just in conquering and subjugating other tribes, though they did that too. Its also in the bloody, sickening tortures they carried out as a matter of course Burning people alive, raping and torturing to death peaceful European women and children, hacking apart prisoners with sea shells, bit by bit, flaying them alive, etc And that was widespread. As @njhochman pointed out in a recent tweet, while death by homicides was the cause of 2% of deaths across Europe at the time (17th century), in some native tribes it was 50%. And that often meant being tortured to death, not just stabbed
- #3
So it wasn’t for nothing that the American Declaration of Independence called them “merciless Indian savages” In both their dealings with Europeans and dealings with each other, stomach churning violence was a matter of course and something they developed independently, not as a result of Europeans The Last of the Mohicans does a great job of showing just how merciless and brutal they were
- #4
It was even worse in the Aztec South, where Cortes and his intrepid men essentially walked into a Satanic horror movie Priests would top the beating hearts of sacrifice victims, flay little girls alive and wear their skin, and sacrifice their offerings to demonic gods by the tens of thousands Meanwhile they ruled over a vast empire with an obsidian fist, butchering locals tribes that attempted to become independent or retain their independence
- #5
The Europeans were violent too, of course, but not to the same extent as the Aztecs So, in the North there were control wars between two sides that butchered each other, particularly after Jamestown turned into a bloodbath, and in the South the Catholic conquistadors did their best to stamp out the demonic evil they came across
- #6
All that’s to say, and this is something that @0xAlaric and @njhochman have documented quite well, the Europeans were t showing up and slaughtering proto-hippies who just wanted to smoke weed and get along, as is now portrayed Rather, they fought bravely, at often incredible odds, against hordes of barbarians who had spent generations butchering and torturing each other and wanted to do the same to the Europeans
- #7
So, why the lie about the Indians? For one, modern leftists can’t accept that the natives, by whom they mean whoever was there last before the Europeans, were evil and violent, more akin to demons than hippies. To them, the Europeans must always be the evil ones But it’s deeper than that. The “why” is important too
- #8
So, why? Why must they lie about the Europeans? Because of the whole Critical Marxism mindset After decades of naval gazing, self-hate, and churning anti-European sentiment, they’re convinced that any form of hierarchy is evil and must be dismantled, at least if it’s European at root That means that have to hate what Europeans did in the New World (along with everywhere else). To them, Cortes isn’t a hero for stopping mass human sacrifice. He’s evil because his couple hundred men rallied native allies and defeated a vast native empire, as clear a sign as any of natural hierarchy and civilizational superiority
- #9
And so you get the lies. They can’t admit that European culture really was better in that it was more prosperous, murder was rarer, and, in any case it won the civilizational war and dominated the New World That would mean admitting that there is a natural hierarchy amongst civilizations and that Europe was at the top, which their Cultural Marxist beliefs mean they can’t do So they lie and claim the Indians were peaceful and awesome and the settlers who showed up only killed peaceable women, not that they fought against bloodthirsty tribes that had long murdered each other
- #10
Much the same is true of Africa and colonialism generally, which is why the Communist and “liberal democracy” worlds united to destroy Rhodesia: theamericantribune.news/p/why-rhodesia…