A noble is someone descended from someone savage enough to obtain the position. The indigenous Americans were, and are, human beings, no more and no less.
Sometimes, different groups of people do terrible things to each other. I've learned that if you go far enough back, you will find you are descended from some people who had a reputation for barbarism or savagery at some time in the past.
Statistically, every single human on Earth is descended from someone who killed another human being, be it for survival, power/status, possessions or whatever. You generally won't have to go back to the last ice age before the last one in your ancestry to have done so, things got more frenetic at the transition from hunting & gathering with a rising human population and crashing megafauna populations. Pastoralism & agriculture with stored food & mobile wealth in the hoof offered strangers (or others of your own tribe) ever more tempting targets.
Comanches were not only native Americans, they recruited and adopted ADULT outsiders including Americans and Mexicans, beyond the usual practice of taking likely looking young kids (generally male) which nearly all tribal peoples did (and still do). Adding (capturing & adopting) males young enough to bond with your tribe has always equaled growing the tribal combat capability. Older males made for good entertainment before TV (running the gauntlet, extended torture & etc.), females weren't worth as much unless viewed as wife material or your group had a use for slaves as the agricultural and settled tribes did.
The European kids who were adopted by native Americans also generally resisted being "rescued" and preferred to stay with their abductors/adopters- Plenty of records exist on THAT tendency.
Sure. One of the Comanche's greatest chiefs was Quanah Parker, whose mother was Anglo-Texan. When she was "rescued" she positively hated it and didn't live all that long.
Most tribes adopted outsiders. The Comanche were no exception.
Subtle distinction: adopting ADULT male outsiders as opposed to children/young teens. The Seminoles did this as well, particularly escaped slaves from Georgia, Louisiana, South Carolina. They fought well side by side, Andrew Jackson was not pleased.
Thanks for writing this. I hadn’t known about what the Comanches had done to the Apaches, but I’m also not surprised. It’s interesting that contemporaneously, in the late 1640s, the Iroquois Confederation were in the process of a similar war of extermination against the Huron-Wendats in what is now Southern Ontario.
Yes, the Final Solution to the Erie Problem. I've always wondered if that had anything to do with the sobriquet applied to the Seneca, "Keepers of the Western Door." The Erie WERE immediately to their west. The Erie refused to trade, and were accused of cannibalism. It's possible, but I don't think that charge has ever been proven. Anyway, they were in the way of several more powerful peoples.
It wasn't just the Seneca. The Ashinabe(Ottawa) and Huron were involved as well, all armed by English, French, and Dutch traders, all questing for the fur the Europeans craved.
This was happening at around the time the Apache were first acquiring horses, to put it in context. Within a very few years there were no Erie left, and vast swathes of the Ohio shore were uninhabited.
Oh, thanks for this! I get the feeling that literally none of the history taught in school has anything to do with real life and events. Maybe that's why the schools don't even seem to bother any more. Really, one could tell folks about how the US instigated the Cuban missile crisis with nukes in Turkey, and that in fact the US backed down, and it does not even register.
Lol, we both know about the missiles in Turkey thing. JFK got to save face by not talking about it, but the Russians and the Turks, and therefore every intelligence service on the planet, certainly knew at the time.
Everything's been declassified. We now know that the only major American city out of range of the Soviet missiles in Cuba was Seattle. We know that an invasion fleet would have been attacked with nuclear weapons. We know that a Russian commissar prevented a Soviet Navy captain from firing a nuclear torpedo at American destroyers which knew exactly where his submarine was.
We know how VERY close to nuclear war we were back then, but those details are seldom known by most people.
Annie Jacobsen starts her book Nuclear War with the observation that humans normally are at war.
The US has come a long way in a short time from developing the Colt revolver, the Texas Ranger's decisive weapon in subduing the Comanche by destroying the horse herds of Quanah Parker ( a REAL AMERICAN HERO in my view as a vassal subject of empire) at Palo Duro Canyon.
A long way in 100 years or less from the Colt Revolver to Nuclear Weapons.
Some say the time from now to Trump's Inauguration is the most dangerous in Human history.
excellent piece! have you ever read Francis Parkman, his history of Canada (or as he put it, history of the great northern forest?) The Iroquois were mind boggling aggressive and savage. at least one tribe they wiped out then. maybe two.
No, but thanks for the rec. I'll definitely be doing something on the Iroquois at some point. They're still there, after all. Any people who survived everything my own ancestors could throw at them--in the case of the Iroquois first the French and then the Americans--is worthy of at least respect.
A noble is someone descended from someone savage enough to obtain the position. The indigenous Americans were, and are, human beings, no more and no less.
Sometimes, different groups of people do terrible things to each other. I've learned that if you go far enough back, you will find you are descended from some people who had a reputation for barbarism or savagery at some time in the past.
@Ohio Barbarian
Statistically, every single human on Earth is descended from someone who killed another human being, be it for survival, power/status, possessions or whatever. You generally won't have to go back to the last ice age before the last one in your ancestry to have done so, things got more frenetic at the transition from hunting & gathering with a rising human population and crashing megafauna populations. Pastoralism & agriculture with stored food & mobile wealth in the hoof offered strangers (or others of your own tribe) ever more tempting targets.
Comanches were not only native Americans, they recruited and adopted ADULT outsiders including Americans and Mexicans, beyond the usual practice of taking likely looking young kids (generally male) which nearly all tribal peoples did (and still do). Adding (capturing & adopting) males young enough to bond with your tribe has always equaled growing the tribal combat capability. Older males made for good entertainment before TV (running the gauntlet, extended torture & etc.), females weren't worth as much unless viewed as wife material or your group had a use for slaves as the agricultural and settled tribes did.
The European kids who were adopted by native Americans also generally resisted being "rescued" and preferred to stay with their abductors/adopters- Plenty of records exist on THAT tendency.
Sure. One of the Comanche's greatest chiefs was Quanah Parker, whose mother was Anglo-Texan. When she was "rescued" she positively hated it and didn't live all that long.
Most tribes adopted outsiders. The Comanche were no exception.
Subtle distinction: adopting ADULT male outsiders as opposed to children/young teens. The Seminoles did this as well, particularly escaped slaves from Georgia, Louisiana, South Carolina. They fought well side by side, Andrew Jackson was not pleased.
Thanks for writing this. I hadn’t known about what the Comanches had done to the Apaches, but I’m also not surprised. It’s interesting that contemporaneously, in the late 1640s, the Iroquois Confederation were in the process of a similar war of extermination against the Huron-Wendats in what is now Southern Ontario.
They were also "ethnic cleansing" Ohio about the same time.
Yes, the Final Solution to the Erie Problem. I've always wondered if that had anything to do with the sobriquet applied to the Seneca, "Keepers of the Western Door." The Erie WERE immediately to their west. The Erie refused to trade, and were accused of cannibalism. It's possible, but I don't think that charge has ever been proven. Anyway, they were in the way of several more powerful peoples.
It wasn't just the Seneca. The Ashinabe(Ottawa) and Huron were involved as well, all armed by English, French, and Dutch traders, all questing for the fur the Europeans craved.
This was happening at around the time the Apache were first acquiring horses, to put it in context. Within a very few years there were no Erie left, and vast swathes of the Ohio shore were uninhabited.
Oh, thanks for this! I get the feeling that literally none of the history taught in school has anything to do with real life and events. Maybe that's why the schools don't even seem to bother any more. Really, one could tell folks about how the US instigated the Cuban missile crisis with nukes in Turkey, and that in fact the US backed down, and it does not even register.
Lol, we both know about the missiles in Turkey thing. JFK got to save face by not talking about it, but the Russians and the Turks, and therefore every intelligence service on the planet, certainly knew at the time.
Everything's been declassified. We now know that the only major American city out of range of the Soviet missiles in Cuba was Seattle. We know that an invasion fleet would have been attacked with nuclear weapons. We know that a Russian commissar prevented a Soviet Navy captain from firing a nuclear torpedo at American destroyers which knew exactly where his submarine was.
We know how VERY close to nuclear war we were back then, but those details are seldom known by most people.
Annie Jacobsen starts her book Nuclear War with the observation that humans normally are at war.
The US has come a long way in a short time from developing the Colt revolver, the Texas Ranger's decisive weapon in subduing the Comanche by destroying the horse herds of Quanah Parker ( a REAL AMERICAN HERO in my view as a vassal subject of empire) at Palo Duro Canyon.
A long way in 100 years or less from the Colt Revolver to Nuclear Weapons.
Some say the time from now to Trump's Inauguration is the most dangerous in Human history.
Good luck everyone!
excellent piece! have you ever read Francis Parkman, his history of Canada (or as he put it, history of the great northern forest?) The Iroquois were mind boggling aggressive and savage. at least one tribe they wiped out then. maybe two.
No, but thanks for the rec. I'll definitely be doing something on the Iroquois at some point. They're still there, after all. Any people who survived everything my own ancestors could throw at them--in the case of the Iroquois first the French and then the Americans--is worthy of at least respect.