[PEN-L:3129] Re: selling Manhattan

["Charles Brown" <CharlesB@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>>> "Rosser Jr, John Barkley" <rosserjb@xxxxxxx> 02/09 4:02 PM >>>
Charles,
     I think you are still evading the issue here.  It is
fine to argue that there was no conception of "private
property in land" and also that there was no juridically
defined "territory" because (at least in what is now the
US) there were no "states."  But, are all those books one
picks up that identify certain parts of North America with
certain tribes some bogus "projection"?
________
Charles: I'm not sure what you think is being evaded. Nothing in what I have said contradicts tribes being in certain places. Remember what I said about "sacred spots" ? What I am saying would exactly predict that tribes would be located in a certain place - by their specific "sacred spots."

THE important thing in this discussion is they didn't have private property. Private property is not panhuman. Communism is not a pipedream.

I long ago addressed your implied argument that if the Indians took land from each other by force, then this justifies European taking from the takers. This is not a valid argument. So, what even if there was less than a peaceful process (it wasn't a "business") before European arrival, so what ?


Barkley:
We know that in
those zones were spots viewed as sacred by the tribes in
question, some of them ancestral burial grounds.  Somehow
it came about that certain tribes predominated in certain
areas rather than others, with some zones being shared such
as the collective hunting zone of West Virginia and the
Shenandoah Valley.  The process of this was not always a
peaceful business.
________

Charles: Ok but we are starting to go over the same thing again and again. Far from evasion, I am giving the same logical and cogent answer to your same question repeatedly. When you say "the process of this was not always a peaceful business" I refer you to my previous posts. Fighting but not for "territory". And a different order of magnitude in fighting than Europe. What is new in what you are saying here ?


Barkley
 BTW, it may be true that the ancestors of the Aztecs
founded Tenochtitlan (Mexico City).  But from there they
conquered and dominated the previous rulers of the central
valley of Mexico, who operated from a different
headquarters, just as those rulers had conquered and
displaced as rulers the "Teotihuacaners" some time earlier
who had their base at the pyramids about 30 miles north of
modern Mexico City.  I note that the central valley of
Mexico has long been a major culture basin, as being near
the likely original site of the cultivation of maize (corn).

Charles: Yea, I think the Toltec were there before the Aztec. I mentioned Teotihuacan in another post (or was that another list ?) pyramids of the sun and the moon. I'm not sure the occupants of Teo  were conquered. I think it might be a mystery still what happened to them. They have Maya settlements that just "went down" and they don't know why yet.

Archeologist Kent Flannery (University of Michigan) argues that maize was invented by paleo-botanists. I think it was derived from teocintle (spelling) However, I think that is like 200 BC or earlier.

Charles Brown

Barkley Rosser
On Tue, 09 Feb 1999 13:55:01 -0500 Charles Brown
<CharlesB@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

>
>
> >>> "Rosser Jr, John Barkley" <rosserjb@xxxxxxx> 02/09 1:22 PM >>>
> Charles,
>     Well, I guess I'll add a bit more on this pre-European
> intertribal conflicts issue.  Again, of course, except for
> places like the central valley of Mexico where there are
> historical records, we only know about things that went on
> either after or just before the Europeans arrived in other
> places.  But I fear that conjuring an Edenic paradise where
> all the tribes lived in harmony with one another is yet
> another "projection," however lovely.
> ________
>
> Charles: Of course, I didn't say that. I said there is evidence of fighting, but there is also evidence of lack of private property and territory. There is archaeological evidence too, of course. Also, there is an anthropological generalization about modes of production, so that evidence from elsewhere , though "projected", is more scientific than projecting a Hebrew Biblical myth ( although I find it interesting that the Garden of Eden was a GARDEN , and horticulture is what anthropology/archaeology has concluded was the mode of production which "fell out of the Garden" with agriculture and civilization)
> ___________
>
> Barkley:
>      Certainly there were lots of intertribal conflicts
> that were triggered by the European colonists pushing
> tribes west, as with the Chippewas pushing the Sioux out of
> northern Wisconsin even before any Europeans got into that
> area.  But a lot of other cases are less clear.
>      In the case of the Tuscaroras versus the Shawnees in
> the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, I am not aware of their
> conflict being triggered by other tribes moving in pushed
> by the Europeans.  Neither of them lived east of the Blue
> Ridge, the limit of settlement at the time of the Battle of
> Rawley Springs between them.  It may be "European
> projections" but it is certainly recorded that it was over
> access to the valley.  I note that the Shenandoah Valley
> and what is now West Virginia were one of the few (on some
> maps the only) places in North America that was not clearly
> predomiantly under the control and use of a single tribe or
> group of tribes.  It was an intertribal collective hunting
> ground.  But that in itself meant that priority rights of
> use were murky and could be disputed from time to time,
> possibly even violently as happened at Rawley Springs
> sometime in the 1720s (forget the exact date).
> ________
>
> Charles: You have no evidentiary basis for saying that because it was intertribal , therefore the priority of rights of use were murky, etc. It is possible for human beings from different groups to share with almost no disputes compared to our experience. Communism is possible. Capitalist and acquisative conceptions are not human universals.
> ________
>
>
> Barkley:
>      Actually that particular conflict reflected a broader
> one that get tangled up in European conflicts but which
> most reports suggest had been around before they arrived.
> ________
>
> Charles: Unfortunately, these reports were written by people who had a motive to say what you are saying here: that " we Europeans are not doing anything that the Savages (sic) weren't doing to each other already." - in other words, as justification for taking the land themselves. The regularly used term "savage" implies they were even more warlike than the Europeans. I definitely disbelieve that.
>
> You have to read those reports with a very jaundiced eye,sort of like with a CIA analysis of Viet Nam from the 1960's.
>
> __________
>
> Barkley:
> That was the one between the Iroquois group of tribes
> (including the Tuscaroras) and the Algonkian group of
> tribes (including the Shawnees).  Indeed, the Iroquois
> Confederacy, viewed by Benjamin Franklin as a model for the
> United States, was by most accounts formed to defend those
> tribes against the larger numbers of Algonkians around
> them, who were not so well organized.  These differences
> were linguistic and also socio-cultural, with the Iroquois
> being matrilineal whereas the Algonkians were patrilineal.
> In the "French and Indian War" the Iroquois sided with the
> British against the French and the majority Algonkians.  In
> the American Revolution, the British opposed the entry of
> settlers into the Iroquois lands because of this past
> alliance (although by then the British were defending
> Indian land rights against the colonists in many areas) and
> I know that my original hometown, Ithaca, NY, was not
> settled by Europeans until 1782, after the defeat of the
> British and the removal of their protection of the Iroquois.
>      Although the arrival of the Europeans may have
> aggravated the Iroquois-Algonkian conflict and certainly
> the conflicts on both sides became intertwined, I see
> little reason to believe that there was total peace between
> these two groups prior to the arrival of the Europeans.
> ___________
>
> Charles: Yes, but most of the above is clearly after "contact". The Europeans had the motive to stir up stuff between the tribes in divide and conquer, for example. Things probably changed quickly after contact.
>
> I didn't say there wasn't some fighting. I said there was not fighting for territory, as I defined that in relation to a state. The fighting was a completely different order of magnitude, qualitatively different, than European warfare, from the Greeks to the Romans to the 100 Years War.
>
>
> Charles Brown
>
>
>
>
> Barkley Rosser
> On Tue, 09 Feb 1999 10:48:17 -0500 Charles Brown
> <CharlesB@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> >
> >
> > >>> "Rosser Jr, John Barkley" <rosserjb@xxxxxxx> 02/08 6:28 PM >>>
> > Barkley:
> > Charles,We're getting close enough to a "meeting of the minds"
> > here that are transactions might be almost not void.  Just
> > a couple of points.
> > _______
> >
> > Charles: Sounds good to me.
> > __________
> >
> > Barkley:
> >     One is that it may well be (I don't know) that the
> > Dutch actually did not do anything that was unexpected of
> > them by the Indians they dealt with.  The unexpected and
> > unpleasant may have come later after the British displaced
> > the Dutch.  After all, the northern border of Nieuw
> > Amsterdam was Wall Street (named for the wall).  Broadway
> > was the country road linking it to the Dutch village of
> > Haarlem.  There was still plenty of land for the local
> > Indians to do their thing on Manhatten, although perhaps
> > the Dutch had already acted badly.  This is a reminder that
> > sometimes Europeans attempted to deal fairly with the
> > Indians only to have their agreements undercut and violated
> > later by their descendents or others taking their place.
> > Something similar happened in Pennsylvania I believe.
> > _______
> > Charles: This may be. I don't think that the European invasion was uniformly purposeful viciousness, or that all Indian/European relations were European crimes. Neither the Europeans nor Indians understood exactly what was going on especially early on. I don't think that every ( or even any necessarily at sometimes) European had a conscious "genocidal"motive for their actions. That kind of creeped up on everybody.
> >
> > One comment though: I don't know the specific traditions of the Manhattan Indians, but in general the attitude to the land was not that each plot was a commodity fungible with other plots. There are special or "sacred" spots that tie into the tradition, myths and culture.  So , possibly , they couldn't "do their thing" just anywhere. I don't know that there were old sacred spots within the area that the Dutch occupied, so this might not be a pertinent comment.
> > _________
> >
> > Barkley:
> >     Probably the remaining major disagreement we have
> > involves how the Indians determined rights of use of land
> > among their respective tribes (I agree that they, by and
> > large, did not have concepts of "property in land" like the
> > Europeans).  I would contend that we lack evidence about
> > much of what went on.  But where we do have evidence there
> > certainly was intertribal warfare and some of it involved
> > who could live and hunt where.  A major one of course
> > involves the changes in who controlled the central valley
> > of Mexico regarding which there are historical records.
> > Periodically outside tribes would come in and conquer and
> > take over, as did the Aztecs who came out of the north.  I
> > know that near where I live about ten years before any
> > Europeans arrived, there was a major battle between the
> > Tuscaroras and the Shawnees over access to the Shenandoah
> > Valley.  I seriously doubt that such things were as rare as
> > you make them out to be.
> > __________
> >
> > Charles: Well, the Aztecs had a state. Most of the groups did not have states, i.e. standing bodies of armed personnel etc. By the way, I had a class on Mexican picture writing, and "read" some of the codices that tell the indigenous dynastic histories. Yes, the Colhua Mexica migrated from up North, founding Tenochtitlan on a spot where an eagle had a serpent in its mouth in the middle of a lake. At least , that's what I was told.
> >
> > The general problem with concluding that , as in your example, the warfare was for taking land or territorial, is that all we have comes through Europeans who had a "state" conception that they may be "projecting" onto the situation. In other words, these Europeans , who are the primary sources for us on what happened, had no conception of a society where land is not territory or private property, so their interpretations are suspect. Plus, "ten years before any Europeans arrived" is still within a period when indirect "waves" of European disruption of the pristine circumstances may have occurred even before Europeans arrived on that direct scene.
> >
> > Overall, I just wish the Europeans had had more respect for the indigenous societies, because I think  our species would be better off with a wider variety of cultures, and preservation of the knowledge and cultural treasuries of the indigenous peoples. I would like to see the whole range of human cultural types, modes of production , from history preserved so that maybe even part of basic education would be for children to live and learn them, reiterating cultural evolution , so to speak. There may have been knowledge of many natural medicines, herbs and "spices", which are now lost. Also, our gungho technological development regime could use some of the Indian philosophy of ecological harmony. It is perhaps wishful thinking now, but I would like to see more of a synthesis of the wisdoms of various phases of human development, rather than obliteration of the socalled primitive ways of life.
> >
> >
> > Charles
> >
> > ________
> >
> >      BTW, thanks to Lou for the informative post on wampum.
> > So, does anybody know if the Dutch paid in wampum shells or
> > glass beads or what?
> > Barkley Rosser
> > On Sat, 06 Feb 1999 14:26:15 -0500 Charles Brown
> > <CharlesB@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >
> > >
> > >
> > > >>> "Rosser Jr, John Barkley" <rosserjb@xxxxxxx> 02/05 5:48 PM >>>
> > > Charles,
> > >     I think that we need to be clear about exactly at what
> > > point there was a "taking" here, illegal, unethical,
> > > inappropriately capitalistic, insufficiently "meeting of th
> > > minds" or whatever.  I would contend that it was not when
> > > the Dutch gave some Lenapes or whomever some glass beads,
> > > but when they enforced that the Lenapes could not use
> > > certain parts of the land that they were somehow under the
> > > impression that they could still use after having received
> > > the glass beads.
> > > _______
> > >
> > > Charles: This seems ok to me.
> > > __________
> > >
> > >
> > >  I would contend that we still do not know
> > > what was meant in the minds of the receivers of the glass
> > > beads when they did that.
> > > ________
> > >
> > > Charles: I would contend we DO know that they didn't have the same thing in mind as the Dutch. That's enough to "void the transaction" theoretically. Practically is another matter.
> > > __________-
> > >
> > >
> > >  Perhaps it was that they would
> > > "share" the land, even though you and others accept that
> > > somehow there were recognized areas that certain groups had
> > > some kind of agreed upon primary rights to usufruct.
> > > ________
> > >
> > > Charles: I didn't say it exactly that way. The important thing is that the overall system (and there was an overall system, a culture) was not the same as the European one. Or was an organized relationship to production and "the land", the Earth that was quite different than the Dutch and European, such that the Indians had no reasonable expectations ( as the contract professors say) that the Dutch were going to do all that they did.
> > > _________
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >  Did
> > > the receivers of the glass beads in doing so recognize that
> > > the Dutch had somehow some kind of primary right of
> > > usufruct that superseded their own, or did they believe
> > > that this allowed the Dutch to share with them the land?
> > > _______
> > >
> > > Charles: Probably closer to the latter if that at all. This was a very new relationship from the Indian end too. But they certainly didn't have a custom that you give me some beads and then you take over and dominate this area of the Earth that has been the home of our ancestors and our people from time in memorium.
> > > _______
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >      In any case, I would say that, especially that the
> > > Dutch themselves thought that they were "purchasing" the
> > > land, that they are in a much superior legal and moral
> > > position than the other Europeans who simply seized land or
> > > the tribes who, prior to the invasion of the Europeans,
> > > displaced other tribes by force from territory that the
> > > displaced tribe had previously inhabited.  I do not know
> > > whether or not this was how the Lenape took Manhatten
> > > originally or if there were earlier inhabitants.  But
> > > anybody who thinks that this did not happen prior to the
> > > arrival of the Europeans, and a whole lot, is simply naive.
> > > _______
> > >
> > > Charles: No they aren't. Anyone who just believes those stories about how the "savages" took land from each other in the way the Europeans do is the naive one, believing European propaganda used as an excuse to take the land themselves. Even evidence of war among the original Americans does not prove that they "took land" from each other. Taking land is a European concept in ths context.
> > >
> > > You are projecting European land theft concepts onto the original Americans. Captalist/feudal expropriation is not panhuman.
> > >
> > > Charles Brown
> > >
> > >
> > > Barkley Rosser
> > > On Fri, 05 Feb 1999 17:16:21 -0500 Charles Brown
> > > <CharlesB@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > >>> "Rosser Jr, John Barkley" <rosserjb@xxxxxxx> 02/05 4:51 PM >>>
> > > > Barkley comments:
> > > >      Not so simple.  You say that "it's between them," but
> > > > then if a European shows up the latest holder somehow has a
> > > > mystical right that their ignorance of what the Europeans
> > > > are about grants them in perpetuity.
> > > > ______
> > > >
> > > > Charles: Again, I don't grant your premise that the "latest holder" got the land by violence. But even assuming that, the European wrongful taking does not become valid. If I steal Louis' land, you can't assert my wrongful act as a basis for validating your subsequent wrongful taking from me. You can't assert Louis' right as making your taking legal.
> > > > _______
> > > >
> > > > Barkley:
> > > >   Why does this not
> > > > apply to former Indian tribal holders of the land, if you
> > > > don't like the term "territory" for a defined piece of land?
> > > > ______
> > > >
> > > > Charles: The Dutch can't validate their wrongful taking through a prior wrongful taking by those from whom they take.
> > > >
> > > > But please note, I am going along with these reasoning chains,
> > > > arguendo. I have problems with some of your factual and "legal" or cultural logic premises.
> > > > ___________
> > > > Barkley:
> > > >      I note as a simple example, that the Chippewa drove
> > > > the Sioux out of Northern Wisconsin after they defeated
> > > > them in a battle in 1666 in Solon Spring.  Of course the
> > > > Chippewa were fleeing from European invaders, but there
> > > > were plenty of such displacements prior to the European
> > > > arrival that we just don't know the exact dates or details
> > > > of.
> > > > _________
> > > >
> > > > Charles:  The "we know there were plenty " is suspect, for reasons I stated regarding ulterior motives of European "knowers". But even assuming "we know" some of what you say, Europeans can't assert Sioux rights vis-a-vis Chippewa in order to justify or legalize Eurpean takings. The "best" they might do is give the land back to the Sioux and get their European shit out of Dodge, so to speak. " Who was that masked man who gave us back our land  from the Ojibwa (Chippewa) ? It was the great white do gooder Kemosabi. He went back to Europe."
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > Charles Brown
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > Barkley Rosser
> > > > On Fri, 05 Feb 1999 16:30:12 -0500 Charles Brown
> > > > <CharlesB@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > > >
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > > >>> "Rosser Jr, John Barkley" <rosserjb@xxxxxxx> 02/05 3:45 PM >>>
> > > > > Charles,
> > > > >      In most locations the tribes that were in place when
> > > > > Europeans first showed up were not the first tribes to
> > > > > inhabit or claim as "tribal territory" that land.
> > > > > ________
> > > > >
> > > > > Charles: "Territory" is a term referring to the land within a state. The groups around Manhattan didn't have states.
> > > > >
> > > > > ______
> > > > >  So, if
> > > > > the tribes there when the Europeans arrived have permanent
> > > > > property rights because they had no concept of property
> > > > > ________
> > > > >
> > > > > Charles: They had property concepts. They didn't have PRIVATE property concepts in land. Property means relations between people with respect to things, with respect to production. They had an organized relationship to the land, but the form of organization was not private property relations.
> > > > > __________
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > >  and
> > > > > therefore could not sell their property, what are the
> > > > > rights of the tribes that they displaced, often by warfare?
> > > > > _________
> > > > >
> > > > > Charles: Assuming arguendo that your claim of violent displacement is true, that's between them. The Europeans ain't in it. But every European claim of indigenous "savagery" as in warfare worse than what the Europeans did, IS SUSPECT as European propaganda as an excuse to displace them.
> > > > > __________
> > > > >
> > > > > __________

> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > > Such a "transaction" looks no better than the thefts by
> > > > > warfare by most of the Europeans and arguably worse than
> > > > > the transactions where the Europeans actually paid, as with
> > > > > the Dutch for Manhatten, even if the "sellers" did not know
> > > > > what was going to be the long term result.
> > > > > _______
> > > > >
> > > > > Charles: The European claims that regarding indigenous transactions worse than European transactions are suspect as evidence from biased witnesses. Europeans had an ulterior motive to portray indigenous peoples as "savage" as an excuse for taking the land as "unsettled by humans". The Europeans are in no position to judge the situation and say, "their 'crime' justifies our crime ( I refer to the indigenous "crime" arguendo, for the sake of argument, but I don't accept it as anything but a fantastic and grandiose false generalization).
> > > > >
> > > > > Charles Brown
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > > Barkley Rosser
> > > > > On Fri, 05 Feb 1999 15:28:47 -0500 Charles Brown
> > > > > <CharlesB@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > > >
> > > > > > >>> "Rosser Jr, John Barkley" <rosserjb@xxxxxxx> 02/05 3:06
> > > > > > I would note that among most tribes there was at least
> > > > > > a rudimentary sense of tribal ownership, if not of personal
> > > > > > ownership..  Certain tribes had primary rights in certain
> > > > > > territories and this was often decided by intertribal
> > > > > > warfare.  Sometimes a home base involved some kind of
> > > > > > tribal burial grounds.  I note that Lewis Mumford in his
> > > > > > _The City in History_ claims that burial grounds were the
> > > > > > original nuclei of urban settlements (cemetary by the
> > > > > > church in the center of town) and also the original form of
> > > > > > landed property.
> > > > > >      But, again, I doubt that anybody on this list knows
> > > > > > what was the actual conception of the Indians who "sold"
> > > > > > Manhatten to the Dutch and any efforts to claim what they
> > > > > > did think is pure fantasy.
> > > > > > _________
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Charles: We may not know exactly what the indigenous conceptions were, but archeology, anthropology and paleo-history
> > > > > > are not based on pure fantasy. There were definite cultural rules just as we are sure that they had languages with grammars, though we may not know the exact grammar. We know what they didn't have, which was a conception that was the same as the Dutch. Thus, when I did legal research for the land recovery project of the Yuroks of Northern California, I argued that the early land transfers to whites should be voided for failure of meeting of the minds, which is necessary for a contract; and other theories based on the anthropological principle that whatever the Yurok coneption of land, it was not of European capitalist private property. There is quite a bit of ethnography on what the Yurok conceptions of land were ( Waterman ; Kroeber, a famous student of Boas ). There are lots of sacred spots etc. such that the land becomes a giant library of the tribe's history. The land was a repository of indigenous knowledge in conjunction with myths and the whole culture. Ther!
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> > > > > > to be some similar affirmative evidence of the Manhattan groups' conceptions. It is not fantastic  that indigenous Manhattan  conception would not meet with a Dutch mind (conception)  as necessary for a contract ,and it is possibly less fantastic than theories about long economic waves.
> > > > > >
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Charles Brown
> > > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > > --
> > > > > Rosser Jr, John Barkley
> > > > > rosserjb@xxxxxxx
> > > > >
> > > >
> > > > --
> > > > Rosser Jr, John Barkley
> > > > rosserjb@xxxxxxx
> > > >
> > >
> > > --
> > > Rosser Jr, John Barkley
> > > rosserjb@xxxxxxx
> > >
> >
> > --
> > Rosser Jr, John Barkley
> > rosserjb@xxxxxxx
> >
>
> --
> Rosser Jr, John Barkley
> rosserjb@xxxxxxx
>

--
Rosser Jr, John Barkley
rosserjb@xxxxxxx