Are We Living on Stolen Land? | 5-Minute Videos

Are Americans living on stolen land acquired by nefarious means? Jeff Fynn-Paul, professor of economic and social history at Leiden University and author of Not Stolen: The Truth About European Colonialism in the New World, dispels this misleading and destructive myth.

Script:

If you attended college this is what you were likely taught:

America was founded through acts of genocide, accompanied by larceny on the grandest scale.

Columbus, and the Europeans who followed him, sailed to the New World with the intention of exploiting whomever they found—and, if necessary, enslaving or exterminating them.

Soon afterward, they began importing black bodies from Africa. They then built the world’s richest country out of a combination of slave labor, stolen land, and environmental destruction.

Did I miss anything?

As a historian, I can assure you this view is inaccurate in most particulars.

But getting the story wrong is only part of the problem. The bigger problem is this: if you teach generation after generation that their country, their society, and their history are uniquely awful, they are likely to believe you. This is a sure route to societal failure.

This has consequences not only for America but the entire world. Many in the US seem to have no clue just how much of a ‘city on a hill’ the US is still perceived to be, and how important that American beacon is to millions of people living under autocratic regimes.

If the image of the US is fundamentally delegitimized, if its entire raison d’être—its reason for being—is tainted, then increasing numbers of people will wonder whether democracy itself is worth the trouble.

So, let’s correct the record before it’s too late.

The narrative of the "stolen country" or "Native American genocide" does not stand up to scrutiny by any honest historian. It is a dangerously myopic and one-sided interpretation of history.

It puts one hundred percent of the burden on Europeans, who are held responsible for nearly all historical evil, while so-called indigenous people are mere victims—saint-like, innocent martyrs whose civilizations were close to ideal.

This is simplistic, anti-historic thinking that has gained currency only because most practicing historians and history teachers have either given into groupthink or else have been cowed into silence by fear of losing their jobs.

There is hardly a single civilization on Earth, which did not displace natives, or which did not engage in nasty wars or ethnic cleansings at many points during its history.

No matter who "discovered" the New World, it is inevitable that a large proportion of its inhabitants would have died within the first few decades after first contact.

The New World population was smaller and more homogenous than the Old World population. Thus, its people had less immunity to disease than the people of the Old World, where communities from Africa, Asia, and Europe had been intermingling for millennia.

#history #christophercolumbus #usa

[rickmiller]

How many native American tribes fought over the same land over and over again before the settlers showed up?

[flyoverkid]

When someone begins blabbering about how Americans live on stolen land, I ask them to name one nation that hasn't been explored, populated, invaded, or otherwise traded hands in the course of human history.
I'm no historian, but I can't think of even one.

[CodyCha]

People who scream the loudest about stolen land would never give land they own to the native.

[godwinmanuel]

Excellent video! I am from India and I am so thankful that America, the greatest country in the world, allowed by family to immigrate here. I am also grateful for a Christian church that helped my family through some difficult times when we were new to the country. Now my church is helping former refugees from Nepal who are legally settling into the US. They love America!

[eddysgaming]

As a young man I read Dee Brown's "Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee" and became incensed at the atrocities it depicted. The persistently negative message of that book remained with me for quite some time afterward. Little did I understand then I had fallen victim to simplistic overgeneralizing, significant historical omissions, and a one-sided depiction of history.

[untouchablex]

Land is held. Never owned. It is conquered or sold.

[stephenjones]

Read about the Comanches in S.C. Gwynne's "Empire if the Summer Moon." It's a great book that details how the Comanches pushed back Mexican and American forces and settlements in the SW. He not only discusses the incredible power and skill of their warriors culture, but also the extreme cruelty, far beyond anything Europeans or Americans ever practiced against Native Americans. They generally never took prisoners, except for an occasional woman or child as a slave. And they made a habit of killing prisoners by the slowest and most painful deaths possible. They also committed real genocide on enemies, such as some Apache tribes.

And the most advanced indigenous civilizations, such as the Aztecs, Mayan, and Incan, were some of the most brutal, regularly practicing religious rituals involving torture, such as cutting the hearts out of living victims, and cannibalism. A study of the conquering of these tribes demonstrates that much smaller European forces were able to conquer huge indigenous forces, due in a large part to the large number of surrounding tribes who thoroughly hated these kingdoms due to their brutality, and readily assisted the Europeans.

[wh_am_]

As fast as stolen land is concerned all the land in the world had been "stolen" from someone at some point in time

[Gizziiusa]

The US history class I took in soph HS in 1985 was vastly different than the US History class I took in college in 1997 (i entered college later in life) in the same state. I can only imagine what it has morphed into currently.

[Matticus]

The older I get, the more I realize how almost all of history is full of gray areas rather than black and white and "good guys" vs "bad guys". It is so much more complex than that

[GreyWolfLeaderTW]

Short Answer: No more than the Indians who routinely stole it from each other.
The pre-Columbian history of the Americas was much the same as after Columbus arrived. Conquest (Aztecs famously conquered neighbors to extract slaves, some of whom ended up being killed as human sacrifices, and in turn, ironically enough, when defeated by the combined strength of the Conquistadors and their Indian allies, were cannibalized by those Indian allies as their kin had been ritualistically cannibalized as part of the Aztecs' human sacrifice practices), slavery, genocide (such as the infamous mass-murder of the Yellowknife tribe by their neighboring/rival tribes, notably by the Dogrib), and sweeping rival tribes off territory. The Cherokee famously pushed around rival smaller tribes and took their land, much the same case with the Sioux.

[Youalreadyknowwhatsup]

I'm native and no you're not on stolen land.

[msmitten]

I can imagine the Aztecs did not debate the morality of conquest.

[thermalreboot]

Not only was Indian society just as war like as any other people, but the political climate was just a complex. When the Pilgrims arrived at Plymouth colony the Narragansett Confederation had colonized all of New England and demanded tribute from the New England tribes. Massasoit welcomed the English because he believed they could shift the balance of power into his favor and it did.

[henrikibsen]

Dear Americans, secure your border at all costs.

[myfakeguuglaccount]

I thought native Americans had no concept of land ownership. 🤔

[michaellarenee]

The natives in our country could not stop fighting amongst themselves enough to band together to become an indomitable force to be reckoned with. Like this man stated in the video, if you can DEFEND your land you get to KEEP your land, but if you can't then you lose your land! We as Americans ought to remember that lesson which basically comes down to one exact fact:
UNITED WE STAND, DIVIDED WE FALL!!! PERIOD!!!

[indeedentertainment]

Here in Australia we aren't taught we are living on stolen land at University. We are told in in primary and secondary school, by our politicians, by our workplaces, by the news programs etc.

[thermalreboot]

Most people don't know, and I was shocked to learn that the first treaty between the US and the plains Indians was broken by the Indians.

[technicaldifficulties]

The ownership of territories constantly changed with tribes killing each other.