An interesting article about Europeans settling the New World and the Native Populations. The myth of the ‘stolen country’ | Spectator USA
That was a great article Bill. No doubt in today's world there is a big attempt to rewrite history and put on trial our ancestors. The world was and still is a nasty place, where the strong survive. I often wonder what the world would look like today if Western European Nations had not colonized the "New World" and left it alone?
While I generally agree with this article and it's premise, there is a huge, gaping hole in the presentation and it's assumptions: the Irish. Like blacks, we're 10% of the population too, and our lives, families, culture and history are deliberately ignored or swept under the rug as merely "white people" with status and "privileges" that we were never afforded. The author claims that there were no deliberate ethnic cleansings or holocausts committed by the English and he sites India, Asia and Africa as examples. While the people who lived under British rule in those areas would dispute that, please note that he didn't even mention the Irish. At the same time those wonderful, gentle, English were importing slaves into Virginia in the 16th Century, they were exterminating the Irish Catholics in Ireland. Nearly every man, woman and little child on the island was butchered. A few men survived by taking shelter on the small, off-shore outcroppings that surround the main island, while the last 50,000 women and children were rounded up by the English Army and sold into slavery in the Caribbean, thus becoming the only white people sold as slaves in the New World. In our history books, you've heard of the "Trail of Tears" but nobody ever cried for the Irish. There have been several such English attempts to exterminate the Irish over the last 800 years and some of them were quite recent. The 1840's are known in Irish history as "An Gorta Mor" (The Great Hunger.) More than 1 million people starved to death. Two thirds of all the Irish last names disappeared from the country forever. Twelve years later it happened again. In the 1860's during our Civil War, the "coffin ships" would arrive at American ports like New York, Baltimore or Philadelphia with their cargo of walking skeletons. Port officials would often board these ships, only to find everyone dead except the English crew. Please keep in mind that there was plenty of food in Ireland during this "Potato Famine." The English simply hoarded it all for higher prices or sold it in Europe rather than allow the Irish to eat it. At the beginning of the 1840's, the population of Ireland was seven million; by 1870 it was two million. All the rest, 5 million people, had starved to death or left for the New World... The Irish Famine was Genocide An gorta mór - The Irish Famine, 1845-1849 My grandfather was born in Tralee, County Kerry in 1874. English penal laws made it illegal for him to; 1. Get married or have children until he was 40 years-old. 2. Own property. 3. Attend Catholic church. 4. Attend school. 5. Own a Catholic bible. 6. Speak the Irish language. 7. Lease land. 8. Educate his children. 9. Vote. The newly freed slaves in America had more rights than the Irish who lived in Ireland, which makes American blacks very popular in Ireland to this day. My grandfather finally escaped this tyranny on Christmas night, 1916. He left with his brothers, their wives and children and dodged German submarines all the way across the ocean on an old ship called the Atlantic Star. They had done something and had to get out of town quickly. 1916 was the Easter Rebellion and the beginning of the Irish Civil War which followed, but they would never talk about it. They sailed past the Statue of Liberty on New Years Eve and our first day in America was New Years day, 1917. This was the way that the English treated the Irish for over 800 years. It happened. The author also claims that white Europeans have generally been much more humane than other peoples. Is he kidding? Just 75 years after the Germans exterminated entire ethnic groups, he says that? The Russians also exterminated entire ethnic groups at the same time. Was it that long ago? Have we forgotten? Or do we just want to forget? The author had a golden chance to hit a home run with this article, but he blew it by leaving out information that no Irishman would miss...
Wow JO'Co, above you said it was a great article but your comments don't sound that way. So what do you think as far as far stolen country? I have always felt that if the English didn't colonize here someone else would have. The Indian technology just was not good enough to keep people out. Opps I just read your comments again and it flew right over my head that you said you agreed with the general premise.
Well don't know if this belongs in History of in the Sports forum. But I got it from a history site on the internet and it's baseball related, Ted Williams .406 batting average in 1941. Ted Williams' 1941 Season Is MLB's Most Underrated of All Time
The idea of a "stolen country" is total hogwash. An example is the Sioux Indians, who're the heroes of the Left. What was stolen from them? Their "sacred Black Hills?" I've known a few Sioux Indians, including a good friend named Chaske, who was one of the Indians who took over Alcatraz. When Columbus arrived in the New World, the Sioux were living in New England and none of them had ever seen a horse. By the time of the American Revolution they still didn't have any horses, but their war-like culture of raiding, raping, and stealing from other tribes had taken them as far west as the Dakotas; where they finally found horses and the Black Hills. All of it......was stolen from the Kiowas; the Black Hills, the horses, everything. The Kiowas had been there for hundreds of years, but they were driven out. So what exactly is the Sioux claim based on? That they stole it fair and square? It's hogwash. For an eye-opening read, pick up a book that's still in print called, My Life on the Plains, by George A. Custer.
I liked the article. I think that the author was referring to European colonizing on other continents. How they treated their fellow Europeans like the Irish was not relevant in his mind after all it was white on white. From what I've read, the Native Americans when the would war with neighboring tribes, the winner would often take children of the losers as slaves. Haven't seen any Indian statues toppled yet.
Ted Williams was our family hero. My uncle Tom Grzebien was a Providence City Councilman who got to shake hands with the great Teddy Ballgame himself. Then he refused to wash his hand. The family had to call my dad (Rhode Island to California) to order him to wash his hand, or he wouldn't do it... I saw Ted Williams when I was a boy. As our train neared Boston, we were informed that the Boston Red Sox were onboard. The passengers got off first and we were then herded into a holding area behind some ropes. Then the Red Sox got off as we watched. This was around 1956. Many were dressed like gangsters, with very expensive suits, shoes and hats. Then Ted Williams got off. He didn't dress up; a sport coat with no tie and no hat. He was a tall guy with a big grin on his face. He knew he was a God in Boston. BTW- I had fun doing research for this post. Thanks Bill! When I looked up my uncle Tom Grzebien, I landed on a page with a picture of my dad's sister Gertrude. (My aunt Gert.) I then found pictures of my cousin Tom Grzebien Jr. He's a professor of History at Providence College with his PhD from Notre Dame. I didn't know that. His dad, uncle Tom, had been Bob Cousy's roommate at Holy Cross.
All this history stuff got me interested to look online and I found this lengthy writeup on Nuremberg. A lot of it was covered in JO'Co's video but there is quite a bit of additional information also. Nuremberg Trials: Sentencing, Trivia, Criminals, And Aftermath
The guy who hired me as a history teacher was Mr. Silverman. He was from New Hampshire, but his family was from Russia. They were Russian Jews. He told me the story of when he was a boy, right after WWII, his family returned to Europe to look for the rest of his family, but they were all gone. Grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, in-laws, neighbors, friends......everyone. All gone.