How do we know the people living here when Europeans arrived were indigenous?
First I have to make as clear as possible: I oppose imperialism, colonialism, and outcomes they produce such as slavery, racism, genocide, and the coercive, often violent and deadly destruction of cultures, including indigenous ones.
That opposition contributes significantly to my work, since living unsustainably drives all those results. In light of that connection, since I know no one even trying to live sustainably, which is necessary to lead others to oppose imperialism and all downstream, I don’t know anyone who opposes them as much as I do.
That said, environmentalists and people who claim to support indigenous cultures and people tend to attach to indigeneity properties it doesn’t merit. For example, environmentalists will fly someone from a south sea island to the United Nations to speak about environmental destruction. Well, I live on an island experiencing environmental destruction. I can just walk to the UN. Why shouldn’t my voice count as much as anyone else’s?
Besides, once an indigenous person start flying around the world, they have left their culture and become assimilated into ours. The more I live more sustainably, the more I approach what environmentalists and supporters of indigenous cultures promote.
If an indigenous cultures promotes infanticide, do we support infanticide, even in that culture? Or human sacrifice? Of course we don’t. The point isn’t if their bloodline is pure but the values they live by. Their bloodline’s purity is just racism, pure and simple. If they practice sustainability, which is necessary for the values of liberty, freedom, equality, and democracy, we can learn from them. Then the value is the values, not the indigeneity.
If an imperialist joins an indigenous culture that lives sustainably and therefore enables liberty, freedom, equality, and democracy, we can learn as much from that former imperialist as from any indigenous person. Likewise, if an indigenous society builds a casino designed to addict people, I oppose them as much as any non-indigenous person.
If an imperialist assimilates an indigenous person into their culture, that person may remain indigenous, but is now imperialist too. To say they are special just for their bloodline even while they join an imperialist culture is racism pure and simple. It’s also counterproductive, since it motivates imperialists to a simple solution: assimilate people, which is easier than ever with our addictive technologies. Many environmentalists who bring indigenous cultures cell phones and solar panels end up assimilating them. These environmentalists are imperialists.
How do we know who was indigenous to any location
Here’s a map of humans settling the earth. It shows people arrived the the east coast of North America around 16,000 years ago.
Here are two maps showing the people who lived in the region where I live when Europeans arrived:
Why should we believe that the people who lived here around five hundred years ago are those who arrived 16,000 years ago? I think it’s overwhelmingly more likely that at least some group displaced another group in that time. Some may have left voluntarily or died out due to natural causes, but almost certainly, some groups caused others to leave through coercion.
If so, those that lived there when the Europeans arrived were not indigenous.
Indigenous doesn’t mean non-European. It doesn’t mean sustainable. It doesn’t mean good. It just means “there first.” To presume that non-Europeans living here when the Europeans arrived means they were indigenous means you’re making huge assumptions that people lived in one place for over ten thousand years, at best. More likely it means thinking that all Native American cultures are identical, or else you’d acknowledge some displaced others.
If a Native American tribe kicks off another through coercion or violence, it did what the Europeans did. It isn’t indigenous just because it’s not European. It’s still imperialist if it does imperial things.
We can learn from many groups, but their being indigenous, if they are, isn’t itself a value. Living sustainably, I value since it enables liberty, freedom, equality, and democracy, which I also value. I value them whether they come from indigenous cultures or non-indigenous. I oppose their opposites even when practiced by indigenous cultures.
That said, I’m not sure where I stand on an indigenous culture that keeps to itself with practices I oppose, like infanticide. If it invades another culture, I support defending the other culture since it didn’t consent. If within a culture it does something I abhor, and I abhor infanticide, I’m not sure I would support jailing its citizens or otherwise imposing our justice on it since invading or imposing cause problems which might outweigh it.
But the main point of this post: people, especially environmentalists, ascribe to indigeneity goodness and values that it may correlate with but not necessarily. The cost of that unthinking to the environmentalists is their credibility, integrity, and effectiveness.
Read my weekly newsletter
On initiative, leadership, the environment, and burpees