Should they be seen as historical achievements or crimes against humanity? On the one hand you have the absolutely monstrous treatment and abuse of the original Americans but on the other hand you have incredible inventions, scifentific discoveries and and the settlement of what would eventually become the United States (which I think should be considered one of the most historically important events -- ever).

Where do you stand?

Completely inexcusable atrocities and one of the biggest reasons to hate this country and humanity in general.

Deterministically speaking, nobody really deserves any credit for any discovery or invention ever made. Had Newton not revolutionized physics, someone else probably would've in his stead. Maybe decades later, maybe a century later, but we would've done it. It's just the way we are.

There's still slavery in Africa and Arab countries. So...yeah...

Both, with leanings one way or the other based on the individual actions of the explorer in question. 

A black and white undestanding of history does no good for anybody.

Strange. I was about to post exactly this

Deterministically speaking, nobody really deserves any credit for any discovery or invention ever made. Had Newton not revolutionized physics, someone else probably would've in his stead. Maybe decades later, maybe a century later, but we would've done it. It's just the way we are.

The United States constitution could only have been written the way it is by the people who wrote it, who were a product of English colonisation. It could have been a very different situation had the Americas not been in the exact situation they were that allowed for the constitution to exist in its current state.

Even if I agree with your point, we would still lose some relatively large sum of time to less revolutionary minds in Europe. Weariness of a monarchy (a concept which wouldn't lose virtually all its meaning until the first World War some 200 years later), leading to a democratic election process and the independence and freedoms that the constitution [tries to] guarantee eventually led to the Civil Rights movement, the abolition of slavery (granted this took longer than America's contemporaries but for other reasons) and a bunch of other humanistic endeavors that had the constitution not been written (and not set an example for the rest of the world) would have taken far longer to achieve, if it was achieved at all. You can't sleep on the precedent the founding fathers set with the constitution.

Quote from: DAS B00T x2 on October 10, 2017, 01:35:32 PM

Both, with leanings one way or the other based on the individual actions of the explorer in question.

Okay, so you have Columbus and Cortez on the evil side of the spectrum. Who would you say could champion the benevolent side of European exploration in the Americas?

Of the top of my head, Hudson and Cartier.

Cortes I have a problem with calling especially evil though, given that what he was doing would have been perfectly normal in a european or north aftrican conflict too.

Off the top of my head, Hudson and Cartier.

What made their approach different from that of Columbus?

Cortes I have a problem with calling especially evil though, given that what he was doing would have been perfectly normal in a european or north aftrican conflict too.

I was just trying to position him for the sake of framing the question, anyway.

Quote from: DAS B00T x2 on October 10, 2017, 02:41:56 PM

Quote from: Snake on October 10, 2017, 02:24:02 PM

Quote from: DAS B00T x2 on October 10, 2017, 01:35:32 PM

Both, with leanings one way or the other based on the individual actions of the explorer in question.

Okay, so you have Columbus and Cortez on the evil side of the spectrum. Who would you say could champion the benevolent side of European exploration in the Americas?

Of the top of my head, Hudson and Cartier.

Cortes I have a problem with calling especially evil though, given that what he was doing would have been perfectly normal in a european or north aftrican conflict too.

lmao what

14th/15th century spain walking in to Morocco or sailing in to the Balkans wouldn't have looked to different and he treated is conquest as a military campaign since it essentially was, as opposed to Columbus who was just being a dick for the sake of being a dick.

There was a lot of fucked up shit that the Europeans did. But at the end of the day no other group of people can say they haven't done the same so it's whatever. This is just how humanity is.

America is a great nation though, for all its shortcomings and the shit that's been going on recently. Does that excuse the evil that was and still is committed? No, but nothing really can. So there's no point in white people walking around self flagellating. I think as long as we all recognize the facts we can move forward.

Get out of here with your reasonable viewpoints.

There's historical evidence to suggest that the Native Americans also conquered and killed an entirely different group of humans situated in America when they arrived via the Bering land bridge from Siberia.

Does that excuse the atrocities committed by the European settlers? No. But they're not the only group of people with historical blood on their hands. Humans are opportunistically evil by nature. Colonisation, much like anything else, can have its positive and negative impacts on a region.

There's historical evidence to suggest that the Native Americans also conquered and killed an entirely different group of humans situated in America when they arrived via the Bering land bridge from Siberia.

Does that excuse the atrocities committed by the European settlers? No. But they're not the only group of people with historical blood on their hands. Humans are opportunistically evil by nature. Colonisation, much like anything else, can have its positive and negative impacts on a region.

Yeah, I know. And even beyond that, the natives routinely fought with other tribes for whatever they could get, using often grotesque methods. Champlain tried to bargain with the Huron people but their coexistence was contingent on the defeat of the Iroquois.

That's a discussion for another day, though.

Quote from: Snake on October 10, 2017, 02:24:02 PM

Quote from: DAS B00T x2 on October 10, 2017, 01:35:32 PM

Both, with leanings one way or the other based on the individual actions of the explorer in question.

Okay, so you have Columbus and Cortez on the evil side of the spectrum. Who would you say could champion the benevolent side of European exploration in the Americas?

The vikings. Some of the early Dutch explorers.

Not everyone showed up to conquer

The Vikings were up around Greenland and Newfoundland, no? Both islands where indiginous people didn't live.

Quote from: MyNameIsCharlie on October 10, 2017, 05:18:06 PM

Quote from: Snake on October 10, 2017, 02:24:02 PM

Quote from: DAS B00T x2 on October 10, 2017, 01:35:32 PM

Both, with leanings one way or the other based on the individual actions of the explorer in question.

Okay, so you have Columbus and Cortez on the evil side of the spectrum. Who would you say could champion the benevolent side of European exploration in the Americas?

The vikings. Some of the early Dutch explorers.

Not everyone showed up to conquer

The Vikings were up around Greenland and Newfoundland, no? Both islands where indiginous people didn't live.

There's a lot of evidence they made it as far as modern New England

Vikings by definition would have came as raiders or conquerors.

They raided abbeys and churches in the UK and Ireland for hundreds of years, slaughtered a shit ton of people and then took back the women, or just raped them then and there.

As a result we have Ireland's capital (Dublin, coming from the Gaelic Dubh Linn, or Blackpool because it was a swampy bog until vikings settled there), several coastal towns around Britain, and some leftover traces of Nordic genes in the population.

Benevolent they ain't, but influential on the future of both countries. The Saxons had to ward them off in the North before getting to Hastings and dealing with William (the future Conqueror of Britain).

Everyone generally sees the Romans in a positive light, but then in Britain alone they nearly eradicated the Celtic languages and culture. They made roads and Bath though, so it's all good.