Due to time differences, Obama was sworn in as the new president just after 7:00pm local time here. I originally had wanted to watch it live but was busy and so caught it a short time later thanks to C-Span’s website.
I saw by the numbers on the bottom of the feed that it was going to be a short speech and I expected a few short words of optimism and general platitudes. It was however quite shocking for me to hear a particular phrase about halfway through and it ended up troubling me the rest of the evening.
I woke up this morning and checked the BBC’s transcript just to make sure I hadn’t heard Obama incorrectly.
While referring to America’s past and all of those people who have “carried us up the long, rugged path towards prosperity and freedom” he says this in tribute to them:
For us, they packed up their few worldly possessions and travelled across oceans in search of a new life.
For us, they toiled in sweatshops and settled the West.
As far as I’m aware (and I may be wrong), English is the only language where the word “settler” is used as a variant with positive connotations of the universal word: colonist.
I even double-checked on Wikipedia just to make sure and saw I was right:
In almost every real historical case, settlers live on land which previously belonged to long-established peoples, known as indigenous people (often called “natives”, “Aborigines” or, in the Americas, “Indians”). This land is usually settled against the wishes of the indigenes, and then controlled, defended and expanded by force.
Quite simply put, those two mentions by Obama of people who “traveled across oceans” and then “settled the West” are to me, a very strange and galling way to celebrate American history. I realize they are part of American history and made America what it is today but the exact same argument could be said about the enslavement of African peoples.
If Obama had extolled the virtues of those people whom, “for us, they enslaved others to plow the hard earth and bring economic abundance” quite a few people’s heads would’ve exploded.
For anyone of Native American heritage, certainly very little about Europeans “settling” their lands was anything to celebrate or laud, not to mention it being something that brought “prosperity and freedom”.
Things right now for the original Americans are pretty grim – they always rank dead last amongst ethnic groups as the most impoverished. Native Americans have the highest teen suicide rate, the highest high school drop out, the lowest per capita income and astronomical unemployment rates.
Not only that but the only current modern usage of the word “settlers” refers to Jewish colonization of Palestinian lands in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip.
I did find one other reference in the modern sense of “settlers”, that being Brazilians who go into indigenous parts of their country to “settle” there – i.e. cut down the rainforest and begin farming or mining operations.
Anyway, is this the biggest “deal” in the world? No of course not. It was a pretty ordinary platitude on Obama’s part towards standard American history, especially that disgustingly arrogant concept of Manifest Destiny that seems like it will never die.
Perhaps Obama can do a little good for peace and justice in the world and do the right thing by Leonard Peltier. For me, that would be a step in the right direction.
Pax
It was also noticeable that while mentioning a slew of religions and even the non-religion of non-believers, he seems to have omitted any belief of the inhabitants of the land mass now called North America whom the colonists encountered. Or did I miss something? Hindus seem also to have been omitted. There are more than enough of them in the US nowadays. The people who came from Europe and stayed in North America are called ‘colonists’. There were 13 colonies, not 13 settlements. When they moved west, they got into settlement mode. How do Australians refer to the act of dispossession of the native peoples?
Rick Warren managed to get in the only reference to a foreign country during the whole ceremony: Israel, albeit the ancient one. This was provocative and highly inappropriate at an American ritual. On the other hand, he reminded everyone that the US supports Israel unconditinally on the basis of Scripture. Probably even more so than based any Jewish Lobby.
And this as the evangelicals tighten their grip on the military. The American military fighting for Israel. Nice.
Rick Warren’s prayer was also, as I anticipated, a very, very, very Christian prayer – offensively so to those of us who are not Christian, and who expect the United States government to respect the diversity of religious beliefs among its citizens and residents. Even some of my Christian colleagues commented that they were shocked, and none to pleased.
The U.S. government is not secular, but it’s difficult to define how it’s conventional official religiosity works. Something like, you, god, do for us, and we’ll do for you. Instead of burnt offerings official paeans are submitted. Oh France!, where no cleric of any kind can even get his little toe through the governmental door. Well, not quite.
http://www.usnews.com/articles/news/obama/2009/01/21/for-president-obama-a-somber-inclusive-inaugura
l-prayer-service.html
you do realize that America settled the West in direct competition with Spain, France, and England, and not as some decision to leave it pristine and in the hands of the western tribes or to take it over by force. I grow weary of the way so many envision the settling of the west. It was a colonial era, and it was America’s decision to colonize the West and take control of the Pacific rather than let the British, Spanish, or French do so. See, for example, the Oregon Treaty. President Polk was aggressive (he was even censored in the House for starting the war with Mexico), but he attained the land that make up most of the western United States. That land was not attained from the Native Americans but from competing imperial claims.
The U.S. government made decisions based on power relations vis-a-vis potentially hostile European powers (and their proxies) and gave little consideration to the impact of those decisions on the Native population. They can be criticized for that but we should at least attempt to understand decisions in their proper context. The British wanted Monterrey as a port as late as the 1840’s and they had burned the White House as recently as 1812.
“That land was not attained from the Native Americans but from competing imperial claims. “
Well, that makes it quite all right, then. And I am sure it comes as a huge comfort to the dispossessed Native Americans that the land they lived on for centuries was not attained from them, but from a bunch of competing outsiders also intent upon wiping them out and taking their land.
yes, I’m sure it was not comforting to them.
This is typical tripe.
The 1800’s involved a period of intense global colonization by emerging European powers that had developed a significant technological and military advantage over all other societies and cultures. In the context of those expansionist and competing foreign policies, a little non-monarchical country of thirteen Atlantic states sought to defend itself from annihilation and encirclement. In the process of successfully doing this, they took possession of a continent worth of land. Some they took by purchase (Louisiana territories) and some by force (Mexican-American War) and some by negotiation (Oregon Treaty). Throughout the entire period, other imperial powers had designs on the territory and were to one degree or another hostile to the new Republic whose example served as such a disruptive force in their home countries.
The settling of the West should be understood in the context of the Napoleonic Wars, the Revolutions of 1848, and the overall era of European monarchical/republican conflict and colonial expansion.
nicely said BooMan, but I’ve got to disagree with a lot of it.
The expansion and competition of the european powers in north america pretty much ended with the american revolution. By the 1800s Spain was still settling mexico and the southwest, but the USA was expansionist from day 1, and neither France nor Britain had the resources to settle or defend their faraway claims. There was never any existential threat to the USA. The British landed a couple of small armies during the war of 1812 but had no chance of retaking the “colonies”.
I’m currently reading “What Hath God Wrought”, a recent history of USA 1815-1848. The author (D W Howe) is scathing about the continual theft of land from both natives and Spanish settlers, usually breaking treaties made by the US Govt with Spain or the native tribes.
yeah, that’s the bad history we’re taught. It’s not accurate. European meddling didn’t end until the civil war was resolved. The Canadian and Mexican borders were not settled until the late 1840’s. The late 1840’s were a period of republican agitation in Europe in which the monarchs emerged totally victorious, but defeated in terms of their ambitions in the New World.
For a politician sitting in Washington DC, the settlement of the West was seen completely within the contexts of these power politics. The rights and treaties with the Native Americans were mere speedbumps of little practical importance.
We all should lament the loss of the world of the Native people of the Americas, but we should recognize that it took place in a much bigger context. It was America that laid out the principles of human rights, self-determination, and representative government, that are used to retrospectively condemn America today. America did this in the context of a losing battle for republican principles in Europe where it was pressed on all sides by hostile powers.
In other words, America was in a competition within the Western world, and considerations related to a low technology native population were totally subordinated to that.
Noting this is not to justify breaking treaties nor to dismiss the tragedy that befell the native population. I note it because it is part of the story that too many people seem to forget or not even learn in the first place.
the Oregon territory border wasn’t agreed until the 1840s because neither side cared much about that big empty place. Then a significant number of american settlers moved in and the govt had a reason to deal with it.
the mexican border was agreed more than once before the 40s, but this didn’t stop us from taking more of Mexico when we wanted it. And after 1821 that was independent Mexico, not Spain.
I don’t see how “pressed on all sides by hostile powers” is an accurate description of the USA. The european powers were never consistently hostile to USA, nor could they ally against USA (or for anything else) because of their rivalries and wars at home.
“The late 1840’s were a period of republican agitation in Europe in which the monarchs emerged totally victorious, but defeated in terms of their ambitions in the New World.”
First half of that undeniably true, but I would assert that for those monarchs that ever HAD new world ambitions, they were mostly defeated in the 1820s. And many of the countries where there was trouble in 1848 didn’t EVER have much if any presence in the Americas.
Here is a segment from Michael Lind’s The American Way of Strategy:
Lind goes on to detail how Polk was willing to go to war with Britain unless we were granted the Juan de Fuca Strait. War was averted when access to Puget Sound was split. Lind also discussed British designs on California in the 1840’s.
This piece is instructive:
Lind also details frequent British diplomatic appeals back home to annex California during this period, which were, admittedly, rejected.
Within the limitations of a comment it is difficult to discuss large swaths of history, but the point is that America was engaged in a larger struggle in which expansionist policies should be understood.
As I have already mentioned, the crucial period of the 1840’s involved a worldwide ideological battle between republicans and monarchical powers. America was on the side of the republicans and, as such, was inviting a policy of containment from foreign powers.
Lind’s theory is interesting and I will look for that book. Howe does NOT think Polk would have fought over the Oregon boundary, because Polk always intended to fight Mexico and was smart enough not to want to fight two wars at once.
I don’t think that quote supports “British designs on California”. I think it shows that some Californios knew what had happened in Texas and hoped, unrealistically, for British help against the encroaching Yanquis.
Was America part of any “larger struggle…worldwide ideological battle “? As a symbol and inspiration to the republican side everywhere, yes, and Americans felt this too. Material participation, not so much.
“America … was inviting a policy of containment from foreign powers. “
I don’t see any actual “policy of containment” being followed. Britain was peacefully negotiating the canadian border and ignoring those requests for help from California. France’s adventure in mexico was much later.
I understand the why of how the West was “settled”, right down to the genocidal campaigns in California in the 1850s.
I also understand that’s how “things were done” in those days and certainly concomitant to all the “settling” was legal enslavement of millions of people elsewhere. That TOO was part of both “power politics” and competing imperial affairs, etc.
All I was saying was however that it was a little jarring and unappealing to hear this lauded in a short little speech full of platitudes that was mostly supposed to be a “yay, today is a happy day” kind of affair.
Pax
BooMan, I was interested only in highlighting the usage of the words settler and colonist. In U.S. history the distinction exists: colonists became settlers. In Palestine the European Jews always cast themselves as settlers. Once the Louisiana Purchase happened, let’s say, the push was to go West, in fact even before then. Land, land, land. The most valuable possession on this earth. All the theories in the world can’t change what happened. At most, they can possibly influence what is happening. The why and wherefore are all based on hindsight. Right now we don’t know what we’re doing, witness the economic nightmare which has only begun to break, and all the theories about what went wrong and what didn’t. The blacks got a horrid deal in the U.S. The native North Americans an even worse one. The reasons are the stuff of history, not of life.