Read Online Hillary's America: The Secret History of the Democratic Party by Dinesh D'Souza - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Dinesh D'Souza
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seems capable of pulling them off. Part of the reason Democrats prefer Hillary over Bernie is that she is a more effective Jacksonian, which is to say, a more ruthless and successful thief.
BLAMING AMERICA
Returning to Jackson, let’s examine the progressive narrative that faults the white man in general—rather than this specific one—for dispossessing and oppressing the native Indians. Democrats begin their tale of Indian tears with two calumnies, the first aimed at the first Europeans to arrive in America, the second aimed at the American Founders.
So what about the settlers? The first settlers—famously christened the “white man”—are accused by progressive Democrats of wiping outlarge segments of the native population, even to the point of genocide. Genocide, however, implies an intention to exterminate a population. Did Columbus or the early settlers attempt this? They did not. Certainly there were sporadic clashes between the white Europeans and the natives. But there was also a good deal of cooperation between them. The historical record is mixed.
How, then, did the natives perish in such large numbers? Reportedly the native Indian population declined by more than 50 percent in the first century of exposure to the white man. The reason, historian William McNeill shows, is because native Indians contracted from the white man diseases to which they had no immunity.
This is tragedy on a grand scale, but it’s not genocide. In his book Plagues and Peoples , McNeill points out that just over a century earlier the white man himself contracted the bubonic plague and other diseases that wiped out a third of the population of Europe. These diseases came from Asia, and the white man had no immunity to them. 17 No one calls this genocide—because it isn’t.
What about the Founders? Interestingly we see that white attitudes toward the Indian in the eighteenth century were largely sympathetic. The Founders did not consider Native Americans to be inherently inferior to the white man. Rather, they held that the primitive circumstances of the native were responsible for what was perceived to be his barbaric state. They were confident that education and civilization would raise the typical Indian to the level of the white man.
In his Notes on the State of Virginia , Jefferson praised the intelligence, courage, and integrity of the Indians. They are, he wrote, “formed in mind as well as in body on the same model as Homo sapiens Europaeus.” Jefferson rejected proposals to dispossess the Indians of their land on the pretext that they were savages or barbarians. Rather, Jefferson urged that whites include the Indians in American civilization. He expressed the hope that the Indians, rather than clinging to their old ways, would “incorporate with us as citizens of the United States.” 18
Indeed, several leading figures of the founding period, such as Patrick Henry, John Marshall, and Thomas Jefferson, proposed intermarriage between whites and Indians as a way to integrate the natives into the American mainstream. “What they thought impossible with respect to blacks,” political scientist Ralph Lerner writes, “was seen as highly desirable with respect to Indians.” 19
America’s first president, George Washington, respected the Indians. As a military officer defending the Virginia frontier, he considered the Indian tribes he encountered so formidable in warfare that in his view only other Indians could defeat them. Whenever possible, he did his best to ally with Indians.
As president, Washington was not opposed to trading with Indians or the purchase of Indian land, but he wanted these acquisitions to be secured by treaty, not by conflict. He insisted that white settlements bypass Indian territories, leaving them unmolested. “It was a vision,” historian Joseph Ellis writes, “in which the westward expansion of an American empire coexisted alongside the preservation of the original Americans.” 20
As
BLAMING AMERICA
Returning to Jackson, let’s examine the progressive narrative that faults the white man in general—rather than this specific one—for dispossessing and oppressing the native Indians. Democrats begin their tale of Indian tears with two calumnies, the first aimed at the first Europeans to arrive in America, the second aimed at the American Founders.
So what about the settlers? The first settlers—famously christened the “white man”—are accused by progressive Democrats of wiping outlarge segments of the native population, even to the point of genocide. Genocide, however, implies an intention to exterminate a population. Did Columbus or the early settlers attempt this? They did not. Certainly there were sporadic clashes between the white Europeans and the natives. But there was also a good deal of cooperation between them. The historical record is mixed.
How, then, did the natives perish in such large numbers? Reportedly the native Indian population declined by more than 50 percent in the first century of exposure to the white man. The reason, historian William McNeill shows, is because native Indians contracted from the white man diseases to which they had no immunity.
This is tragedy on a grand scale, but it’s not genocide. In his book Plagues and Peoples , McNeill points out that just over a century earlier the white man himself contracted the bubonic plague and other diseases that wiped out a third of the population of Europe. These diseases came from Asia, and the white man had no immunity to them. 17 No one calls this genocide—because it isn’t.
What about the Founders? Interestingly we see that white attitudes toward the Indian in the eighteenth century were largely sympathetic. The Founders did not consider Native Americans to be inherently inferior to the white man. Rather, they held that the primitive circumstances of the native were responsible for what was perceived to be his barbaric state. They were confident that education and civilization would raise the typical Indian to the level of the white man.
In his Notes on the State of Virginia , Jefferson praised the intelligence, courage, and integrity of the Indians. They are, he wrote, “formed in mind as well as in body on the same model as Homo sapiens Europaeus.” Jefferson rejected proposals to dispossess the Indians of their land on the pretext that they were savages or barbarians. Rather, Jefferson urged that whites include the Indians in American civilization. He expressed the hope that the Indians, rather than clinging to their old ways, would “incorporate with us as citizens of the United States.” 18
Indeed, several leading figures of the founding period, such as Patrick Henry, John Marshall, and Thomas Jefferson, proposed intermarriage between whites and Indians as a way to integrate the natives into the American mainstream. “What they thought impossible with respect to blacks,” political scientist Ralph Lerner writes, “was seen as highly desirable with respect to Indians.” 19
America’s first president, George Washington, respected the Indians. As a military officer defending the Virginia frontier, he considered the Indian tribes he encountered so formidable in warfare that in his view only other Indians could defeat them. Whenever possible, he did his best to ally with Indians.
As president, Washington was not opposed to trading with Indians or the purchase of Indian land, but he wanted these acquisitions to be secured by treaty, not by conflict. He insisted that white settlements bypass Indian territories, leaving them unmolested. “It was a vision,” historian Joseph Ellis writes, “in which the westward expansion of an American empire coexisted alongside the preservation of the original Americans.” 20
As
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