Also 4:42 he hated Irish people and has said on many occasions that he didn't like the existence of an Irish state, backing the pro treaty army in the Irish civil war
As a Nigerian, my opinion on colonialism will be more nuanced than that of most westerners. On one hand, it was brutal in some ways but on the other it did play a huge role in bringing much of Africa into the modern age via introduction of modern tech, medicine, western education, and nation building. My country and many others would literally not exist without it and most of us are happy with that. Even many people who actually lived through British colonialism in Nigeria, like my grandmother and great grandmother (before she passed away in the early 2000s) don't look at it with horror or anger. They saw so many improvements like modern medicine and better food production and they even saw their children and families rise from poverty because of the effects. Also, one major good it did was abolish slavery. I cannot be more thankful for the British using their naval power and economic might to suppress the slave trade in Africa. Oh, I know they partook in it for a time, themselves, but it existed here long before whites ever came to Africa. Even my own ancestors of the Edo kingdom were slavers. Same with the Arabs who had a longer and more brutal slave trade here. What makes the British different is that unlike other regional African and Arab powers, they had the cultural & religious framework, wisdom, humanity and courage to actually stop the evil of slavery even at huge cost to their economy. God bless them.
While this isn't popular with Amerindians, it's clear that many owe their safety and existence to American conquest. The Najavo, Hawaiians, Innuit, Cherokee, and Iroquois became very collaborationist as the times were changing and they couldn't, and they were able to retain their culture and even retain quite a bit of their lands as semi-independent countries. While I can't say it was the "White man's burden" (a term invented MUCH later), it's clear they modernized quickly and avoided much bloodshed than if pre-Colombian rates of development continued. Their population and culture is perhaps even better preserved now.
Remember. write your representatives in congress and tell them to stop funding the Ukraine and focus on improving the lives of Americans! End Bidens war!
Utterly ridiculous. Historic societies that are comparable would look at today’s technology, lifestyle and opportunities as utopias. Should the Renaissance Europeans have settled for remaining in the dark ages?
And there's Leopold, a single human that did atrocities at the empire level, like Darth Vader. What a cool guy, thanks to him we get cheap cobalt to this day.
@@shahinkianpourit’s easy to act like a sociopath when something doesn’t directly effect you. A lot of young people glorify it an think it’s cool. Until something hits close to home, then they get in their feelings. No people are not all sociopaths. People who fancy themselves a sociopath hasn’t felt the loss of a close family member. That will remind you of your feelings real quick
I’d argue that these things are kind of interrelated. We are safe because we are rich and powerful. We are rich and powerful in large part because we built better social, political, and economic philosophies and institutions that we would consider to be more moral.
@@AtheistAlias Nah, if that would've been true then we would still live in the stone age. Technology and the willingness to be kind enough to share knowledge to complete strangers (schools&guilds) go hand in hand.
@@jeremiahsmith9109lol, even with morals and ethics, there are half and half, think of life as a triangle, every point on the triangle is something you need, but you can only have 2, sometimes compromise works best, you compromise and make your next moves to get what you want at a later date.
"We're not more moral, we're just in a position where we're safe enough to pretend to be." You said it, brother. This is the best, most succinct, & eloquent sentence I have heard in a long while regarding the current state of affairs.
What ludicrous logic. Morality is exclusively a function of the resources available to you? Your actions have nothing to do with it? If we have as few resources as we had in the 1600s, slavery is now moral? I know this is the internet, but it’s so frustrating when people just state their conclusions without an argument or justification.
The bit about Pizarro is even more interesting. King Charles was mad because Pizarro executed a king without a proper trial, and a man of Pizarros standing had no right to judge a king put there by god (it’s the 1500s). Charles didn’t view Atahualpa as just a savage. Pizarro was later backstabbed by his own men, getting what he deserved
This is true. Charles thought that Peru was too far away for Spain to hold directly. He wanted an allied and preferably Catholic nation over there as a trading-partner. He also distrusted the Spaniards who went overseas, reasoning that the further away from Madrid, the more those Spaniards had criminal motives.
This is pretty topical for us Australians right now, as we are about to have a referendum largely divided by those who agree and disagree with the colonisation of Australia.
@@lausdeo4944 the referendum decides if an aboriginal advisory council (called the voice) will be put in place to give advice to the government. Many people argue it is unfair for the aboriginals to get a say in how the government is run, while many others say it is important justice for aboriginals after Australian colonisation. Honestly, it’s the most political division I’ve ever seen in our country. It almost feels like American election season.
@@thefolder3086 see my other comment. It’s not directly about the colonisation of Australia, it’s more so about Aboriginal justice, as a result of Australian colonisation
What England did to Ireland was horrific, I'm not diminishing that at all. Would just like to point out though that when you said the English killed off the entire Irish ruling class, the 'english' that you are talking about are descendants of the Norman's that invaded and killed all the Anglo saxon ruling class as ruled the English like a foreign upperclass until generations later they intergrated and accepted the 'english' label and language.
Normans did the exact same to the English, just look into the "Harrying of the North" and see the digital Domesday book, between 1066 and 1086, to see the sheer number places that became wastes in that time.
That’s why I still say Denmark is worse than Britain. No surprise they’re also the first and second most deforested and ecologically destroyed countries respectively.
The People’s Action Party (PAP), which has ruled Singapore since independence in 1965, has no interest in tearing down statues of Raffles or his successors. In 1969, Singapore’s first prime minister, Lee Kuan Yew, said that before the British arrived, “there was no organized human society in Singapore, unless a fishing village can be called a society”. Contemporary leaders also give the colonial regime measured praise. One of the grandees of Singapore’s foreign policy establishment, Tommy Koh, delivered a pithy verdict: British rule, he said, was “60 percent good, 40 percent bad”. Of course, he conceded, Britain’s list of sins was long. The colonial regime was racist. It promoted opium smoking, which ravaged countless lives in Singapore. Unemployment levels were high, and working conditions were often horrendous. And in the Second World War, Britain utterly failed to defend the colony against invasion by Japan, which subsequently killed countless Singaporeans. And yet, and yet. “Unlike other colonial masters in Southeast Asia”, Koh wrote in the Straits Times, “the British did leave us with a positive legacy”. “This includes the English language, the free port, free trade, open economy, good infrastructure, the rule of law, a good civil service and police force, town planning, public hygiene and modern medicine, a belief in science and modernity and an appreciation of nature and natural history.” Singaporean leaders have the balls to accept the truth unlike Indian and African leaders blaming British for their post-colonial failures. Edit: Yes, I know what British did to Singapore was different from what they did to India and Africa. But still there are some positives on colonialism as history is not black and white. I request people to watch Indian historian Zareer Masani Oxford speech about British Empire.
Indian leaders don't blame the British for our post-colonial problems. We do acknowledge that it was bad for us to be colonised and that we shouldn't let it happen again. Whatever mistakes we've done after that are our own.
SG was special in the empire, in that the British couldn’t physically exploit the population as much as they could have in their African colonies or India. Asking an Indian about how they felt about the British in the 1930s would probably yield wildly different results than if you had asked a Singaporean. British did introduce medicine and industrialisation to both, but india had way worse experiences than singapore did under the British. Off the top of my head numerous famines, and sending a great amount of Indian men to fight for the empire. (I think up to the millions?) Singapore had no natural resources, only thing the British could really do is increase productivity at ports and healthcare
Singapore is a dystopian nightmare. It might look shiny and pretty from the outside but the extent the government has control over the lives of Singaporeans would make an American's head spin.
Both India and Africa can blame their poverty on their leaders looking up to the Soviet Union as a model. Both African socialism (an ideology adopted by most of post-colonial Africa) and the License Raj is the result of them just copying the Soviet Union and calling it "social justice". The fact that Singapore became rich is because they didn't just take the Soviet economic model. In a world without the Soviet Union African and Indian poverty would've been concepts of the past. Indians and Africans have no one other to blame than themselves.
It was hard to be a good person when life was so difficult for everyone, that's the point people miss when they judge societies from the past for their cruel practices. Our basic needs are more easily met but our anger and resentment is still revealed through the internet.
Believers of Christianity during the middle ages came up with and endorsed some of the cruelest forms of punishment/torture, but it's ok because they believed in Christ I guess.@@underarmbowlingincidentof1981
Your stupidity radiates through the screen,what the actual f are you talking about? The British was having the time of their life ,life was difficult for everyone my ass
I don’t think the issue is whether it’s easy or hard to be a good person. The issue to me seems to be the kinds of decisions you’re asked to make. I don’t think people in the modern day are very moral at all. They react based purely on feelings, not facts or what is truly right or wrong. Worse, they can’t tell you WHY something is right or wrong. For example, everyone today (at least in the West) assumes that slavery is wrong. Almost none can give a reason why that is except that it is. There’s a whole bunch of reasons that could be listed, but they all require certain assumptions (either philosophical or theological) or else they’re nonsense, devolving into mere opinion when presented to those that don’t hold the same assumptions. That’s why slavery was abolished by mostly internal means in the West and via foreign (European) armed force everywhere else.
This is one of the most difficult things to explain to people. So many people are primed to define colonialism as genocide. Genocides dont increase the population by 8000%. Building a port on the coast of a country and then paying people to selling you things for export isnt genocide. Manipulating and bribing a foreign king is immoral but it isn't gebocide. Being paid to build a railroad isn't genocide. Colonialism included so many different things it's hard to calculate.
well said. the craziest part is that in many of the former colonies they still depend on the infrastructure built back then. most of the colonized places were poor before a european country had to make a refueling and trading port, and they were a little less poor after colonialism. their politic are desperate to blame all others for their failed rule. many have learned it from master russia
He knows colonialism was better than the alternative which was leave the developing world in a state of war, poverty, slavery and genocide yet he doesn't say so cause he doesn't want to get cancelled by youtube or society
Most Important man behind European Colonization was "Issac Newton". After Newton European Armies had knowledge of Laws of Motion. They could calculate trajectory of Their Cannon Shots. And Europe had a Scientific foundation to Create New Materials and Weapons.
Cannons were plenty effective before Newton. It could be argued that thermodynamics was just as important than mechanics - steam engines brought the whole industrialization game to an entirely new level.
Except everyone in the world had cannons and they were pretty good at it. India always had better cannons than europe, even in 1800s, but Europeans had larger professional armies and slightly better guns
I like your reference to “living memory” as an historical scale of reference. I think in most cases this should also measure the limits of historical grievance as well.
It's complicated. The animosity between Japan and South Korea is a good example. It's just a strange problem. Japan brutalized Korea in ways that are unspeakable; but in modern times, the are basically perfect allies, and there are almost no reasons they shouldn't get along. It's those historical problems that cause the strife. And like, South Korea is COMPLETELY correct in being antagonistic to a former warmonger (one within living memory). But at the same time, the US tossed out all their baggage with Japan, and vice versa. Why? Because it was just the smart thing to do. Japan had zero reason to forgive the US for what the US did to them. But not only did letting that water pass under the bridge allow them to form one of the best global alliances, but it also propelled Japan into being one of the biggest international superpowers. It's almost like a devil's bargain. You can forget recent transgressions, and maybe give your nation the most prosperity it's ever seen. Or you can hold on to old grudges, and foster nationalism. Which is better? It seems to be a case by case basis.
@@heychrisfox Good points. I was thinking more of a general rule to prevent holding on to grudges for incidents taking place centuries ago. I’ve also thought the post war relationships between the US and Japan/Germany also were influenced by the totality of their defeat coupled with the lack of retribution by the US and the threat of the USSR.
@@heychrisfoxSocial Darwinism is real. Its all just Game Theory playing out in Reality. Civilisations coming together and forgetting national grievances in europe is the smart move in game theory in the geopolitics of the modern world.
@@basedchad6035 While you're not entirely wrong to suggest game theory has value in determining geopolitical relations, suggesting that everything is easily applicable to game theory removes the reality that culture usually dominates rationale. Again, it's why I cited Japan and South Korea specifically. They have been at each others throats for decades because of historical grievances, even though South Korea could have greatly benefited from their alliance, given they're surrounded by hostile forces, while Japan is safe out in the ocean. EU is another good example. The reason for the EU having such strong ties is not just game theory, but rather, a shared cultural context of what war does. Everyone in Europe has been hurt by wars from neighbors, and the EU is a method to make sure that doesn't happen again. You can see the same thing play out in reverse whereupon non-EU aligned states in Europe are most frequently the ones causing conflict and wars, even when those wars don't make rational sense.
@@heychrisfox "a shared cultural context of what war does" aka war is bad for all of us. Its in our all intrest to allie. Yeah but I agree with you overall its not that easy. espessically you cant underestame historical grieviences.
It's strange how the Medieval Era is probably the most popular era or one we take most of our institutions from, actually, yet it's the most denigrated despite clear objective development during the time period. Despite myself not being Christian or even religious, it's always been by favourite era.
I do like the medieval people that I've read of and how they adapted to their environment. I think the last era of history where people learned to accept their living situation was probably the pre-industrial era. After that economic growth allowed people to gradually change their environment around them to suit their desires - things like electric lighting, private running water, and then gradually air conditioning and electric appliances - allowed people to invest money to avoid needing endurance. I wonder if maybe our ancestors were better than us in that they were hardier than us on average. I wonder if maybe it wasn't so bad that they could learn to sleep day after day in a hot and humid house. Is there strength something that makes them better than us, and does modern technology make us weak and is that bad, I wonder? What is the ideal intersection between technological progress and personal development? I am a man who regularly walks in his job, moves heavy loads, bicycles in order to get where he needs to go (in a city clearly not equipped for such!), and who, while he enjoys the AC, can live without it. Most people are not like this in America. Is that a good thing or a bad thing, I wonder?
Went to visit Hawaii a couple years back, told my Hawaiin Uber driver that I’m surprised they have held on to so much of their culture with a Military base that huge there. And he just said hey man, if it wasn’t y’all… it would have been the Japanese and we wouldn’t have anything left. Wasn’t expecting such a nuanced take on the subject from a guy I literally just met, on the colonial action against his own culture.
Interesting take. The Japanese were pretty damn isolationist before the USA went and forced them to start trading with people. Maybe that would have changed without the USA, but who knows. Could have happened, could have been the Chinese or maybe even the Maori themselves, like how they destroyed the Moroiri of Chatham.
That's a bit silly though. The odds of Japan taking over Hawaii were basically 0, given the situation at the time. If anything, Hawaii is MORE influenced by Japan now than it was then, because of how cultures have cross-pollinated. Not to mention that Hawaii is way more Asian than it ever will be "American," whatever "American" means.
@@Zex-4729 I was referencing the historical opinion above that Japan had any chance of colonizing Hawaii. Additionally, if you're not aware of the demographic boom of and huge tourist influx of Japanese folks in Hawaii, then you're simply unaware of the reality on the islands.
@@Zex-4729 Then you should consider why you feel weird about my statement. If I'm stating a fact that is contrary to an incorrect opinion (stated by a third party), and that fact makes you feel weird, that's on you.
@@levongevorgyan6789"The Japanese were pretty damn isolationist before the USA went and forced them to start trading with people." Let's get a second or even a third opinion from the Koreans or the Chinese.
I think it have more to do with the the acces to information. People are literate and we conserve a lot of information from that time. And propaganda from the enemies of course. Look up the spanish Black legend.
Ehh.... I think it's more like Colonialism isn't acknowledge if it wasn't done by the European states to non Europeans. Like, the Turkics have been colonizing Europe for generations. Bulgar Turkics colonized Central Asia as did Huns. Magyars too, though they;re more Turkic larpers. Lezgic Albania was colonized by Persians and then Turkics, resulting in Azerbaijan, and now the Turkic Azeris are colonizing native Armenian lands. The Arabs colonized the Levant and Northern Africa, converting the native populations into Arab speakers. Hell, the Slavs colonized Southern Europe, the Moors colonized Spain, the Korean speakers colonized Japonic speaking Korea, the Japonic speakers colonized Japan from the Jomon-Ainu people. One of the most brutal cases was the Maori colonizing Moroiri, they cannibalized those people, yet while people are quick to condemn Britain for colonizing the Maori, who condemns the Maori for what they did in the Chatham Islands?
That’s a load of bulshit, far less people died in previous instances of “colonialism” this guy mentions but those empires were seen as amazing. Example: after fall of Mughal empire, everyone tried to emulate them and kept the same economic system bc it was so good. India under Mughal empire was the richest and most advanced country in the world, under British raj it was a backwards shit hole with 90% illiteracy
@@levongevorgyan6789but those are specific, you can’t expect people to know all of them, it’s easier to know colonisation made by Europeans because it covered entire continents and a lot more people than the Turks colonising the balkan states
@@vasicretu1970 Sure, I guess it just galls me that modern day people keep pushing for the West to make ammends while ignoring Turkey and Azerbaijan's continued colonization of Armenia and Greece.
Blaming "evil colonizers" is a very convenient alibi for the incompetence, dogmatism and corruption of post-colonial leaders. You can see this a lot in India where it's become fashionable to blame the British for all their problems: despite the fact their country wouldn't *exist* without Britain, all their institutions are based on British ones, and their economy magically started taking off once they dispensed with the socialist ideology *they* adopted for the first 40 years after independence.
I'm sorry, that is literally a lie. Literally, the one point he's trying to get across is that there is no black and white, colonialism good, natives bad and regressive. The subcontinent had riches and the biggest textile industry in the world. And then the British Empire came in and completely destroyed it. I see many people including Indians, Pakistanis praising the fact that Britain laid down railways, forgetting they did it to steal the riches
Oh, its the same in Jamaica as well. The blame game is truly alive and well here - along with the trope of calling for 'reparations'. Our Independence was in 1962 and soooo many Jamaicans are unwilling to accept that THEY are responsible for the issues, the violence, murders, ineptitudes, and corruption that beset this troubled isle. The ignorance is unreal in many respects.
Most common folks in India don't blame colonization they blame the previous government for taking wrong decisions, India would have been a developed country by now if the ruling politicians weren't so dumb..also yes India would exist wheather or not whatifaltheiest or his worshippers like it or not
@@aAverageFan If it hadn't been the British - it would have needed to be some other empire. Dozens of small feudal states don't come together *voluntarily*
You are right that the British Empire was in living memory. My own maternal grandmother was born a subject of King George V in November 1935 in British India. Back then, there was no Jharkhand. When she was born, Hazaribagh was part of Bihar (although Jharkhand is a far more recent development, occurring within my own lifetime). She passed away this year, March the 1st, 2023.
I asked two indians this. 1 a very good friend another a coworker. Both said it was bad and good. They wouldn't remove it from history but arent happy it happened either.
@@WolverineXOXOwhat’s the alternative I wonder. Gimme this pseudo theoretical idea of what the 3rd world looks like without colonialism so I can have a good laugh before bed
@@captainfury497 'Hey I know we drained your resources for centuries and subjugated you for your ethnicity, but like shut up and stop wallowing in self-pity dude!'
@@Insanestsagea world without the wheel would still have some things but holy fuck would it take a while to get set up. What has happened in the Last 2 hundred years is akin to you handing the controller to your brother who's a speed runner, sure you're further in the game than you were but you have zero clue how to play further. We skipped over so many things like it was magic, unless a similar once in a billion chance happened it would most likely be business as usual for them tbh.
'we are not more moral, we are just in a position where we are safe to pretend to be.' god...damn! i was not ready for that level of savagery before lunch.
@@shadowofhawk55I felt devastated hearing that, made me regret not starting my own TH-cam channel, as I came up with that saying years ago. It occurred to me while I was thinking about how disgusted I am with people who judge dead people by modern standards. Then it occurred to me how people in the future might judge us for eating meat, while the only reason for them not eating it will be because they will have a good alternative available. They will be proud for being more moral than we are, while if they were in our shoes they would do the same thing we are doing. And if you think about history, and if you are honest, you quickly realize that you would have done all the bad shit in history yourself if only you were at the right (wrong?) place at the right(wrong?) time. If you were a viking, you would have plundered, conquered and raped. If you were a random Mongolian archer during their conquests, you would have done whatever your brothers in arms happened to do around you, rape included. There are slight odds that you would stand out from the crowd, and avoid doing "evil" things, but even that would have to come from a place of privilege, otherwise your peers would quickly turn on you for making them feel bad about all the evil they are doing.
@@julius43461 Exactly. It is the softness of modern society that breeds soft thinking. Force people into a jagged life and they take up jagged thought or they become meat for the maw.
@@NemisCassander I know all ideas and sayings already occurred to someone, and very often I find similar ideas expressed by people who lived hundreds of years ago. It's just that my ego gets fragile and cracks when I hear someone saying out loud what I never got the chance to say😆. I was also on the verge of starting a philosophy podcast with a friend, where we would discuss philosophy and ethical issues. I bought the equipment, which I still have but I was waiting on him to join in but he never did. I kind of find it boring to just talk about stuff myself, as I already do that in the comments.
I met a Sri Lankan college student who admitted to me that if the English hadn't colonized his country it would be a "s#!+#ole" today. Hearing a Sri Lankan say that word was amazing.
I mean India was a whole different type of country, particularly spiritually oriented, that invested in the well being of people. I’m from the USA but It wasn’t well documented becuase back then there were no cameras or journals to write that the English brought. And like they say, history is written by the victors. We just never know 🤷🏻♂️
I do stuff with Aztec history: I agree the fall of the Aztec isn't just "Evil colonizers vs good Mesoamericans" but I have issues with some specifics that was said or shown here. Mind you, some of these are fairly common errors even reputable sources get wrong, so it's somewhat understandable. I'll explain in more depth below, but I think the video A: overstates the initial hostility between the Spanish and Mesoamericans during initial contact, B: understates the degree to which the Spanish DID recognize the humanity and complexity of Mesoamerican civilizations (and by extension, combined with A, understates how much the Spanish's actions were self-serving) C: uses pretty misleading/inaccurate images of what Mesoamerican clothing, architecture, and political boundaries were like, and D: oversimplifies how Cortes got allies and overfocuses on Tlaxcala as his main local allied state. All that said, before explaining in more detail, to give some basic context: "Mesoamerica" is the cradle of civilization and cultural region which covers the bottom half or so of Mexico, all of Guatemala and Belize, and arguably other Central American countries. It includes the Aztec and Maya, but also the Olmec, Zapotec, Teotihuacan, Classic Veracruz Teuchitlán, Toltec, Mixtec, Otomi, Totonac, Huastec, Purepecha, etc, who tend to share key traits, like pyramidal temples, maize as a cereal crop, Plaza-courtyard based urban and architectural planning, a shared calendrical and base 20 numeral system, and yes, human sacrifice and blood offerings. However, as you can tell by all the different civilizations I just mentioned (and that's not close to comprehensive!) there is a LOT of distinct civilizations, and competing political states (not "tribes": cities, writing, rulership, class systems, etrc go back in the region almost 3000 years before Europeans arrived) within each civilization. So there wasn't a singular initial reaction by Mesoamerican civilizations to the Spanish, much less a universal "the Spanish get attacked the moment they stepped onto the shore" as you present in the alien analogy. Sometimes they passed by without being bothered, other time they got attacked on sight, but most of the time the Spanish entered the territory of a new kingdom, empire, city-state, etc, and at least once they had translators, there was usually a diplomatic exchange and discussions or negotiations of trade, lodging, etc, and from there the Spanish settled down, moved on, or negotiations failed and stuff escalated into conflict. One also needs to keep in mind is that Mesoamerican politics had a strict code and even highly symbolic, poetic subdialects of languages for engaging in diplomacy and by extension declaring/waging in war (though this isn't to say Mesoamerican kings never bended or broke those rules to their own benefit: of course they did). The Spanish, while they had translators, did not understand the nuances of this, and by Cortes's own admission, would kidnap/hold rulers hostage, raze towns and villages to pressure rulers into relenting and giving them lodging if fighting did break out, etc. For as much as the Spanish may have saw the Mesoamerican's sacrifices as barbaric, so too were those actions by the Conquistadors seen as untrustworthy and savage by the Mesoamericans: In a lot of cases, states had already heard rumors of the Spanish doing this by the time they arrived in their territory, so sometimes states didn't wish to provoke conflict and would try to appease the Spanish in advance, or jumped into defending themselves proactively. And while the Spanish did view sacrifices as evil and barbaric, and while the Mesoamericans did view some of the Conquistador's actions the same way, the reality is that BOTH groups still did recognize each other as representing sophisticated, sovereign entities: Cortes, Bernal Diaz, Tapia, Aguilar, the Anonymous Conqueror, even latter Catholic Friars like Sahagun, etc, all endlessly praise the architecture, cities, art, and even ethics, governance, and order of Mesoamerican societies. I could fill MULTIPLE giant comments with quotes from Conquistadors remarking with wonder and adoration over what they saw, even people back in Europe like Albrecht Durer, the famous German artist, who saw Mesoamerican art on display in Brussels in 1520 (before the Aztec capital even fell!), remarked "All the days of my life I have seen nothing that rejoiced my heart...as these...wonderful works of art, and I marveled at the subtle genius of men in foreign lands". Yes, there would be debates about if the Indigenous people of the Americas had souls and racial caste systems would come latter, but, at least generally, initial interactions between the Spanish and Mesoamericans had the former viewing the latter as civilized people with sovereignty, who were just nonetheless pagan or heathen, even comparing them to the Greeks or Romans as "civilized pagans". Some Mesoamerican kings and nobles initially had their status recognized within the Spanish colonial system and even into formal Spanish nobility and heraldry (though in the long term this had less and less success: Tlaxcala actually DID have it's land taken in some cases by Spanish settlers even before it's agreement with the Spanish king got nullified in the early 1600s) By extension, though, this also means that Cortes and co cannot claim to done what they did because these were people in need of saving or liberation or to be made civilized: In part, some of their accounts do state such things, and yes, they probably felt Christianizing the Mesoamericans was a moral good, but Cortes, Diaz, etc are also very clear that their actions were primarily motivated by self interest, glory, and wanting wealth, while also paying lip service to enriching the Crown. That in particular was a concern for Cortes, who was EXPLICTLY committing treason against the Crown and working against Diego Velazquez, the governor of Cuba, at times directly fighting other parties of Conquistador sent by Velazquez to arrest him. Some Aztec forces even allied with Velazquez's troops once it became clear Cortes lied to them about representing the king of Spain. There's little contention among Mesoamericanists and even most Spanish historians that Cortes's founding of Veracruz (which gave him the right to then plot his own course from there) claiming Moctezuma II surrendered to him (so he could then invade and conquer the city by claiming it was already under the crown and he was merely putting down a rebellion) etc were ploys to justify his actions legally. Now, at this point, you may be wondering: If Mesoamerican civilizations were so complex and even the Spanish saw this, why are they always shown as living in worn down grey pyramids surrounded by jungle and a few huts and running around half naked? The answer is that most depictions (including in this video) are inaccurate. In reality, say, Aztec men would have worn cloaks/mantles a bit like Greco-roman togas, while women wore long, flowing baggy blouses (which, combined with their hair buns, almost evokes Japanese Geisha) which for nobles was garishly colorful with different floral, geometric, and abstract designs and patterns, and accompanied by jade, gold, turquoise jewelry and feather ornaments. Feathers weren't simply stuck into things, but were arranged like precise bouquets into specific 3-dimensional shapes and arrays, or used in 2 dimensional mosaic to form patterns and images across the surface of garments or as "paintings", using iridescent feathers with shifting,, glittering colors. (Look up Mexican Feather paintings or mosaics for surviving examples, they're mind blowing). Temples, palaces, and other civic architecture was covered in smooth white stucco, and then painted with murals and frescoes and covered in reliefs, sculptural facades, and other accents. The overall architectural style is closer to Minoan palaces like Knossos more then anything else, with palaces having square geometric style rooms with flat roofs, and patios with columns surrounding open courtyards, etc. Tenochtitlan, the Aztec capital, had most of it's temples, palaces, ball courts, etc arranged around large open plazas (with many botanical gardens, aviaries, zoos, etc built in palace courtyards or around them) with the outskirts being grids of artificial islands housing both commoner homes and acting hydroponic farms with Venice like canals between them, as the city was built in the center of a lake. If people want good visual examples of this, look up paintings of Aztec cityscapes by Scott and Stuart Gentling, depictions of Mesoamerican clothing by Kamazotz/Zotzcomic/Daniel Parada, Rafael Mena, OHS688 (some of his art is furry, but the fashion is all accurate), etc, or works of various subjects by Nosuku-K, Shi-Gu/Itzcacalotl, etc to name a few examples. Next, I think people misunderstand the Aztec political structure and why Cortes even got allies. Whatifalthist brings up Tlaxcala (a kingdom headed by a city-state of that name, the city was actually a republic governed by a senate), and yes, Tlaxcala was one of Cortes's most major allied states, but It was NOT an Aztec subject, rather an enemy state the Aztec were trying to conquer. So while it very much did resent the Mexica of Tenochtitlan, you can't extrapolate it's motivations to the other states Cortes worked with like Texcoco, Xochimilco, Chalco, Itzpalapan, etc which were actually a part of the Aztec Empire. The Aztec political system was actually quite hands off, with subjects usually keeping their kings, laws, and customs with minimal interference as long as taxes were met (which did not generally include providing people for sacrifice: Sacrifices were obtained as captives taken during conquests against enemy states or when reconquering ones who had seceded, not generally taken from existing, cooperative subjects). CONTINUED IN A REPLY BELOW
CONTINUED FROM ABOVE: This hands off political system encouraged opportunistic secession, side switching, etc; since subjects both kept their own political identity and interests, and the ability to act independently. Border provinces not invested in the empire would often secede after the deaths of emperors and have to be reconquered, meanwhile, core states within the Valley of Mexico actually benefitted from Mexica power and success due to their close political marriages with it's royal line and the tax influx it brought into the Valley... but that hinged on Tenochtitlan continuing to be in a position of influence, since it didn't actually directly manage most of it's subjects to keep them in line. After Moctezuma II's death, the massacre of most of the city's nobility by Alvarado during the Toxcatl religious festival, and smallpox breaking out in the city, it was crippled and could no longer project influence, and it is only at THIS point which many core states switch sides to Cortes and Tlaxcala to opportunistically take it out to try to gain status in the new empire they'd be propping up. The truth is, this is a very, very common method of political advancement, both in Aztec history and in Mesoamerican history as a whole since these hands off hegemonic political systems were pretty common (likely since the lack of draft animals and difficult terrain limited direct long distance administration): The Aztec Empire was actually founded in almost identical circumstances to how it fell: Azcapotzalco had a succession dispute which destabilized it's influence and it's subject, Tenochtitlan, overthrew it, with Texcoco and Tlacopan allying with Tenochtitlan to piggyback off it's success and be in a high position in the resulting Aztec Empire. Similarly, even after the Aztec Empire collapsed and (mostly, some states continued to assert independence, or as mentioned, were initially given it in the same way the Aztec had during the early decades of Spanish colonialism) ceded to Spanish rule following the Siege of Tenochtitlan, other states which had nothing to do with the Aztec continued to use the Conquistadors against their local rivals and capitals, like the Zapotec kingdom of Tehuantepec allying them them to take out the Mixtec kingdom of Tututepec, or the Iximche Maya states worked with Conquistadors to defeat the Kiche, etc. So, while the Aztec were definitely a conquering military power, Cortes getting allies against it has less to do with it being resented and hated or oppressive and more to do with it's political system being hands off with many internal political factions acting in self interest as a result. In fact, in many cases, Cortes was less the one calling the shots and was being manipulated by local kings and officials: For example, while he was in Cempoala, the capital of one of 3 major kingdoms in the Totonac civilization, it claimed Tzinpantzinco, a rival Totonac capital, was an Aztec fort and got Cortes to help them attack it. The Totonacs then led Cortes into Tlaxcalteca territory, which they had hostilities with, (either to get rid of them, or according to some accounts, under orders by Moctezuma to pit them against Tlaxcala) which then eventually resulted in the alliance between Tlaxcala and Cortes, and en route to Tenochtitlan, the Tlaxcalteca may have used the Conquistadors to sack Cholula (which was previously allied with Tlaxcala but switched sides to being an Aztec ally) and then put up a Tlaxcalteca friendly regime in the city in the aftermath. There's other examples, I could post, too, but people definitely should be talking about Xicomecoatl of Cempoala, Xicotencatl of Tlaxcala, Ixtlixochtli II of Texcoco, etc more as major figures actively deciding how things went when talking about the fall of the Aztec. And even in the decades after the fall of the Aztec, Mesoamerican kings and states continued to be the ones doing most of the campaigns for the Spanish against other states in Mesoamerica, against the tribes and chiefdoms up in Northern Mexico and the SW US, and even down against the Inca and across the Ocean in the Philippines to an extent. In conclusion: the colonization of Mesoamerica was absolutely not just "Evil Spanish vs good natives", but it was also not "Cortes liberating oppressed Aztec subjects against the evil Mexica". It was a bunch of different political states and factions on BOTH the Spanish and Mesoamerican side all manipulating and playing one another so they could benefit politically: Moctezuma II wanted to court the conquistadors into becoming an Aztec subject or ally, Cortes wanted glory and wealth both for his own benefit and to try to get out of his legal troubles, Diego Velazquez wanted to be the one to win riches for the crown instead of Cortes, Ixtlixochtli II of Texcoco wanted to win the throne in Texcoco after he lost a previous succession dispute and allied with Cortes to do that, and even Tlaxcala, despite ostensibly fighting for their independence, still tried to project it's own political influence over other cities as it travelled with Conquistadors.
Wow you're extremely knowledgeable. I learned a few things from your comment. I have a question for you if you don't mind. On Google images you get alot of variable geography on what is defined as "mesoamerica" and in your comment you say it starts roughly half way down mexico. You seem to agree more with the more generous definition of mesoamerica extending into nayarit and further north to sinaloa. Can you recommend any literature on this topic?I want to know more precisely where it ends. I want to know how intense the corn agriculture was on the pacific coast or if nayarit and southern sinaloa were just chichimecas lol. Because to me on most maps the aztec empire and mesoamerica seems more Atlantic biased and more densely settled near the gulf coast, which to me would be quite queer if they didn't colonize that whole latitude west a la Jared Diamond, but i don't know if thats a misconception. Do you have any conjectures on this? Maybe it had to do with la niña lol? Tldr: why wasn't there a major kingdom in nayarit? you would think there would be one looking at a koppen climate map. Is that region north of that "bend" in mexico really mesoamerican?
Having a Nigerian father from a long line if slave traders I always knew that in order for the Europeans to be able to get slaves, they needed wholesalers and that all the pearl clutching about the Atlantic slave trade being uniquely European was bs.
You have to remeber our form of slavery was closer to serfdom And not the abhorrent practace seen in the new world so the two cannot be wholly compared. If Africans knew how Europeans were treating the slaves they sold to them they wouldn’t have ever sold anybody to Europeans, Africans naively belived Europeans would have the same respct for human life as the Africans just seeing slaves as a lower class group instead of literal chattel
@@makeytgreatagain6256 do you honestly think that those African kings gave a single fuck about the people they sold? You got to be delusional. There was literally a king called Slave King, because he sold his people en masse to Europeans and Arabs so don't start with that bs about compassionate African kings. If I were African, I would be ashamed of them
Africans sold another africans to others civilizations aside from Europeans, and they continued selling people much later too. You are another, European bad, Africa good. The naive one is you. People oppress other people when they have the power. It's human nature.
@@thunderstrucktb4758 well not particularly but they certainly assumed the “slavery” being practiced was at worst the Roman based form, when some African kingdoms found out about the horrors of what was going on to those they sold they did attempt to stop the trade but by this point it had gotten out of hand and the Europeans would side with bandits and mercenaries to keep these groups on the back turner so they had to continue to sell slaves for guns to defend themselves. A sad situation, damned if you do damned if you don’t. The concept of chattel slavery was foreign to Africans and something they couldn’t even fathom that’s why many today still moan about the event, I know as a white person this is a point of contention but it’s not slavery why blacks are upset about the event it’s the FORM OF SLAVERY that was unique in its barbarity that upsets people today.
I'm reading a book on German Colonialism in Africa and it's incredible the fluctuation and treatment the locals received depending on the region. For example, the Ewe tribe of Togo was treated pretty well, as long as the Arab nobility in Zanzibar. However, compare that to the genocide of the Hereo or Nama people in Namibia. Also many Africans in the colonial army were extremely loyal to the German rulers, as was seen that really none of the tribes revolted during WW1 when German rule was being toppled.
Even though my ancestors were from Spain and I'm in America now and am suspicious of the Germans, they still are one of the most powerful country in Europe.
I think some European colonisers were better than others. I also think that we don’t really realise how much of colonialism was a result of European competition amongst each other. There really isn’t any such thing as “the west” until the end of ww1 or you could even argue ww2. Before then it was just the Christian world. The “enemies“ of the west don’t realise how divided the west has actually been historically and that it is possibly only by being exposed to the world outside of Europe that Europeans realised how similar they actually are
Yea I agree and that goes for any country and enthnicity. India China Russia and other eastern countries always had clan wars and feuds amongs one another for power and dominance. It’s only when an outside force or venturing outside their own boundaries they realized how similar their people were. But the future is about raising human consciousness. I don’t care what ethnicities i was and will be born to, humans shouldn’t be classified by their race and ethnicity becuase that’s just a limitation. Nature doesn’t care whether your male or female who’s black Mexican Indian African Chinese ect. That’s what humans should emulate.
The role of the United States in de-colonialism is an interesting one. From the foundation of the United States through the end of wide scale European colonialism in the 60s and 70s, there has been a strong streak of anti-colonial sentiment among the American political elite. The Americans destroyed the last remnants of the Spanish empire during the Spanish-American War, Wilson fought for national self-determination at Versailles, and FDR was vehemently against Churchill's attempts to restore the British Empire to it's former glory after WWII. One could argue that the Americans were Enlightened or more moral than the Europeans in this regard, but this is hardly the case. As a rising industrial and commercial power, what the US wanted most of all was unfettered commercial access to the entire world without having to deal with European middlemen.
It would be wrong to claim that the US was motivated solely by altruism, but it's still true that the US is a former colony, and ending colonialism is concordant with its democratic principles.
The US didn't benefit from traditional colonialism but rather economic colonialism. Instead of conquering a country, the US uses predatory loans or grants with restrictions. it's meant to starve a country and its people if they don't obey
Regardless of the intention (which they have good one for morals in part), you can't deny the US played major role on decolonization and freeing many colonies from European control.
It’s ironic because tankies ignore how Russia became the size it is, through colonisation of neighbouring peoples and land. They just don’t care because it happened to other Europeans and eurasians
Colonialism is always portrayed as unrelenting brutality but another aspect of colonialism that still bears an even greater impact today is the manipulation of borders and ethnic groups, whether on purpose or by sheer incompetence. Countries were created that should’ve never existed. Millions have died since due to poorly drawn lines on a map.
They are working just as intended: dividing the African people, splitting up Ethnic groups, and forcing Africans to use colonizer languages to unite their country.
Meh.... Belgium is an artificial construct of 2 main ethnicities. Switzerland is an artificial construct where 4 languages are spoken. The frontier argument is a very convenient excuse. An excuse to deflect from the fact that some people are a holes there.
With how complex the ethnic and religious make-up of Africa and the Middle East are, there's no clean way those borders could've been made. There still would've been foreign and civil wars and horrible dictators no matter what
I have a communist friend who criticizes Western leaders for being oppressive and imperialists, yet he's utterly silent about the fact that Stalin and Mao committed war crimes and famines.
Somehow England taking South Africa was colonialism, but China conquering Tibet was not. The left has about as much consistency as a random number generator.
It's such a pity that more communists can't just be... y'know, sane? I love me some communism as much as the next guy, but the way to win hearts and minds isn't stanning brutalist, genocidal dictators; it's by showing people, hey, if we work together, things are nice sometimes. It's just a sad state of affairs.
@@heychrisfoxI considered myself communistic when I was young, I was turned off of it in regards to a lot of communists anti European bigotry and intolerance and as a White man I was not going to side with people who hated me.
It's worth contrasting the character of British colonialism, where a tradition of Primogeniture drove younger sons to start a new life abroad, with Spanish colonialism, where there was not a strong tradition of Primogeniture, so it was done by people wishing to make a large fortune in a short time, and then return to the mother country. The British model fostered more stable, peaceful and productive ling-term societies.
The British were much more mercantile and looking for a profit. Whereas the Spanish considered American territories a part of Spain itself, and had a much more permanent, centralized administration
@@mint8648 the viceroyalities (not colonies, that's anglo speak) voted on the Cadiz constitution. Never in history would a colony get to dictate the constitution of the motherland unless said colony was part of the main administration
Whether colonialism is ultimately good or bad is less important than having an honest discussion about it. Too many people just present the issue in a one-sided, completely dishonest manner where they ignore all the benefits that colonialism provided to the nations. Not to mention making it into a racial issue and ignoring all the facts that don't conform to their psychological needs.
It boggles the mind how quickly white Europe went soft. Africa could have been as white as Tasmania or Maine in 1980, and the Indian subcontinent and SE Asia could have been raped for generations until they were no more non-white than Argentinians or Chileans. Europe could have won the whole fucking game and pussiеd out. All women everywhere could have reached that end-stage where the only uglies are the ones who are nearing menopause - where every 17-36yo woman is gorgeous because they've been bred for it. It would be like living in a garden full of fruit that never bruises. Now even white women are overweight tattooed trash - even in their early 20s.
One can appreciate that colonialism introduced some good things to the colonized while also understanding that it wasn't undertaken to provide benefits for those being colonized. Colonialism is only done for the benefit of the colonial powers. Any good done by it for those who are the subjects of imperial expansion is a side effect the imperial powers could not care less about except as a justification for exploiting the people and the resources of the colonies. That's just the reality of the purpose of colonization. It isn't a debatable point. It's a fact regardless of what colonial period or empire is being examined.
@@oleebwell said. Kinda weird to see so many “philosophical” people in these comments talking about how profound it is to talk about “benefits of colonialism” like it’s important rhetoric that is lacking in the conversation.
Completely agree, if you distance yourself from horrific events in history by taking the moral high ground you'd be ignorant to the path that led towards these events and wouldn't recognize it until its too late. And then the question is if you want to recognize it or refuse the reality which would make you no better than those which you've despised and claimed moral superiority over. Its the same when people say they definitely wouldn't have been Nazis if born in Germany during WW2 like those people weren't all that different from us. I think it was Carl Jung that talks about incorporating your shadow as a realization of the evil regular people are capable of. How could one prevent such evil from manifesting without recognizing it first?
I always loved the fact that about 400 Conquistadors supposedly toppled a Inca Empire with millions of people alone.... They always leave out the hundreds of thousands of other South American tribes who hated the Incas who happily followed the Spanish into war against the Incas.
The native South Americans are literally never left out. Every single historian I’ve ever watched who has talked about the conquistadors expansion into South America never leaves out the mountains of natives who helped them. You’re stretching.
Germs too, like they're really sad that the Conquistadors and their native allies always get all the credit, while they did all the hard work and never get any acknowledgment. They're plotting their revenge on the world as we speak 😁.
@@twentysecondcenturywoman I think he's referring to what's taught in high school, where the involvement of indigenous peoples to the toppling of these empires is barely mentioned.
I love the fact that you think thats impossible when Europeans are the only people on Earth who caused the industrial revolution and could spend people to space. Gee, how could they outcompete against a civilization that existed around the same time Oxford university opened up.
Or decide arbitrarily that it started in 1492, ignoring all the colonialism that happened since the Akkadians conquered the Sumerians, or more recently the conquest of Tibet by China (which somehow doesn't qualify as colonialism by the left).
It was, whoever conquered India, settled their kingdom in India, the riches they earned and battles they fought were for their kingdom of India, the British took all the riched all the manpower to build the streets of lindon
@@stripyrex_gaming British took riches and manpower to build London??? What are you smoking? Hardly any manpower went to the UK from India during Empire. And the British lost money on India. Earlier Indian Empires were tinier than the British Empire, which was largest in human history. The British Empire made India a part of it's larger Empire, while earlier Empires were more or less limited to the Indian subcontinent.
@@joshuarichardson6529 Hell, they even disregard the brutal Turkish incursions into Anatolia and the Balkans, the brutal Arab incursions into Iberia (which only ended in 1492), and the slaving of countless European people by barbaric Arab states.
Dude, I don’t know what happened, but I missed your uploads for the last like 5 months and I come back to this video. Your production level has gone through the roof. Way to go my man.
I don't know man, As a Nigerian (a country colonized by the British), I think I would have preferred it if Nigeria didn't exist. The British forced a bunch of tribes that were at best neutral to each other but at worst actively hostile into on Country. Which can explain why Nigeria as a country has been in decline since its creation. I would have preferred it if the individual tribes had a chance to establish themselves as Nations, they would have more cohesion internally and would have had the choice to cooperate with other tribes (now nations) rather than being forced to cooperate with peoples that were in some cases actively invading them. And as for the technological advancements / medicine / etc. I would rather we just traded for that at a fair price like literally every other nation. They wanted our resources, we would have gladly exchanged it for those things mentioned above. WhatifAlthist, will talk about the low death tolls and the abolishment of slavery. Which I agree is a pro(everything has pros and cons). But in exchange for colonialism, we have a dysfunctional state that is built for resource extraction. And a people that have no investment in their country and vice versa. That is the real tragedy of colonialism. I believe the generational effects of this far out weight any pros of colonization.
Don't forget what happened when the Igbo said that they preferred to leave Nigeria (the Republic of Biafra) after the Hausa and the Yoruba started to bicker with each other. It was one of the largest human rights violations in Nigerian history.
The problem is that populations without education in that way often never learn how to actually use the technologies or use them properly themselves. Separately, why do you think Nigeria has been in decline when it's been pretty consistently growing?
I hear this _"insert_ _empire_ _here_ forced a bunch of tribes who hate each other together, ergo literally every fight between them is _insert_ _empire_ _here's_ fault" argument all the time (and be honest, that's the thrust of your first two paragraphs), which never ceases to amaze me considering how stupid, bordering on insane, it's predicates are. Firstly, you were murdering each other en masse long before _insert_ _empire_ _here_ came along and drew the border of _insert_ _colony_ _here,_ and will be murdering each other en masse long after _insert_ _empire_ _here_ has not only left _insert_ _former_ _colony_ _here,_ but also said empire no longer exists. So many examples of this, just in the last century, can be given that I can only assume willful blindness on your part. Secondly, each tribe within _insert_ _former_ _colony_ _here_ has had the best part of a century to secede from the country, or even for the government to give _region_ _within_ _insert_ _former_ _colony_ _here_ to tribe A, _region_ _within_ _insert_ _former_ _colony_ _here_ to tribe B, etc. Instead, you fight absolutely tooth and nail to protect the "territorial integrity" of _insert_ _former_ _colony_ _here_ - why would you do this if you hate it so much? I could go on for days, but I won't - because if you were being intellectually honest, your textwall could be reduced to _"insert_ _empire_ _here_ bad".
As an Anglo in Canada, I can have a certain amount of sympathy for parts of what that guy said. We have a situation where this artificial conglomerate called Canada has some serious inbuilt problems. In this context it is the problem of the Frenchies in Quebec being assholes that I don't like, while doing things that I want Anglos to be doing. They are the ancient enemy, but we act as if we must have this eternal "balance" (Frenchies getting their own way and running things) or some sacred thing called Canada fails. We failed when the right of conquest was not enforced to the max against them. They were beaten at war I was told, but see little evidence of that.@@throwaway6478
One thing most people don't take into consideration is that European colonialism really took off during the Little Ice Age, which pushed them south. Then, the Industrial Revolution began at the end of the Little Ice Age.
I really don’t think that the Europeans gave up their colonies peacefully. Algeria, Malaya, Kenya, Mozambique, Angola, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Indonesia, Madagascar, Guinea Bissau, etc, are all examples of countries who had to fight wars for their independence. This doesn’t even count countries like India/Pakistan and the Philippines who had revolted many times before independence but were eventually granted sovereignty “peacefully”
@@IK_MK China has Tibet, Parts of Mongolia and Turkistan Arabs have the Kurds and the list goes And Europe definitely could do it, if they had will to.
My family is descended from the ruling class of Ireland that was killed off. I'm not sure how our line survived, but I know we aren't the only ones. Today we are dirt poor.
I have a diary written by my fourth great-grandfather about my fifth great-grandfather who arrived in Alabama the year before it became a state. He was a builder, and he was hired and built the first timber framed home in Selma where before everyone dwelled in log cabins. When he traveled southward to Mobile in a cart that the diary referred to as "old-fashioned" (which makes me assume that thing must have been practically medieval) he was shot at by Native Americans. Thankfully he was able to escape across a ravine. But it begs the question, why should I feel guilty of "stealing" the land when it's inhabitants shot at an unarmed builder. If a man gunned down someone for crossing across or near his front yard without asking questions, that man would rightfully be jailed. How different would white/Native American relations would be if instead of shooting at my 5th great-grandfather, they instead chose to hire him? Therein lies the difference between the Japanese and most of the people who were colonized. Nowadays, my best friend is Native American, possibly one of the decedents of the natives who shot at my 5th great-grandfather. His skin is pale enough from mixed white ancestry that he passes for white, which he uses to troll leftists on the internet. I freaking love that guy.
bro if your whole people get r*ped and murdered by some people they are gonna go shoot on sight. and "hire" wasnt a part of the native american life back then. Two societies of different ideas clashing. The native americans did try and cooperate, thats how most first contacts went after all. "Lets make a treaty! Lets trade! Come over for dinner! Woah you got cool furs! :D" How did that work out huh? its a damned if you do damned if you dont sort of thing eh. you cant blame the genocide of native americans on them not being "friendly" enough to your ancestors mate. thats fked.
You shouldn't feel guilty for stealing anything, as you've only inherited what was stolen. Your fifth great grandfather shouldn't feel guilty either; he would not have had the info necessary to think through the morality of settling in colonial Alabama, nor would I expect he was in a position to be very choosy with his opportunities. Plus, he wasn't actively stealing anything- others did, and he worked under them. You seem to be condemning the Natives Americans, though, to the same extent as someone murdering a random trespasser. The contexts are very different. I think a better comparison would be shooting the 100th person to cross your lawn after half of the first 99 tried digging up your lawn, shooting at you when you stopped them from digging up your lawn, and had already dug up all your neighbors' lawns. That's not to say your fifth great grandfather would've metaphorically dug up their lawn- he's no Andrew Jackson, he's just a house builder. He might buy some of that grass, though, and that sure does incentivize the people stealing lawns. Whether Native Americans shot at active colonizers or others who settled on already-colonized lands, they discouraged foreign, unwanted settlement on their homelands. I don't blame them for shooting at your fifth great grandfather, though I'm glad he made it out of there safely. Why would they ever want to hire him? His government was already pushing them out. Just over a decade later, they *were* pushed out with the Indian Removal Act- I bet he lived to see it. Hiring settlers would only further incentivize such ethnic cleansing/forced displacement, and they knew that. I don't think guilt is the right word here. You, your fifth great grandfather, and most other small time Americans played no active role in conquering Native Americans. We should feel sympathy, though. Same way we should feel sympathy for any victim of a crime against humanity. Yes, they hurt arguably innocent people in resisting colonization, and I don't think that's a good thing either, but they were doing all they could to save themselves. After dealing with as much conflict as they had, I think it's reasonable to shoot on sight- settlers knew what they were getting into. Those who actively stole land- those who sent or were members of the armies that enforced the Trail of Tears, and similar removals/conquests- are the ones that should feel guilt for what they've done. Those who perpetuate these things- not just bystanders, but active, continued enforcers- should also feel guilty. I believe our government owes reparations to the tribes it conquered, both monetary and in the form of land back. It has avoided doing so at every turn possible, and went back on the few promises it has made as soon as it had a reason to. That's not right. That's why white/Native American relations are as they are today. If Native Americans were able to stay in their homelands and keep to themselves, not being conquered by a foreign power, I think they'd be far more amicable. Many would still like to do that- I urge you to support them in this. Don't bother feeling guilt: just do what's right.
@@Malachite7 Fair fair. When you're demonized it's easy to jump to the opposite position throwing out the baby with the bath water. As of late I'd tended to bristle a bit due being on a campus that's very liberal. I agree the US government has really done the Native population dirty, and I'm all for any good policy that would improve their well-being and thriving of their culture. What would enrich them in the long run would enrich us all.
@@MaitlandJones You seemed like a reasonable person with a bit of a negative bias- I'm really glad we can agree, and I do understand where you're coming from. Some left-leaning people have the right spirit, but not all the facts or nuance: I think the social issues leftists gravitate towards require these things amply for us not to fall into a bunch of half-correct bickering. Our current power structures descend from those of European colonists, so most groups that face some form of oppression are any out-groups from that. If any campus leftists say something to you that seems absurd, it's ok not to agree with them, but I encourage you to ask other, more discussion oriented leftists for their opinions on the topic. I find a lot of leftists make fair points that they heard from others, but can't back or explain them very well, so this could help you reach common ground more often if you have the energy and open-mindedness for it. Aside from genuine extremism (not even socialism- but absolutely tankies), I think left and right wing people share a lot of the same goals- they just have different focuses on hurdles to those goals, and believe different solutions would serve better because of this.
As a nature video lover, your point on warfare is 100% spot on. In the plains of the Serengeti, there is constant warfare waged all through nature. Nomadic male lions roam for new territories and try to usurp the current pride King, hyena clans battle against one another and others against lions, and even the peaceful herbivores will fight amongst one another over territory and water. Warfare is normal and peace is not, that's just how this Universe works. The creator of this world is probably a sadistic being who feeds off on suffering, like the Gnostic version of Demiurge.
I have no idea why people , or at least a significant majority hate the natives for siding with Europeans. Saying natives should save their own race is like telling Russia and Ukraine to stop fighting bc they are both whites and should team up against Chinese or st. To a rivaling nation, race barely matters especially ones as diverse as natives are. As a Thai who was never colonized we do have records of how positively the state view the Portuguese empire since they help us fight Burmese, no one cares that both are south East Asian (also not actually that close genetically but natives are also diverse). Will you make anotehr geopolitics prediction video or videos on Sahel civilization ? The geopolitics side of this channel and the worlds report in general seems surprisingly quite apart from the Niger coup and I wonder what is happening. Also as a Thai who never got colonized and our neighbors did, this will be an interesting video.
It's complicated. There's a bit of anachronism, wherein people take their current thoughts about race and culture, and interpolate them onto past cultures. For native Africans, it was super obvious to do what they did with colonizers; in modern sensibilities, it's unspeakable. But those modern sensibilities are the problem; they remove the cultural reality for the people at the time. Does that make what those people of the time did good? No, obviously not. But again, that's an anachronism. In our modern day, we envision that nation-states should be "good" and "just," but that's an extremely recent phenomena, as recent as the 1950s-1960s. The idea for any sort of nation to have the sort of loyalty we share today is just thinking incorrectly.
@@heychrisfox well, yes, but also I don’t mean in the sense of just vs unjust. You can make an argument that the war in Ukraine is unjust bc it’s attacking a foreign nation. However, saying it’s unjust bc it’s “whites fighting their own race” is just stupid. Same thing with native Africans and Americans. Yes it’s horrifying to see them torture colonizers and for colonizers to genocide them or enslave them, but the race of the people involved doesn’t really change the morality and only make sense in the lense of racism itself, in the form of trans racial identity, and race as in a truly huge collection of people. When I bring up the example on the Thai-Burmese-Portuguese war, I don’t mean that the war is moral. However, I’m saying that Thais siding with the Portuguese against burmese is no more evil than Thais siding with burmese agaisnt portugese. People just act like races have this contract that one betray by siding with a foreign invader, when there is no difference between two non ally nations regardless of races.
Only on the internet would you see a statement like "shoutout to the Chinese, Jews and Persians who also ended slavery." It has to be the stupidest way to say something so brilliant and important. That right there is why I love the internet.
The Jews didn't end slavery, they were the entire driving force behind it. Almost all the slave ships used in the trans-Atlantic slave trade were Jew-owned, as were most of the plantations in Brazil, the US, and many in Surinam.
Thank you for the video. And the conclusion that it's nuanced. Not many people ask the questions of compared to what. Comparing the pasts morals to today's is standing on the necks of the vary people who changed the morals to what they are today and saying they were irredeemable for not measuring up to hundreds of years of moral evaluation. Hell in the future the pro life justices might be lambasted for not outright banning abortion or the pro gay marriage justices might be lambasted for not dissolving the institution of marriage completely. We are tomorrows barbarian and we need to stop the self hatred and move forward.
And this video proved to be the dumbest and most wrong analysis of colonization I’ve ever seen. Almost like exclusively reading shit from before 1970, and only white authors doesn’t give you the best representation of the world
Watch “how British unmade india” which tells you exactly how the British colonial economy worked and why india in 1700 was richer, more urbanized and more industrialized than it was in 1947
There’s a few things i’d add. The British. 1. They ended slavery because they lost America as a colony and their pseudo slaves in India had to compete with real slaves in america now for cotton production. The british didnt end slavery out of good will. 2. The british didnt end colonialism out of good will. They were forced by the americans and soviets. (Like the suez canal) 3. The british didn’t give india to gandhi out of their goodwill. Gandhi made colonialism so impractical and unprofitable that it forced the british to let go of india, again economic. His claim: Colonialism didnt make the europeans wealthy. Its smart to analyze the effects of colonialism as separate countries interacted with it. 1. The Spanish and Portuguese brought huge amounts of gold back causing a massive inflation issue. The spanish spent this money on their armada which was ultimately defeated by the british. They did however build insane influence in the holy roman empire system through their colonization. 2. Belgium - built massive wealthy projects at home with their congo money. 3. The british - benefited the most from mercantilism because of cotton production. Cotton would be brought back from the americas and india to be processed in england. This led to england industrializing better than any other country. It also led to the de-industrialization of specifically india. The british plundered the indian wealth and made india focus on raw materials vastly cutting the overall wealth of india for 2 centuries. The spanish and portuguese did not overall benefit as much from colonialism since they did not deal in cotton. Yes, the west benefited enormously from colonialism.
@@caleblee1780 He can't because it's hard to debate TRUTH! This whole video while having some truth in it, comes from a point of view of being an apologist of European colonialism and European world domination. I find it appalling to contrast the genocidal numbers of European conquest versus Muslim as if to say, "see, it wasn't as bad as...." when any and all genocide is bad.
@@caleblee1780 You automatically assume the worst motive... While I think it safe to say people usually act in a self interested manner, it is cynical to dismiss clearly good things people did as "oh they just did it for themselves".
@@laststand6420 there were some good motived people who helped to end global slavery for instance, Quakers and certain anglicans in england. It can be harmful to assume the best intentions of an empire though who used and abused half the world for profit for centuries. Its just common sense to recognize england as the predator and colonies as the prey, and its very important the prey recognizes who the predator in the room is so that they can best write their own history and protect themselves. Everyone should always just follow the money trail.
While I don’t agree with everything you lay out, it’s terrifying to think so many people believe the world is so black and white. Great video. They should show this in schools and get kids thinking more deeply about the history they are taught.
Right! Nobody can avoid making mistakes in their speech or being ignorant of a detail that would've changed their argument. Everyone does it! The important thing is that we don't get emotionally attached to our ideas, and we're willing to chalk our mistaken ideas up to, "I just didn't know that at the time" instead of "tHaT pErSoN iS aTtAcKiNg Me...!" I like this channel not because WhatifAlthist is an all-knowing teacher that I must learn from, because this is a space where we can ask hard questions and not be blasted out of society.
@@hebercluff1665 yeah but WhatifAlthist is famous for exactly NOT learning from the stuff he says. I loved him but the one time he talked about stuff I actually had extensive knowledge about I had to double check my sources because I was so shocked he got it so wrong... youtube is full of people pointing out errors but he doesn't care. And not acknowledging mistakes is even worse than making them.
@@underarmbowlingincidentof1981 I do believe you're right about that. I do spot innaccuracies in his videos all the time. I don't know about other people, but I don't come to this channel because I particularly admire the content creator. (No matter how much he might hate to admit it, WhatifAlthist is more of a philosopher than a historian). I come here because his comment sections are usually filled with a higher average of people who are willing to ask hard questions without trying to emotionally destroy everyone who disagrees with them. I personally love talking about history, politics, philosophy, and science. However, I've made the mistake of talking about these things to the wrong people before (a few relatives). It's just exhausting and not fun to talk to people who get pissed at you for disagreeing with them or asking them a taboo question. Comment sections like this are places I'm much more likely to find a happy and fulfilling conversation. WhatifAlthist also tends to ask questions you can't ask in polite society. Even when his conclusions are seriously wrong, the people in the comment sections will point it out, and that'll spark interesting conversations.
My father told me that because the resistance in Yemen used a small castle of his father as a fortification, and the British couldn't take it. the airplane came the next day and threw leaflets saying "We will air bomb the castle tomorrow at time so and so remove all women and children from the castle" People thought that was strange and admirable.
Even with Portuguese colonialism, you have a lot of documented native people of those colonies saying they had something while the Portuguese were, and all they have post independence is complete misery. There also opinions divide but you just need to see who's profiting from their narrative. Anyway we're just talking about a relatively modern "colonization" concept, I believe it used to be somewhat different and called of "conquest" as the creator points out. Awesome research and presentation.
So did select tribes in the New Spain who submitted to vasselization to the Spanish crown being awarded with privileges and the chances to gain power in the colony only to lost it post revolution.
@@AfricanMaverick why do you think tribes got special privileges? Native rivalries end the moment one allies with the newcomers and crush their rivals.
It's also important to look at it from a historical perspective and compare it to earlier eras. In all eras before that, conquest and colonization was much more brutal, they just killed all the men, raped the women, and enslaved the children. Compared with that, Western colonialism was the least brutal across the entire human history, most of it was not even done by direct military power, but through diplomatic and economic means. Also, when the Mongols, the Ottomans, etc. went on conquests, they exploited the conquered lands without investing in them, compare it to the 19th and early 20th century where the European powers built roads, railroads, schools, hospitals. Of course there were plenty of unjust things too, but let's not forget that in all previous historical eras, conquest and colonization brought only devastation, while the Western one raised the standard of living and the life expectancy significantly.
It helps that European colonialism started with a Christian desire to spread the Gospel and Church. Once European colonialism became driven by economic concerns, it got more brutal and the investments and settlements became distant thoughts.
I think the key factor that kept peace after wwii is the most rapid economic growth ever that it just doesn’t make sense to start a war. But after the economy and technology reaches a certain bottle neck, like we are right now, things will revert back to old ways.
very good video! I think the most important part of it, and the thing we all must keep in mind, is that a large part of modern society - the majority even - judges the current day and the actions of our ancestors as compared to some never achieved and amorphous utopia instead of measuring it against REALITY. We must do more to overcome this historical illiteracy and living in a fantasy world.
In my area, most normies are flagellating themselves to make up for how the natives were treated by the colonists. Meanwhile, the natives were here for thousands of years before the colonists ever showed up and were warring with one another and committing atrocities the entire time. Torture, ritualistic sacrifice, forced procreation of kidnapped women, slavery, the whole kit. And if we gave these people their own country and sovereignty, they'd get up to the same malarkey that any other group of humans in a similar situation would.
So let’s measure it against reality: india has a higher gdp per capita, industrialization, living standard and urbanization in 1400-1750 than from 1750-1947. Since 1947, there hasn’t been a single famine. Before 1750, you could count famines on one hand. From 1750-1947, there was a major famine every decade.
I’ve been saying for years America needs to drop the facade, claim our right as the lone superpower and call ourselves what we are, an empire. The sooner we embrace it, the safer we’ll be, and the longevity of our nation and culture will be assured
As an American I 100% agree. We’re pretty much the sole hyperpower of the globe. We act like it and we aren’t a culture known for mincing our words. We should just step up and accept the role.
But part of that American power is NOT stepping on other people's (and country's) faces any more than we have to. Our strength is built up by a web of mutual alliances where we don't treat smaller countries as inferiors, but instead accept them as at least a voice at the table. It makes things difficult if not outright frustrating at times, and it isn't perfect, but I submit taking on some kind of neo-imperial pretensions that throws aside a commitment to democracy won't, for example, get us into space any faster, or bind together a Western Alliance that keeps dictators and would-be despots in check. We aren't Athens and the Delian League, nor the Roman Republic. We should profit by the lesson of their failures, not imitate their excesses.
The hilarious part is that we built the empire specifically because we hated empires... Only to find ourselves in the awkward position of being the only empire remaining. And now we can't just walk away without half the world exploding into conflicts we have kept back for decades.
It is wild to me as a history undergrad degree holder and political economy post-grad degree holder from the UK that people are out here defending colonialism - my opinions are also my own not indoctrinated from academia before anyone says. The notion that western colonialism was solely responsible for the modernisation, infrastructure building, democratisation of formerly independent developing countries is crazy to me. I wanna come at this from two angles. Firstly, there are plenty of successful countries that adopted the 'modernisation' process (I'd also push back against this western-centric narrative, that west is best and that there is only one monolithic development process that all should follow) without being colonised by western powers. Countries that resisted western imperialism like, Thailand, Japan, and though partially occupied, China's government was never deposed or its armies entirely defeated by western powers, all of these countries are modern nation states, with modern legal systems and institutions, public works and goods, healthcare and education, and, as is the case, in Japan, a representative democratic governance system. All of these nations resisted western colonialism throughout the centuries, and, as is the case with two of those listed countries, are some of the most wealthiest and successful nations on earth, able to not only rival western supremacy but perhaps even surpass it - as is the case with China. The point being made here is that its therefore a fallacy to assume that countries that WERE colonised by western powers like India or parts of the levant and Africa, would never modernise under the auspices of global capitalism if not for colonialism. Western colonialism was however responsible for the industrialised and systematic wealth extraction, resource appropriation, oppression and exploitation of indigenous populations with unprecedented levels of cruelty undergirded by an embarrassing level of racism and white supremacy. Ultimately many colonialists knew what they were doing was wrong, they were, for the most part, Christians who believed in post-enlightenment ideals and doctrines such as in freedom and liberty grew up reading or educated by enlightenment scholarship like, immanuel Kant, Montesquieu, Rousseau, Locke, Hume and then waged a brutal tyranncial and oppressive campaign that utterly contradicted the foundations of their educations, western philosophy and state building. The only way liberal western imperialists were able to rationalise their empires was to denigrate the people they conquered and reduce them, in a darwinian sense, to something sub-human, almost like ape-like savages or barbarians in need of rescuing from themselves. The White Man's Burden" (1899), by Rudyard Kipling, perfectly encapsulates this contradictory notion, using phrases associated with liberty and freedom, meanwhile touting for the domination and subjugation of beings believed to be less than he. This is how the "white-mans burden" was born, nobody sees or wants to see themselves as the "bad-guy", even the Nazis didn't as they funnelled millions of innocent people to their deaths; the holocaust was born from the same contradictory philosophical ideals and psychology and by dehumanising people to rationalise and justify their violence and hatred. Orwells book Burmese Days, give a good albeit fictional account of this phenomena, the shame of preaching for enlightenment ideals at home, and waging or maintaining brutally authoritarian regimes abroad, and how many westeners hated the native populations, because they also hated themselves for what empire made them do. Hate, guilt and shame are very powerful and pervasive emotions that can, in the right contexts, be drivers of entire political systems and empires. The second part of my argument is that where western colonialism did succeed that these infrastructure or institutions of government and governance did occur, were woefully in-adequate in terms of providing for or meeting the demands of, indigenous formerly occupied populations. Thats because they were not designed to do so, they were designed to facilitate wealth and resource extraction, or ferry soldiers or police to brutally put down native populace insurrections as was the case with the British Raj era railway networks. Many of the brutal ethnic conflicts of the last century, likely to get worse under US decline, are because of colonialists carving up countries based on resources rather than in consideration of ethnic lines. Many former colonies also lack that the kind of robust institutions, cultural, and governance frameworks to facilitate fair and proper political representation. The so-called benefits of colonialism have not, by and large, been shared and distributed equitably, but used and abused by elites to further their own socioeconomic standing at the expense of the many. Countries like Nigeria and Uganda are a case in point, huge wealth disparities and continued brutal ethnic conflicts. We are witnessing this occur in Niger currently, nearly all their issues hark back to French colonialism. The legacy of empire is still a lived reality for many in the global south, for every 1 dollar that enters 20 comes back to developed nations, and slavery is still alive and well in the African continent the British did not end slavery, it is well beyond their capabilities at the time to stop. Westerners were only able to justify their oppression and tyranny through dehumanisation, racism and white supremacy, this only exacerbated the cruelty inflicted on native populations, whose share of the pie has only marginally increased over the centuries. These colonial eras were particularly evil and historically standout for their oppressiveness, because of the mixture of scientific and technological infused racism and tyranny, justifying their deeds and extending their means beyond anything that had come before. Madison Grants writings on eugenics in "The Passing of the Great Race" is a case in point in how awful and deranged these supposedly educated, respected and informed people were. This era was and still is a stain on human history and should be remembered as such. Before anyone asks you if colonialism was good or bad? remind yourself that the same ideals and psychological processes of the holocaust, humanities darkest hour, were of the same kind that undergirded the brutality of western empire building. Unlike the holocaust and the evil of the nazis which was disseminated and taught about far and wide, colonialism was hidden, many of the receipts or recorded acts of genocide, torture, oppression were covered up as part of Operation Legacy. Much of these debates on whether or not colonialism was good or bad are born from ignorance and have their roots in western coverups such as these. God only knows the true extent of the brutality committed by our ancestors in the name of empire.
Being colonized by the Romans and Normans greatly benefited Britain. Had it not happened, the British would have never had the tools to create a powerful empire.
Global capitalism is the direct result of Western colonialism. Colonialism made it possible to trade with people who would have never come into contact with Westerners otherwise. Capitalism was created by Westerners and didn't spring up around the world independently.
My theory is that racism is the ultimate form of white guilt. They hope to escape the mental burden of their atrocities by arguing that the rest of the world is inferior and as an advanced super race must dominate and control the savages.
Yes, I couldn't say it better myself. The issue is though that I sort of DO understand because there is very much an underground racist and supremacist underbelly that has a pernicious influence as well through conservative 'think tanks', supposedly 'Libertarian' organisations and especially wealthy corporate capitalists and their influence trickles down and their ideas are reflected in this sort of apologism, ever since McCarthyism, the Nixon and Reagan admins in the US, etc. In many ways what we have now is a type of Corporate Fascist system that as Orwell said masks itself.
As a HKer, British colonialism is the best thing that could ever happen to this rocky Chinese fishing village. And also the end of British rule effectively killed the city state.
I'm so sorry about your skin color, don't you wish you look like last your masters? oh and btw, the BNO program is still open, your masters are still looking for dishwashers, go where you belong.
As a Irish, British colonialism changed our civilisation, from one which could’ve been a world minor power, with great living standards, to a divided, slightly poorer, partly occupied Ireland, one which has a population that never recovered from the British genocide. They destroyed our language which was once rich and widespread, they destroyed our culture and traditions. The only people we’ve been able to trust are other colonised people and communists, like Gaddafi’ Libya, Native Americans, USSR and the wider socialist bloc. It was the worst thing to happen to us, and they never apologised.
@@donaldlee8249 Wow. I never thought you could be so dumb and ignorant of history. Have you ever thought why they might be in London? The Famine forced 3 million to emigrate. We produced enough food by ourselves, even after the potato blight, but the only food we were allowed were potatoes. They exported all our food away, the other countries were so horrified with this treatment that they tried to help, the Ottomans sent food, while being hunted down by british naval ships, and the native americans sent a relatively significant sum of money as aid. If you look at an ethnic map of britain, you will notice that the port cities of Britain, like Liverpool and Glasgow, have significant Irish populations, as well as the USA with Boston. There are 30 million people with Irish ancestry worldwide, but only 7 million on Ireland itself, with 1 million of them being artificially planted British colonialists. Also, i highly doubt there’s more than 1.3 million Irish people in London, thats 1/8 of the population of London. Looking at an religious map, catholicism doesn’t even show up near London. Do you mean Irish ancestry? That would make more sense.
As a member of a former British Colony, that is Fiji, I can really agree that the British brought more benefits to my people than they did problems, they helped end cannibalism, brought Christianity and helped us develop as a society, honestly some people still look back in fondness to the British.
@@tobiasgriffin We might still be a third world country but we were the fastest growing economy in the south pacific before the Covid-19 pandemic, and I wasn't saying we are on the level of Europe but we are doing better thanks to their help and being part of the Commonwealth.
@@runajain5773 You mean the Girmitiyas, they're great I have a number of Indo-Fijian friends who are descended from those laborers, they're very hardworking and kind people. Honestly what they're ancestors had to go through was horrible but now they're an integral part of our nation's diverse population. We even celebrate Diwali, itis a public holiday here, I love the sweets and my family and I would often go on drives or walks around the neighborhood to see the lights.
A very good video about a serious topic. Also would like to see an updated version of the What If Colonialism never ended video, mainly because its an interesting what if and well its kind of in the channel name for What if alternate History
It was inevitable that one group would get more powerful than the rest and try to take over. I can only hope we’ve now learned better and never repeat on such scale.
A point I have a hard time verbalizing is, was the brutality necessary for the positives? Like it’s cool that human sacrifice was stopped in Mesoamerica but could that not have been accomplished with out the brutality of slavery?
@ataraxia7439 Probably not tbh since they needed the colonies to be profitable, and bringing a lot of labor was hard. Slaves were made out of conquered people who were usually very aggressive on contact (and later integrated), or from the African trade which was already ongoing and then later abolished. And it could have only been abolished after first taking part.
It's pretty telling that I got a history degree without ever seeing the uncensored version of 0:28. They showed us that cartoon to teach us how evil colonialism was but the version they showed us was didn't have writing on the rocks above Britain...
As a Filipino, I think Spain colonizing us was better than us being scrambled by different nations and meddling tribes. Colonization in our country definitely outweighed the cons since the people in our islands stopped chopping each other's heads for nothing when the Spaniards came, we had laws (though limited but we had it), we had better agriculture, new cultures, better economy, and historical footprints the Spaniards had left us.
I've enjoyed the nuanced takes throughout this video, and especially the part where we have the opportunity to understand the motivations behind colonialism. But in the end, just wanted to say, nope I still think colonialism is bad. I've noticed that one recurring theme that conservatives/nationalists (both in the West and in non-Western countries) like to resort to a sort of whataboutism when justifying colonialism by saying stuff like, but what about the Russians/Chinese/Arabs who also colonized other peoples? *But who has ever said that Russian/Chinese/Arab colonialism is not bad?* Not me at least. Colonialism is inherently bad in a pro-indigenous rights perspective because it is when a dominant culture and society replaces their local language and tradition and culture. And speaking of this, I feel like some colonialism apologists is creating a straw man argument when saying stuff like those woke people "deny that the Irish has experienced colonialism because they're white, and only non-white people can experience colonialism." Literally all indigenous rights advocates acknowledges that white/European people who've actually experienced colonialism, like the Irish, Welsh, or even the Eastern Europeans like the Ukrainians and the Baltic nations, have also suffered through historic oppression. So no, it's actually not about race and I don't think that white people are inherently colonizers, I think that European nations can also suffer from colonialism and yes, white people can also experience racism. But white people who engage in colonialism would be colonialists, just like people of any other race who engage in colonialism would also be colonialists. I agree that all societies should progress and become more developed and modernized. But colonialism is not an excuse to that because it's when outside countries force local societies to do so, and it often leads to the destruction and extinction of the local society. A society's conservatism can also change an progress, but colonialism is permanent. In an ideal world in my opinion, would probably be where all countries and societies around the world would be like Japan where the local society deliberately chooses to modernize and industrialize, which in turn also preserves their native culture, language and tradition. Of course, the real world is more complicated than that. But I'm just saying, just because historically countries have been cruel to each other doesn't mean that I need to agree with what they did.
As he says in the video, you're asking to make the world the way you want it to be rather than the way it is. Human beings have fought over territory for millennia and they always will. All these attempts to shame Europeans are just a new tactic in the struggle for power LOL the English have been colonised THREE TIMES - don't they get a place in the hierarchy of victimhood? ; )
The problem with colonialism in India is that most people today in India don't even know the scale and extent of what the British did. They just know the surface level bs that the politicians and nationalists keep parroting. Britain decimated Indian industrial capacity. They systematically extracted resources out of here while making it impossible for any homegrown industrial activity to take place. While historically the world has been a violent place, no other invader of India conquered it for exploitation on an industrial scale. That being said, the fact that a handful of British folks were able to subjugate such a large population and control it so effectively tells you a lot about the mindset of the Indian people at the time. They would have rather distrust each other rather than band up and drive the British out. I don't support the idea of holding countries accountable for their colonial past, but I do take issue when some Britishers still justify the atrocities by telling us they gave us the railways.
Though this is a pretty mature view on the situation, you are wrong with some things. The colonies definitely made the European nations rich, much much richer. The amount of wealth that drifted into the continent is what has allowed it to still be so rich.
The British did not deindustrialuse India but Industrialised India. The only industry which got hit was hand spinning and that would have happened anyways due to technological development in Britain. Hand weaving survived and later power looms technology came to British India from Britain. The Wadias, the Sarabais, the Birlas, the TATAs etc were Indians who became rich by opening mills in British India.
Absolutely agree with this analysis, colonialism represents the eternal frontier of humanity headed by Europeans as a means to more philanthropic ends, and the understanding of the insanity of the "End of history" claim being ubsurd is also correct in that borders cannot freeze. Great video as always, if you can please check out "Archeofuturism" by Guillaume Faye, an extremely interesting piece of literature and give a review.
Stop being delusional mate. That "eternal frontier headed by Europeans" was a brutal genocide and massacres unleashed upon ex colonies. It was and will never be nice. All the modern science and tech could have been imported, like Japan did, without getting colonized.
Nothing keeps me more busy than a Whatifalthis video on a controversial topic and afterward reading the comment section I love it. It's so entertaining.
Hi, left leaning guy who decided to give the other argument a chance, and I must say that this video contains many great arguments and has really made me think differently about the world. But one thing I would like to add is that just because harsh and violent action is the norm throught history, that doesn't mean it's right and it doesn't mean we should leave it that way.
If you're thinking that from watching this guy, then you might need some self-reflection on your critical thinking skills. It's fun to watch him, but his arguments are full of blatant logical errors, and a lack of knowledge and understanding of history. At worse, it's thinly veiled racism.
It irks me how pervasive the Rousseauan narrative of the pre-modern noble savage living in complete harmony with nature has been. When pre-settler Australia was anything but.
You're ever insightful. Rudy please please do a video on Spiral Dynamics and how that applies to cycles in history. Because it lines up almost perfectly. Tho it annoys me that humans/society develop to a certain predictable point and then it's downhill.... I know infinite growth doesn't exist despite capitalists wishing it did but I wonder if we could get a government to form above stage orange. I would really like your take on it! ❤ great video. I've been thinking lately how people will view past events in the current context and i think that's one of the main problems in studying history.
As an Indian from so-called L0wer caste, the Britishers were the one who gave Rights to education to Unt0uchable class of india, they give equal punishment to Upper_caste person as that of L0wer caste, Britishers made Laws to Ban Wid0w_burn!ng, the Britishers build Financial capital of india called Mumbai, built Railways, Roads, Port & much more. Colonialism came as Blessing for 85-90% Population of India of L0wer caste & W0men
I hear you, friend. My tribe in Nigeria (Edo) are not among the three majority tribes here but my father's family and other tribe members enjoyed equal rights and better opportunities because of the systems out in place and adopted by my country.
if colonialism was "such a blessing" then please explain why tens of MILLIONS were allowed to starve during WW2? this was done DELIBERATELY. you are nothing but a brainwashed sepoy. you should be embarrassed to even type this.
They were not the first one to stop widow burning most lower caste also used to study it is mentioned in1700 year british report even untouchables such as chamar own land these building and roads were made by Indian money
bro read your countries history properly, it was educated Indians like Ambedkar, Jyotiba Phule, who fought for the untouchables. the British didn't care a bit.
the difference between european colonialism and virtually every other form of colonialism in history is that during european colonialism there were lively and heated debates in european countries over whether or not they should even be doing it to begin with these debates led to the extinction of slavery in most of the world
True For those who don’t know, during the Spanish colonization of the Americas, a group of Spanish priests, the “School of Salamanca” laid down a series of moral principles that they believed should govern law and international relations. Their ideas later evolved into Classical Liberalism. The idea of universal human rights came from them. Even though they supported the conquest of the Aztecs “for obvious reasons” they did stand up for the rights of the natives.
As a person from a colonised nation who has studied history, my view is that the willing (or on the surface at least, seemingly willing) release of European colonies and imperial territories is actually an unprecedented event in human history (although if you view decolonisation as an actual collapse of the european empires akin to how Rome lost territory near the end of its empire then it fits in better with other historical events). Throughout most of history it has been empires and smaller states within those empires or at least being vassals or protectorates of them. The current animosity by formerly colonised peoples towards europe and western civilization in general is almost uncalled for in my opinion because of the fact that what they did was a natural occurrence throughout history, even by their own past civilizations. At the same time it is understandable though, because Europe and the west at large actually still exerts influence on the former colonies through soft power and other manipulative means, which is to the annoyance and hatred of the former colonial states. The concept of us always having self determinism may make the colonial period feel like an evil age, but the fact is someone in power had to willingly let us all have "self determination", because the natural state of civilization is more often a powerful hegemony determining the fate of everyone under their influence.
I think a better comparison is like Greece. The Greeks lost their colonies due to centuries of infighting. However they didn’t collapse, and Rome “America”conquered them. Europe hasn’t collapsed like Rome, or at least not yet.
Yes, because life and it's processes is very simple and it's really easy to separate good people from bad. And good people are always good and bad people are always bad.
I'm inuit eskimo, my people would have suffered famine, been uneducated and probably wiped out. My people romanticize us living on the land as fulfilling and great, I mean it could be, but I cannot see it as a way of living your entire life. In some ways colonialism saved us from famine and uncertainty, but also gave us aimlessness and a lack of purpose.
Love your videos Rudyard. Colonial history has become a passion of mine, so I have some thoughts on this one. I didn't see you site Nigel Biggar or Bruce Giley. But I think they've added a much needed perspective to this topic. 1st. I think it's worth following Gilley in the distinction he makes between European imperialism and European colonialism. Spain conquered the Inca's and took their gold and silver like any other imperialist move in history. But the Germans spent 13 years consulting everyone to try and find the most natural border for Cameroon, because they wanted the country to run well. The Germans also adopted Swahili in German East Africa for all colonial business because it was the best language for the colony. Germany, like most of the European colonies after 1826, was reluctatant to take on colonies. They didn't "do it because they could." If you look at the relevant records, they did it because German citizens and adventures had set up lucrative businesses on the coast, and they'd grown to the point that local warlords were harrassing them. So they petitioned their government to provide some security. This is what happened in most cases. Also, a fair number of the tribes petitioned to be colonized: new zealand, cameroon, etc. I don't have all the details on the British Raj. But you need to take the Indian Nalionalist perspective with some skepticism. From what I understand India had a huge population, and they were almost totally dependent on rain-fed agriculture. This is not reliable. We know they had regular famines before the British, but I don't think we have very good numbers for the deaths before the British. The British, of course, kept great numbers, so their failings are starkly recorded. The British were aware of the food reliability problem. And they worked hard to solve it. They averted a number of famines and they built more railroad and irrigation than existed in Britain. When they completed it in 1920, the famines from lack of water ended, never to return. They solved the famines that the Indians couldn't. I don't think just because they were the rulers, that the 27 million is all their fault. If you disentangle imperialism from colonialism, well then colonialism looks much better. I think it was a good. At least european colonialism from 1826 to 1960. I agree with you, it was unavoidable. Basically E. Colonialism is the messy process by which the rest of the world was brought into modern economies and global trade. And an updated concept of colonialism still holds promise today. There are still countries that could benefit from the more advanced expertise of other countries. And they should. Voluntarily of course.
Strange how you simply assume pre colonial India must have had famines when that simply wasn’t the case. At least you mentioned you weren’t too familiar with the British Raj which I guess is redeeming. Pre colonial India never truly faced a famine as there were robust systems of irrigation and mass agriculture in place. There was a reason why the Euros wanted to trade with India in the first place. They wouldn’t want to trade with a region that was barren & famine struck. In Sri Lanka for example, the Ancient Sinhalese kingdoms constructed complex hydraulic systems of irrigation that artificially transformed nearly 50% of the island into fertile farmland. I genuinely think of all the colonized regions in the world, India and the greater South Asian region would have been so much more better off if they weren’t colonized but rather nudged to solely trade much in the same way Japan had undergone.
@@deelanaSthey still, in many respects, can not shake the feeling that they are in fact superior. They don’t take into account that some people’s appreciate TRUE conservatism while they only appreciate liberalism and the illusion of progress. We’re a species headed nowhere really. Or what’s the end goal? Well never escape the prison on of our solar system and we will never physically explore the galaxy. We seem so eager to reach this utopia as heaven already exists on earth. But that’s just not good enough for some. And that’s what they fail to see. We’re in a huge fucking hurry to advance and we do so BLINDLY and always using it as Justification. If the best argument is that it had to happen to catapult the world into modernism then I’m sorry but that’s ridiculous. Modernity and modern man is absolute shit existing without beliefs, tradition or a shred of freedom.
Fascinating and insightful. Rudyard and I have some things in common in that on my paternal side, I am descended from British immigrants who have been in North America since the 17th century. They settled in New Jersey, not Pennsylvania, but my father moved to Pennsylvania and I grew up there. On my mother's side I am to sanded from the ukrainians and the poles. One need only remind oneself that the English root of the word slave is Slav. My grandparents on my maternal side came to this country at the beginning of the 20th century as it literate immigrants. In regards to the complicated issues of the relationship of the first peoples to those who came later in history, I do have some observations. The genocide of the descendants of North and South America's first inhabitants as a result of disease was probably not intentional. The western expansion in North America and the rapi conquest of South America, would not have been possible if these original inhabitants had not been thoroughly decimated by the time actual settlers began to arrive in numbers. More than a few of the European settlers observed that there were many abandoned settlements and that the country seemed to be empty . This is the flip side of what happened to the Europeans in Africa where the African diseases killed the Europeans rather than the European diseases killing the Africans. One of the most important things that everyone needs to remember is that species homo is invasive on every continent where it did not originate . The original settlers in any part of the world were no less. Colonizers just because they didn't have to conquer someone else.
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haii hii haiii
What do you think of Global Turkish Islamic Caliphate?
Shut up
Oh yeah, colonialism was great. Just look at England for example, only doing colonialism on *other* continents
Also 4:42 he hated Irish people and has said on many occasions that he didn't like the existence of an Irish state, backing the pro treaty army in the Irish civil war
The fact that the largest empire in human history reached its peak within living memory is just mind-boggling to me.
You mean the USA?
he means great britain probly
@@Prometeo9
@@Prometeo9 no I mean the British Empire
tbh, it was a century ago, I would consider that pre living memory
USA is the largest empire in history.
As a Nigerian, my opinion on colonialism will be more nuanced than that of most westerners. On one hand, it was brutal in some ways but on the other it did play a huge role in bringing much of Africa into the modern age via introduction of modern tech, medicine, western education, and nation building. My country and many others would literally not exist without it and most of us are happy with that. Even many people who actually lived through British colonialism in Nigeria, like my grandmother and great grandmother (before she passed away in the early 2000s) don't look at it with horror or anger. They saw so many improvements like modern medicine and better food production and they even saw their children and families rise from poverty because of the effects.
Also, one major good it did was abolish slavery. I cannot be more thankful for the British using their naval power and economic might to suppress the slave trade in Africa. Oh, I know they partook in it for a time, themselves, but it existed here long before whites ever came to Africa. Even my own ancestors of the Edo kingdom were slavers. Same with the Arabs who had a longer and more brutal slave trade here. What makes the British different is that unlike other regional African and Arab powers, they had the cultural & religious framework, wisdom, humanity and courage to actually stop the evil of slavery even at huge cost to their economy. God bless them.
"As a Nigerian, my opinion on colonialism will be more nuanced than that of most westerners." Das wassiss!
While this isn't popular with Amerindians, it's clear that many owe their safety and existence to American conquest. The Najavo, Hawaiians, Innuit, Cherokee, and Iroquois became very collaborationist as the times were changing and they couldn't, and they were able to retain their culture and even retain quite a bit of their lands as semi-independent countries.
While I can't say it was the "White man's burden" (a term invented MUCH later), it's clear they modernized quickly and avoided much bloodshed than if pre-Colombian rates of development continued. Their population and culture is perhaps even better preserved now.
@@dylangtech Good point you make, friend.
Everyone forgets we quashed slavery in a generation, due to our massive navy and real force of effort.
Minus the “My opinion would be more nuanced because I’m African” tripe.
You have a solid understanding from both perspectives.
“the biggest problem in our philosophy is that we compare society to utopia rather than other historic society’s that are comparable” thank you!!
Remember. write your representatives in congress and tell them to stop funding the Ukraine and focus on improving the lives of Americans! End Bidens war!
I concur, that is an excellent quote.
That one stuck out to me as well, on point
Simple and strong
Utterly ridiculous. Historic societies that are comparable would look at today’s technology, lifestyle and opportunities as utopias.
Should the Renaissance Europeans have settled for remaining in the dark ages?
"By the standards of individuals, nations always act like sociopaths"
Dang, that's a good closing line
And there's Leopold, a single human that did atrocities at the empire level, like Darth Vader. What a cool guy, thanks to him we get cheap cobalt to this day.
We’re all sociopathic on a certain level, no one just has the courage to admit it.
@@shahinkianpourit’s easy to act like a sociopath when something doesn’t directly effect you. A lot of young people glorify it an think it’s cool. Until something hits close to home, then they get in their feelings. No people are not all sociopaths.
People who fancy themselves a sociopath hasn’t felt the loss of a close family member. That will remind you of your feelings real quick
@@luizmonad777 also, like Darth Vader, had a thing for chopped-off hands...
Nations have interests, not morality
"We're not more moral, we are just in a position where we are safe enough to pretend to be"
nailed it
We are more moral tho, well atleast I am, knowlage builds up over time. No one needs to rape, ever.
I’d argue that these things are kind of interrelated. We are safe because we are rich and powerful. We are rich and powerful in large part because we built better social, political, and economic philosophies and institutions that we would consider to be more moral.
@@baltulielkungsgunarsmiezis9714Nowadays you can go to jail with a false accusation of it.
Kindness is a luxury.
@@AtheistAlias Nah, if that would've been true then we would still live in the stone age. Technology and the willingness to be kind enough to share knowledge to complete strangers (schools&guilds) go hand in hand.
Good God, this is going to be controversial
That’s the point, that’s how modern media works.
Controversy=Anger=Clicks=Engagement=Money
Very much
@AzureWolf168 Most things aren’t Half and Half if you have any morals. If you are ignorant, or apathetic, things may seem half and half.
It shouldn't be, the Left are sympathetic to the complicatedness of conquest when it pertains to, say, the exploits of the Arabs etc, etc.
@@jeremiahsmith9109lol, even with morals and ethics, there are half and half, think of life as a triangle, every point on the triangle is something you need, but you can only have 2, sometimes compromise works best, you compromise and make your next moves to get what you want at a later date.
"We're not more moral, we're just in a position where we're safe enough to pretend to be."
You said it, brother. This is the best, most succinct, & eloquent sentence I have heard in a long while regarding the current state of affairs.
The people judging the past based on society "standards" of today would probably be the same ones who would commit the same moral crimes back then.
I always thought of our current era as a bubble
Seriously perfect quote, also definitely a bubble.
What ludicrous logic.
Morality is exclusively a function of the resources available to you? Your actions have nothing to do with it?
If we have as few resources as we had in the 1600s, slavery is now moral?
I know this is the internet, but it’s so frustrating when people just state their conclusions without an argument or justification.
@@HotChookYou mistake the argument of necessity for the argument of severity.
The bit about Pizarro is even more interesting. King Charles was mad because Pizarro executed a king without a proper trial, and a man of Pizarros standing had no right to judge a king put there by god (it’s the 1500s). Charles didn’t view Atahualpa as just a savage. Pizarro was later backstabbed by his own men, getting what he deserved
This is true.
Charles thought that Peru was too far away for Spain to hold directly. He wanted an allied and preferably Catholic nation over there as a trading-partner. He also distrusted the Spaniards who went overseas, reasoning that the further away from Madrid, the more those Spaniards had criminal motives.
This is pretty topical for us Australians right now, as we are about to have a referendum largely divided by those who agree and disagree with the colonisation of Australia.
Good luck. The West is so cucked, they'll vote to destroy themselves to be "on the right side of history."
Can you explain more? I haven't heard of this (American with a past connection to Australia).
What is this about and why are they holding it now if it’s about the colonization of australia?
@@lausdeo4944 the referendum decides if an aboriginal advisory council (called the voice) will be put in place to give advice to the government. Many people argue it is unfair for the aboriginals to get a say in how the government is run, while many others say it is important justice for aboriginals after Australian colonisation. Honestly, it’s the most political division I’ve ever seen in our country. It almost feels like American election season.
@@thefolder3086 see my other comment. It’s not directly about the colonisation of Australia, it’s more so about Aboriginal justice, as a result of Australian colonisation
What England did to Ireland was horrific, I'm not diminishing that at all.
Would just like to point out though that when you said the English killed off the entire Irish ruling class, the 'english' that you are talking about are descendants of the Norman's that invaded and killed all the Anglo saxon ruling class as ruled the English like a foreign upperclass until generations later they intergrated and accepted the 'english' label and language.
And Celtic languages before that was brought by Indo European invaders who massacred the native population of the isles
Normans did the exact same to the English, just look into the "Harrying of the North" and see the digital Domesday book, between 1066 and 1086, to see the sheer number places that became wastes in that time.
Just shows how widespread colonialism was
It sounds like annexation and total incorporation. Sounds like a failed border expansion.
That’s why I still say Denmark is worse than Britain. No surprise they’re also the first and second most deforested and ecologically destroyed countries respectively.
The People’s Action Party (PAP), which has ruled Singapore since independence in 1965, has no interest in tearing down statues of Raffles or his successors. In 1969, Singapore’s first prime minister, Lee Kuan Yew, said that before the British arrived, “there was no organized human society in Singapore, unless a fishing village can be called a society”.
Contemporary leaders also give the colonial regime measured praise. One of the grandees of Singapore’s foreign policy establishment, Tommy Koh, delivered a pithy verdict: British rule, he said, was “60 percent good, 40 percent bad”. Of course, he conceded, Britain’s list of sins was long. The colonial regime was racist. It promoted opium smoking, which ravaged countless lives in Singapore. Unemployment levels were high, and working conditions were often horrendous. And in the Second World War, Britain utterly failed to defend the colony against invasion by Japan, which subsequently killed countless Singaporeans. And yet, and yet. “Unlike other colonial masters in Southeast Asia”, Koh wrote in the Straits Times, “the British did leave us with a positive legacy”. “This includes the English language, the free port, free trade, open economy, good infrastructure, the rule of law, a good civil service and police force, town planning, public hygiene and modern medicine, a belief in science and modernity and an appreciation of nature and natural history.”
Singaporean leaders have the balls to accept the truth unlike Indian and African leaders blaming British for their post-colonial failures.
Edit: Yes, I know what British did to Singapore was different from what they did to India and Africa. But still there are some positives on colonialism as history is not black and white. I request people to watch Indian historian Zareer Masani Oxford speech about British Empire.
Indian leaders don't blame the British for our post-colonial problems. We do acknowledge that it was bad for us to be colonised and that we shouldn't let it happen again.
Whatever mistakes we've done after that are our own.
SG was special in the empire, in that the British couldn’t physically exploit the population as much as they could have in their African colonies or India. Asking an Indian about how they felt about the British in the 1930s would probably yield wildly different results than if you had asked a Singaporean. British did introduce medicine and industrialisation to both, but india had way worse experiences than singapore did under the British. Off the top of my head numerous famines, and sending a great amount of Indian men to fight for the empire. (I think up to the millions?) Singapore had no natural resources, only thing the British could really do is increase productivity at ports and healthcare
Singapore is a dystopian nightmare. It might look shiny and pretty from the outside but the extent the government has control over the lives of Singaporeans would make an American's head spin.
We latvieši also have no interest in tearing down german statues in our land even tho it took us 700 years to overthrow their yoke.
Both India and Africa can blame their poverty on their leaders looking up to the Soviet Union as a model. Both African socialism (an ideology adopted by most of post-colonial Africa) and the License Raj is the result of them just copying the Soviet Union and calling it "social justice".
The fact that Singapore became rich is because they didn't just take the Soviet economic model. In a world without the Soviet Union African and Indian poverty would've been concepts of the past.
Indians and Africans have no one other to blame than themselves.
It was hard to be a good person when life was so difficult for everyone, that's the point people miss when they judge societies from the past for their cruel practices. Our basic needs are more easily met but our anger and resentment is still revealed through the internet.
"its hard to be a good person when life was so difficult" ???
yeah maybe for you, may christ absolve you
Believers of Christianity during the middle ages came up with and endorsed some of the cruelest forms of punishment/torture, but it's ok because they believed in Christ I guess.@@underarmbowlingincidentof1981
Your stupidity radiates through the screen,what the actual f are you talking about? The British was having the time of their life ,life was difficult for everyone my ass
I don’t think the issue is whether it’s easy or hard to be a good person. The issue to me seems to be the kinds of decisions you’re asked to make. I don’t think people in the modern day are very moral at all. They react based purely on feelings, not facts or what is truly right or wrong. Worse, they can’t tell you WHY something is right or wrong. For example, everyone today (at least in the West) assumes that slavery is wrong. Almost none can give a reason why that is except that it is. There’s a whole bunch of reasons that could be listed, but they all require certain assumptions (either philosophical or theological) or else they’re nonsense, devolving into mere opinion when presented to those that don’t hold the same assumptions. That’s why slavery was abolished by mostly internal means in the West and via foreign (European) armed force everywhere else.
Not for me, i'm just lazy.@@underarmbowlingincidentof1981
This is one of the most difficult things to explain to people. So many people are primed to define colonialism as genocide. Genocides dont increase the population by 8000%. Building a port on the coast of a country and then paying people to selling you things for export isnt genocide. Manipulating and bribing a foreign king is immoral but it isn't gebocide. Being paid to build a railroad isn't genocide. Colonialism included so many different things it's hard to calculate.
well said. the craziest part is that in many of the former colonies they still depend on the infrastructure built back then. most of the colonized places were poor before a european country had to make a refueling and trading port, and they were a little less poor after colonialism. their politic are desperate to blame all others for their failed rule. many have learned it from master russia
He knows colonialism was better than the alternative which was leave the developing world in a state of war, poverty, slavery and genocide yet he doesn't say so cause he doesn't want to get cancelled by youtube or society
@@bader3677what a puss
it's nationalism. If that would happen to us we would be pissed off.
West nowadays overreacting on way smaller things
after colonizing, removing the whole population from a land so that a railroad can be build to take resources to the nearest port is a genocide.
Most Important man behind European Colonization was "Issac Newton". After Newton European Armies had knowledge of Laws of Motion. They could calculate trajectory of Their Cannon Shots. And Europe had a Scientific foundation to Create New Materials and Weapons.
Cannons were plenty effective before Newton. It could be argued that thermodynamics was just as important than mechanics - steam engines brought the whole industrialization game to an entirely new level.
@@richardmetzler7909He's being sarcastic
the horse's name was Friday
He also invented gravity. Before that cannon balls would just float around in the air...totally ineffective.
Except everyone in the world had cannons and they were pretty good at it. India always had better cannons than europe, even in 1800s, but Europeans had larger professional armies and slightly better guns
I like your reference to “living memory” as an historical scale of reference. I think in most cases this should also measure the limits of historical grievance as well.
It's complicated. The animosity between Japan and South Korea is a good example. It's just a strange problem. Japan brutalized Korea in ways that are unspeakable; but in modern times, the are basically perfect allies, and there are almost no reasons they shouldn't get along. It's those historical problems that cause the strife. And like, South Korea is COMPLETELY correct in being antagonistic to a former warmonger (one within living memory).
But at the same time, the US tossed out all their baggage with Japan, and vice versa. Why? Because it was just the smart thing to do. Japan had zero reason to forgive the US for what the US did to them. But not only did letting that water pass under the bridge allow them to form one of the best global alliances, but it also propelled Japan into being one of the biggest international superpowers.
It's almost like a devil's bargain. You can forget recent transgressions, and maybe give your nation the most prosperity it's ever seen. Or you can hold on to old grudges, and foster nationalism. Which is better? It seems to be a case by case basis.
@@heychrisfox Good points. I was thinking more of a general rule to prevent holding on to grudges for incidents taking place centuries ago. I’ve also thought the post war relationships between the US and Japan/Germany also were influenced by the totality of their defeat coupled with the lack of retribution by the US and the threat of the USSR.
@@heychrisfoxSocial Darwinism is real. Its all just Game Theory playing out in Reality. Civilisations coming together and forgetting national grievances in europe is the smart move in game theory in the geopolitics of the modern world.
@@basedchad6035 While you're not entirely wrong to suggest game theory has value in determining geopolitical relations, suggesting that everything is easily applicable to game theory removes the reality that culture usually dominates rationale. Again, it's why I cited Japan and South Korea specifically. They have been at each others throats for decades because of historical grievances, even though South Korea could have greatly benefited from their alliance, given they're surrounded by hostile forces, while Japan is safe out in the ocean.
EU is another good example. The reason for the EU having such strong ties is not just game theory, but rather, a shared cultural context of what war does. Everyone in Europe has been hurt by wars from neighbors, and the EU is a method to make sure that doesn't happen again. You can see the same thing play out in reverse whereupon non-EU aligned states in Europe are most frequently the ones causing conflict and wars, even when those wars don't make rational sense.
@@heychrisfox "a shared cultural context of what war does"
aka war is bad for all of us. Its in our all intrest to allie.
Yeah but I agree with you overall its not that easy.
espessically you cant underestame historical grieviences.
It's strange how the Medieval Era is probably the most popular era or one we take most of our institutions from, actually, yet it's the most denigrated despite clear objective development during the time period. Despite myself not being Christian or even religious, it's always been by favourite era.
I do like the medieval people that I've read of and how they adapted to their environment.
I think the last era of history where people learned to accept their living situation was probably the pre-industrial era. After that economic growth allowed people to gradually change their environment around them to suit their desires - things like electric lighting, private running water, and then gradually air conditioning and electric appliances - allowed people to invest money to avoid needing endurance.
I wonder if maybe our ancestors were better than us in that they were hardier than us on average. I wonder if maybe it wasn't so bad that they could learn to sleep day after day in a hot and humid house.
Is there strength something that makes them better than us, and does modern technology make us weak and is that bad, I wonder?
What is the ideal intersection between technological progress and personal development?
I am a man who regularly walks in his job, moves heavy loads, bicycles in order to get where he needs to go (in a city clearly not equipped for such!), and who, while he enjoys the AC, can live without it.
Most people are not like this in America. Is that a good thing or a bad thing, I wonder?
You should work on finding Christ.
Went to visit Hawaii a couple years back, told my Hawaiin Uber driver that I’m surprised they have held on to so much of their culture with a Military base that huge there. And he just said hey man, if it wasn’t y’all… it would have been the Japanese and we wouldn’t have anything left.
Wasn’t expecting such a nuanced take on the subject from a guy I literally just met, on the colonial action against his own culture.
Interesting take. The Japanese were pretty damn isolationist before the USA went and forced them to start trading with people. Maybe that would have changed without the USA, but who knows. Could have happened, could have been the Chinese or maybe even the Maori themselves, like how they destroyed the Moroiri of Chatham.
That's a bit silly though. The odds of Japan taking over Hawaii were basically 0, given the situation at the time. If anything, Hawaii is MORE influenced by Japan now than it was then, because of how cultures have cross-pollinated. Not to mention that Hawaii is way more Asian than it ever will be "American," whatever "American" means.
@@Zex-4729 I was referencing the historical opinion above that Japan had any chance of colonizing Hawaii. Additionally, if you're not aware of the demographic boom of and huge tourist influx of Japanese folks in Hawaii, then you're simply unaware of the reality on the islands.
@@Zex-4729 Then you should consider why you feel weird about my statement. If I'm stating a fact that is contrary to an incorrect opinion (stated by a third party), and that fact makes you feel weird, that's on you.
@@levongevorgyan6789"The Japanese were pretty damn isolationist before the USA went and forced them to start trading with people."
Let's get a second or even a third opinion from the Koreans or the Chinese.
Colonialism is hated today because, unlike in most instances of it throughout history, the subjects of the previous round survived.
I think it have more to do with the the acces to information. People are literate and we conserve a lot of information from that time.
And propaganda from the enemies of course.
Look up the spanish Black legend.
Ehh....
I think it's more like Colonialism isn't acknowledge if it wasn't done by the European states to non Europeans.
Like, the Turkics have been colonizing Europe for generations. Bulgar Turkics colonized Central Asia as did Huns. Magyars too, though they;re more Turkic larpers. Lezgic Albania was colonized by Persians and then Turkics, resulting in Azerbaijan, and now the Turkic Azeris are colonizing native Armenian lands.
The Arabs colonized the Levant and Northern Africa, converting the native populations into Arab speakers.
Hell, the Slavs colonized Southern Europe, the Moors colonized Spain, the Korean speakers colonized Japonic speaking Korea, the Japonic speakers colonized Japan from the Jomon-Ainu people.
One of the most brutal cases was the Maori colonizing Moroiri, they cannibalized those people, yet while people are quick to condemn Britain for colonizing the Maori, who condemns the Maori for what they did in the Chatham Islands?
That’s a load of bulshit, far less people died in previous instances of “colonialism” this guy mentions but those empires were seen as amazing. Example: after fall of Mughal empire, everyone tried to emulate them and kept the same economic system bc it was so good. India under Mughal empire was the richest and most advanced country in the world, under British raj it was a backwards shit hole with 90% illiteracy
@@levongevorgyan6789but those are specific, you can’t expect people to know all of them, it’s easier to know colonisation made by Europeans because it covered entire continents and a lot more people than the Turks colonising the balkan states
@@vasicretu1970 Sure, I guess it just galls me that modern day people keep pushing for the West to make ammends while ignoring Turkey and Azerbaijan's continued colonization of Armenia and Greece.
Blaming "evil colonizers" is a very convenient alibi for the incompetence, dogmatism and corruption of post-colonial leaders.
You can see this a lot in India where it's become fashionable to blame the British for all their problems: despite the fact their country wouldn't *exist* without Britain, all their institutions are based on British ones, and their economy magically started taking off once they dispensed with the socialist ideology *they* adopted for the first 40 years after independence.
I'm sorry, that is literally a lie. Literally, the one point he's trying to get across is that there is no black and white, colonialism good, natives bad and regressive. The subcontinent had riches and the biggest textile industry in the world. And then the British Empire came in and completely destroyed it.
I see many people including Indians, Pakistanis praising the fact that Britain laid down railways, forgetting they did it to steal the riches
Oh, its the same in Jamaica as well. The blame game is truly alive and well here - along with the trope of calling for 'reparations'. Our Independence was in 1962 and soooo many Jamaicans are unwilling to accept that THEY are responsible for the issues, the violence, murders, ineptitudes, and corruption that beset this troubled isle. The ignorance is unreal in many respects.
Most common folks in India don't blame colonization they blame the previous government for taking wrong decisions, India would have been a developed country by now if the ruling politicians weren't so dumb..also yes India would exist wheather or not whatifaltheiest or his worshippers like it or not
You are delusional if you believe India wouldn't exist without British colonialists.
@@aAverageFan If it hadn't been the British - it would have needed to be some other empire. Dozens of small feudal states don't come together *voluntarily*
"We're not better people, today. We're just richer and more complacent." Hear, hear!
You are right that the British Empire was in living memory. My own maternal grandmother was born a subject of King George V in November 1935 in British India. Back then, there was no Jharkhand. When she was born, Hazaribagh was part of Bihar (although Jharkhand is a far more recent development, occurring within my own lifetime). She passed away this year, March the 1st, 2023.
When will u muslims stop 😂 licking boots of british 😂
I asked two indians this. 1 a very good friend another a coworker. Both said it was bad and good. They wouldn't remove it from history but arent happy it happened either.
Same sentiment Jews have for the Nazis.
it was what it was, no point in wallowing in self pity , better to look towards the future
@@WolverineXOXOwhat’s the alternative I wonder. Gimme this pseudo theoretical idea of what the 3rd world looks like without colonialism so I can have a good laugh before bed
@@captainfury497 'Hey I know we drained your resources for centuries and subjugated you for your ethnicity, but like shut up and stop wallowing in self-pity dude!'
@@Insanestsagea world without the wheel would still have some things but holy fuck would it take a while to get set up. What has happened in the Last 2 hundred years is akin to you handing the controller to your brother who's a speed runner, sure you're further in the game than you were but you have zero clue how to play further. We skipped over so many things like it was magic, unless a similar once in a billion chance happened it would most likely be business as usual for them tbh.
'we are not more moral, we are just in a position where we are safe to pretend to be.'
god...damn! i was not ready for that level of savagery before lunch.
I need to save that quote cause it’s so fucking based. It’s easy to be an anti martial hippie when the savages aren’t at your door.
@@shadowofhawk55I felt devastated hearing that, made me regret not starting my own TH-cam channel, as I came up with that saying years ago.
It occurred to me while I was thinking about how disgusted I am with people who judge dead people by modern standards. Then it occurred to me how people in the future might judge us for eating meat, while the only reason for them not eating it will be because they will have a good alternative available. They will be proud for being more moral than we are, while if they were in our shoes they would do the same thing we are doing.
And if you think about history, and if you are honest, you quickly realize that you would have done all the bad shit in history yourself if only you were at the right (wrong?) place at the right(wrong?) time.
If you were a viking, you would have plundered, conquered and raped. If you were a random Mongolian archer during their conquests, you would have done whatever your brothers in arms happened to do around you, rape included.
There are slight odds that you would stand out from the crowd, and avoid doing "evil" things, but even that would have to come from a place of privilege, otherwise your peers would quickly turn on you for making them feel bad about all the evil they are doing.
@@julius43461 Exactly. It is the softness of modern society that breeds soft thinking. Force people into a jagged life and they take up jagged thought or they become meat for the maw.
@@julius43461 Chesterton made this argument a century ago. :) Good on you for determining it on your own. :)
@@NemisCassander I know all ideas and sayings already occurred to someone, and very often I find similar ideas expressed by people who lived hundreds of years ago. It's just that my ego gets fragile and cracks when I hear someone saying out loud what I never got the chance to say😆. I was also on the verge of starting a philosophy podcast with a friend, where we would discuss philosophy and ethical issues. I bought the equipment, which I still have but I was waiting on him to join in but he never did. I kind of find it boring to just talk about stuff myself, as I already do that in the comments.
I met a Sri Lankan college student who admitted to me that if the English hadn't colonized his country it would be a "s#!+#ole" today. Hearing a Sri Lankan say that word was amazing.
I mean India was a whole different type of country, particularly spiritually oriented, that invested in the well being of people. I’m from the USA but It wasn’t well documented becuase back then there were no cameras or journals to write that the English brought. And like they say, history is written by the victors. We just never know 🤷🏻♂️
I do stuff with Aztec history: I agree the fall of the Aztec isn't just "Evil colonizers vs good Mesoamericans" but I have issues with some specifics that was said or shown here. Mind you, some of these are fairly common errors even reputable sources get wrong, so it's somewhat understandable. I'll explain in more depth below, but I think the video A: overstates the initial hostility between the Spanish and Mesoamericans during initial contact, B: understates the degree to which the Spanish DID recognize the humanity and complexity of Mesoamerican civilizations (and by extension, combined with A, understates how much the Spanish's actions were self-serving) C: uses pretty misleading/inaccurate images of what Mesoamerican clothing, architecture, and political boundaries were like, and D: oversimplifies how Cortes got allies and overfocuses on Tlaxcala as his main local allied state.
All that said, before explaining in more detail, to give some basic context: "Mesoamerica" is the cradle of civilization and cultural region which covers the bottom half or so of Mexico, all of Guatemala and Belize, and arguably other Central American countries. It includes the Aztec and Maya, but also the Olmec, Zapotec, Teotihuacan, Classic Veracruz Teuchitlán, Toltec, Mixtec, Otomi, Totonac, Huastec, Purepecha, etc, who tend to share key traits, like pyramidal temples, maize as a cereal crop, Plaza-courtyard based urban and architectural planning, a shared calendrical and base 20 numeral system, and yes, human sacrifice and blood offerings.
However, as you can tell by all the different civilizations I just mentioned (and that's not close to comprehensive!) there is a LOT of distinct civilizations, and competing political states (not "tribes": cities, writing, rulership, class systems, etrc go back in the region almost 3000 years before Europeans arrived) within each civilization. So there wasn't a singular initial reaction by Mesoamerican civilizations to the Spanish, much less a universal "the Spanish get attacked the moment they stepped onto the shore" as you present in the alien analogy. Sometimes they passed by without being bothered, other time they got attacked on sight, but most of the time the Spanish entered the territory of a new kingdom, empire, city-state, etc, and at least once they had translators, there was usually a diplomatic exchange and discussions or negotiations of trade, lodging, etc, and from there the Spanish settled down, moved on, or negotiations failed and stuff escalated into conflict.
One also needs to keep in mind is that Mesoamerican politics had a strict code and even highly symbolic, poetic subdialects of languages for engaging in diplomacy and by extension declaring/waging in war (though this isn't to say Mesoamerican kings never bended or broke those rules to their own benefit: of course they did). The Spanish, while they had translators, did not understand the nuances of this, and by Cortes's own admission, would kidnap/hold rulers hostage, raze towns and villages to pressure rulers into relenting and giving them lodging if fighting did break out, etc. For as much as the Spanish may have saw the Mesoamerican's sacrifices as barbaric, so too were those actions by the Conquistadors seen as untrustworthy and savage by the Mesoamericans: In a lot of cases, states had already heard rumors of the Spanish doing this by the time they arrived in their territory, so sometimes states didn't wish to provoke conflict and would try to appease the Spanish in advance, or jumped into defending themselves proactively.
And while the Spanish did view sacrifices as evil and barbaric, and while the Mesoamericans did view some of the Conquistador's actions the same way, the reality is that BOTH groups still did recognize each other as representing sophisticated, sovereign entities: Cortes, Bernal Diaz, Tapia, Aguilar, the Anonymous Conqueror, even latter Catholic Friars like Sahagun, etc, all endlessly praise the architecture, cities, art, and even ethics, governance, and order of Mesoamerican societies. I could fill MULTIPLE giant comments with quotes from Conquistadors remarking with wonder and adoration over what they saw, even people back in Europe like Albrecht Durer, the famous German artist, who saw Mesoamerican art on display in Brussels in 1520 (before the Aztec capital even fell!), remarked "All the days of my life I have seen nothing that rejoiced my heart...as these...wonderful works of art, and I marveled at the subtle genius of men in foreign lands". Yes, there would be debates about if the Indigenous people of the Americas had souls and racial caste systems would come latter, but, at least generally, initial interactions between the Spanish and Mesoamericans had the former viewing the latter as civilized people with sovereignty, who were just nonetheless pagan or heathen, even comparing them to the Greeks or Romans as "civilized pagans". Some Mesoamerican kings and nobles initially had their status recognized within the Spanish colonial system and even into formal Spanish nobility and heraldry (though in the long term this had less and less success: Tlaxcala actually DID have it's land taken in some cases by Spanish settlers even before it's agreement with the Spanish king got nullified in the early 1600s)
By extension, though, this also means that Cortes and co cannot claim to done what they did because these were people in need of saving or liberation or to be made civilized: In part, some of their accounts do state such things, and yes, they probably felt Christianizing the Mesoamericans was a moral good, but Cortes, Diaz, etc are also very clear that their actions were primarily motivated by self interest, glory, and wanting wealth, while also paying lip service to enriching the Crown. That in particular was a concern for Cortes, who was EXPLICTLY committing treason against the Crown and working against Diego Velazquez, the governor of Cuba, at times directly fighting other parties of Conquistador sent by Velazquez to arrest him. Some Aztec forces even allied with Velazquez's troops once it became clear Cortes lied to them about representing the king of Spain. There's little contention among Mesoamericanists and even most Spanish historians that Cortes's founding of Veracruz (which gave him the right to then plot his own course from there) claiming Moctezuma II surrendered to him (so he could then invade and conquer the city by claiming it was already under the crown and he was merely putting down a rebellion) etc were ploys to justify his actions legally.
Now, at this point, you may be wondering: If Mesoamerican civilizations were so complex and even the Spanish saw this, why are they always shown as living in worn down grey pyramids surrounded by jungle and a few huts and running around half naked? The answer is that most depictions (including in this video) are inaccurate. In reality, say, Aztec men would have worn cloaks/mantles a bit like Greco-roman togas, while women wore long, flowing baggy blouses (which, combined with their hair buns, almost evokes Japanese Geisha) which for nobles was garishly colorful with different floral, geometric, and abstract designs and patterns, and accompanied by jade, gold, turquoise jewelry and feather ornaments. Feathers weren't simply stuck into things, but were arranged like precise bouquets into specific 3-dimensional shapes and arrays, or used in 2 dimensional mosaic to form patterns and images across the surface of garments or as "paintings", using iridescent feathers with shifting,, glittering colors. (Look up Mexican Feather paintings or mosaics for surviving examples, they're mind blowing). Temples, palaces, and other civic architecture was covered in smooth white stucco, and then painted with murals and frescoes and covered in reliefs, sculptural facades, and other accents. The overall architectural style is closer to Minoan palaces like Knossos more then anything else, with palaces having square geometric style rooms with flat roofs, and patios with columns surrounding open courtyards, etc. Tenochtitlan, the Aztec capital, had most of it's temples, palaces, ball courts, etc arranged around large open plazas (with many botanical gardens, aviaries, zoos, etc built in palace courtyards or around them) with the outskirts being grids of artificial islands housing both commoner homes and acting hydroponic farms with Venice like canals between them, as the city was built in the center of a lake.
If people want good visual examples of this, look up paintings of Aztec cityscapes by Scott and Stuart Gentling, depictions of Mesoamerican clothing by Kamazotz/Zotzcomic/Daniel Parada, Rafael Mena, OHS688 (some of his art is furry, but the fashion is all accurate), etc, or works of various subjects by Nosuku-K, Shi-Gu/Itzcacalotl, etc to name a few examples.
Next, I think people misunderstand the Aztec political structure and why Cortes even got allies. Whatifalthist brings up Tlaxcala (a kingdom headed by a city-state of that name, the city was actually a republic governed by a senate), and yes, Tlaxcala was one of Cortes's most major allied states, but It was NOT an Aztec subject, rather an enemy state the Aztec were trying to conquer. So while it very much did resent the Mexica of Tenochtitlan, you can't extrapolate it's motivations to the other states Cortes worked with like Texcoco, Xochimilco, Chalco, Itzpalapan, etc which were actually a part of the Aztec Empire. The Aztec political system was actually quite hands off, with subjects usually keeping their kings, laws, and customs with minimal interference as long as taxes were met (which did not generally include providing people for sacrifice: Sacrifices were obtained as captives taken during conquests against enemy states or when reconquering ones who had seceded, not generally taken from existing, cooperative subjects).
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This hands off political system encouraged opportunistic secession, side switching, etc; since subjects both kept their own political identity and interests, and the ability to act independently. Border provinces not invested in the empire would often secede after the deaths of emperors and have to be reconquered, meanwhile, core states within the Valley of Mexico actually benefitted from Mexica power and success due to their close political marriages with it's royal line and the tax influx it brought into the Valley... but that hinged on Tenochtitlan continuing to be in a position of influence, since it didn't actually directly manage most of it's subjects to keep them in line. After Moctezuma II's death, the massacre of most of the city's nobility by Alvarado during the Toxcatl religious festival, and smallpox breaking out in the city, it was crippled and could no longer project influence, and it is only at THIS point which many core states switch sides to Cortes and Tlaxcala to opportunistically take it out to try to gain status in the new empire they'd be propping up.
The truth is, this is a very, very common method of political advancement, both in Aztec history and in Mesoamerican history as a whole since these hands off hegemonic political systems were pretty common (likely since the lack of draft animals and difficult terrain limited direct long distance administration): The Aztec Empire was actually founded in almost identical circumstances to how it fell: Azcapotzalco had a succession dispute which destabilized it's influence and it's subject, Tenochtitlan, overthrew it, with Texcoco and Tlacopan allying with Tenochtitlan to piggyback off it's success and be in a high position in the resulting Aztec Empire. Similarly, even after the Aztec Empire collapsed and (mostly, some states continued to assert independence, or as mentioned, were initially given it in the same way the Aztec had during the early decades of Spanish colonialism) ceded to Spanish rule following the Siege of Tenochtitlan, other states which had nothing to do with the Aztec continued to use the Conquistadors against their local rivals and capitals, like the Zapotec kingdom of Tehuantepec allying them them to take out the Mixtec kingdom of Tututepec, or the Iximche Maya states worked with Conquistadors to defeat the Kiche, etc.
So, while the Aztec were definitely a conquering military power, Cortes getting allies against it has less to do with it being resented and hated or oppressive and more to do with it's political system being hands off with many internal political factions acting in self interest as a result. In fact, in many cases, Cortes was less the one calling the shots and was being manipulated by local kings and officials: For example, while he was in Cempoala, the capital of one of 3 major kingdoms in the Totonac civilization, it claimed Tzinpantzinco, a rival Totonac capital, was an Aztec fort and got Cortes to help them attack it. The Totonacs then led Cortes into Tlaxcalteca territory, which they had hostilities with, (either to get rid of them, or according to some accounts, under orders by Moctezuma to pit them against Tlaxcala) which then eventually resulted in the alliance between Tlaxcala and Cortes, and en route to Tenochtitlan, the Tlaxcalteca may have used the Conquistadors to sack Cholula (which was previously allied with Tlaxcala but switched sides to being an Aztec ally) and then put up a Tlaxcalteca friendly regime in the city in the aftermath. There's other examples, I could post, too, but people definitely should be talking about Xicomecoatl of Cempoala, Xicotencatl of Tlaxcala, Ixtlixochtli II of Texcoco, etc more as major figures actively deciding how things went when talking about the fall of the Aztec. And even in the decades after the fall of the Aztec, Mesoamerican kings and states continued to be the ones doing most of the campaigns for the Spanish against other states in Mesoamerica, against the tribes and chiefdoms up in Northern Mexico and the SW US, and even down against the Inca and across the Ocean in the Philippines to an extent.
In conclusion: the colonization of Mesoamerica was absolutely not just "Evil Spanish vs good natives", but it was also not "Cortes liberating oppressed Aztec subjects against the evil Mexica". It was a bunch of different political states and factions on BOTH the Spanish and Mesoamerican side all manipulating and playing one another so they could benefit politically: Moctezuma II wanted to court the conquistadors into becoming an Aztec subject or ally, Cortes wanted glory and wealth both for his own benefit and to try to get out of his legal troubles, Diego Velazquez wanted to be the one to win riches for the crown instead of Cortes, Ixtlixochtli II of Texcoco wanted to win the throne in Texcoco after he lost a previous succession dispute and allied with Cortes to do that, and even Tlaxcala, despite ostensibly fighting for their independence, still tried to project it's own political influence over other cities as it travelled with Conquistadors.
which average citizen would have it better during both Aztec and incan empires peaks?
Wow you're extremely knowledgeable. I learned a few things from your comment. I have a question for you if you don't mind. On Google images you get alot of variable geography on what is defined as "mesoamerica" and in your comment you say it starts roughly half way down mexico. You seem to agree more with the more generous definition of mesoamerica extending into nayarit and further north to sinaloa. Can you recommend any literature on this topic?I want to know more precisely where it ends. I want to know how intense the corn agriculture was on the pacific coast or if nayarit and southern sinaloa were just chichimecas lol. Because to me on most maps the aztec empire and mesoamerica seems more Atlantic biased and more densely settled near the gulf coast, which to me would be quite queer if they didn't colonize that whole latitude west a la Jared Diamond, but i don't know if thats a misconception. Do you have any conjectures on this? Maybe it had to do with la niña lol?
Tldr: why wasn't there a major kingdom in nayarit? you would think there would be one looking at a koppen climate map. Is that region north of that "bend" in mexico really mesoamerican?
Absolutely goated comment
This guy wrote a full bachelor thesis as a coment
Having a Nigerian father from a long line if slave traders I always knew that in order for the Europeans to be able to get slaves, they needed wholesalers and that all the pearl clutching about the Atlantic slave trade being uniquely European was bs.
You have to remeber our form of slavery was closer to serfdom
And not the abhorrent practace seen in the new world so the two cannot be wholly compared. If Africans knew how Europeans were treating the slaves they sold to them they wouldn’t have ever sold anybody to Europeans, Africans naively belived Europeans would have the same respct for human life as the Africans just seeing slaves as a lower class group instead of literal chattel
@@makeytgreatagain6256 do you honestly think that those African kings gave a single fuck about the people they sold? You got to be delusional. There was literally a king called Slave King, because he sold his people en masse to Europeans and Arabs so don't start with that bs about compassionate African kings. If I were African, I would be ashamed of them
Africans sold another africans to others civilizations aside from Europeans, and they continued selling people much later too.
You are another, European bad, Africa good. The naive one is you.
People oppress other people when they have the power. It's human nature.
@@makeytgreatagain6256 Lol do you honestly believe that the African slavers gave two shits about what happened to the people they were selling?
@@thunderstrucktb4758 well not particularly but they certainly assumed the “slavery” being practiced was at worst the Roman based form, when some African kingdoms found out about the horrors of what was going on to those they sold they did attempt to stop the trade but by this point it had gotten out of hand and the Europeans would side with bandits and mercenaries to keep these groups on the back turner so they had to continue to sell slaves for guns to defend themselves. A sad situation, damned if you do damned if you don’t.
The concept of chattel slavery was foreign to Africans and something they couldn’t even fathom that’s why many today still moan about the event, I know as a white person this is a point of contention but it’s not slavery why blacks are upset about the event it’s the FORM OF SLAVERY that was unique in its barbarity that upsets people today.
I'm reading a book on German Colonialism in Africa and it's incredible the fluctuation and treatment the locals received depending on the region. For example, the Ewe tribe of Togo was treated pretty well, as long as the Arab nobility in Zanzibar. However, compare that to the genocide of the Hereo or Nama people in Namibia. Also many Africans in the colonial army were extremely loyal to the German rulers, as was seen that really none of the tribes revolted during WW1 when German rule was being toppled.
Even though my ancestors were from Spain and I'm in America now and am suspicious of the Germans, they still are one of the most powerful country in Europe.
And I admire that
P.S: The Roman Empire and WW2
@@adrianafamilymember6427 nah we're pathetic as hell at least rn. We have good specs but our politics and partially also constitution are pretty whack
I think some European colonisers were better than others. I also think that we don’t really realise how much of colonialism was a result of European competition amongst each other. There really isn’t any such thing as “the west” until the end of ww1 or you could even argue ww2. Before then it was just the Christian world. The “enemies“ of the west don’t realise how divided the west has actually been historically and that it is possibly only by being exposed to the world outside of Europe that Europeans realised how similar they actually are
The Germans were according to Africans themselves way better than the French colonizers
Yea I agree and that goes for any country and enthnicity. India China Russia and other eastern countries always had clan wars and feuds amongs one another for power and dominance. It’s only when an outside force or venturing outside their own boundaries they realized how similar their people were. But the future is about raising human consciousness. I don’t care what ethnicities i was and will be born to, humans shouldn’t be classified by their race and ethnicity becuase that’s just a limitation. Nature doesn’t care whether your male or female who’s black Mexican Indian African Chinese ect. That’s what humans should emulate.
The role of the United States in de-colonialism is an interesting one. From the foundation of the United States through the end of wide scale European colonialism in the 60s and 70s, there has been a strong streak of anti-colonial sentiment among the American political elite. The Americans destroyed the last remnants of the Spanish empire during the Spanish-American War, Wilson fought for national self-determination at Versailles, and FDR was vehemently against Churchill's attempts to restore the British Empire to it's former glory after WWII. One could argue that the Americans were Enlightened or more moral than the Europeans in this regard, but this is hardly the case. As a rising industrial and commercial power, what the US wanted most of all was unfettered commercial access to the entire world without having to deal with European middlemen.
It would be wrong to claim that the US was motivated solely by altruism, but it's still true that the US is a former colony, and ending colonialism is concordant with its democratic principles.
I believe that wanting unfettered commerce does make them more moral than the Europeans
The US didn't benefit from traditional colonialism but rather economic colonialism. Instead of conquering a country, the US uses predatory loans or grants with restrictions. it's meant to starve a country and its people if they don't obey
Regardless of the intention (which they have good one for morals in part), you can't deny the US played major role on decolonization and freeing many colonies from European control.
TO be fair, the U.S mainly did it to control commerce and just to make claims in certain areas
Ahhh colonialism. The word tankies use, but don’t understand.
It’s ironic because tankies ignore how Russia became the size it is, through colonisation of neighbouring peoples and land. They just don’t care because it happened to other Europeans and eurasians
westerner on copium. A classic one
"It's ok when we do it"... m@rxist when Russian tanks roll over Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Chechnya, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Syria and Afghanistan
@@I_hu85ghjoGo back to sacrificing people for the gods
what is tankies?
Colonialism is always portrayed as unrelenting brutality but another aspect of colonialism that still bears an even greater impact today is the manipulation of borders and ethnic groups, whether on purpose or by sheer incompetence. Countries were created that should’ve never existed. Millions have died since due to poorly drawn lines on a map.
They are working just as intended: dividing the African people, splitting up Ethnic groups, and forcing Africans to use colonizer languages to unite their country.
Meh....
Belgium is an artificial construct of 2 main ethnicities.
Switzerland is an artificial construct where 4 languages are spoken.
The frontier argument is a very convenient excuse. An excuse to deflect from the fact that some people are a holes there.
With how complex the ethnic and religious make-up of Africa and the Middle East are, there's no clean way those borders could've been made. There still would've been foreign and civil wars and horrible dictators no matter what
@@MN-vz8qm
Equating the division of Belgium to say the Sykes-Picot lines, is ignorance of the most delicious flavour
Canada is just like most of African nation but it just works haven't you asked why it does ??
Damn, you delivered again. Love all of your vids but the quality got crazy good in the last year.
I have a communist friend who criticizes Western leaders for being oppressive and imperialists, yet he's utterly silent about the fact that Stalin and Mao committed war crimes and famines.
Par for the course
Somehow England taking South Africa was colonialism, but China conquering Tibet was not. The left has about as much consistency as a random number generator.
Same goes the other way😂
It's such a pity that more communists can't just be... y'know, sane? I love me some communism as much as the next guy, but the way to win hearts and minds isn't stanning brutalist, genocidal dictators; it's by showing people, hey, if we work together, things are nice sometimes. It's just a sad state of affairs.
@@heychrisfoxI considered myself communistic when I was young, I was turned off of it in regards to a lot of communists anti European bigotry and intolerance and as a White man I was not going to side with people who hated me.
It's worth contrasting the character of British colonialism, where a tradition of Primogeniture drove younger sons to start a new life abroad, with Spanish colonialism, where there was not a strong tradition of Primogeniture, so it was done by people wishing to make a large fortune in a short time, and then return to the mother country.
The British model fostered more stable, peaceful and productive ling-term societies.
The British were much more mercantile and looking for a profit. Whereas the Spanish considered American territories a part of Spain itself, and had a much more permanent, centralized administration
The second son problem also drove many of the abuses
@@mint8648 the viceroyalities (not colonies, that's anglo speak) voted on the Cadiz constitution.
Never in history would a colony get to dictate the constitution of the motherland unless said colony was part of the main administration
average post british colony country vs average post everyone else colony country
@@thatonejoey1847 Yes I did imply that
As a descendant of colonialism, this will be most interesting to watch, thank you
Whether colonialism is ultimately good or bad is less important than having an honest discussion about it. Too many people just present the issue in a one-sided, completely dishonest manner where they ignore all the benefits that colonialism provided to the nations. Not to mention making it into a racial issue and ignoring all the facts that don't conform to their psychological needs.
It boggles the mind how quickly white Europe went soft. Africa could have been as white as Tasmania or Maine in 1980, and the Indian subcontinent and SE Asia could have been raped for generations until they were no more non-white than Argentinians or Chileans. Europe could have won the whole fucking game and pussiеd out. All women everywhere could have reached that end-stage where the only uglies are the ones who are nearing menopause - where every 17-36yo woman is gorgeous because they've been bred for it. It would be like living in a garden full of fruit that never bruises. Now even white women are overweight tattooed trash - even in their early 20s.
One can appreciate that colonialism introduced some good things to the colonized while also understanding that it wasn't undertaken to provide benefits for those being colonized. Colonialism is only done for the benefit of the colonial powers. Any good done by it for those who are the subjects of imperial expansion is a side effect the imperial powers could not care less about except as a justification for exploiting the people and the resources of the colonies. That's just the reality of the purpose of colonization. It isn't a debatable point. It's a fact regardless of what colonial period or empire is being examined.
@@oleeb How do you know all that? Where's the proof that that's the case?
@@oleebwell said. Kinda weird to see so many “philosophical” people in these comments talking about how profound it is to talk about “benefits of colonialism” like it’s important rhetoric that is lacking in the conversation.
It was a racial issue come the 1900s
Honestly its good to ask questions about events like this rather than just saying "it good" or "it bad". We should know why evils occurred.
the last line of the video states that that "good or bad" is a useless comparison. we all agree.
Completely agree, if you distance yourself from horrific events in history by taking the moral high ground you'd be ignorant to the path that led towards these events and wouldn't recognize it until its too late. And then the question is if you want to recognize it or refuse the reality which would make you no better than those which you've despised and claimed moral superiority over. Its the same when people say they definitely wouldn't have been Nazis if born in Germany during WW2 like those people weren't all that different from us. I think it was Carl Jung that talks about incorporating your shadow as a realization of the evil regular people are capable of. How could one prevent such evil from manifesting without recognizing it first?
I always loved the fact that about 400 Conquistadors supposedly toppled a Inca Empire with millions of people alone....
They always leave out the hundreds of thousands of other South American tribes who hated the Incas who happily followed the Spanish into war against the Incas.
The native South Americans are literally never left out. Every single historian I’ve ever watched who has talked about the conquistadors expansion into South America never leaves out the mountains of natives who helped them. You’re stretching.
Germs too, like they're really sad that the Conquistadors and their native allies always get all the credit, while they did all the hard work and never get any acknowledgment. They're plotting their revenge on the world as we speak 😁.
@@twentysecondcenturywoman It took a dive into the deeper and "controversial" history channels for me to find out that tidbit. He isn't stretching.
@@twentysecondcenturywoman I think he's referring to what's taught in high school, where the involvement of indigenous peoples to the toppling of these empires is barely mentioned.
I love the fact that you think thats impossible when Europeans are the only people on Earth who caused the industrial revolution and could spend people to space. Gee, how could they outcompete against a civilization that existed around the same time Oxford university opened up.
I always find it funny how people pretend like colonialism was any different than any other act of conquest in human history.
Or decide arbitrarily that it started in 1492, ignoring all the colonialism that happened since the Akkadians conquered the Sumerians, or more recently the conquest of Tibet by China (which somehow doesn't qualify as colonialism by the left).
Because of Marxist propaganda.
It was, whoever conquered India, settled their kingdom in India, the riches they earned and battles they fought were for their kingdom of India, the British took all the riched all the manpower to build the streets of lindon
@@stripyrex_gaming British took riches and manpower to build London??? What are you smoking? Hardly any manpower went to the UK from India during Empire. And the British lost money on India. Earlier Indian Empires were tinier than the British Empire, which was largest in human history. The British Empire made India a part of it's larger Empire, while earlier Empires were more or less limited to the Indian subcontinent.
@@joshuarichardson6529 Hell, they even disregard the brutal Turkish incursions into Anatolia and the Balkans, the brutal Arab incursions into Iberia (which only ended in 1492), and the slaving of countless European people by barbaric Arab states.
What happened to your latest video? I was hath way watching, did youtube take it down or was there a mistake you wanted to fix
Dude, I don’t know what happened, but I missed your uploads for the last like 5 months and I come back to this video. Your production level has gone through the roof. Way to go my man.
he's not randomly cutting out and splicing recordings in half anymore he really is getting better
"If the misery of the poor be caused not by the laws of nature, but by our institutions, great is our sin." - Charles Darwin
It’s so sad people accuse him of being a social Darwinist, “ironically” even though he was the opposite
I don't know man, As a Nigerian (a country colonized by the British), I think I would have preferred it if Nigeria didn't exist. The British forced a bunch of tribes that were at best neutral to each other but at worst actively hostile into on Country. Which can explain why Nigeria as a country has been in decline since its creation.
I would have preferred it if the individual tribes had a chance to establish themselves as Nations, they would have more cohesion internally and would have had the choice to cooperate with other tribes (now nations) rather than being forced to cooperate with peoples that were in some cases actively invading them.
And as for the technological advancements / medicine / etc. I would rather we just traded for that at a fair price like literally every other nation. They wanted our resources, we would have gladly exchanged it for those things mentioned above.
WhatifAlthist, will talk about the low death tolls and the abolishment of slavery. Which I agree is a pro(everything has pros and cons).
But in exchange for colonialism, we have a dysfunctional state that is built for resource extraction. And a people that have no investment in their country and vice versa.
That is the real tragedy of colonialism. I believe the generational effects of this far out weight any pros of colonization.
Don't forget what happened when the Igbo said that they preferred to leave Nigeria (the Republic of Biafra) after the Hausa and the Yoruba started to bicker with each other. It was one of the largest human rights violations in Nigerian history.
indonesia and philipines also has a lot of "tribes". yet theyre peaceful and united.
The problem is that populations without education in that way often never learn how to actually use the technologies or use them properly themselves.
Separately, why do you think Nigeria has been in decline when it's been pretty consistently growing?
I hear this _"insert_ _empire_ _here_ forced a bunch of tribes who hate each other together, ergo literally every fight between them is _insert_ _empire_ _here's_ fault" argument all the time (and be honest, that's the thrust of your first two paragraphs), which never ceases to amaze me considering how stupid, bordering on insane, it's predicates are.
Firstly, you were murdering each other en masse long before _insert_ _empire_ _here_ came along and drew the border of _insert_ _colony_ _here,_ and will be murdering each other en masse long after _insert_ _empire_ _here_ has not only left _insert_ _former_ _colony_ _here,_ but also said empire no longer exists. So many examples of this, just in the last century, can be given that I can only assume willful blindness on your part.
Secondly, each tribe within _insert_ _former_ _colony_ _here_ has had the best part of a century to secede from the country, or even for the government to give _region_ _within_ _insert_ _former_ _colony_ _here_ to tribe A, _region_ _within_ _insert_ _former_ _colony_ _here_ to tribe B, etc. Instead, you fight absolutely tooth and nail to protect the "territorial integrity" of _insert_ _former_ _colony_ _here_ - why would you do this if you hate it so much?
I could go on for days, but I won't - because if you were being intellectually honest, your textwall could be reduced to _"insert_ _empire_ _here_ bad".
As an Anglo in Canada, I can have a certain amount of sympathy for parts of what that guy said. We have a situation where this artificial conglomerate called Canada has some serious inbuilt problems.
In this context it is the problem of the Frenchies in Quebec being assholes that I don't like, while doing things that I want Anglos to be doing. They are the ancient enemy, but we act as if we must have this eternal "balance" (Frenchies getting their own way and running things) or some sacred thing called Canada fails. We failed when the right of conquest was not enforced to the max against them. They were beaten at war I was told, but see little evidence of that.@@throwaway6478
One thing most people don't take into consideration is that European colonialism really took off during the Little Ice Age, which pushed them south. Then, the Industrial Revolution began at the end of the Little Ice Age.
I really don’t think that the Europeans gave up their colonies peacefully. Algeria, Malaya, Kenya, Mozambique, Angola, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Indonesia, Madagascar, Guinea Bissau, etc, are all examples of countries who had to fight wars for their independence. This doesn’t even count countries like India/Pakistan and the Philippines who had revolted many times before independence but were eventually granted sovereignty “peacefully”
Malaya the Brits won the war if they wanted to continue, they coud
Was just not worth the effort
To summarize colonialism could've continued till this day
Just got too expensive
@@IK_MK China has Tibet, Parts of Mongolia and Turkistan
Arabs have the Kurds and the list goes
And Europe definitely could do it, if they had will to.
To be fair France has found a way to keep some hold over their former colonies in Africa to this day.
Tbh Education and the supplementation of weapons to the people from outside forces like the soviet union or freed colonies were crucial.
My family is descended from the ruling class of Ireland that was killed off. I'm not sure how our line survived, but I know we aren't the only ones. Today we are dirt poor.
I have a diary written by my fourth great-grandfather about my fifth great-grandfather who arrived in Alabama the year before it became a state. He was a builder, and he was hired and built the first timber framed home in Selma where before everyone dwelled in log cabins. When he traveled southward to Mobile in a cart that the diary referred to as "old-fashioned" (which makes me assume that thing must have been practically medieval) he was shot at by Native Americans. Thankfully he was able to escape across a ravine.
But it begs the question, why should I feel guilty of "stealing" the land when it's inhabitants shot at an unarmed builder. If a man gunned down someone for crossing across or near his front yard without asking questions, that man would rightfully be jailed. How different would white/Native American relations would be if instead of shooting at my 5th great-grandfather, they instead chose to hire him? Therein lies the difference between the Japanese and most of the people who were colonized.
Nowadays, my best friend is Native American, possibly one of the decedents of the natives who shot at my 5th great-grandfather. His skin is pale enough from mixed white ancestry that he passes for white, which he uses to troll leftists on the internet. I freaking love that guy.
bro if your whole people get r*ped and murdered by some people they are gonna go shoot on sight.
and "hire" wasnt a part of the native american life back then. Two societies of different ideas clashing.
The native americans did try and cooperate, thats how most first contacts went after all. "Lets make a treaty! Lets trade! Come over for dinner! Woah you got cool furs! :D"
How did that work out huh?
its a damned if you do damned if you dont sort of thing eh. you cant blame the genocide of native americans on them not being "friendly" enough to your ancestors mate. thats fked.
You shouldn't feel guilty for stealing anything, as you've only inherited what was stolen. Your fifth great grandfather shouldn't feel guilty either; he would not have had the info necessary to think through the morality of settling in colonial Alabama, nor would I expect he was in a position to be very choosy with his opportunities. Plus, he wasn't actively stealing anything- others did, and he worked under them. You seem to be condemning the Natives Americans, though, to the same extent as someone murdering a random trespasser. The contexts are very different. I think a better comparison would be shooting the 100th person to cross your lawn after half of the first 99 tried digging up your lawn, shooting at you when you stopped them from digging up your lawn, and had already dug up all your neighbors' lawns. That's not to say your fifth great grandfather would've metaphorically dug up their lawn- he's no Andrew Jackson, he's just a house builder. He might buy some of that grass, though, and that sure does incentivize the people stealing lawns. Whether Native Americans shot at active colonizers or others who settled on already-colonized lands, they discouraged foreign, unwanted settlement on their homelands. I don't blame them for shooting at your fifth great grandfather, though I'm glad he made it out of there safely. Why would they ever want to hire him? His government was already pushing them out. Just over a decade later, they *were* pushed out with the Indian Removal Act- I bet he lived to see it. Hiring settlers would only further incentivize such ethnic cleansing/forced displacement, and they knew that.
I don't think guilt is the right word here. You, your fifth great grandfather, and most other small time Americans played no active role in conquering Native Americans. We should feel sympathy, though. Same way we should feel sympathy for any victim of a crime against humanity. Yes, they hurt arguably innocent people in resisting colonization, and I don't think that's a good thing either, but they were doing all they could to save themselves. After dealing with as much conflict as they had, I think it's reasonable to shoot on sight- settlers knew what they were getting into. Those who actively stole land- those who sent or were members of the armies that enforced the Trail of Tears, and similar removals/conquests- are the ones that should feel guilt for what they've done. Those who perpetuate these things- not just bystanders, but active, continued enforcers- should also feel guilty. I believe our government owes reparations to the tribes it conquered, both monetary and in the form of land back. It has avoided doing so at every turn possible, and went back on the few promises it has made as soon as it had a reason to. That's not right. That's why white/Native American relations are as they are today. If Native Americans were able to stay in their homelands and keep to themselves, not being conquered by a foreign power, I think they'd be far more amicable. Many would still like to do that- I urge you to support them in this. Don't bother feeling guilt: just do what's right.
@@Malachite7 Fair fair. When you're demonized it's easy to jump to the opposite position throwing out the baby with the bath water. As of late I'd tended to bristle a bit due being on a campus that's very liberal. I agree the US government has really done the Native population dirty, and I'm all for any good policy that would improve their well-being and thriving of their culture. What would enrich them in the long run would enrich us all.
@@Malachite7 What morality? Superior people should take what they want from inferior people.
@@MaitlandJones You seemed like a reasonable person with a bit of a negative bias- I'm really glad we can agree, and I do understand where you're coming from. Some left-leaning people have the right spirit, but not all the facts or nuance: I think the social issues leftists gravitate towards require these things amply for us not to fall into a bunch of half-correct bickering. Our current power structures descend from those of European colonists, so most groups that face some form of oppression are any out-groups from that. If any campus leftists say something to you that seems absurd, it's ok not to agree with them, but I encourage you to ask other, more discussion oriented leftists for their opinions on the topic. I find a lot of leftists make fair points that they heard from others, but can't back or explain them very well, so this could help you reach common ground more often if you have the energy and open-mindedness for it. Aside from genuine extremism (not even socialism- but absolutely tankies), I think left and right wing people share a lot of the same goals- they just have different focuses on hurdles to those goals, and believe different solutions would serve better because of this.
As a nature video lover, your point on warfare is 100% spot on. In the plains of the Serengeti, there is constant warfare waged all through nature. Nomadic male lions roam for new territories and try to usurp the current pride King, hyena clans battle against one another and others against lions, and even the peaceful herbivores will fight amongst one another over territory and water. Warfare is normal and peace is not, that's just how this Universe works. The creator of this world is probably a sadistic being who feeds off on suffering, like the Gnostic version of Demiurge.
I have no idea why people , or at least a significant majority hate the natives for siding with Europeans. Saying natives should save their own race is like telling Russia and Ukraine to stop fighting bc they are both whites and should team up against Chinese or st. To a rivaling nation, race barely matters especially ones as diverse as natives are. As a Thai who was never colonized we do have records of how positively the state view the Portuguese empire since they help us fight Burmese, no one cares that both are south East Asian (also not actually that close genetically but natives are also diverse).
Will you make anotehr geopolitics prediction video or videos on Sahel civilization ? The geopolitics side of this channel and the worlds report in general seems surprisingly quite apart from the Niger coup and I wonder what is happening. Also as a Thai who never got colonized and our neighbors did, this will be an interesting video.
It's complicated. There's a bit of anachronism, wherein people take their current thoughts about race and culture, and interpolate them onto past cultures. For native Africans, it was super obvious to do what they did with colonizers; in modern sensibilities, it's unspeakable. But those modern sensibilities are the problem; they remove the cultural reality for the people at the time.
Does that make what those people of the time did good? No, obviously not. But again, that's an anachronism. In our modern day, we envision that nation-states should be "good" and "just," but that's an extremely recent phenomena, as recent as the 1950s-1960s. The idea for any sort of nation to have the sort of loyalty we share today is just thinking incorrectly.
@@heychrisfox well, yes, but also I don’t mean in the sense of just vs unjust. You can make an argument that the war in Ukraine is unjust bc it’s attacking a foreign nation. However, saying it’s unjust bc it’s “whites fighting their own race” is just stupid. Same thing with native Africans and Americans. Yes it’s horrifying to see them torture colonizers and for colonizers to genocide them or enslave them, but the race of the people involved doesn’t really change the morality and only make sense in the lense of racism itself, in the form of trans racial identity, and race as in a truly huge collection of people.
When I bring up the example on the Thai-Burmese-Portuguese war, I don’t mean that the war is moral. However, I’m saying that Thais siding with the Portuguese against burmese is no more evil than Thais siding with burmese agaisnt portugese. People just act like races have this contract that one betray by siding with a foreign invader, when there is no difference between two non ally nations regardless of races.
“By the standards of individuals, nations always act like sociopaths.”
Only on the internet would you see a statement like "shoutout to the Chinese, Jews and Persians who also ended slavery." It has to be the stupidest way to say something so brilliant and important. That right there is why I love the internet.
Timestamp?
37:20@@mint8648
The Jews didn't end slavery, they were the entire driving force behind it. Almost all the slave ships used in the trans-Atlantic slave trade were Jew-owned, as were most of the plantations in Brazil, the US, and many in Surinam.
Why did you delete the Russia video? I was in the middle of watching it and it got privated
This Is your best video so far. Speaking as someone whose watched every single one. Admire you're work so much. Here's to many more fair takes! 🥂
Thank you for the video. And the conclusion that it's nuanced. Not many people ask the questions of compared to what. Comparing the pasts morals to today's is standing on the necks of the vary people who changed the morals to what they are today and saying they were irredeemable for not measuring up to hundreds of years of moral evaluation. Hell in the future the pro life justices might be lambasted for not outright banning abortion or the pro gay marriage justices might be lambasted for not dissolving the institution of marriage completely. We are tomorrows barbarian and we need to stop the self hatred and move forward.
It is very refreshing learning about this topic in a tone that isn’t hysterically admonitory.
That's a good phrase. I hope I remember it (I won't)
And this video proved to be the dumbest and most wrong analysis of colonization I’ve ever seen. Almost like exclusively reading shit from before 1970, and only white authors doesn’t give you the best representation of the world
Watch “how British unmade india” which tells you exactly how the British colonial economy worked and why india in 1700 was richer, more urbanized and more industrialized than it was in 1947
There’s a few things i’d add.
The British.
1. They ended slavery because they lost America as a colony and their pseudo slaves in India had to compete with real slaves in america now for cotton production. The british didnt end slavery out of good will.
2. The british didnt end colonialism out of good will. They were forced by the americans and soviets. (Like the suez canal)
3. The british didn’t give india to gandhi out of their goodwill. Gandhi made colonialism so impractical and unprofitable that it forced the british to let go of india, again economic.
His claim: Colonialism didnt make the europeans wealthy.
Its smart to analyze the effects of colonialism as separate countries interacted with it.
1. The Spanish and Portuguese brought huge amounts of gold back causing a massive inflation issue. The spanish spent this money on their armada which was ultimately defeated by the british. They did however build insane influence in the holy roman empire system through their colonization.
2. Belgium - built massive wealthy projects at home with their congo money.
3. The british - benefited the most from mercantilism because of cotton production. Cotton would be brought back from the americas and india to be processed in england. This led to england industrializing better than any other country. It also led to the de-industrialization of specifically india. The british plundered the indian wealth and made india focus on raw materials vastly cutting the overall wealth of india for 2 centuries. The spanish and portuguese did not overall benefit as much from colonialism since they did not deal in cotton.
Yes, the west benefited enormously from colonialism.
Nasty cynical modernism.
@@laststand6420 im not sure your point, but debate me if you have one.
@@caleblee1780 He can't because it's hard to debate TRUTH! This whole video while having some truth in it, comes from a point of view of being an apologist of European colonialism and European world domination. I find it appalling to contrast the genocidal numbers of European conquest versus Muslim as if to say, "see, it wasn't as bad as...." when any and all genocide is bad.
@@caleblee1780 You automatically assume the worst motive... While I think it safe to say people usually act in a self interested manner, it is cynical to dismiss clearly good things people did as "oh they just did it for themselves".
@@laststand6420 there were some good motived people who helped to end global slavery for instance, Quakers and certain anglicans in england.
It can be harmful to assume the best intentions of an empire though who used and abused half the world for profit for centuries. Its just common sense to recognize england as the predator and colonies as the prey, and its very important the prey recognizes who the predator in the room is so that they can best write their own history and protect themselves.
Everyone should always just follow the money trail.
While I don’t agree with everything you lay out, it’s terrifying to think so many people believe the world is so black and white. Great video. They should show this in schools and get kids thinking more deeply about the history they are taught.
Right! Nobody can avoid making mistakes in their speech or being ignorant of a detail that would've changed their argument. Everyone does it!
The important thing is that we don't get emotionally attached to our ideas, and we're willing to chalk our mistaken ideas up to, "I just didn't know that at the time" instead of "tHaT pErSoN iS aTtAcKiNg Me...!"
I like this channel not because WhatifAlthist is an all-knowing teacher that I must learn from, because this is a space where we can ask hard questions and not be blasted out of society.
@@hebercluff1665 yeah but WhatifAlthist is famous for exactly NOT learning from the stuff he says.
I loved him but the one time he talked about stuff I actually had extensive knowledge about I had to double check my sources because I was so shocked he got it so wrong...
youtube is full of people pointing out errors but he doesn't care. And not acknowledging mistakes is even worse than making them.
@@underarmbowlingincidentof1981 I do believe you're right about that. I do spot innaccuracies in his videos all the time.
I don't know about other people, but I don't come to this channel because I particularly admire the content creator. (No matter how much he might hate to admit it, WhatifAlthist is more of a philosopher than a historian). I come here because his comment sections are usually filled with a higher average of people who are willing to ask hard questions without trying to emotionally destroy everyone who disagrees with them.
I personally love talking about history, politics, philosophy, and science. However, I've made the mistake of talking about these things to the wrong people before (a few relatives). It's just exhausting and not fun to talk to people who get pissed at you for disagreeing with them or asking them a taboo question.
Comment sections like this are places I'm much more likely to find a happy and fulfilling conversation. WhatifAlthist also tends to ask questions you can't ask in polite society. Even when his conclusions are seriously wrong, the people in the comment sections will point it out, and that'll spark interesting conversations.
My father told me that because the resistance in Yemen used a small castle of his father as a fortification, and the British couldn't take it. the airplane came the next day and threw leaflets saying "We will air bomb the castle tomorrow at time so and so remove all women and children from the castle" People thought that was strange and admirable.
That’s very cool.
Sees title. Gets popcorn.
This is gonna be good.
Even with Portuguese colonialism, you have a lot of documented native people of those colonies saying they had something while the Portuguese were, and all they have post independence is complete misery. There also opinions divide but you just need to see who's profiting from their narrative. Anyway we're just talking about a relatively modern "colonization" concept, I believe it used to be somewhat different and called of "conquest" as the creator points out. Awesome research and presentation.
So did select tribes in the New Spain who submitted to vasselization to the Spanish crown being awarded with privileges and the chances to gain power in the colony only to lost it post revolution.
If that was true they would go fight against the portuguese people
@@AfricanMaverick why do you think tribes got special privileges? Native rivalries end the moment one allies with the newcomers and crush their rivals.
So, rich people complaining that the exploitation stopped? Pity
There is very much a distinction between conquest and colonization
It's also important to look at it from a historical perspective and compare it to earlier eras. In all eras before that, conquest and colonization was much more brutal, they just killed all the men, raped the women, and enslaved the children. Compared with that, Western colonialism was the least brutal across the entire human history, most of it was not even done by direct military power, but through diplomatic and economic means. Also, when the Mongols, the Ottomans, etc. went on conquests, they exploited the conquered lands without investing in them, compare it to the 19th and early 20th century where the European powers built roads, railroads, schools, hospitals. Of course there were plenty of unjust things too, but let's not forget that in all previous historical eras, conquest and colonization brought only devastation, while the Western one raised the standard of living and the life expectancy significantly.
It helps that European colonialism started with a Christian desire to spread the Gospel and Church. Once European colonialism became driven by economic concerns, it got more brutal and the investments and settlements became distant thoughts.
I think the key factor that kept peace after wwii is the most rapid economic growth ever that it just doesn’t make sense to start a war. But after the economy and technology reaches a certain bottle neck, like we are right now, things will revert back to old ways.
Fantastic video. Didn’t agree with everything but well argued and great research. Kudos!
very good video! I think the most important part of it, and the thing we all must keep in mind, is that a large part of modern society - the majority even - judges the current day and the actions of our ancestors as compared to some never achieved and amorphous utopia instead of measuring it against REALITY. We must do more to overcome this historical illiteracy and living in a fantasy world.
In my area, most normies are flagellating themselves to make up for how the natives were treated by the colonists. Meanwhile, the natives were here for thousands of years before the colonists ever showed up and were warring with one another and committing atrocities the entire time. Torture, ritualistic sacrifice, forced procreation of kidnapped women, slavery, the whole kit. And if we gave these people their own country and sovereignty, they'd get up to the same malarkey that any other group of humans in a similar situation would.
So let’s measure it against reality: india has a higher gdp per capita, industrialization, living standard and urbanization in 1400-1750 than from 1750-1947. Since 1947, there hasn’t been a single famine. Before 1750, you could count famines on one hand. From 1750-1947, there was a major famine every decade.
@@zuesmaya8167Facts
I’ve been saying for years America needs to drop the facade, claim our right as the lone superpower and call ourselves what we are, an empire. The sooner we embrace it, the safer we’ll be, and the longevity of our nation and culture will be assured
As an American I 100% agree. We’re pretty much the sole hyperpower of the globe. We act like it and we aren’t a culture known for mincing our words. We should just step up and accept the role.
But part of that American power is NOT stepping on other people's (and country's) faces any more than we have to. Our strength is built up by a web of mutual alliances where we don't treat smaller countries as inferiors, but instead accept them as at least a voice at the table. It makes things difficult if not outright frustrating at times, and it isn't perfect, but I submit taking on some kind of neo-imperial pretensions that throws aside a commitment to democracy won't, for example, get us into space any faster, or bind together a Western Alliance that keeps dictators and would-be despots in check. We aren't Athens and the Delian League, nor the Roman Republic. We should profit by the lesson of their failures, not imitate their excesses.
Be the American the world thinks you are
The hilarious part is that we built the empire specifically because we hated empires... Only to find ourselves in the awkward position of being the only empire remaining. And now we can't just walk away without half the world exploding into conflicts we have kept back for decades.
It is wild to me as a history undergrad degree holder and political economy post-grad degree holder from the UK that people are out here defending colonialism - my opinions are also my own not indoctrinated from academia before anyone says. The notion that western colonialism was solely responsible for the modernisation, infrastructure building, democratisation of formerly independent developing countries is crazy to me. I wanna come at this from two angles. Firstly, there are plenty of successful countries that adopted the 'modernisation' process (I'd also push back against this western-centric narrative, that west is best and that there is only one monolithic development process that all should follow) without being colonised by western powers. Countries that resisted western imperialism like, Thailand, Japan, and though partially occupied, China's government was never deposed or its armies entirely defeated by western powers, all of these countries are modern nation states, with modern legal systems and institutions, public works and goods, healthcare and education, and, as is the case, in Japan, a representative democratic governance system. All of these nations resisted western colonialism throughout the centuries, and, as is the case with two of those listed countries, are some of the most wealthiest and successful nations on earth, able to not only rival western supremacy but perhaps even surpass it - as is the case with China.
The point being made here is that its therefore a fallacy to assume that countries that WERE colonised by western powers like India or parts of the levant and Africa, would never modernise under the auspices of global capitalism if not for colonialism. Western colonialism was however responsible for the industrialised and systematic wealth extraction, resource appropriation, oppression and exploitation of indigenous populations with unprecedented levels of cruelty undergirded by an embarrassing level of racism and white supremacy. Ultimately many colonialists knew what they were doing was wrong, they were, for the most part, Christians who believed in post-enlightenment ideals and doctrines such as in freedom and liberty grew up reading or educated by enlightenment scholarship like, immanuel Kant, Montesquieu, Rousseau, Locke, Hume and then waged a brutal tyranncial and oppressive campaign that utterly contradicted the foundations of their educations, western philosophy and state building. The only way liberal western imperialists were able to rationalise their empires was to denigrate the people they conquered and reduce them, in a darwinian sense, to something sub-human, almost like ape-like savages or barbarians in need of rescuing from themselves. The White Man's Burden" (1899), by Rudyard Kipling, perfectly encapsulates this contradictory notion, using phrases associated with liberty and freedom, meanwhile touting for the domination and subjugation of beings believed to be less than he. This is how the "white-mans burden" was born, nobody sees or wants to see themselves as the "bad-guy", even the Nazis didn't as they funnelled millions of innocent people to their deaths; the holocaust was born from the same contradictory philosophical ideals and psychology and by dehumanising people to rationalise and justify their violence and hatred. Orwells book Burmese Days, give a good albeit fictional account of this phenomena, the shame of preaching for enlightenment ideals at home, and waging or maintaining brutally authoritarian regimes abroad, and how many westeners hated the native populations, because they also hated themselves for what empire made them do. Hate, guilt and shame are very powerful and pervasive emotions that can, in the right contexts, be drivers of entire political systems and empires.
The second part of my argument is that where western colonialism did succeed that these infrastructure or institutions of government and governance did occur, were woefully in-adequate in terms of providing for or meeting the demands of, indigenous formerly occupied populations. Thats because they were not designed to do so, they were designed to facilitate wealth and resource extraction, or ferry soldiers or police to brutally put down native populace insurrections as was the case with the British Raj era railway networks. Many of the brutal ethnic conflicts of the last century, likely to get worse under US decline, are because of colonialists carving up countries based on resources rather than in consideration of ethnic lines. Many former colonies also lack that the kind of robust institutions, cultural, and governance frameworks to facilitate fair and proper political representation. The so-called benefits of colonialism have not, by and large, been shared and distributed equitably, but used and abused by elites to further their own socioeconomic standing at the expense of the many. Countries like Nigeria and Uganda are a case in point, huge wealth disparities and continued brutal ethnic conflicts. We are witnessing this occur in Niger currently, nearly all their issues hark back to French colonialism. The legacy of empire is still a lived reality for many in the global south, for every 1 dollar that enters 20 comes back to developed nations, and slavery is still alive and well in the African continent the British did not end slavery, it is well beyond their capabilities at the time to stop.
Westerners were only able to justify their oppression and tyranny through dehumanisation, racism and white supremacy, this only exacerbated the cruelty inflicted on native populations, whose share of the pie has only marginally increased over the centuries. These colonial eras were particularly evil and historically standout for their oppressiveness, because of the mixture of scientific and technological infused racism and tyranny, justifying their deeds and extending their means beyond anything that had come before. Madison Grants writings on eugenics in "The Passing of the Great Race" is a case in point in how awful and deranged these supposedly educated, respected and informed people were. This era was and still is a stain on human history and should be remembered as such. Before anyone asks you if colonialism was good or bad? remind yourself that the same ideals and psychological processes of the holocaust, humanities darkest hour, were of the same kind that undergirded the brutality of western empire building. Unlike the holocaust and the evil of the nazis which was disseminated and taught about far and wide, colonialism was hidden, many of the receipts or recorded acts of genocide, torture, oppression were covered up as part of Operation Legacy. Much of these debates on whether or not colonialism was good or bad are born from ignorance and have their roots in western coverups such as these. God only knows the true extent of the brutality committed by our ancestors in the name of empire.
Being colonized by the Romans and Normans greatly benefited Britain. Had it not happened, the British would have never had the tools to create a powerful empire.
Global capitalism is the direct result of Western colonialism. Colonialism made it possible to trade with people who would have never come into contact with Westerners otherwise. Capitalism was created by Westerners and didn't spring up around the world independently.
TL;DR homies sheesh but yes you are correct
My theory is that racism is the ultimate form of white guilt. They hope to escape the mental burden of their atrocities by arguing that the rest of the world is inferior and as an advanced super race must dominate and control the savages.
Yes, I couldn't say it better myself. The issue is though that I sort of DO understand because there is very much an underground racist and supremacist underbelly that has a pernicious influence as well through conservative 'think tanks', supposedly 'Libertarian' organisations and especially wealthy corporate capitalists and their influence trickles down and their ideas are reflected in this sort of apologism, ever since McCarthyism, the Nixon and Reagan admins in the US, etc.
In many ways what we have now is a type of Corporate Fascist system that as Orwell said masks itself.
As a HKer, British colonialism is the best thing that could ever happen to this rocky Chinese fishing village. And also the end of British rule effectively killed the city state.
Most don’t agree with u st6fu
I'm so sorry about your skin color, don't you wish you look like last your masters? oh and btw, the BNO program is still open, your masters are still looking for dishwashers, go where you belong.
As a Irish, British colonialism changed our civilisation, from one which could’ve been a world minor power, with great living standards, to a divided, slightly poorer, partly occupied Ireland, one which has a population that never recovered from the British genocide. They destroyed our language which was once rich and widespread, they destroyed our culture and traditions.
The only people we’ve been able to trust are other colonised people and communists, like Gaddafi’ Libya, Native Americans, USSR and the wider socialist bloc.
It was the worst thing to happen to us, and they never apologised.
@@tempejkl then stop moving to London ffs. There’s more Irish in London than in Dublin
@@donaldlee8249 Wow. I never thought you could be so dumb and ignorant of history. Have you ever thought why they might be in London? The Famine forced 3 million to emigrate. We produced enough food by ourselves, even after the potato blight, but the only food we were allowed were potatoes. They exported all our food away, the other countries were so horrified with this treatment that they tried to help, the Ottomans sent food, while being hunted down by british naval ships, and the native americans sent a relatively significant sum of money as aid.
If you look at an ethnic map of britain, you will notice that the port cities of Britain, like Liverpool and Glasgow, have significant Irish populations, as well as the USA with Boston. There are 30 million people with Irish ancestry worldwide, but only 7 million on Ireland itself, with 1 million of them being artificially planted British colonialists.
Also, i highly doubt there’s more than 1.3 million Irish people in London, thats 1/8 of the population of London. Looking at an religious map, catholicism doesn’t even show up near London.
Do you mean Irish ancestry? That would make more sense.
As a member of a former British Colony, that is Fiji, I can really agree that the British brought more benefits to my people than they did problems, they helped end cannibalism, brought Christianity and helped us develop as a society, honestly some people still look back in fondness to the British.
Theg did good but Fiji is still lowiyour head to country like Europe who will tell ho back where you came from sham on you
@@tobiasgriffin We might still be a third world country but we were the fastest growing economy in the south pacific before the Covid-19 pandemic, and I wasn't saying we are on the level of Europe but we are doing better thanks to their help and being part of the Commonwealth.
@madhatterzake3871 you still look up to the west who look down on you keep bowling down to your master
@@madhatterzake3871and what your thoughts about Indian cultivation worker brought by british to your country
@@runajain5773 You mean the Girmitiyas, they're great I have a number of Indo-Fijian friends who are descended from those laborers, they're very hardworking and kind people.
Honestly what they're ancestors had to go through was horrible but now they're an integral part of our nation's diverse population.
We even celebrate Diwali, itis a public holiday here, I love the sweets and my family and I would often go on drives or walks around the neighborhood to see the lights.
A very good video about a serious topic. Also would like to see an updated version of the What If Colonialism never ended video, mainly because its an interesting what if and well its kind of in the channel name for What if alternate History
It was inevitable that one group would get more powerful than the rest and try to take over. I can only hope we’ve now learned better and never repeat on such scale.
You just defined social darwinism
Depends, does the benefits outweigh the atrocities? Reminds me of the Monty Python Sketch "What have the Romans ever done for us?"
the answer doesn't have to be yes or no, you can acknowledge the good and bad in the same answer
@@Matt-uk7zqYeah, the nuance is lost when you boil it down to a generalised simplistic question.
A point I have a hard time verbalizing is, was the brutality necessary for the positives? Like it’s cool that human sacrifice was stopped in Mesoamerica but could that not have been accomplished with out the brutality of slavery?
@ataraxia7439 Probably not tbh since they needed the colonies to be profitable, and bringing a lot of labor was hard. Slaves were made out of conquered people who were usually very aggressive on contact (and later integrated), or from the African trade which was already ongoing and then later abolished.
And it could have only been abolished after first taking part.
The answer is yes.
It's pretty telling that I got a history degree without ever seeing the uncensored version of 0:28. They showed us that cartoon to teach us how evil colonialism was but the version they showed us was didn't have writing on the rocks above Britain...
As a Filipino, I think Spain colonizing us was better than us being scrambled by different nations and meddling tribes. Colonization in our country definitely outweighed the cons since the people in our islands stopped chopping each other's heads for nothing when the Spaniards came, we had laws (though limited but we had it), we had better agriculture, new cultures, better economy, and historical footprints the Spaniards had left us.
Based. Ppl living today are all better bc of colonization
@@nebwachamplol😂
I've enjoyed the nuanced takes throughout this video, and especially the part where we have the opportunity to understand the motivations behind colonialism. But in the end, just wanted to say, nope I still think colonialism is bad. I've noticed that one recurring theme that conservatives/nationalists (both in the West and in non-Western countries) like to resort to a sort of whataboutism when justifying colonialism by saying stuff like, but what about the Russians/Chinese/Arabs who also colonized other peoples? *But who has ever said that Russian/Chinese/Arab colonialism is not bad?* Not me at least. Colonialism is inherently bad in a pro-indigenous rights perspective because it is when a dominant culture and society replaces their local language and tradition and culture. And speaking of this, I feel like some colonialism apologists is creating a straw man argument when saying stuff like those woke people "deny that the Irish has experienced colonialism because they're white, and only non-white people can experience colonialism." Literally all indigenous rights advocates acknowledges that white/European people who've actually experienced colonialism, like the Irish, Welsh, or even the Eastern Europeans like the Ukrainians and the Baltic nations, have also suffered through historic oppression. So no, it's actually not about race and I don't think that white people are inherently colonizers, I think that European nations can also suffer from colonialism and yes, white people can also experience racism. But white people who engage in colonialism would be colonialists, just like people of any other race who engage in colonialism would also be colonialists.
I agree that all societies should progress and become more developed and modernized. But colonialism is not an excuse to that because it's when outside countries force local societies to do so, and it often leads to the destruction and extinction of the local society. A society's conservatism can also change an progress, but colonialism is permanent. In an ideal world in my opinion, would probably be where all countries and societies around the world would be like Japan where the local society deliberately chooses to modernize and industrialize, which in turn also preserves their native culture, language and tradition. Of course, the real world is more complicated than that. But I'm just saying, just because historically countries have been cruel to each other doesn't mean that I need to agree with what they did.
As he says in the video, you're asking to make the world the way you want it to be rather than the way it is. Human beings have fought over territory for millennia and they always will. All these attempts to shame Europeans are just a new tactic in the struggle for power
LOL the English have been colonised THREE TIMES - don't they get a place in the hierarchy of victimhood? ; )
Hey what happened to ur fall of Russia video I came back from work to do finish it and it’s gone
he realized it sucks from the comments
The problem with colonialism in India is that most people today in India don't even know the scale and extent of what the British did.
They just know the surface level bs that the politicians and nationalists keep parroting. Britain decimated Indian industrial capacity. They systematically extracted resources out of here while making it impossible for any homegrown industrial activity to take place. While historically the world has been a violent place, no other invader of India conquered it for exploitation on an industrial scale.
That being said, the fact that a handful of British folks were able to subjugate such a large population and control it so effectively tells you a lot about the mindset of the Indian people at the time. They would have rather distrust each other rather than band up and drive the British out.
I don't support the idea of holding countries accountable for their colonial past, but I do take issue when some Britishers still justify the atrocities by telling us they gave us the railways.
Though this is a pretty mature view on the situation, you are wrong with some things.
The colonies definitely made the European nations rich, much much richer. The amount of wealth that drifted into the continent is what has allowed it to still be so rich.
Not a handful; the British EIC troops numbered in the tens of thousands, as they recruited from the native population
@@mint8648 yeah, that’s what I meant. They found willing native soldiers.
The British did not deindustrialuse India but Industrialised India. The only industry which got hit was hand spinning and that would have happened anyways due to technological development in Britain. Hand weaving survived and later power looms technology came to British India from Britain. The Wadias, the Sarabais, the Birlas, the TATAs etc were Indians who became rich by opening mills in British India.
@@mudra5114 so the region contributed to 25% of the world’s gdp through just weaving is it? Like I said, most people are still clueless.
What happend to the fall of Russia video?
Great video. It shines light on the topic from a lot of different angles
Most people who complain about colonialism wouldn’t be in their country without colonialism.
True and Europeans only complain about it because now they are getting a bunch of refugee's from their former colonies.
...and? This is a weird argument (if even that).
Absolutely agree with this analysis, colonialism represents the eternal frontier of humanity headed by Europeans as a means to more philanthropic ends, and the understanding of the insanity of the "End of history" claim being ubsurd is also correct in that borders cannot freeze. Great video as always, if you can please check out "Archeofuturism" by Guillaume Faye, an extremely interesting piece of literature and give a review.
Stop being delusional mate.
That "eternal frontier headed by Europeans" was a brutal genocide and massacres unleashed upon ex colonies.
It was and will never be nice.
All the modern science and tech could have been imported, like Japan did, without getting colonized.
Nothing keeps me more busy than a Whatifalthis video on a controversial topic and afterward reading the comment section I love it. It's so entertaining.
Hi, left leaning guy who decided to give the other argument a chance, and I must say that this video contains many great arguments and has really made me think differently about the world. But one thing I would like to add is that just because harsh and violent action is the norm throught history, that doesn't mean it's right and it doesn't mean we should leave it that way.
Imo colonialism was uniquely exploitative, if not violent, compared to previous conquests
If you're thinking that from watching this guy, then you might need some self-reflection on your critical thinking skills. It's fun to watch him, but his arguments are full of blatant logical errors, and a lack of knowledge and understanding of history. At worse, it's thinly veiled racism.
@@davidmays8974 yeah I've realised that in the 6 months since watching this, thanks tho
@@scotandiamapping4549
Yw. Also I apologize for attacking your critical thinking skills.
@@davidmays8974 No no it's perfectly alright. I do suck at that sometimes tbh, and this was a prime example
Currently waiting for the CIA spirit world video , and the Mouse Experiment one !
I am working on those. Both need a lot of research and I want to do it right
@@WhatifAltHist Do a video on the implications of the Many Worlds Interpretation (MWI) on our existence
🙏
It irks me how pervasive the Rousseauan narrative of the pre-modern noble savage living in complete harmony with nature has been. When pre-settler Australia was anything but.
I support getting rid of European farming methods and malaria treatments in Africa to really show the effects of colonialism.
Gotta get rid of the new world crops introduced by Europeans as well.
@@ryeguy7941 Curse you potato and Corn both introduced by Europeans who found them in the Americas.
@@shangri-la-la-la Hopefully, Africa's current population can subsist on Millet and Sorghum alone.
Back when Westerners had pride and faith in themselves, and were great.
17:51 that is perfect, its easy to colonization was bad, when you arent the guy meeting cannibals and being subjected to human sacrifices.
Great historical perspective on colonization from the ancient times to medieval to modern.
You're ever insightful. Rudy please please do a video on Spiral Dynamics and how that applies to cycles in history. Because it lines up almost perfectly. Tho it annoys me that humans/society develop to a certain predictable point and then it's downhill.... I know infinite growth doesn't exist despite capitalists wishing it did but I wonder if we could get a government to form above stage orange. I would really like your take on it! ❤ great video. I've been thinking lately how people will view past events in the current context and i think that's one of the main problems in studying history.
Colonization is great ➡️ India 🇮🇳 Pakistan 🇵🇰 Border people still suffers at this day.
Infinite growth is possible if we colonize space
As an Indian from so-called L0wer caste, the Britishers were the one who gave Rights to education to Unt0uchable class of india, they give equal punishment to Upper_caste person as that of L0wer caste, Britishers made Laws to Ban Wid0w_burn!ng, the Britishers build Financial capital of india called Mumbai, built Railways, Roads, Port & much more.
Colonialism came as Blessing for 85-90% Population of India of L0wer caste & W0men
I hear you, friend. My tribe in Nigeria (Edo) are not among the three majority tribes here but my father's family and other tribe members enjoyed equal rights and better opportunities because of the systems out in place and adopted by my country.
if colonialism was "such a blessing" then please explain why tens of MILLIONS were allowed to starve during WW2? this was done DELIBERATELY. you are nothing but a brainwashed sepoy. you should be embarrassed to even type this.
What a load of crap
The British put upper caste people in charge and kept the society divided
They were not the first one to stop widow burning most lower caste also used to study it is mentioned in1700 year british report even untouchables such as chamar own land these building and roads were made by Indian money
bro read your countries history properly, it was educated Indians like Ambedkar, Jyotiba Phule, who fought for the untouchables. the British didn't care a bit.
the difference between european colonialism and virtually every other form of colonialism in history is that during european colonialism there were lively and heated debates in european countries over whether or not they should even be doing it to begin with
these debates led to the extinction of slavery in most of the world
Not really ,see the british endentured labour system
🤣🤣 biggest bs I’ve ever read
True
For those who don’t know, during the Spanish colonization of the Americas, a group of Spanish priests, the “School of Salamanca” laid down a series of moral principles that they believed should govern law and international relations. Their ideas later evolved into Classical Liberalism. The idea of universal human rights came from them. Even though they supported the conquest of the Aztecs “for obvious reasons” they did stand up for the rights of the natives.
Did TH-cam take down your Russian Federation collapse video? I started watching it.. came back to finish and it’s gone
As a person from a colonised nation who has studied history, my view is that the willing (or on the surface at least, seemingly willing) release of European colonies and imperial territories is actually an unprecedented event in human history (although if you view decolonisation as an actual collapse of the european empires akin to how Rome lost territory near the end of its empire then it fits in better with other historical events).
Throughout most of history it has been empires and smaller states within those empires or at least being vassals or protectorates of them. The current animosity by formerly colonised peoples towards europe and western civilization in general is almost uncalled for in my opinion because of the fact that what they did was a natural occurrence throughout history, even by their own past civilizations.
At the same time it is understandable though, because Europe and the west at large actually still exerts influence on the former colonies through soft power and other manipulative means, which is to the annoyance and hatred of the former colonial states. The concept of us always having self determinism may make the colonial period feel like an evil age, but the fact is someone in power had to willingly let us all have "self determination", because the natural state of civilization is more often a powerful hegemony determining the fate of everyone under their influence.
0:02
I think a better comparison is like Greece. The Greeks lost their colonies due to centuries of infighting. However they didn’t collapse, and Rome “America”conquered them.
Europe hasn’t collapsed like Rome, or at least not yet.
“Who deserves what is irrelevant. What matters is who has power”
Grand Admiral Thrawn
"Life is an intricate process of immense complexity and its impossible to tell if any of it is really good or bad"
I don’t think anyone really believes that.
Yes, because life and it's processes is very simple and it's really easy to separate good people from bad. And good people are always good and bad people are always bad.
This but unironically@@davidbacon9244
I LOVE studying colonization of Africa, North and South America, etc. Even pre-history colonization.
I'm inuit eskimo, my people would have suffered famine, been uneducated and probably wiped out. My people romanticize us living on the land as fulfilling and great, I mean it could be, but I cannot see it as a way of living your entire life. In some ways colonialism saved us from famine and uncertainty, but also gave us aimlessness and a lack of purpose.
Love your videos Rudyard. Colonial history has become a passion of mine, so I have some thoughts on this one. I didn't see you site Nigel Biggar or Bruce Giley. But I think they've added a much needed perspective to this topic. 1st. I think it's worth following Gilley in the distinction he makes between European imperialism and European colonialism. Spain conquered the Inca's and took their gold and silver like any other imperialist move in history. But the Germans spent 13 years consulting everyone to try and find the most natural border for Cameroon, because they wanted the country to run well. The Germans also adopted Swahili in German East Africa for all colonial business because it was the best language for the colony. Germany, like most of the European colonies after 1826, was reluctatant to take on colonies. They didn't "do it because they could." If you look at the relevant records, they did it because German citizens and adventures had set up lucrative businesses on the coast, and they'd grown to the point that local warlords were harrassing them. So they petitioned their government to provide some security. This is what happened in most cases.
Also, a fair number of the tribes petitioned to be colonized: new zealand, cameroon, etc.
I don't have all the details on the British Raj. But you need to take the Indian Nalionalist perspective with some skepticism. From what I understand India had a huge population, and they were almost totally dependent on rain-fed agriculture. This is not reliable. We know they had regular famines before the British, but I don't think we have very good numbers for the deaths before the British. The British, of course, kept great numbers, so their failings are starkly recorded. The British were aware of the food reliability problem. And they worked hard to solve it. They averted a number of famines and they built more railroad and irrigation than existed in Britain. When they completed it in 1920, the famines from lack of water ended, never to return. They solved the famines that the Indians couldn't. I don't think just because they were the rulers, that the 27 million is all their fault.
If you disentangle imperialism from colonialism, well then colonialism looks much better. I think it was a good. At least european colonialism from 1826 to 1960. I agree with you, it was unavoidable. Basically E. Colonialism is the messy process by which the rest of the world was brought into modern economies and global trade. And an updated concept of colonialism still holds promise today. There are still countries that could benefit from the more advanced expertise of other countries. And they should. Voluntarily of course.
Is that why so many bengal famine happen
Strange how you simply assume pre colonial India must have had famines when that simply wasn’t the case. At least you mentioned you weren’t too familiar with the British Raj which I guess is redeeming. Pre colonial India never truly faced a famine as there were robust systems of irrigation and mass agriculture in place. There was a reason why the Euros wanted to trade with India in the first place. They wouldn’t want to trade with a region that was barren & famine struck. In Sri Lanka for example, the Ancient Sinhalese kingdoms constructed complex hydraulic systems of irrigation that artificially transformed nearly 50% of the island into fertile farmland. I genuinely think of all the colonized regions in the world, India and the greater South Asian region would have been so much more better off if they weren’t colonized but rather nudged to solely trade much in the same way Japan had undergone.
@@deelanaSthey still, in many respects, can not shake the feeling that they are in fact superior. They don’t take into account that some people’s appreciate TRUE conservatism while they only appreciate liberalism and the illusion of progress. We’re a species headed nowhere really. Or what’s the end goal? Well never escape the prison on of our solar system and we will never physically explore the galaxy. We seem so eager to reach this utopia as heaven already exists on earth. But that’s just not good enough for some. And that’s what they fail to see. We’re in a huge fucking hurry to advance and we do so BLINDLY and always using it as Justification. If the best argument is that it had to happen to catapult the world into modernism then I’m sorry but that’s ridiculous. Modernity and modern man is absolute shit existing without beliefs, tradition or a shred of freedom.
Fascinating and insightful. Rudyard and I have some things in common in that on my paternal side, I am descended from British immigrants who have been in North America since the 17th century. They settled in New Jersey, not Pennsylvania, but my father moved to Pennsylvania and I grew up there. On my mother's side I am to sanded from the ukrainians and the poles. One need only remind oneself that the English root of the word slave is Slav. My grandparents on my maternal side came to this country at the beginning of the 20th century as it literate immigrants.
In regards to the complicated issues of the relationship of the first peoples to those who came later in history, I do have some observations. The genocide of the descendants of North and South America's first inhabitants as a result of disease was probably not intentional. The western expansion in North America and the rapi conquest of South America, would not have been possible if these original inhabitants had not been thoroughly decimated by the time actual settlers began to arrive in numbers. More than a few of the European settlers observed that there were many abandoned settlements and that the country seemed to be empty . This is the flip side of what happened to the Europeans in Africa where the African diseases killed the Europeans rather than the European diseases killing the Africans.
One of the most important things that everyone needs to remember is that species homo is invasive on every continent where it did not originate . The original settlers in any part of the world were no less. Colonizers just because they didn't have to conquer someone else.