Historical context of conquests

My last letter, “Lack of historical perspective,” Jan. 4, focused on ex post facto moral judgments and the historical context of slavery. Those who ignore the historical context of civilizational conquests also commit an ex post facto moral judgment. Specifically, those who condemn the Western European settlers’ invasions of North and South America for seizing the natives’ lands and brutally conquering and killing or subjugating the indigenous people.

The eminent scholar Thomas Sowell wrote “When the Europeans arrived in the Western Hemisphere, these invaders behaved, by and large, as conquerors have behaved all over the world for thousands of years — which is to say, brutally, greedily, and with arrogance toward the conquered peoples. Indeed, that is very much the way that Indian conquerors behaved toward other Indians, long before Columbus (arrived).” (“Conquests and Culture,” p. 255).

In other words, stronger civilizations have been conquering weaker civilizations throughout human history, including the conquests by stronger native tribes of the Americas over weaker, neighboring tribes in a long history of savage, interminable, internecine, intertribal hatred and warfare. Until stronger European civilizations conquered them. Then its descendants conquered slavery. Then conquered segregation. And now we fight to conquer the last remnants of such discrimination. We fight for E Pluribus Unum: We The People of the United States of America.

So spare us the ex post facto moral judgments about the Western European conquests of the Americas. We’re in a much different, better place now.

Bob Strong

Spokane