Was it morally justified to colonise America?

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Poet said:
My question is why it’s only Europeans who are constantly held accountable; why we’re sitting in judgment on ages past when this sort of thing (for better or worse) was pretty much how the world was, if we want future generations sitting in judgment on us the way we judge others
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Visit some of those old immigration threads about “invaders” coming in from South of the border. :roll_eyes:
Poet said:
What is the point of this discussion anymore? Nobody is colonising anyone today. Are we going to un-colonise America if we decide it was not morally justified?
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I think it’s fair to look at history through the framework of Catholic moral theology. I don’t hear anyone asking that we somehow undo the past.
 
Ridgerunner said:
And if there is no intent, there’s no moral culpability.
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Oh, I’m quite sure there was enough intent behind each individual act of plunder, murder, and rape to make them all quite sinful. And the general pattern of toleration and even encouragement of such practices by the authorities – when Christians very much knew better even in that era – was shameful.

It happened, and God has brought some good out of it, but trying to defend our ancestors as actually morally justified is a losing proposition.
 
I’ll see you that and raise you A Fate Worse Than Death: Indian Captivities in the West, 1830-1885.
 
Usagi said:
trying to defend our ancestors as actually morally justified is a losing proposition.
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Trying to justify humankind at all is an impossibility.

But I think you’re casting too wide a loop to assume “all” were “quite sinful” as perpetrators of plunder, murder and rape.
 
Poet said:
My question is why it’s only Europeans who are constantly held accountable; why we’re sitting in judgment on ages past when this sort of thing (for better or worse) was pretty much how the world was, if we want future generations sitting in judgment on us the way we judge others, but most importantly:
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Yes, people in general have been bastards for quite a long time. One of our oldest stories (Adam and Eve) exists to answer the question “why are people like that”?

But Europeans were amazingly successful in their colonization of much of the rest of the world. It was recent enough (despite being 500ish years ago) that effects are still being felt in the world today. Plus, most of us are the descendants of either the colonizers or the colonized and continue to benefit or suffer indirectly from the massive redistribution of land and resources back then. And for us Catholics, the people who did all of that were allegedly Christian and often Catholic, our forebears, and yet they engaged in pillage on a massive scale. It’s not like they didn’t have all the theology to know it was wrong when they were doing it. (Even if we except the pure evangelization part, which of course others would consider among the culture-destroying evils of colonization, our ancestors did a lot more than just preach the Gospel. Effectively whole nations used Jesus as a thin cover for plunder, murder, slavery … we should be offended more than anyone that such a thing ever happened in our Lord’s name.)
 
Usagi said:
But Europeans were amazingly successful in their colonization of much of the rest of the world.
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If it hadn’t been us it would have been others. Look into the history of far East colonization and imperialism. Look at the history of Islam.
 
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Ridgerunner said:
Trying to justify humankind at all is an impossibility.
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Sure, but acknowledging, “Whoa, the whole situation we live in right now is because of some downright awful stuff that should never be repeated and, to the extent possible, some kind of restitution is owed” is still a thing we as Christians should do.
But I think you’re casting too wide a loop to assume “all” were “quite sinful” as perpetrators of plunder, murder and rape.
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“All” as in all the acts of plunder, murder, and rape. Not necessarily every individual along for the ride (though there were likely few who didn’t at least have to look the other way and try very hard not to think about some of the stuff going on).
 
StudentMI said:
Amen to that. Humanity is unjustifiable.
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On its own terms, that’s a fact. But as participators in the Face of Jesus, they’re miraculous.
Usagi said:
the massive redistribution of land and resources
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Do you know how big the Comancheria was? It was bigger than Texas, and there were never more than 20,000 Comanches. Their major resources were buffalo, horses, and Mexican women and children that they captured, enslaved, tortured, and sold.

I don’t think ending their reign was a bad thing at all. Not at all.
 
Usagi said:
Sure, but acknowledging, “Whoa, the whole situation we live in right now is because of some downright awful stuff that should never be repeated and, to the extent possible, some kind of restitution is owed” is still a thing we as Christians should do.
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The whole situation we live in right now is not because of awful stuff. It’s because of SOME awful stuff and a whole lot of good stuff. And what “restitution” should my two year old grandson pay, and to whom, and why?

There’s not a square inch of the worlds surface that wasn’t taken over by someone from someone. In the best cases, as with the Iberians, the Celts, the Romans, the Burgundians, the Franks, the Lombards, the Magyars, the Avars, the Teutons, well just about everybody, they intermixed and intermarried, so that the “payers” and the “payees” are the same people.
 
There’s no need to make this personal. I’m simply pointing out that the death of Christ, sacrificial or not, is irrelevant to the Spanish conquest and their motives to stop the Aztec practice of routine, ritual child sacrifice. It’s all good - I’ll take a mute-break and maybe check in when things cool down. 😎
 
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We should be offended…and we should do WHAT exactly?

This is my point. What exactly am I, today, supposed to do about something that happened 500 years ago?

What is the end point of discussing if people 400, 500 years ago were morally culpable?

Is there anything that is actually going to lay any of this to rest or will it be used forevermore to punish and stomp on people of European descent?

Because part of the problem with this discussion is that it’s always spoken of in isolation as if every other race and culture was morally pure, when in fact every race and every culture did some really bad things to others.

So…again…what is the point of the discussion? What is the end goal? What is the desired result?
 
What was the alternative to colonization? Ignore the American cntinents? Do some small trading with the inhabitants? Enter into real estate deals? Send film crews to document the tribes? If we’re going to re-write history, fill in the details.
 
Probably because in the US, we are still dealing with some of the fallout of those decisions. In order to look ahead, in many cases, it’s important to understand how the past is still effecting us so that we can change it.
 
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