American colonialism is writ large - and still continuing - in the islands of Hawaii. It's sad for a country that proclaims itself to be the land of the free with a healthy respect for property rights.
But then, I guess Hawaiians and Native Americans (and Filipinos) could compare notes on this one. Oh, and Guam, Puerto Rico, the Marshall Islands, American Samoa, and I'm pretty sure I'm missing a fair few more.
I don't think Colonialism is the correct descriptor these days for the global Oligarch class buying up all the land future generations would be able to use and locking it away. This isn't just an American problem and it's not just idyllic islands that are being locked up. It's the establishment of a new form of Feudalism.
Not being edgy, just sad at how America doesn't even acknowledge its colonial history while celebrating their liberation from an oppressive foreign power every July.
Except, America does acknowledge it, essentially 24/7 and ramped up around holidays. Almost always to exaggerated and misleading degrees.
Ironically, modern Americans have skewed views in the opposite way of what you're suggesting. Pop culture and public school textbooks present the Indians as being far more peaceful, advanced and egalitarian than they were and the European settlers as being far more powerful and privileged than they were (they were after all, mostly refugees and peasants from oppressed minority groups in their native countries).
In the case of Hawaii specifically, the people historically lived in poverty with frequent wars and violence between rival tribal kings fighting to expand their kingdoms. As the 20th century brought Japanese imperialism expanding across the Pacific, those tribal leaders realized joining the USA was far better than being conquered by Japan and moved swiftly to do so. Today, the people there live far safer and richer lives with more freedom than their ancestors could have imagined, although wealth inequality, drugs and environmental harms remain serious issues on the islands.
People should not be expected to feel guilty for what their ancestors did
There is likely no piece of land anywhere in the entire world that is still currently held solely by the "original owners"
But for some reason only Western countries are being held to this ridiculous standard where we're supposed to constantly acknowledge that the countries are built on land that was colonized in the past, by people who are long dead
This is especially absurd given that many people living in these countries aren't even descended from the original colonists anymore. They've immigrated long after the countries were established
I'm from New Zealand, I don't need to look that far.
We have far too many plonkers who like to claim that "Without colonisation, Māori would still be stone age cannibals" which ignores literally all of the recorded history of Māori interactions with Europeans.
(When Captain Cook turned up to "discover" New Zealand, he was surprised that the Māori he met wanted to trade food / cloth / pounamu for iron, especially nails, they were great for bird trapping and fishing hooks.)
Or the ol classic "Give us back the blankets and KFC, and we'll give you back your land" attempt at a joke.
It’s been a while since I read Cook, and I’ve read lots of similar literature, but can you point me to where exactly he is surprised by wanting to trade for metal? It seems more surprising he’d be surprised since natives everywhere had always wanted to trade for metals, guns, horses, etc. There’s no reason to believe that Māori cultural practices like cannibalism would have changed because they had interest in metals, either way, the things are totally orthogonal; but surely, as you say, the material culture would have changed through trade if nothing else.
In general, I think we need to get rid of the word “indigenous” altogether and find some other way to talk about situations like this. Nobody rose up out of the dirt, human migration and displacement has been a continual fact of human existence. Very often the people claimed to be “first” and therefore to have special privilege we have good reason to believe were not - and often “indigenous” peoples are shutting down archeological research because it contradicts their narratives. This is obviously bad for science, and it’s happened because we’ve privileged this narrative of colonials vs indigenous peoples rather than waves of migrations. The Māori are actually a rare example where the current evidence is they were “first”, but we also can’t expect any evidence that may be discovered to be taken seriously because of the political implications. Either way, I don’t believe and don’t accept that planting the Māori flag in the 1300s makes New Zealand theirs. It’s not. Current debates are simply the same old story of war and conquest, just pursued by other means since obviously the military route is unavailable to the modern Māori. That is, it’s simply the rationalization for a power struggle. The actual arguments are pontless: you can usually always go further back (eg, in America, why would we restore the Rushmore lands to the Lakota, who claim it, but who had very recently taken it by force?), and there is no longer any way to correct perceived injustices: all the “victims” are long dead and so are the “perpetrators” and in all cases there’s been intermixing in the time since and other immigrations. You’d simply be punishing people who had nothing to do with it and privileging people arbitrarily.
I would love to see you argue this to a Hawaiian in person. I suspect a fair few of them very much disagree that their nation being overthrown at the behest of American capitalists who then took most of their land via coercion and deception was in their best interests.
I feel you should read up on the history of Hawaii some more my friend.
Spoilers - when a constitution written by migrants to your country is called the "Bayonet Constitution" because it was passed under threat of violence, that's colonialism.
Gradually, the social and cultural imperialism that the missionaries brought to the islands developed into the exploitative commercial power that overthrew the Hawaiian monarchy in 1893.
One such businessman was Sanford B. Dole, grandson of Daniel Dole and cousin of James Dole, who, despite President Grover Cleveland’s declaration of the overthrow an act of war and recommendation that the provisional government step down, was declared the President of the Republic of Hawaiʻi on July 4, 1894.
I like real-life, face-to-face conversations. No way I'm posting a video talking to a member of an organization I don't know, much less a member of a secessionist wannabe organization.
No need to argue with "sovereign citizens" who want to establish their own country. I take them as seriously as I take Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene calling for secession, i.e., clowns not worth listening to.
The British could have said exactly the same of any of their colonies. Who knows, Hawaii could have been as prosperous as Fiji or even more given the chance.
He has money, so he bought it. Free market, capitalism etc etc, I get that part.
That said, why does one man need 140 sq miles of land? Unless it is being used for agriculture or some other net benefit to society, doesn’t this sound grotesque?
I have visited lanai and I feel its mostly to protect it from development. Theres a little town more inland and a four seasons but he could have gone wild by now if that were the angle.
