Comments on: Alexis de Tocqueville on Native Americans

By: Toddy Cat

Toddy Cat — Thu, 16 Oct 2014 15:02:01 +0000

This review just proves that Scott Alexander can be informative and interesting, as long as he stays away from alleged “Social Justice” issues.

By: Mike in Boston

Mike in Boston — Thu, 16 Oct 2014 14:37:23 +0000

Scott Alexander's review was interesting, thanks! Seems to me that the process repeated itself fractally among the white: less appealing lifestyles squeezed out more appealing ones. Fred Reed tells the story.

By: Isegoria

Isegoria — Thu, 16 Oct 2014 13:19:23 +0000

That does sound like something I'd cite, but I hadn't seen it before. Thanks for the pointer!

By: Chedolf

Chedolf — Thu, 16 Oct 2014 09:29:02 +0000

Scott Alexander's review of Empire of the Summer Moon is worth reading for his discussion of "the phenomenon of whites [and Indians] preferring the Indian lifestyle." I have a hunch that an Isegoria link sent me there in the first place, so apologies if everyone has read that before.

By: A Boy and His Dog

A Boy and His Dog — Tue, 14 Oct 2014 18:28:38 +0000

It certainly depends on the tribe. Some were fierce raiders, and some were sedentary. For a captured youth the war and rape life of the warrior tribes would be much more appealing than returning to a life of sitting in church and farming.

By: Scipio Americanus

Scipio Americanus — Tue, 14 Oct 2014 12:22:40 +0000

James James, I think this is possibly a case of the difference 60 years can make.

By: James James

James James — Tue, 14 Oct 2014 10:25:32 +0000

And yet, and yet...

When an Indian Child has been brought up among us, taught our language and habituated to our Customs, yet if he goes to see his relations and makes one Indian Ramble with them, there is no perswading him ever to return, and that this is not natural to them merely as Indians, but as men, is plain from this, that when white persons of either sex have been taken prisoners young by the Indians, and lived a while among them, tho’ ransomed by their Friends, and treated with all imaginable tenderness to prevail with them to stay among the English, yet in a Short time they become disgusted with our manner of life, and the care and pains that are necessary to support it, and take the first good Opportunity of escaping again into the Woods, from whence there is no reclaiming them.

Letter to London merchant Peter Collinson (9 May 1753); reported in Labaree: "Papers of Benjamin Franklin", vol 4, pp 481-482.