Recently I listened to an interview of the historian Joseph Ellis. Ellis observes that the decimation of Native Americans was a Greek tragedy, while the perpetuation of slavery for three generations of the republic was a Shakespearean one. The distinction which Ellis makes is that Greek tragedy is fated, while Shakespearean tragedies are subject to the whims of our own will and contingent choices. The latter we may theoretically forestall or alter, but the former is subject to the deterministic wheels of history.
I believe that as a factual matter Ellis is correct; the indigenous peoples of the New World died from Eurasian diseases, or secondary consequences of disease (e.g., if 1/3 of the population is ill then labor input to agriculture decreases and results in famine which kills many more). Even with modern medicine the biological parameter is operative for indigenous peoples. High levels of alcohol consumption and "Western diet" are health demerits for Eurasian populations habituated to agriculture and mass society, but they seem to great increase mortality for populations which lived more traditional lifestyles more recently.
Why is slavery different? The United States was a laggard in its abolition, in large part because of structural constraints upon change hard-coded into our Constitution as well as checks on the legislative process implicit in its text (the Southern states could use the Senate to check the numerical superiority of the North in the House). In other ways the United States was not the laggard; unlike Saudi Arabia (which officially banned slavery in 1960, though there are strong suspicions that like Mormon polygamy it persisted a generation beyound its de jure abolition) the United States was shockingly progressive in many ways in the late 18th century, and European elites assumed that its radicalism doomed it to failure. Unlike every other polity since the rise of mass society after the Neolithic its federal government was explicitly de-sacralized in stark contradiction to custom & tradition. It attempted to scale a system of government, the republic, which all realistic thinkers assumed to be viable only for city-states (as evident in the historical precedents as well as for cogent theoretical reasons) on the scale of a continental empire.
Slavery's perpetuation was of course due social and economic pressures, with a plausible priority on the latter (social rationales likely emerged posterior to the economic priors). As such changes in law and Zeitgest could, and did, affect change, as in the British Empire or during the French Revolution. The decline of the Native peoples of the New World was exacerbated by social and economic factors, but their rapid population contraction in the face of Eurasian diseases opened the door to these processes. The temperate regions of North America, in particular the northern tier of the United States, were relatively optimal ecologies into which European folkways could be transplanted in toto. I think it is a critical observation to remember that the Five Civilized Tribes expelled from the southern United States were in the southern United States! The native peoples of the north were demographically a non-issue; in Albion's Seed David Hackett-Fischer notes that white fertility increased as one went north along the American coast because the documentary evidence suggests a far lower disease load. In what became Latin America the indigenous peoples were thicker on the ground, the Iberian settlers less numerous (and obviously the lifestyle of Iberia was going to be more difficult to transplant to the tropical New World). Finally, regions like the Andes Altiplano offered the natives their own biological advantages vis-a-vis Europeans.
Does any of this matter? My main rationale for the recitation of these widely accepted facts is to highlight the subtly and importance of Ellis' point about the difference between what the American polity did to the Native Americans and what it did to black slaves. To be crass about it, the former was inevitable, and Europeans simply played a role on the margins (yes, the Indian Wars were generally "mopping up" expeditions in the wake of demographic collapse). The only way to prevent the population contraction which occurred would have been to sequester the New World from all trade and contact until the emergence of modern medicine. In contrast the institution of slavery was necessarily dependent upon the will & law of the American people, not on Nature's Law (in particular, the people of the American South). Importantly, even many Southerners admitted that their "peculiar institution" was destined to be relegated to the dust-bin of history prior to the economies of scale enabled by the cotton gin, especially as other European polities began to abolish the practice. This particular distinction does not seem to be evident in the didactic material I've seen which put the spotlight on America's role as the hand on the till of genocide and oppression. As I'm not a philosopher or ethicist I'll leave it to others to dismiss or extend the implications of this distinction, but, I do know that people care as to whether actions are ultimately outside of someone's control or not as an empirical matter.
Addendum: One way to thwart genetic elimination is assimilation. So most of the unique Native American genome content in the New World is now resident in peoples of mixed ancestry. It seems plausible that the immediate marginal returns of diversifying Native American immune portfolios would be very high. John Ross, the last great Cherokee chief who presided over the Trail of Tears, was 7/8 Scottish.
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Talking about the US as a whole willing or choosing to continue the slavery it already had from British colonial days upon become an independent nation is misleading. Thus so too is the notion that the US continuing slavery was a willful "Shakespearean tragedy" in contrast to the result of the fates, Greek sort.
Most of the northern states actually abolished slavery in their own states beginning at the time of the ratification of the Constitution, or a few years later - which was a full generation earlier than the British 1833 abolition (with exceptions, including the East India Co. overseen areas) - though in many states there were phase out provisions for existing slaves.
Many leading Northern elites would have liked to abolish slavery in the Constitution, including e.g. Adams but also others. It wasn't their leading issue, true, but if they could readily have done so it probably would have carried among the maj. of the northern delegates to Philadelphia.
The South would have refused to be part of the Union. When then would slavery have ended in all of what is now the US - if that is the Northern states could have withstood the British alone and there did in fact become a US? As it was the US followed Britain in ending the international importation of slaves a scant one year later in 1808. That was the earliest legislation could do so under the Constitution since the South, knowing that the North wanted to do so ASAP for moral reasons (despite being the locus of the slave trading US shipping industry), bargained to be guaranteed no federal legislative interference on importation for at least that long. As it was, unlike Britain or France, the US had to fight a civil war over slavery to see it end. Yeah I know the North fought to preserve the union first and foremost, but the South seceded from the Union to preserve it's right to continue slavery far into the future. Many in the South had warned that if northern votes lead to the election of Lincoln, they would in fact secede -- but Northern votes elected Lincoln anyway.
By the time slavery was abolished in Britain in 1833 the British colonial planters had far less power in Parliament than the US South did in the Senate. During the sugar/planter heyday in England in the 18th and late 17th centuries, when their wealth bought many a parlimentary seat, abolishing slavery in the colonies wasn't remotely on in Britain. It's debatable as to whether there was more sentiment against slavery in England in 1933, far removed from it's slave territories in e.g. Jamaica, than there was in Boston or Massachussets or New England generally that same year (where after all slavery had been outlawed going forward in their own states for a generation).
OK, I by and large agree but that are plenty of events that could have gone otherwise that would have nibbled at the edges of this inevitability.
1. The French empire in the 18th century had far more harmonious race relations. It's was certainly not inevitable that the French didn't end controlling a part of North America where Indians would have been better off.
2. The Mexican War turned California, Texas and the Southwest, from a mestizo-dominated to a white-dominated society. The Mexican war was opposed by many in the USA, and I don't think that huge land-grab was inevitable.
3. Canada's record of race relations with the Indians is slightly better than the US. Not much of a difference, though. Australia probably a bit worse. In New Zealand, however, the natives managed to maintain a far stronger position vis-a-vis the white settlers. Some of this reflects differences in the cohesion of native societies, but there's plenty of place for agency here as well. In all of these three countries questions of the place of native minorities, restitution, apologies, etc. are major national issues. In the USA not so much.
4. After 1815 the two main powers in North America (USA & UK) were at peace with each other and free to settle their interiors and disinherit the natives. Again, not inevitable.
Talking about the US as a whole willing or choosing to continue the slavery it already had from British colonial days upon become an independent nation is misleading.
it's misleading for retarded people. i assume readers of his weblog aren't so ignorant as not to be aware of the decentralization of opinion and polity in the early republic (actually, there are such readers, but i generally don't let the ignorantii go beyond mod-queue). that being said, as this is the united states of america, and not these united states of america, there is a bit of back-dated anachronism in terms of "ownership." i.e., washington is first and foremost an american icon, not a virginian. some americans are willing to disavow the southern founders as slaveholders (even those such as washington who freed their slaves upon expiration), but most americans are not. therefore, i find the distinction true but specious in the context of the modern american republic, where conscious regionalism is sharply attenuated and national identity far more robust (in fact, regional identity is strongest in the south).
It's debatable as to whether there was more sentiment against slavery in England in 1933, far removed from it's slave territories in e.g. Jamaica, than there was in Boston or Massachussets or New England generally that same year (where after all slavery had been outlawed going forward in their own states for a generation).
why? do you have data, or are you saying we just don't know. i myself don't know the details of this to gauge the popularity of abolitionists on both sides of the atlantic (i know more about the conflicts in the USA than in england, where everything is funneled into a wilberforcian narrative); obviously in the 1830s abolitionism was a very vocal but minority sentiment in the north. franklin peirce, a "northern man with southern principles," of new hampshire was president in the 1850s and representative of a significant "doughface" population which didn't disappear until the high tide of sectionalism in the immediate period up the civil war (and even during the civil war there remained a rump of seditious "copperheads").
The South would have refused to be part of the Union. When then would slavery have ended in all of what is now the US - if that is the Northern states could have withstood the British alone and there did in fact become a US?
even granting your premise, which is a nice little strawman as one presupposes that one couldn't attenuate the taint by abolition say in the 1810s as opposed to upon independence, you don't know that independence wouldn't have occurred. i would grant that it was be far less likely, but that is not the same as inevitable. it was a choice not made, a risk not taken (the whole revolutionary enterprise was quixotic and assumed to be futile during the period by many outside observers, at least before france got involved).
fundamentally you're wrong, there's nothing misleading about the analogy because you're focusing on all the moving parts of the slavery section and ignoring the fact of native biological inability to resist disease. the issue of slavery is mootable, as you're doing, obviously. that of native biological lack of immunity is not. and therein lies the wedge through which ellis et. al. can rest their arguments. on one question there is reasonable debate on the issue of outcome and dynamic. on the other far less.
The Mexican War turned California, Texas and the Southwest, from a mestizo-dominated to a white-dominated society. The Mexican war was opposed by many in the USA, and I don't think that huge land-grab was inevitable.
yes, it wasn't inevitable. but, from all i've read the swamping of these domains by anglos was probably inevitable, and so the indigenous "acorn eaters" of california were going to go anyhow. that is, texas was probably a foretaste of what might have occurred.
also, were the northern provinces mestizo dominated? i thought criollos controlled the levers of power. the northern provinces of modern mexico are far more european in flavor than those of the south, so even under mexican rule, and excluding the yankee influx, it seems plausible that the more salubrious climate and lower density of natives would have tilted alto california et. al. to europeans. the analogy with chile and argentina is apropriate i think. they were mestizo dominated early on, but european migration was constant enough to swamp the indigenous element.
Canada's record of race relations with the Indians is slightly better than the US. Not much of a difference, though. Australia probably a bit worse. In New Zealand, however, the natives managed to maintain a far stronger position vis-a-vis the white settlers. Some of this reflects differences in the cohesion of native societies, but there's plenty of place for agency here as well. In all of these three countries questions of the place of native minorities, restitution, apologies, etc. are major national issues. In the USA not so much.
re: new zealand. polynesians left eurasia WAY later than amerindians (or for that matter australian aboriginals). they were still vulnerable to diseases, but not nearly so much from what i gather. canada i know little about, but before i posted this i checked and 3.8% of canadians are "first nations." i believe this included explicitly mixed groups such as the metis. i think this suggests that even with a relatively tight control from the metropole which constrains the more avaricious impulses of settlers natives would have been marginalized (part of the american revolt was of course due to the limitation of settlement to the east of the appalachians by the crown).
After 1815 the two main powers in North America (USA & UK) were at peace with each other and free to settle their interiors and disinherit the natives. Again, not inevitable.
i think there was a process of demic diffusion here. in the second half of the 18th century the pacific northwest depopulated to a great extent. the white settlers were drawn by fertile and "empty" land (this recapitulates the exact process which occurred in the 17th century on the eastern seaboard as whole tribal confederacies just collapsed as the newcomers arrived). if war somehow blocked this migration then i can see a case where the natives slowly bounce back after acquiring some biological immunity, but, this would have to be a war of rather grand and total scope IMO. not impossible, but very unlikely. so perhaps "inevitable" is too strong of a word then.
My understanding is that the amerindian population collapse happened long before the 18th century. So issues like the Mex-American War are very marginal. The Amerindian peoples were doomed once Europe urbanized and became capable of oceanic travel.
As to slavery. Sure, it's a bad thing. But it was the norm for most of human history. Northern Europeans were the first to abolish it, but they relapsed after conquering the Americas opened up such a lucrative market. The US abolished slavery a few decades after England. A blink of the eye historically.
I just don't buy slavery as some historically unique sin of America. It was the norm for most of human history. It's not just African-Americans who are the children of slaves. We all are. They just have the most recently enslaved ancestors.
That said, I have a Russian friend whose grandparents were serfs and basically owned by the tsar - and that was the early 20th century.
My understanding is that the amerindian population collapse happened long before the 18th century. So issues like the Mex-American War are very marginal
depends on region. the plagues seem to be working ahead of european expansion though. sometimes by a few years (new england, mesoamerica, etc.), sometimes by a few generations (much of the american west).
I just don't buy slavery as some historically unique sin of America.
DON'T GO OFF TOPIC IMMEDIATELY IF YOU WANT YOUR COMMENTS TO GO THROUGH. i've started banning and blocking people who habitually act as if this weblog is a forum for them to talk at length about whatever fancies their interest in a particular moment. no one said slavery was unique, and no one pinned the blame particularly on northern europeans. yes, retards do. i'm not one, and no one else who has commented on this thread has shifted the topic from a dyadic comparison controlling for society into a cross-cultural comparison. you're just bringing those points up because you want to talk about that tiresome issue i assume (since you can obviously read what i wrote). control yourself. what's the point of commenting on blogs if you want to have the same old arguments with the simpletons you can go introduce yourself to down the street at starbucks? as it is, bringing that topic up is liable to attract the simpletons to this weblog (though not with me moderating the comments now).
[note to readers: follow up comments should focus on comparing slavery & the extinction of native peoples. no interest in seeing you guys work out what the white-man's-burden is on these comment boards]