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believed in the 12 Lost Tribes as an explanation. Just as many believed in the Indians being from Atlantis or the Island of Mu, which are just as scientific, eh?
We have been, not surprisingly, lied to from primary school on. At the time of Columbus, the "scientists" of the day knew the world was not flat; they just did not appreciate the full implications of that. We are also not told that Columbus had promised the riches to be gained (by finding a shorter trade route to the Far East) were to be used to finance a war against the Muslim world.
But I am wandering as far off course as Columbus!
The single best book on the early people of America is Gary Nash's "Red, White, and Black." (1974; Prentice Hall) He notes on pages 317-8: "Even hard-bitten, unsentimental colonists often recognized that Indian society, though by no means without its problems and its own disreputable characters, put white society to shame. .... Throughout the colonial period European observers stood in awe of the central Indian traits of hospitality, generosity, bravery, and the spirit of mutual caring. Indians seemed to embody these Christian virtues almost without effort in a corner of the earth where Europeans, attempting to build a society with similar characteristics, were being pulled in the opposite direction by the natural abndance around them -- toward individualism, disputatiousness, aggrandizement of wealth, and explotation of other humans."
Take note of this from Pennsylvania missionary John Heckewelder in 1643: "Whatevcer liveth on the land, whatsoever groweth out of the earth, and all that is in the rivers and waters flowing through the same, was given jointly to all, and everyone is entitled to his share. From this principle, hospitality flows from its source. With them it is not a virtue, but a strict duty. Hence they never are in search of excuses to avoid giving, but freely supply their neighbor's wants from the stock prepared for their own use. They give and are hospitable to all, without exception, and will always share with others and often with strangers, even to their last morsel. They would rather lie down themselves on an empty stomach, than to have it laid to their charge that they had neglected their duty, by not satisfying the wants of a stranger, the sick, or the needy."(Hecckewelder; Accounts of... the Indian Nations, Who Once Inhabited Pennsylvannia...; A.P.S.; 1819;pg 85)
I think from even this brief look at what the Euro-Americans encountered, we would agree with Nash that "these Indian virtues came far closer to the precepts of Christianity than most colonists found it comfortable to admit." (pg 319) Hence it was necessary for the church (!) to teach an outright lie -- the 12 Lost Tribes -- in order to justify the theft and killing that occured in the name of God. But even still, the 12 Lost Tribes was a minor "theory," though it has been handed down as a centuries-old excuse for genocide.
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