History for Settlers № 3
Originally written by Indigenous activist Terre Chartrand
This is the third in a three part series on the true history of North American ‘discovery,’ as explained by Indigenous activist Terre Chartrand. You can read the first one here and the second is here. I wanted to reproduce her work in its entirely is because it's easy to read, it contains humour and acerbic wit, is on-point with the real historical facts, doesn't infantilize the reader, and clearly communicates the point that North America is stolen land. As many of my readers know, I am becoming increasingly annoyed at the inability of progressives to properly communicate their message without condescension and without requiring an encyclopaedic knowledge of SJW terms. Terre doesn’t do that here, but instead chooses to use humour and a loose style of narrative to tell the tragic tale of the Great White Theft of Turtle Island. If you find it helpful, please share it with the world.
Again, what follows was originally written by Indigenous activist Terre Chartrand. I have made some light edits, mostly for clarity, as well as taking out a few headings. Today I share the final piece in her five part series, though there is no actual ending, in as much as there is an interest in picking it up at a future point. If you like what Terre has written, please make sure you let her know.
In what is ostensibly another important contextual footnote, Terre explains how the white dominant discourse of European history became our dominant discourse of history. Again, if you like what she has written, be sure to let her know, and share the series with your friends.
History for Settlers. Know Your Own Story № 3
European People – Understanding the landscape
Ok… part of a biiiig big problem I see from the multiple perspectives of my ancestry is a flattening of Euro identities into a wash of whiteness that doesn’t consider itself a race. Everyone else on the planet has a race, but white people have…. Whiteness. The white dominant discourse is the underpinning of the Doctrine of Discovery. This has been such a thing in that whiteness allows a dominion of an entire group through ideology erasing even their own uniqueness, never mind the incredible being of others.
This flattening of identities is a key part in making the colonial project work. There is a good deal of Us vs Them – othering and dehumanizing and flattening identities into good ones vs bad ones was imperative to the Imperial Colonial project. There is also the othering of mythologizing. Remember Doctrine of Discovery from the previous parts? That is coming more and more into play.
Most important is that this not presented as apologism for European colonial behaviours. If you are reading this inclined to do this…
Don’t.
So.
Let’s try to untangle this.
The Europe of the early colonial period was not just one simple place. Countries that existed then were largely either city or regional states with their own sovereign ruler ships. This was the Feudal system.
So in a nutshell, it was a pyramid.
Like MLM (multi level marketing companies) but everyone, everywhere, all the time, all aspects of life. Only one rep per region with the pink convertible reward for loyalty, the rest struggling to live their lives without starving. Key difference: the convertible is from God. No one else gets them. The church rules through the Kings. And when it really think about it is a two pyramid structure. That is a lot of crushing weight on the people at the bottom.
At the very top was a ruler – usually a king but there are moments of queens here and there throughout Europe.
Now a thing to keep in mind is that the royalty thought their blood so precious, so godlike that they kept intermarrying to keep the blood thick, so to speak. So imagine it is a big Jerry Springer type chart of relationships of all people who are closer related than first cousins, and for some had consanguinity closer than sibling having children together and controlling everything as vast super powers.
They even have family spats and feuds that send several countries into war here and there. Imagine your most disliked sibling in your worst fights, and then using the mechanism and bodies of war of entire states of people to settle a dispute that arose when that sibling stole your boy/girlfriend? This is a European reality.
Under them was a class of wealth also somewhat thought to be put there by god – aristocracy and nobility. These folk have deep, long access to social and financial capital, many rising from previous incarnations of their own families back into the dark ages. They have money so they can make money. But mostly, they have *Land*. They breed and mix with other aristocracy, gaming for the best matches for their progeny. The closer to the king, the better.
There are exchanges of wealth and redistribution but this is not for anyone outside of the aristocracy. Things like “bride price” and dowries are shifted about when marriages happen. The women own nothing but their titles, and names, or lack thereof.
So.
The countryside is largely divided into city states and country estates. Norther Europe has smaller cities and more country/villages. In 1500, the population of London was 50,000, and all of England was about 3 million.
Paris had a population of 150,000 after a few sharp declines from the Bubonic Plague and civil wars to finally see growth again. The whole Kingdom of France is 15 million.
Italy, Germany, and many other nations are subdivided into Republics, Duchy, Archduchy, Bishoprics, and city states. The power of the Roman Catholic Church shifts between Italian, Spanish, and French families who all hate each other, some in deep, centuries long violent feuds.
The map is not as we know it. And people from different regions are culturally different, and even look different especially to each other.
We still see this today – ethnic difference extending from what it is to be Irish, to what it is to be Slavic, to what it is to be Sicilian. Every language has dialect difference to even outright language difference. Europeans are not a white mass, but unique cultural places. The pan-European notion of culture and ethnicity is still not a thing in Europe.
And it really isn’t in North America either but whiteness is still a thing like it never was before.
So this tiny percent of power exists – isn’t that funny… same today. A monied elite. This is a little more dry but understanding that then wasn’t like now but still was like now is in important ways is, well, important.
And on the very bottom are serfs, vassals, servants. None of these owned land but were given allotments of land to work. They paid tribute of what they could harvest and grow, and taxes. When a country entered into war, or a feudal lord had a conflict, he would place higher levies on the people – starvation existed not necessarily because there wasn’t enough, but because there wasn’t enough to feed The People. As the colonial and conflict projects ramped up, more resources had to be created to keep pace.
They all pay tribute to church and pope – tithes and other taxation, and calls to send military. The Church is wrapped deeply into this structure. And holy wars are as common as bathing, and likely at that time, maybe even more.
Think of it as a two prong structure and the one looking like this:
Pope – Cardinals – Bishops – Clergy – Brotherhoods and Sisterhoods – Flock
Pope in Rome, Cardinals floating between Rome and their homes, Bishops as landowning both these and Cardinals the siblings of the most powerful kings and princes- Clergy as parish agents – Brotherhoods and Sisterhoods as places that stretch deeply between aristocracy and church – Flock as all else (I find great irony in the average human being considered the animals by the church, the herd… it’s one of the metaphors that has multiple layers)
And the other prong looks like this:
King – artistocracy – maybe agents and other middlemen – vassals and serfs and servants
OR
Uberlord country owner – property and land owner – tennants and servants
OR
God – All Matter of Angels – Saints – Humans – something slightly less than human
Women are always possession but oddly less so in some ways as you tumble down the feudal lines. More on this later.
Race is a thing but not like it is now. The most hated race in Europe would be the Jewish people – Including Jewish people who looked very much like white Europeans. And then there are Moors – the Brown and Black Islamic people of the Levantine areas and Africa but as far as I can tell, pretty much Brown and Black people are referred to as Moors to most Europeans. Europe is not white. Black and Brown people are found in every city.
The Doctrine of Discovery would be the underlayment, the wood chips in the bottom of the hamster cage for the colonial institution of racism as we know it today.
As for Jewish history, that is for someone more educated in this area than me. It was an institutionalised practice in Europe and one of particular historic brutality long, long before Hitler.
But also Europe is not some paragon of tolerance but Black and Brown people and histories are all but erased in European history. I will add the pieces I know here and there as I go along.
Views on homelessness and transience shift. More on this later.
Other groups emerge in that chain as well, but that is the most broken down, pre colonial dominant structure.
And as a seriously important note- ethnic difference exists throughout the world. People from different parts of Africa look different, same with Turtle Island. And people who know the differences can often identify where people come from.
The all “race” look the same is from that same flattening that allows for othering.
Peter here again. Please let me know if you like this series - if there is interest, I may solicit quality guest writers like Terre Chartrand to write for Dinner Table Don’ts on occasion.