19th Century United States

Oh no not the buffalo

Most of the world was like this for millenia and the US was among the first large states to end or suppress these things.

Through history the US has been a force to improve living standards and humanitarianism, but because it did not completely eliminate them promptly enough it is often lambasted as being the cause of these ills.

>>673832
Tatanka is pretty delicious friendo

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>>673775
>leader of religious sect makes prophecy that civil war will start in south carolina over slavery
>state issues extermination order on them for stirring up shit with their abolitionism
>group escapes and establishes batshit crazy theocracy in the wild west
>30 years later that same state elects Lincoln and ends up fighting for abolition
>in the war the crazy sect predicted
>the sect then turns around and starts discriminating hardcore against blacks

this is some League of Cambrai shit going on

>>673955
nothing more american than drinking homemade rootbeer and eating buffalo burgers while talking shit about natives

none of this is in anyway remarkable

you underestimate how fugging brutal the world has been for most of human history

>>673842
>Through history the US has been a force to improve living standards and humanitarianism, but because it did not completely eliminate them promptly enough it is often lambasted as being the cause of these ills.
>Through history the US has been a force to improve living standards and humanitarianism

what is the middle east
what is south and central america

i agree with you that the USA is not an especially bad country taken in historical context but dont kid yourself and pretend that America dindu nuffin

>>673842
That's bullshit. America was always one of the last in a lot of this matters. Slavery was already banned in europe (peacefully) while americans where fighting the civil war. Black and womenrights where adoptet by America late compared to europe. Of course it is ways better than the muslim nations or africa, but if you compare yoursrelf to them, you are no where near to the top.

>>673775

>I know no society is perfect, and you can't apply today's standards to the past

No, your post is a flat out admission that you don't appreciate what the situation was for anyone in those times and places. You just made a clever little list of things that sound bad to your suburban morality without a hint of appreciation for what anyone was experiencing at the time. You're heir apparent to be the king of hindsight right now.

The question wasn't "Is America worse than everyone else?"

The question was "Did 19th century America have any redeemable qualities other than the abolition of slavery?"

>>673842
bullshit.
Venice abolished slavery before 1000 AD.
Tuscany abolished death penalty in 1700s.
In the USA until 1965 (NINETEEN FUCKING SIXTYFIVE) black people couldn't vote.
this is not comprehensible for non-burgers

>>674148
Except literally every thing on that list was criticized by people at the time.

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>>673775
>muh slavery muh injuns
>muh buffalo

nothing compared to the fur trade which Indians partook massively in

nothing we did was any worse than what other nations did or the fact that slavery in some form has been practiced by every major culture in history

>>674177
white guilt is the exact opposite of this.
why thi mechanism of self defense? why can't you accept critical thought about your country?
is nationalism still THIS poisonous in the US?

>>674171

Point being? The things on that list are a million times more complicated than "lol here's bad shit that happened in the 19th century amirite guise?"

>>673842
>US was among the first large states to end or suppress these things.

Nope.

>>674225
Point being people knew they were wrong at the time and did them anyway. Their motivations were almost always hate or greed, mostly by their own admission. That's hardly applying modern suburban morality.

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>>674259

>People knew they were wrong at the time and did them anyway

No, some people believed they were wrong. Other people believed otherwise. Some people do bad things thinking they are doing good. I guarantee that the guy from Washington has a very different opinion of them than the guy living in a cabin on the outskirts of their territory dealing with them on a daily basis. And you're dreaming if you think that even one confederate soldier was out there on the battlefield defending the rights of some oligarch to own slaves.

>Their motivations were almost always hate or greed

You had some shitty history teachers if you genuinely believe that. Does that even make logical sense to you? Do most of the people you know act that way?

>That's hardly applying modern suburban morality.

Actually the fact that you think people living in America 100 years ago were predominantly motivated by hatred and greed like some kind of Orcs not only suggests it, I'd say it damn near proves it.

>>674310
>Actually the fact that you think people living in America 100 years ago were predominantly motivated by hatred and greed
The ones committing the atrocities mentioned absolutely were. The Buffalo hunters openly admitted their motivation was greed, that they could get filthy rich from the activity and that it was ridiculously easy. The removal of Indians to either reservations or the grave was often done after gold was found on their land, and the manner with which they were dispatched was often fueled by hatred (think Sandy Creek Massacre). The anti-Chinese laws were clearly out of hatred of their customs, and the taking of Mexican-American lands through legal gymnastics was obviously motivated by greed. Corruption and crony capitalism were clear cases of greed. Slavery had economic and perhaps rationalized moral motivations, but it's hard to justify Jim Crow laws as motivated by anything other than hatred. Various gold rushes and land pushes caused many of the problems of the 1800s.

I'm not saying everyone in America was greedy and hateful 100 years ago, I'm saying the specific things I'm talking about were motivated almost entirely by the greed or hatred of certain people.

>>674120

We shouldn't generalize the entire country at time when any potential federal mandates re: slavery and human rights would have been immediately rebuked, not on moral or ethical grounds, but because the federal government had no such power over individual states.

The politics of the time were very much state-based and the individual state governments, including territories not yet states, had wildly varied opinions on slavery and human rights.

I wish there was more stuff about New England in the 19th century. I want to know know what's going on there, not in the wild west or Civil War stuff.

19th century was the apex of capitalism and this country's greatest period

Kill the Indian, save the man.

>>674259
>Their motivations were almost always hate or greed

The whole idea of manifest destiny was justification. Even the christian church's "Doctrine of Discovery" gave whites a noble, if not divine, incentive.

Events like Wounded Knee, something most modern Americans would call a massacre, was seen as a legitimate battle in a legitimate war. So much so, the first 20 Medals of Honor were awarded for it.

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>>673832
I mean, people did get a bit excessive about it in those days

>>674430

>I'm not saying everyone in America was greedy and hateful 100 years ago, I'm saying the specific things I'm talking about were motivated almost entirely by the greed or hatred of certain people.

You have a frighteningly simplistic view of these historical events. You've arbitrarily slapped the label of hatred and greed onto these events without the slightest understanding of them. Why was there a bounty on buffalo for these greedy hunters to get rich on? Why did some people hate Indians so much? What was the US's history/relationship with Mexico. Why were corruption and crony capitalism so prevalent in inner cities inhabited by fresh immigrants? All of these questions have answers, but you asked none of them before lazily dismissing them as the product of blind hatred and greed. You are patently unqualified to be making a determination here. You asked an insincere question in the OP to mask a thinly-veiled attack the US in the 19th century. If you're at some point actually interested in the numerous scientific, literary, cultural, and moral contributions of the US in that era, you have the internet at your disposal to find them out.

>>674183
And why should I feel guilt? You realize you only exist if you're American because of what they did right? Bad or good, you shouldn't feel sorry for that. Slavery was infact an intrinsic thing built into and practiced by fucking everyone until people decided to stop as it became viewed as not beneficial anymore because of technological advancements. The people who decided to stop were industrialized people btw and people who were not industrialized resisted all over the planet. Many people even question if slavery was ever abolished and not simply adapted.

Your "critical thought" is basically condemnation of America because it wasn't as progressed as Britain was at the time, and used resources which you still enjoy the benefits of right now and also consume from other places that bleed for similar resources, big deal.

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>>674451
>I wish there was more stuff about New England in the 19th century. I want to know know what's going on there, not in the wild west or Civil War stuff.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYsS_3zdwmA

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>>674310

>>673832
>fucking up ecosystems

i'm sure that will have no knock-on effect

[spoiler]it caused the dust bowl you idiot[/spoiler]

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>>674177
>nothing we did was any worse than what other nations did

Even the 'murderous whites' narrative is folly. It took what, half a decade before former slaves were partaking in it?

Buffalo Soldiers have been spun, and their history revised, to be an example of early black sovereignty and integration; when in actuality their role in the Indian Wars was just as bloody as anyone. Blacks, so recently emancipated, were killing women and children alongside whites at Wounded Knee.

The myth of Indians naming them "buffalo soldiers" as a sign of respect is bullshit, they did not honor those who hunted them. It's why Indian activists regularly protest parades in which buffalo soldiers are portrayed, complain about buffalo soldier vanity plates in Texas when Confederate plates are banned, and hold picket lines at the Buffalo Soldiers National Museum in Houston.

>>674502

I thought that not only did the herds mess with the railroads, but they carried diseases that could spread to the cattle. Pretty much why they were wiped out.

>>674514
>dismissing them as the product of blind hatred and greed
I never dismissed them, and I never said "blind"

You act as if hatred or greed are not legitimate motivations for human action. How can you not look at something like >>674549 and not think that hate was a motivating factor? Did he have blind hatred for Indians? I don't know about that, perhaps he had his reasons, and of course there are myriad reasons for tensed Anglo-Indian relations at the time, but Americans are hardly vindicated in any of the root causes.

>>673832
Better niggers than the buffalo honestly.

>>674664
They did, but they were mostly killed for profit. The Army fighting Indians at the time also encouraged the hunters by providing ammunition and supplies because they wanted to deplete the Indians' food source.

>>674670

You quoted your troll dodge post instead of my post btw. Yes it's very interesting that one guy connected with a war that resulted in a massacre didn't like Indians. It would be more interesting if I had ever said that hatred was not a motivating factor for the Indian conflicts. I told you to do more research into why frontiersmen were so angry at/terrified of Indians. Instead you image searched a meme and sockpuppet posted it.

As for vindicating Americans, those Americans are long dead. Personally, I'd say that the 19th century America of widespread railroads, the telegraph, typewriters, Mark Twain, electricity, Thoreau, stopping the Barbary slave trade and ending North American slavery is a little more representative of the era than some guy who didn't like the 50 Indians that were leftover.

>>674502

Sounds like the Passenger pigeon

https://vimeo.com/92192308

>>673775
>even by contemporary standards
you mean the standards set by absolutist kings and colonizers scrambling for africa and people on the brink of murdering each other on an industrial scale by the millions in the name of their geriatric emperors?

yeah nah

>>674177
>the fact that slavery in some form has been practiced by every major culture in history
the difference between abrahamic/ancient slavery and chattel/modern era slavery is well documented. ie that the latter is horrible and the prior wasn't as bad. guess which one was widely and lately practiced by the US

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>>673775
>even by contemporary standards a lot of what America did was horrible and immoral.
You could say that about damn near every major world power in the 19th Century.

Britain, Austria, and Russia set Europe ablaze for nearly three decades because they didn't like that the French overthrew their king. Millions died literally because the Austrians didn't like that their king's cousin was killed.

Every European power committed untold atrocities in a scramble for Africa with consequences so bad we're still feeling the effects today. Even as they officially made slavery illegal, they resorted to forced labor, brutal suppression of dissent, and in many cases outright genocide to secure and exploit colonies across Africa and Asia.

The entire world is still reeling from the lingering negative effects of the actions of the actions of Europeans in the 19th Century, and you're sitting here complaining about things America did that often times often times didn't even compare to the terrible shit being done by Europeans in Africa.

Get fucked, yurofag. We told you to leave for a reason.

>expansion of voting rights to non-landowners
>growth of mass public education
>creation of world's highest per-capita GDP by 1900
>development of multilingual immigrant society, especially among European immigrants
>establishment of extensive urban & rural infrastructure
>major artistic & literary achievements

It's not all bad. Normally, I would post sources for each of these, but you didn't bother, so I won't either.

>>673775
>>slavery and Jim Crow
When will we get reparations for that, btw?

>>677047
Less than 6% of Southerners owned slaves at the outset of the Civil War, and Southerners were less than 45% of Americans at the time.

Even a rough calculation shows that probably less than a percent of Americans owned slaves prior to the war.

Jim Crow was fucked up, but it was also a reaction to the crime and barbarism of the freedmen in the South. Blame the Yankees for not pulling off reconstruction properly. They left hundreds of thousands of freedmen with no property, no skills or trade, no education, and no possible way to make a living.

>>677095
>but it was also a reaction to the crime and barbarism of the freedmen in the South
lel no. I'll give you the point about reparations - people today don't owe them anything, especially with such a small portion of the population being slave owners, but the various voter-suppression laws were by no means "a reaction to barbarism."

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>>674100
>>674120
>>674163
Slavery was abolished in Iraq in the 1920s and in Brazil in the 1880s. The 30 year gap between Britain ending slavery and the US ending slavery doesn't give a full and complete picture. Since it benefited from slavery and was willing to start a civil war over it this shows their determination.

I expect a few here wouldn't pass up the chance to become a millionaire at the expense of enslaving a few dozen people, but because they never had an opportunity to do so they can point their fingers and say "the US are the bad guys abububu".

Most European countries remained tyrannical well into the 20th century, routinely torturing and executing political opponents and pushing people into subsistence through taxes and corruption. The US was only really surpassed by the most timid European democratic countries, certainly after the civil war with European democratic countries colonizing huge areas and setting up tyrannical colonial regimes the US surpassed them in terms of ethics and morality.

Merchant city states were kind of like the industrialized north with a large educated middle class, in this respect the US was indeed objectively at the forefront of developing modern humanitarianism and willing to fight for it.
>>674242
>Nope.
compelling argument, you have swayed me sir and I admit I am wrong

>>674961
>my slavery wasn't as bad as your slavery

yeah and american slavery wasn't as bad as the holocaust so I guess we're off the hook

>>677047
>doing better than the descendants of the niggers who sold you in the first place

fuck off

>>674163
Blacks had the right to vote since 1870, it's just that the fifteenth amendment was strengthen by the voting rights act

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>>674163
>In the USA until 1965 (NINETEEN FUCKING SIXTYFIVE) black people couldn't vote.
>believing the marxist meme

>>677095
>X percent of people were legally slave owners
>so no one is responsible and the atrocities are forgotten
yeah no fuck off

We're owed reparations.

>>674430
>All this talk of gold being the cause of removing indians.

Are you Californian by chance? Where I was, they were removed primarily because they were violent neighbors that sought to raid and capture people as slaves. It was impossible to broker any sort of treaty with the natives because they were too unorganized for any treaty to apply to all of them -- you'd make peace with this group of Commanches only to have some other ones ride into town the next week.

At a certain point, you either have to head back to Europe or realize you've got an enemy to cull. Had both sides notions of land ownership and sovereign rights been similar, it would've been possible to live in harmony with each other, tense though it might've been.

>>673775
They had the right idea back then. The west has become too emotional and effeminate in the past few decades and that is why we are losing all of our power. Feeling guilty has fucking ruined us. We need to return to the good old days of self-preservation and expansion of our own power, otherwise we will keep slipping backward and our quality of life will continue to decrease until we live in squalor.

>>673775
>>674961

where does this meme come from? Slavery in much of the rest of the world was just as if not more brutal than it was for your average American slave.

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>>678385
Well said, senator

>>678365

There have been several

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:American_gold_rushes

>>674163
whats the age of consent in venice?

blowwn

the

fuck

out

dirty

pedo

>>678442

A sensible one.

>>674120
>Of course it is ways better than the muslim nations or africa

Oh - those very same nations that were on the path to secularisation and being a hell of a lot better before shitty USA comes in with its opportunistic foreign policy?

Let;s not forget a good many 'muslim' nations were ahead of america too in terms of implementing certain womens rights, voting, slavery etc.

>>678489
>before shitty USA comes in with its opportunistic foreign policy?

What does the U.S. have to do with the house of Saud expanding Wahibism following the fall of the Ottoman Empire, something exacerbated by British influence in the region? Because that's what caused Islams regression into fundamentalism.

>>678489
I'm sorry, I don't mean to sound condescending, but that's not true at all.

There wasn't a single Muslim country with free elections of any sort before Pakistan in 1956.

>>678365
>Where I was, they were removed primarily because they were violent neighbors that sought to raid and capture people as slaves. It was impossible to broker any sort of treaty with the natives because they were too unorganized for any treaty to apply to all of them -- you'd make peace with this group of Commanches only to have some other ones ride into town the next week.

t. Andrew 'L'etat c'est moi' Jackson

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_Gold_Rush

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trail_of_Tears

>>677339
>americucks are this deluded

meanwhile almost every single one of the worlds problems can be traced back to america.

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>>673775
Yeah but those fuck those guys because the USA had cowboys.

Yee ha.

>>673775
>even by contemporary standards a lot of what America did was horrible and immoral
You can say that about America pretty much throughout our entire history. We did/do a lot of really shitty things.

>>679034
Shit b8

>>678305
A majority portion of my Ancestors are from Spain.

When do I get reparations for the Moorish invasions?

>>679657
Whites had affirmative action for that time period of slavery and Jim Crow.
Now blacks (and I guess existing Native Americans) are asking for affirmative action as well.

I'm Mexican with white/tan skin, just to address any racial bias. But I have no fucking idea what should be done in regards to reparations. It's a difficult and a heavy philosophical question of justice.

Oppression had to do something with black culture. If I recall the statistics, black people are 3x as likely to be in poverty. Should none of this be considered?

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>>681649
>Affirmative Action
Aside from the fact that minorities are basically guaranteed jobs or education as long as they meet even the most minimal requirements, why is this a good thing? Why should business owners or private universities be forced to hire/admit people just because of some arbitrary goal to be "diverse." Business owners should be allowed to hire or service whomever they wish, and the public should be equally free to not shop at the establishment if they disagree. In terms of education, why should it matter what your skin color is as long as your meet the GPA requirement to attend the school? Affirmative Action is retarded. The same opportunities should be afforded everyone. It shouldn't be a case where minorities are more equal than others.
>Reparations
My point is that they are retarded all together. Any particular group of people has fucked over and been fucked over by a hundred other groups of people. This is a history board for godsake, it should be obvious that there are literally thousands of cases of "injustice" throughout human history and it's pointless to try and settle anything with forcing people who nothing to do with the event an arbitrary amount of money. The best we can do is try to make as egalitarian and equal a society as possible for everyone. My ancestors did not own slaves, and did not even live in the Jim Crow South, so why should I be forced to pay reparations? It would be one thing if former slave owners were alive, but slavery was over 150 years ago, and Jim Crow more than 50.
>Oppression
Blacks have had every opportunity to lift themselves out of poverty. If anything, the welfare state and thug culture have completely ruined African American society and caused the massive crime and poverty rates within it. It takes a will and drive to succeed in life, and African Americans are more inclined culturally toward remaining in poverty. You see the same with poor whites, but that doesn't mean either group is "oppressed."

>>681903
the reason they're asking for reparations is because slavery is relatively speaking still a "recent event" in both larger historical context and public consciousness.

>>681942
Not a single living black (born in the states) was a Slave in the antebellum South. And as I pointed out earlier in the thread, less than 1% of white Americans had ancestors who owned slaves.

>>673775
Thoreau was cool, as well as some good literature

>>681903
>Affirmative Action is retarded. The same opportunities should be afforded everyone. It shouldn't be a case where minorities are more equal than others.
I'm of the opinion that (at least for educational purposes) affirmative action does have a purpose, but its focus should be on helping certain economic groups rather than races. You'd still see a similar trend, as minorities are disproportionately represented in poorer groups, but it's outright insulting to just lower requirements purely based on race.

>>673832
The loss of biodiversity was very bad for productivity of the great plains as it is in any system. The death of native bison and expansion of cattle fucked up 33% of the topsoil and contributed to the dust bowl.

>>681942
Incorrect. The they're asking for reparations is because their IQ's are too low to compete in the free market.

>>682028
*reason

>>682028
They were doing better statistically before this point what do you mean?

>>682099
as technology increases, unskilled labor is needed less. and blackd having the lowest IQ's were the first to become obsolete in the market.

>>679034
I am deluded but you can't address any of the points I made just throw a little hissy fit. ok

>>681955
There was a time in the antebellum south when there were more slaves than whites. And its absolutely not true. About 1/3 of families owned at least one slave in the south.

>>681649

Reparations are impossible with our political climate. Even if, by some miracle, both parties were willing to listen and passed individual reparations the money would hardly do shit for most black communities because the vast majority of them don't have the knowledge required to invest it wisely.

Bonus effect: working class whites feel more marginalized and left behind by liberals, and white people become more racist after they realize the reparations barely did anything and they stop feeling sorry for black people.

>>684494

When was that? The only states that had slave majorities in 1860 were South Carolina and Mississippi.

Probably the greatest culture of all time, really.