Introducing guns to indigenous people?

interesting way to phrase a seemingly age old way of conquest--superior technology. even allowing for training and supplying the 'original' occupants there is the very cruel method of warfare--bacteriological. Aztecs were defeated by European disease more so that bullets. mumps, measles and TB infected blankets given to Indians on purpose.
to stretch your idea we should also provide the 'peoples' with medical pre-intervention. the world aint fair and some playing fields can no more be made level than passing a law that pi=3.00 would make it so.

are we not defeating ourselves right now based on what the 'experts' we elected are now telling us only they can deal with cause its too complicated for those who voted them into office to understand. hmmmm.....

Beam down 100..........serpents. Serpents for the Garden of Eden.....James T. Kirk

If I ever discover a tribe I am going to bring a number of modern novelties and proclaim myself their god. Then I will invade neighboring tribes and create a vast empire that I will rule with an iron fist.

Sometimes they're forced to give up their religon.

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Yeah, but sometimes that also meant that the victims of their human sacrifices would be spared. See, a lot of these "indigenous" tribes were imperial powers, who "stole" the land of other tribes and killed people as part of their weekly church services, or, if not so well-organized, they were just random slaughterers of other humans.

While Europeans did some nasty stuff, it's important to put things into perspective.

Was it evil to stamp out the brutal, murderous Aztec religion? Were the Aztecs any better than the Spanish who conquered them?

The people we really ought to feel sorry for, in many cases, had, themselves, long since been subjugated and/or slaughtered by the "indigenous" people of an area.

When the Polynesians landed in the Hawaiian chain, the islands weren't uninhabited. They just weren't inhabited by people who were as big, or as good at slaughter, as the Polynesians -- who, incidentally, also did a good job of killing each other en masse as well.

Ever been to Mo'okini Heau, on the North shore of the Big Island? Spookiest place I've ever experienced, and I'm not the only one. Thousands were ritually slaughtered there by the peace-loving indigenous Hawaiians, and it feels like their ghosts still haunt the place. No ****.

Western influence led to Hawaiians going from illiterate to 100% literate, the end of the kapu system in Hawaii (where, to maintain the power of the chiefs, a commoner would be killed for offenses that are analogous to jaywalking), the demise of their Feudal system, and the demise of the traditional religion that involved human sacrifice.

Now Europeans and Americans did some screwed-up stuff, too, no doubt. But as un-PC as it may be to say it, the "indigenous people" who had conquered the Islands before the Europeans stumbled upon them, got some good things out of the deal, too -- especially the commoners, who, as it usually goes, didn't have it quite as good as the chiefs.

Oh yeah -- the chiefs wore yellow and red feather capes. Since the birds they killed only had a couple of the feathers each, and they are small feathers, thousands of said rare native birds had to be hunted down and killed, each for a pair of tiny feathers that went into a chief's cape. So much for "living in harmony with the land" and all the usual tripe...

We DID sell firearms to King Kamehameha. He and his posse used them to slaughter the other chiefs' armies and "unite" the Islands. OTOH, he and his successor rulers did also do things that really helped the commoners, like ending the kapu system, and making it possible for all Hawaiians to read and write. Again, it all depends on your perspective.

We as a nation and a culture will never be able to have a really rational conversation about the whole "indigenous peoples" topic while it's steeped in false beliefs about numinous tribal peoples.

It's true. The idea of cultural relativism is absurd. There are some cultures that are simply downright primitive, and that's all there is to it. It has nothing to do with race, so nobody can call me racist for saying this. If a baby was randomly picked from some tribe in Africa and raised in America, he would be as American as any one of us. It's not about genetics, it's about what culture you were raised in. And some cultures are just ****ed up.

Sometimes I've taken flak for advocating that Rhodesia was a better country than the nightmare land of Zimbabwe that replaced it. Some people seem to think that a nation with a high standard of living and a first-world economy under white rule is horrible and oppressive but a nightmarish hellhole with mass starvation, genocide, disease and the most corrupt government on the planet is okay because it's under "black rule" or "majority rule" or something. Right. The only rule that Zimbabwe is under is Mugabe rule, and that means "everyone else can rot."

But I digress. The Rhodesian military used the FAL, otherwise known as the "right arm of the free world." Special units of the Rhodesian army, like the Grey's Scouts and Selous Scouts, were also trained in the use of captured enemy weapons such as AK-47s and other Soviet Bloc firearms.

So what I'm getting so far is, no matter how dire the native's plight, giving them firearms to save themselves from being killed for their land would be a waste of time?

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It is our nature to rule over the weak, so yes.

This kind of argument assumes all cultures are created equal. If that were true the Americas wouldn't have been populated by STONEAGE civilizations. The Europeans didn't exactly run roughshod over the countries that had drug themselves into the iron age.

The Yanamomo natives live in seperate bands, if firearms were given to one band they would be used to attack other bands for the women and food. The bands are not in collective agreement about the dire situation in with they live. BTW, they were given guns some thirty years ago and this was the outcome. I believe the anthropologists name was Greene.

Look at the situation in Africa. Everyone is massacring each other over there. Would they be better off if they just had spears and arrows instead of guns? YES, they would.

Does anyone have credible documentation about giving Indians infected blankets? Several researchers have come up empty trying to document this. This was one of Ward Churchill's most often used complaints against white people ( he was pr oven to not have 1 drop of Indian blood, among other things). I was married to a Seneca Indian, and did a fair amount of research with the tribe in Oklahoma, and this has never been part of their history. I call B S on this until pr oven.

during the french and indian war, the british or french commanding officer pulled blankets from the sickbeds of people infected with smallpox i believe. those blankets were then "left behind" during a retreat and the indians took em and got the small pox.

On the arming of indigenous peoples. Not exactly a good idea. If the intent is to give them arms and watch what happens, chaos will result but you maintain "purity" as your not directing them in their activities.
However if you give them guns AND watch over them to make sure they arent used to go avenge a cow/goat/woman theft from 3-5 generations ago, then youll be "saving them" but youll be corrupting them by your control.

doesnt anyone read heinlein anymore?

most indigenous peoples have no contact with modern society. It is probably better that way. Alot of them that have been given weapons turned out to be as ruthless as you can imagine. Let's not make it any worse.

Sorry Bezoar.....

The supposed introduction of smallpox deliberately into the Indian population is not supported by the facts... The first instances would have been in 1763, about 150 years before the germ theory was developed. Before the mid 19th century, it simply was not known what spread smallpox. Even the Mandan incident which Ward Churchill made up his story about was before the time the modern version of germ theory was brought about.

It simply exists that a stronger culture will take over a weaker one. Celts... Norman... Germanic tribes...Cain and Abel... My guess is, if the Indians could have slaughtered all the first settlers and then went to Great Britain et al and wiped us out there... they would have.

and if you really think the Indians lived amongst nature and they lived harmoniously with the land.... Horse hockies. As was pointed out before, The native tribes would decimate an area of buffalo and have to move on to the next area. Ever see a Buffalo Jump? The only reason that people have this romantic notion of the Native Americans living in harmony is the buffalo bred at a faster rate than the Indians could chow em down.

So what I'm getting so far is, no matter how dire the native's plight, giving them firearms to save themselves from being killed for their land would be a waste of time?

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That's not how you couched it in your initial post.

You will find that many of the "natives" did have firearms, and that they used them on other "natives."

It's not so simple.

If we accept the premise that the indigenous people are the good guys and the invading Westerners are the bad guys, would arming the "good guys" have made a difference?

Not necessarily. There is much more to warfare and conquest than just technology. Remember the Boxer Rebellion and the Opium Wars in China, where small European armies destroyed Chinese forces hundreds of times their size. The Chinese had muskets, cannon, and advanced sailing ships so the technology disparity between the invaders and locals was not actually that great. Nationalism, discipline, logistics, and efficient government would have helped the Chinese far more than slightly better cannons, or rifled muskets rather than smoothbore.

Or take 1800s Africa, where European slavers often traded firearms to local chieftains, who then turned around and used their superior firepower to capture more slaves from neighboring tribes. No one is going to make the argument that guns have made sub-Saharan Africa a better, safer place.

I'm told the US did exactly that with a tribe in Vietnam. (Montanargs?) When the conflict ended and our support and arms ended they were slaughtered.

From Monty Python's Life of Brian the indigenous people of Judea discuss the Romans:

Reg: They've bled us white, the bastards. They've taken everything we had, and not just from us, from our fathers, and from our fathers' fathers.
Loretta: And from our fathers' fathers' fathers.
Reg: Yeah.
Loretta: And from our fathers' fathers' fathers' fathers.
Reg: Yeah. All right, Stan. Don't labour the point. And what have they ever given us in return?!
Xerxes: The aqueduct?
Reg: What?
Xerxes: The aqueduct.
Reg: Oh. Yeah, yeah. They did give us that. Uh, that's true. Yeah.
Commando 3: And sanitation.
Loretta: Oh, yeah, the sanitation, Reg. Remember what the city used to be like.
Reg: Yeah. All right. I'll grant you the aqueduct and the sanitation are two things that the Romans have done.
Matthias: And the roads!
Reg: Well, yeah. Obviously the roads. I mean, the roads go without saying, don't they? But apart from the sanitation, the aqueduct, and the roads--
Commando: Irrigation.
Xerxes: Medicine.
Commandos: Huh? Heh? Huh...
Commando 2: Education.
Commandos: Ohh...
Reg: Yeah, yeah. All right. Fair enough.
Commando 1: And the wine.
Commandos: Oh, yes. Yeah...
Francis: Yeah. Yeah, that's something we'd really miss, Reg, if the Romans left. Huh.
Commando: Public baths.
Loretta: And it's safe to walk in the streets at night now, Reg.
Francis: Yeah, they certainly know how to keep order. Let's face it. They're the only ones who could in a place like this!
Commandos: Hehh, heh. Heh heh heh heh heh heh heh.
Reg: But apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh-water system, and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?
Xerxes: Brought peace?
Reg: Oh, pea-- Shut up!

Even without - or with very few, or inferior - guns, many of the "indies" gave good accounts of themselves, e.g., the Zulus vs. the British.

In perspective

Yet arguably, the United States(or Brazil in this case) as we know it might never exist if not for outright greed. Sorry, there's no other word for it.

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By that argument, the indigenous people's desire to maintain their lifestyle is no more than greed.

One could argue the colonization of the New World was driven by greed, but I think the founding of the United States is not so simply defined. In founding this nation, people were hungry for - among other things - freedom in various forms and a relief from an arbitrary and monolithic government. I suppose that desire to be free could be labled 'greed' by the arbitrary and monolithic government, but I don't concur.

The imposition of 'other culture' upon a given group is often decried, yet, as others have demonstrated, the original culture in question may or may not be all that desirable, either. Of course, decent treatment, let alone equal rights for women and literacy are some of the cultural values we seem to impose on other groups. Selfish so and sos that we are.

Providing guns may or may not 'fix' anything. Guns are simply tools, not instruments of morality or decency or even right and wrong.

It has always been the choice of these "lost tribes" to continue their isolation, not the actions of the Brazilians. These lost tribes know very well how corrupting contact with modern societies will be to their traditional way of life. I wish them luck.

If anyone has actually studied the history: the Spanish Conquistadors had vast armies of local tribes & cultures as allies when they defeated the Aztecs and the other major American cultures. Yes, steel, horses and firearms helped the slaughter, but if you counted allied armies, the actual numbers were close to 1/1.

North America was probably the only continent where firearms were completely controlled by white settlers -even then, the colonials, British, French and later Americans/Canadians armed native tribes to help kill other Indians.

Africa always had military trade for firearms, if not from "white" Europe, then from Arab traders (who used African tribal allies to do the actual slave-capturing).

Firearms were well-known in Asia by the time of white colonials, they just weren't interested in using them as much as the "whites".

The fast spread of European Colonies was helped by firearms, but weak & decadent governments were the real reason. Colonialism has always been aided by allied groups and societies.

Lastly, for 500 years, Western military dominance has always defeated local armies, but it was the proliferation of the Russian AK47 that has helped level the playing field for local insurgents fighting against European influences.