“Were the Indians Noble Savages?”: Don Boys Puts the Arguement to Rest.

According to the brilliant scholar of the history of Native American peoples, Don Boys–a former member of the Indiana House of Representatives– it is obvious that the First Peoples were much better off with European settlement than before. This fine scholar–and himself a noble gentleman of high standing–has pounded the final nail into the coffin of ‘Liberal‘ thinking and their fruity admiration of Native people’s philosophy and lifestyle. Thank God for people like Don Boys who make our world a better place, filled with understanding and acute, intellectual missives such as his brilliant essay called Were the Indians Noble Savages?

This is a gentleman who has obviously spent most of his life studying the nuances of the First Nations. It must be true! In order to make statements like he has he must have spent an immense amount of time studying these people.

Let’s take a look at some of the more important sections of his argument:

“Columbus had arrived. He delivered civilization to this continent–and all that went with it, good and bad. As the Indians began to stir from a sound sleep, Columbus was nearing the island of San Salvador.”

This is his first salvo of brilliance. Within a simple three sentences he has stated his intentions for the rest of his article. ‘He delivered civilization to this continent…” From this it’s obvious that there was no civilization previous to the arrival of Columbus; all the people, all the cultures, all the tribes had no civilization! If Don Boys writes it, it must be true.

The next sentence, “As the Indians began to stir from a sound sleep, Columbus was nearing the island of San Salvador,” is a little more subtle in nature, although just as powerful. With this one sentence he has proven what White People have known, but have been unable to prove, for centuries. It’s obvious that Europeans, represented here by Columbus, are a much more industrious people and have a better work ethic than Native Peoples, as while the lazy Natives were still sleeping soundly–we can extrapolate from Don Boys’ brilliance that they slept for over 12 hours a day– that the civilizing Europeans were already on the move, changing and affecting the world! Well done, Don. Well played.

A few paragraphs on we get to:

“The “noble savage” is a product of imaginative writers with humanistic leanings. Many of the Indians were brutal savages, even cannibals!” And a little further on in the same paragraph, “Yes, some Indians kept slaves and ate them during hard times! Wonder why you weren’t taught that in public schools?”

This is a nice move. Native Peoples were indeed brutal, what with their wars and their slavery. They even had the gall to kill their slaves!! Unbelievable! What kind of people would have slaves and even kill them? When Europeans arrived in North America they put a quick end to slavery and the killing of slaves; that’s what I call Civilization In Action!

Now, you might be thinking something like, “but didn’t Americans have slaves? Didn’t they even have this huge civil war due in large part to the fact of slavery?” True, but you’re not thinking right (which means you’re not thinking like Don Boys). You see the slaves of Native Peoples were other Native Peoples, or a slavery of, relatively, their own people or people of an equal value. That’s horrible!

Whereas the American concept of slavery was based on using people of lesser value. Africans. Africans who, I’m sure Don Boys would agree, had no civilization either, and therefor the act of slavery actually was a way to promote civilization in this childlike race. Slavery, when done right, is a good thing.

Now it is true, and likely, that some peoples did practice cannibalism. From accounts I’ve read it is usually associated with ritual–warriors would eat the hearts of their enemies to absorb their power–rather than an act of having a hankering for human flesh. Off hand I can’t remember any examples of cannibalism for the sake of a yummy snack, although I’m sure it did happen. I mean if European explorers wrote accounts about it, it must be true, because propaganda is a modern invention and was not around in any form previous to the 20th century.

“Indians are alleged to have been preservers of pure air, water, and the forests while modern Americans are made to feel guilty for highways, homes, and hospitals. We are told this is not progress. I suppose deer trails, wigwams, and kids dying by the thousands are preferable!”

Nice move! What idiot would argue that hospitals are a bad thing. Native people’s had no knowledge what-so-ever of medical value. I’m surprised Don Boys didn’t explain how if a Native person had a cold the rest of the tribe would just kill him, using the reason that he was probably going to die anyway.

Then they would eat the corpse.

People are people everywhere and I’m sure that there would have been many Natives who would have built smog inducing factories if they could have. But there weren’t any. And it’s impossible to believe that Native People could have been more in tune with Nature than Europeans. I mean we’ve already proven that they had no civilization, right! If a people have no civilization, then what are they? A part of nature? Bullocks!

“The factory spitting out smoke is supposed to be obscene and a blight on mankind but a smoking factory is a beautiful sight. It means jobs, money, bills paid, and food for children, gifts to charities, higher Gross National Product, and a higher standard of living for most people.”

This paragraph is pure poetry. It is a well known fact that artists–poets, painters, photographers, musicians–love to make art about smoking factories, because it is such a beautiful sight. Factories mean jobs, and create them from the factory floor to the above mentioned hospital–due to weak people with respiratory issues needing advanced medical attention. Without factories there would be no food, because we need factories to put the food into cans so we can buy it from supermarkets. I mean, nobody eats fresh food from farms anymore–that’s just stupid. Without factories we wouldn’t be able to pump up our GNP, which creates a greater standard of living, which allows us to afford nice houses in which to barricade ourselves and filter out the, as I like to call it, Civilizing-Smog-Of-Progress!

“Yes, I choose smoking factories to silent, dark factories because I love people better than I do clean air. If I have to choose between an unobstructed view of a field of buttercups and a housing development, I will choose the houses every time. While being interested in cleaning up the environment, let us not become fanatics and follow the self-serving hypocrites in that movement who use the concern of sincere people to “feather their own nests.” “

I love people more than clean air too. I mean, who needs clean air when we have hospitals and advanced medicine to lessen the effects that are, purportedly, caused by factories? And we don’t need fields of buttercups. We don’t need forests. Hell, let’s just dam the crap out of everything and flood all these useless, wasted lands. People don’t need these things when we are busy working in our factories. We work in these factories so we can live in our houses and get good night’s sleep so that we can go back to the factory the next day. Don Boys understands that if there are interesting places to go to–to visit and see and hike through and have a picnic in and so on– that this will only distract the worker from making profits for the rich people. We don’t want that, do we Don!?!

And forget the animals and vegetation that live on these lands; OUR lands. Screw-em. If they can’t be civilized what use are they to us, right Don? Stupid, uncivilized, grizzly bears. They deserve to die.

“Before getting into the Indians’ story, I need to “clear out the underbrush” so we can see the forest. One writer wrote of white men who “took over their [Indian] world,” but where did he get the idea that this world (America) belonged to the Indians? Need I remind you that merely living on the land does not confirm ownership? The Indians had lived here for hundreds of years but were still living in crude homes; eating and warming themselves over an open fire; and letting their old people die alone without help.”

This paragraph starts strong: Clear out the underbrush! This is an allusion to the fact that forests don’t know how to take care of themselves and therefor civilized-human intervention is needed.

And where, exactly, DID people get the idea that Native peoples owned the land, just because they were here first! That’s stupid. And all those treaties that were written up which recognized Native rights to land–that our civilized European sensibilities were wise enough to ignore over time–were just exercises in creative writing. They are a fun read nowadays, but were obviously meant to just be enjoyed as literature, and not to be taken as a bond based on the honour of the White Man. As Don would tell us, I’m sure, might is right, and that’s all that counts.

And these miserable, uncivilized people with their crude long houses, crappy art forms and open fire pits–which are an obvious violation of safety standards–what they hell right do they have to the land that they were living on? Land is there to be built upon, and land with no modern building on it is a blight to civilized people everywhere! Don’t forget that if we don’t build things then our GNP is going to suffer! If these people really wanted to prove that they owned this land they should have built factories. By not building factories they forfeit any claim on land ownership.

“They had access to all the gold, silver, iron, water, trees, etc., that the white man had, yet it was the white man who built the greatest, most advanced society in the world. If that sounds like racism, so be it. It is also factual. Most Liberals don’t like facts; they like fantasy or faith in old, discredited theories that informed people discarded years ago.”

Couldn’t they see the value of gold? I mean, what can’t you do with gold. Think of all the fine jewelery that these people were missing out on. And although Don doesn’t state it, it’s obvious that the definition of what a great, advanced society is, is based on factories. The more factories, the more advanced a society. No factories = stupid. It’s a fact, you lazy-assed, hippie liberals! How many liberals do you see building factories? None! They’re too busy looking at fantasies, such as treaties signed by Native Peoples, and spreading disinformation, unlike more conservative types like you and I, right Don?

“If the white man had not beached his boats on the sands of Jamestown, Plymouth Rock, and Cape Cod, the Indians would still be huddled around their soot-lined tepees warming themselves over a fire made by rubbing dry sticks together. They would still be burying their dead children because of childhood diseases, and maybe the air would be cleaner if the white man had never come, but who would be alive to care? “

This paragraph is so obviously true that I can’t think of anything to add to it. I mean write a history that never happened and state it as the unequivocal truth. Why not; we have factories.
Don writes several more paragraphs, talking about South American societies, and if you want to read it then go to the source. I’m done because, quite frankly, Don has won me over.

So, to summarize:

Native people are lazy, stupid and not very industrious.

Factories are the best thing since sliced bread.

Native People, in fact, really never owned the land–because they didn’t build factories– and we can consider them to be place holders for Europeans.

Slavery is subjective.

Nature is stupid.

Non-Europeans are stupid babies.

And Don Boys sure knows how to write a compelling argument.