Not Stolen

The Truth About European Colonialism in the New World

De: Jeff Fynn-Paul

Narrado por: Paul Maitrejean

A renowned historian debunks current distortion and myths about European colonialism in the New World and restores much needed balance to our understanding of the past.

Was America really “stolen” from the Indians? Was Columbus a racist? Were Indians really peace-loving, communistic environmentalists? Did Europeans commit “genocide” in the New World? It seems that almost everyone—from CNN to the New York Times to angry students pulling down statues of our founders—believes that America’s history is a shameful tale of racism, exploitation, and cruelty.

In Not Stolen, renowned historian Jeff Fynn-Paul systematically dismantles this relentlessly negative view of U.S. history, arguing that it is based on shoddy methods, misinformation, and outright lies about the past. America was not “stolen” from the Indians but fairly purchased piece by piece in a thriving land market. Nor did European settlers cheat, steal, murder, rape or purposely infect them with smallpox to the extent that most people believe. No genocide occurred—either literal or cultural—and the decline of Native populations over time is not due to violence but to assimilation and natural demographic processes.

Fynn Paul not only debunks these toxic myths, but provides a balanced portrait of this complex historical process over 500 years. The real history of Native and European relations will surprise you. Not only is this not a tale of shameful sins and crimes against humanity—it is more inspiring than you ever dared to imagine.

©2023 Bombardier Books An Imprint of Post Hill Press (P)2024 Ascend Audio LLC

Necessary reading

A necessary counterpoint to modern anti west fascists who attempt to paint American settlers as uniquely evil instead of heroic.

Fasts Don’t Care about Your Feelings

All hail reason and objectivity! Thank God someone had the courage to Write this book. Thankyou!

Reasoned balanced history

Nice to see clear dispassionate history in an age of rage. The radicals need a check on their incitement have truths. I hope this is a sign of the pendulum is moving back to reason and moderation.

Apparently I was indoctrinated

I’m a Catholic and many of the books I read argued against the Black Legend. In many cases they argued against the idea that the Spanish Empire treated the Indians badly by arguing that the Americans and the British Empire were far more brutal. As a result I had a reverse Black Legend bias against the US. Obviously there were serious injustices including the Trail of Tears acknowledged by this book (although it wasn’t a genocide). But English women migrated to the New World whereas in Spain it was just the men. So the intermarriage rate in New Spain vs New England says more about the culture of English vs Spanish women than about an anti Indian bias. I was amazed to discover how relatively little Indian vs settler violence there was.

My key facts in US Indian relations:

1) Only about 10k Indians were actually killed by settlers in the US the whole time. The settlers lost about 12k to Indians. In other words aside from some bad apples on both sides like the Indian King Philip the relationship was mostly commercial not military. Indians sold land to the settlers. Far more people died in each of the major Civil War battles than all the frontier wars combined from Jamestown to modern times.

2) The Spanish and the British had coastal heavy populations and didn’t have the technology to colonize the interior until the 19th century. So for the first few centuries after 1492 the Europeans hugged the coasts and Mississippi River until first the Oregon Trail and later the Railroad both became utilized in the 1800s.

3) Since the 19th century the population of American citizens vs Indians has stayed relatively proportionate. Land per capita is not unfavorable to Indians even today.

4) Some of the well meaning Indian welfare programs and victimization education programs have devastated Indian culture.

5) It would have been hard to stop the voluntary land acquisition of settlers from Indians when the value of land per acre to the settlers due to farming technology was much greater than it was to the Indians who only used it for hunting. And the settlers had much more horses, currency, gold, and guns that the Indians valued far more than hunting acres. It would have taken heavy handed restrictions to prevent that sale happening over and over again.

6) If an Indian who died of diseases that came to the New World from their typical origin in China by way of Europe, that is not the fault of Europeans. Trying to wrap this large, amorphous & speculative number of disease deaths into the much smaller numbers killed at engagements like Little Bighorn is silly sophistry.

And in relation to Spain:

The 16th century “Taino genocide” supposedly started by Christopher Columbus is based on ludicrous population estimates that have no basis in extant evidence and agricultural technology and the assumption that every member of the dramatically exaggerated Taino population based on those wild estimates not currently living in the Caribbean and identifying as “Taino” was murdered by bloodthirsty Spaniards. In point of fact the Spanish Empire did whatever it could to preserve and increase Indian populations.

factual

I like how the author goes by facts and not emotion. Everything written in this book can easily be looked up.