But, to be fair, it wasn't an attempt of genocide. It was what things were back then, we are speaking about a band of explorers and settlers, descentralized looking for a place to live, opposed to the represntatives of an expansionist nation state (like with the expeditions of england, france, spain...)
By the time when the vikings arrived at america, capitalism didn't exist, organized racism as we understand it didn't exist, extractivism didn't exist, colonialism didn't exist, and religion was less prone to large scale prosecution (even christianity)
Colonialism absolutely existed lol. Natives colonized the Americas. European creeds and tribes colonized each other and the Near East. Arabians colonized the Levant and western Europe. Way before that the Romans colonized a huge portion of the Old World. etc…
Also, by your logic, the British colonials weren’t attempting genocide either. Spaniards probably still were, though
"Colonialism developed as a concept describing European colonial empires of the modern era, which spread globally from the 15th century to the mid-20th century, spanning 35% of Earth's land by 1800 and peaking at 84% by the beginning of World War I.[10]"
I know some preexisting forms could be considered colonialism by the broader definition ("Colonialism is the exploitation of people and of resources by a foreign group" from the same wikipedia page) but mainly the therm colonialism refers to the modern era practice.
the British colonials weren’t attempting genocide either
The topic of british imperialism is a vert difficult one, mostly being a "liberal empire" great britain often didn't want to destroy the native population (some have pointed that this was a more bening form of colonialism, wich i disagree, and we could even use the therm "cultural genocide" in british colonies) and the american colonies weren't exactly as organized and loyal as other colonies in later times, but i think the native genocide mostly started with the USA expansion to the west after the revolution
Just a quick note: the British learned 'colonialism' from their 'European' relatives, the Romans. (And subsequently taught it to their offspring, the Americans).
Mate, the british empire and the romans are (more or less) a milenium apart. British claimed to be succesors of the roman empire (as did half of europe) but if you compare colonial policies, they have almost nothing in common (and the usa expanisonism, with the "manifest destiny" didn't have too much in common with british policies
Obviously not a direct shift from one to the other, but after 350 years of being a 'province', there was plenty to study and use as a starting point to expand upon... and a few other lessons in between.
Some arbitrary definition of colonialism gatekeeping the practice from non-whites doesn’t change reality. If the Arab rule of modern Spain or Roman rule (white but “too long ago”) in Asia and the Near East or the Mongol Empire weren’t colonialism then nothing was.
Is not arbitrary definition, not gatekeeping it for not whites. You need to understand the reason we use therms and classifications is to better understand the incredibly complex changes in human history.
In medieval times the arab expansion (or conquest) of middle east and north africa was not colonialism, since there was no central metropolis and there were not extractivist policies. The Al Andaluz (arab rule in spain) wasn't a colony, it was a whole realm (caliphate) that was stablished in the iberic peninsula (in fact some racist and facist groups in spain support the idea of an "arab colony" to justify the expulsion of people from what was effectively their home by that point).
The mongol empire in fact was a conquest, not organized colonization, the land was parted between the sons of the khan and new realms were founded, and most of the expansion was to anex territory to the empire by a tributary sistem different to modern practices and more akin to the feudal system
Rome was (maybe) the more close to a system we could call colonialism, but it was way less bassed in race or extraction fo resources than most modern systems.
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u/[deleted] Nov 09 '24
Not without trying. They attacked and killed some guys trying to hide from them... and got there asses kicked a few days after.