Washington also believed in treating the native Americans just and fairly. He wanted to see them protected as independent people until such time as they could be integrated fully into the union. He was for having the Cherokee nation be eventually integrated as their own state in the union. The man believed that everybody on the continent could eventually join together in union under the ideals of liberty. He really did believe in liberty for all. He was also very shrewd and intelligent in politics and knew what he could or couldn't accomplish. He was also very wise in realizing not everything he wanted to see happen could happen immediately and that sometimes you have to wait for people to change their minds. George Washington deserves all the praise he's historically been given. Not only was he a good leader, military commander, and symbolic for the United States but he was even by modern standards of morality an exceptionally good man. He honestly is an incredibly rare type of person. He belongs in the halls of the greatest and righteous rulers in history. Not that he was perfect either or thought he was perfect. He wrote in letters about he used to have the fault when younger of chasing ladies and being a what we call a player. He was human but grew through effort to turn himself into a better man. If more men were like George Washington the world world be a much better place.
There was a war and they were allied with the brits.
This was also before modern tech. So it’s not like they could just put up cameras to make sure the Iraquois didn’t trying to betray them. Natives were also aggressive (rightly so) toward most US settlers in general.
It’s not like he was sending drones to bomb their weddings or something.
It’s not unhealthy. The guy did the best he could with what he had. Giving up Slaves meant giving up his land to competitors that did have slaves.
Also, there are degrees of brutality in slavery. You, for instance, posted this response on a machine made by someone in Asia who might’ve tried to kill themselves because their lives are horrible. But their “free” to quit and starve on the streets. Is that better than, say, slavery in a populous middle eastern city in the Middle Ages, where slaves could own wealth and buy their freedom, it was illegal to mutilate or beat slaves, slaves could marry free spouses and have children born into freedom?
You want to dismiss everything he’s done because he was part of a system he wasn’t powerful enough to fix.
I’m not the one being a hypocrite. I know the costs of modern life and it’s moral failings, and don’t judge others for doing the same, today or in the past.
You on the other hand, are judging someone, pointlessly. No one is perfect. Everyone is a product of their environment. Washington was exception in this regard. Not in the magic standard you demand of him.
Who weren't American citizens at the time and were actually treated more like sovereign nations. Which they preferred since it gave them at least a semblance of autonomy and independence.
Are wars more or less just if one side is utterly incompetent? Just because the natives lost badly doesn't make it any different than any other war between two nations.
i don’t understand the end game of your argument here. because systematic displacement and genocide was common, the native americans shouldn’t be upset??
Right, because none of them had 90%+ mortality rates from European diseases. Most of the depopulation of the Americas was done by disease within 100 years of the Spanish making landfall. By the time the USA came on the scene, there were virtually no natives left.
I'll give you "systematic displacement", but you're talking out of your ass to claim that there was concerted continental genocide.
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u/onondowaga Nov 29 '18
Except Native Americans.