| | Aaron and Daniel, the title to the book compiled of Machan's lectures abroad is The Virtue of Liberty, not the Ethics.... Sorry about the mistake. I bought several copies from FEE a few years ago; I assume they still distribute this great introduction to the subject of moral values and individual rights. This book helped me to clear up my confusion about this subject after years of fogginess about it.
Robert, I confess to a lot of ignorance about the tribal cultures across the continent. I know a little about western tribes, but that's it. My objective was to challenge the notion that Indians owned the North American continent by virtue of the fact that "they were here first", as political fashionatas proclaim. But I also wanted to emphasize that many of the western tribes really were savage and primitive, contrary to the misty Rousseauian depiction of the primitive or savage as "noble".
On the other hand, American commentators in the 19th century were often condescending toward the Indians. These commentators believed that the Indians were less than human, incapable of leading civilized lives, competant only to roam with and hunt the wild beasts of prairie and forest. The "civilized" and the "compassionate" (self described) realized Indians needed to be herded onto reservations. I just the other day stumbled on such a comment in The Fur Trade of the American West by Crittendin (spelling?) who wrote around the turn of the century and was considered a leading authority. In fact, Thomas Jefferson wrote somewhere that all the lands west of the Mississippi River should be turned into a wild Injun theme park.
I don't doubt that some tribes were more intellectally developed and civilized than others. Even in the Far West, some tribes were professional cutthroats and marauders, and some were meek farmers and hunters. Some, like the Nez perce, seemed to have more brains and facility for trade. But of course, Indians possessed all of the potential for self improvement, or for savegery, that is characteristic of volitional beings.
Incidentally, there's a fun book that was a best seller a few years ago, entitled Tough Trip Through Paradise by Andrew Garcia. This is Garcia's memoirs of his days living with Indians in Montana in the 1880's. He was an untutored kid with a knack for attracting women ( a self described squaw man) and a rare talent for seeing and describing people. He had almost no schooling, yet despite his ubiquitous grammatical errors and run-on sentences, Garcia could write. And boy, does he have adventures to tell! I recommend this book highly!
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