Recently, I have come upon an argument that seems to justify the occupation of this land because “all lands were conquered by someone.” I first heard it during the DC fiasco involving students from an all-boys Catholic school after an abortion march when they encountered indigenous peoples and a group of Black Hebrew Israelites. That incident could be used to highlight so many societal ills, but today I am going to focus just on this notion of “all lands were conquered by someone.” I watched several of the videos in full and a large white male yelled this to one of the Native American people who was on the mall that afternoon. When I heard it, I was like WTF?! 

Why is this argument racist? Well, first it is one of those silent insidious lies that permeates the halls of education. It is slipped quietly into a lesson here or there and it seems to make sense upon hearing it. It just sounds right, so people believe it. Secondly, it comes from a colonizer’s worldview. What I mean by that is because white people in America are either the descendants of colonizers or the descendants of immigrants who came to this country due to whatever ills they were facing at home, whether it was religious suppression or economic hardship, they believe this is how it’s done and there is nothing inherently wrong with it. Therefore, it makes sense to think this is how things have always been done throughout human history. However, whether you believe in evolution or you are a strict creationist, there was a time when people resided in one, perhaps more, part(s) of the world, then moved. 

If you are a creationist, you believe God created the Garden

of Eden, Eve ate an apple, offered it to Adam, they noticed they were naked, God got mad and gave them an abrupt eviction notice without a 30 or 60 day moving window. If I recall my Old Testament Bible class correctly, the Bible and/or Biblical scholars place the Garden of Eden squarely between the Nile, the Euphrates and the Tigris rivers. Read:smack dab in the middle of Africa. Adam and Eve got their walking papers and migrated North and East. 

If you believe in evolution, evolutionary scientists still place the cradle of civilization or the beginning of Homo sapiens (us) smack dab in the middle of Africa between the aforementioned rivers. There are more than one schools of thought regarding this. Some evolutionary biologists believe this is the only place Homo sapiens developed while there are others (with DNA evidence to seemingly back up their theory) that suggest current humans developed at the same time in several places near rivers/oceans that provided a warm, moist environment to encourage the growth of life as we know it; as well as, a food supply. I don’t know what I think about the second theory and may address it in a future post. 

Given that said, regardless of what you believe about the origins, you have to agree that current humans left wherever they originated from and migrated to other parts of the world and settled land. Therefore, also the underlying assumption has to be either some people evolved and never left where they evolved because there are currently people living in the Nile River Basin and therefore didn’t have to do any conquering. They just stayed where they were and created societies. Or, you believe they were kicked out, disobeyed and returned to the Nile River Basin when they thought they could get away with it. Still unoccupied and still no conquering. 

Moving on to the Americas. The current prevailing theory is that indigenous people moved to these continents because they were following food over the Siberian land bridge when it wasn’t frozen over. Wooly mammoths, saber tooth tigers, etc. They came over in one of two waves. There is no current evidence that suggests there were any people here before they arrived. If there were Neanderthals or Denisovans here as there were in Europe when Homo sapien migrated out of Africa and/or the Russian Steppe, it is possible that they, too, mated with them, not conquered them. Current, DNA evidence suggests that almost invariably all people of European descent share at least 2% DNA with Neanderthals. I don’t know of any current DNA evidence that is similar for indigenous peoples, but I could be wrong. Given that said, they didn’t stop to mate or conquer in Europe, they just kept it pushing to the Americas. 

Of course, I imagine the conversations going something like this, if they migrated out of Africa and made a pit stop in either the Russian Steppe or Europe before nation states: 

They get to colder regions in Alaska and similar places, and drop some folks off: “This sounds like a great place to stop Yuri, let’s make a home!” Yuri was like, “F#%k yeah! I’ll build a house out of ice and go fishing on a frozen lake!” Thus, the igloo and ice fishing holes were brought here. 

Then, the next wave gets a little further south and because they were used to changing seasons, someone said, “Catalina, this is a great place to stop! There’s plenty of food and the seasons aren’t too harsh, I can hunt, you can gather…” Catalina was like, “F#%k yeah! This seems like a great place to make a home and raise children! I can put a garden right there and grow some Got Damn corn!” (Forgive my lack of feminist thought in my example.) 

After dropping that wave off, the next conversation occurred. “Tayo, I have followed you because I love you and would do anything for you and our family, but Got Dammit it’s cold! It’s effing COLD! I’m not staying here!” Tayo said, “Okay baby! I got you! You know I do, so we gonna keep moving until we find some place with mild temperatures.” They kept it moving to places south. 

At least that’s how it happened in my head. 

Bottom Line: So who was here before the Indigenous People who call America home? NO ONE . No one here, no need to conquer, just settle.