I’m leaving South Africa out of this because that’s a whole other mess.
Out of Australia, Canada, N.Z., and the U.S., where is guilt/solicitude/special provisions for/arguable P.C.-ness for or about the aboriginal population greatest and least?
Not a GD about whether past treatment of the natives was bad, really bad, or eggs getting broken for an omelet. Just: where is there the most current bending over backwards to atone for perceived past slights?
My impression is that the U.S. would rank lowest. Indians had a little moment in the '70s, but there’s not a lot of re-assigning of native place names (of course, many of the native place names were adopted), and I just about never hear “Native American rights” or issues raised as any kind of priority/source of shame. Most Indians seem okay with “Indian,” and other than letting them have the cigarette/casino profits – I don’t get the impression that most Americans spend a lot of time feeling guilty about the past (more like, sorry for them in the present, but what can you do man?).
Just as an impression, I get the feeling that N.Z. might be at the opposite end of the spectrum – restoring Maori place names, etc. Canada maybe second most guilty/solicitous, Australia third?
As for worse…I’m guessing Tasmania since they are all dead. I’m not sure how much the Brits have put into the old mea culpa two step there either. Could be a lot, though it’s moot since, as I said, they are all dead anyway.
I’ve been told that they prefer to be called by their tribal affiliations (Sioux, Dakota, etc.), rather than by the term “Indian.” I don’t know how widespread this view is, but I tend to use the tribal affiliation (or more correctly (I think), nation names) when I can.
I took a Native American history course afew years ago and my instructor said that, for most indigenous peoples of the United States, “American Indian” was acceptable enough. My wife used to work for the Smithsonian and helped represent some tribal college lobbying group or another and says that – to some – the term “Native American” feels like politically correct pandering.
As for the OP, my guess would have been Canada but I’m not overly familiar with New Zealand’s relationship with their aboriginal people. I’d definately rank the US towards, if not at, the bottom of the list.
So are practically all the indigenous peoples of the Caribbean, so that’s a tie. Few people who live there now even have Caribbean Indians as ancestors, however distant. But, though there are British ex-colonies there, that’s mostly the work of the Spanish.
I thought most of the Carib indigenous populations were decimated through disease. The Brits hunted the indigenous Tasmanian s directly…like animals. They deliberately wiped them out.
Granted, dieing from disease or starvation wouldn’t be fun either, and I’m certainly not going to be one to excuse the Spanish…but I think the Brits take the grand prize in this instance.
The Caribs of Dominica do own their own territory within the island - there are a few thousand of them and only because they were able to hide out in the forest away from the British. It’s only a few years ago that they revealed one of their hiding places.
Disease, yes, but also war and extermination and slave labor. It went the same way in Florida; by the time the Spanish swung around to thinking the Indians were human after all and should be converted instead of enslaved or murdered, the indigenous nations of Florida were almost completely extinct. The Seminoles are descended from Creek Indians who migrated/refugeed south from Georgia in the 18th Century, and from runaway black slaves they sheltered (“Seminole” means “runaway”).
…with all due respect, when you couch your OP with words like “guilt”, , “PC-ness” and “bending over backwards to atone for perceived past slights” your ignorance of the issues involved in race relations in the various countries is exposed.
In terms of New Zealand: you should correctly relabel “guilt/solicitude/special provisions for/arguable P.C.-ness” as “working to honour the terms of the Treaty of Waitangi.” It has nothing to do with guilt, solicitude, giving special provisions or “being PC”.
On the 6th of February 1840 a treaty was signed between the Crown and many of the Maori tribal chiefs. There were two versions of the treaty: one written in Maori and one written in English. There were subtle differences in the two versions of the treaty: the primary difference was that the Maori version ‘sovereignty’ was translated as ‘governance’. This difference in translation was one of the many things that caused friction between Maori tribes and the Crown.
Since the signing of the treaty there has been a very long journey by both parties to “put things right.” Sure: the treaty has caused a lot of debate, from people who think it should be “scrapped” to people who consider it isn’t held in enough reverence. But the treaty, while not our founding document, is a very important document for many New Zealanders.
In terms of ranking the various countries: while I know some of the history of the countries you have listed I wouldn’t pretend to know enough about them in order to be able to rank them. If your questions were: “Which Anglophone Former Colony was Most Respectful of its Aboriginals”, as a Maori I would rank New Zealand quite highly. But solictous? You make it sound like people are getting stuff they don’t deserve, and if you think that it is incumbant on you to prove it.
On the basis of what I’ve read, I would rank the four countries in this order from the best record of how they have treated their aboriginal inhabitants to the worst record:
Sure, but Canada also didn’t close its last residential school until 1996*. I have a friend who does social work in a predominantly First Nations community, and the rampant alcoholism in the community largely comes from the 40-60yo age range. You see, people of that age use alcohol as a way of dealing with PTSD from residential schools.
You can’t seriously mean the U.S. has a better record than NZ!