Re: Marx on Native Americans

[Doug Henwood]

James Michael Craven wrote:

>The point is that the robbing of territory, displacement of Indians
>and genocide idicted Capitalisms own private property institutions
>and legal criteria for establishing "ownership". On the basis of what
>has been done to Indians, presumably anyone with a bigger gun and who
>is more ruthless can effectively take over, hold, maintain and make
>nominal improvements of someone else's territory and call it "land"
>and then call it "privately owned" land and generic private property.

If I'm remembering correctly, James Blaut says in The Colonizer's Model of
the World (Guilford, a couple of years ago) that European diseases killed
many more indigenous North and South Americans than European guns. Blaut
writes with great confidence - is this a controversial claim at all?

Doug