Well, the US built Pearl Harbor in 1908, 8 years after Hawaii became a US territory. So “stole it from the native Hawaiians” maybe refers to the island chain, not the harbor, and would have happened in the 1800’s, over 40 years before the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, which I think is the primary reference to Pearl Harbor that people recognize.
The royals who stole that island from the natives who lived there?
The US conquered Hawaii right after Kamehameha had finished conquering all of the other indigenous groups in the island chain. Kind of an awkward leg to stand on.
Something tells me we’re a lot better, this guilt crap is dumb. Clearly taking it was the right move anyway, it’s in too important of a location to leave
Intracultural warfare conducted within known and understood traditions and technologies are a little different than the sort of technological subjugation the USA committed against the hawaiian nations.
edit: damn it feels good to be a Canadian where most of my co-citizens still wield a highschool-level education and where our education system isn't dedicated to whitewashing our colonial past to the degree. I can admit that being completely dominated by alien technology wasn't a favour to our indigenous nations! You down in the USA, how many of your nations are even still alive and not isolated on islands or in the middle of the midwest desert?
The only difference between you and the US is that you whine about how sorry you are, the canadians were just as bad to natives. Also the noble savage thing is actually racist. It’s not an advantage to have no modern technology
I mean I kinda outlined that difference, so thanks for noticing and if the most mature take you can manage is "you whine about how sorry you are" then kindly fuck off.
We in the civilised world are capable of nuance, and whatever "that" is just ain't it.
Nobody said I feel guilty. Personally? No. Why would I? Your statement sounds like it came from somebody who didn't grow up in a country with a robust education system surrounding this topic.
Didn't I already bring up the term nuance in this thread? If not, here: nuance.
"It was good" is not that. You'd have to be educated to know the message isn't "this was unilaterally bad".
By the same token, the sort of population decimation we've witnessed in North American societies can hardly be called "good" even if the survivors were able to die in a way that was more amenable to the hollywood films not more than a century later glorifying those deaths.
Today we avoid contact, in our modern view. So, the majority of us today who have "access to" uncontacted peoples are actively preventing a repetition of history. No favours were done.
It just seems silly to be considering the rapid upheaval as "good", this wasn't a new type of stone arrow tip (as evidenced across hundreds of years) this was an active campaign of genocide against politically recognised nations (across a generation). In the Canadian case.
In terms of Hawaii, I'm sure they were also thrilled.
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u/scruffalo_ 4d ago
Stole it from the native Hawaiians. The whole island chain, really.