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> the mines are notorious for claiming the lives of roughly 8 million enslaved indigenous South Americans and Africans over a 300-year period As Spaniard this

> the mines are notorious for claiming the lives of roughly 8 million enslaved indigenous South Americans and Africans over a 300-year period As Spaniard this is disgusting to me and I don’t understand how talking about this still raises anger and some weird historic justifications. Wether we like it or not these are the pillars of the western world and why today we have privileges over most of the planet.

decremental 2y ago
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myrmidon 2y ago
> Wether we like it or not these are the pillars of the western world Not sure I understand you correctly, but I strongly disagree that colonialism was a necessary foundation for todays wealthy western democracies. I would consider it more another symptom-- once the perpetrators realized how outmatched the rest of the world was in military/logistics (especially compared to their direct neighbors). Older cultures acted exactly the same way, compare e.g. Romans, Huns, Egyptians, Persians (European colonialism just had the naval logistics to make this work on a bigger scale).
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- fock 2y ago
  > Not sure I understand you correctly, but I strongly disagree that colonialism was a necessary foundation for todays wealthy western democracies. Then go visit Sevilla and enjoy the output of the mines in the cathedral (no danger at all). And then think a little how amassing enough silver by slavery to make a 60feet high altar 300 years ago didn't give you quite a nice headstart on dominating a world where most other competing cultures valued the same metals as currency. Not saying this is particularly wrong in the grand scheme or we need to all be in eternal deference to anyone claiming to be a descendant of the people our ancestors exterminated for this. But it should be clear, getting access to these resources and ruthlessly exploiting them made Europe rich and enabled all the other colonialization which followed.
  - DiggyJohnson 2y ago
    > But it should be clear, getting access to these resources and ruthlessly exploiting them made Europe rich and enabled all the other colonialization which followed. I'm not GP, but the connections you're making between this sentence and the sentences prior to it are the suspicious ones. What you need to do is argue against the claim that it those things that allowed for the accumulation of all this silver that allowed for the success of colonization.
  - myrmidon 2y ago
    > And then think a little how amassing enough silver by slavery to make a 60feet high altar 300 years ago didn't give you quite a nice headstart on dominating a world where most other competing cultures valued the same metals as currency. This is where we disagree. My position is that colonialism was a consequence of post-medieval Europe being dominant, instead of the other way around. I'm not disputing that colonialism profitted the perpetrators, but I think giving it major credit for 20th-century Europes wealth is just a misattribution (if I had to reduce that to one word it would be "industrialization" and not "colonialism", very clearly). Early ~1900 power dynamics are another strong indicator-- even at the height of colonialism, the nations engaging very heavily in it (British, Spanish, Portugese, Dutch) struggled to keep up with Germany which did not get significant benefit from it at all. I would also argue that the biggest value of colonies was less in the raw extraction of ressources, but instead in the trade/arbitration (and additional markets) that they enabled (i.e. the big value-add was not so much stealing the silver out of the ground in Argentinia, but instead the act of getting/selling it to China).
blackhawkC17 2y ago
Industrialization is what brought prosperity to the masses. Colonialism and slavery benefited the reigning elite, but the average person almost didn’t see any benefit. Unfortunately that won’t stop people from lying that slavery is the foundation of wealthy western democracies. Brazil had 10x more slaves than the USA [1]. They would have been the richest country in Latin America per capita if slavery was the foundation of rich modern democracies, but that’s far from the case I say this as a Nigerian whose country was colonized by the British. 1- https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/comparative-histories-of-slavery-in-brazil-cuba-and-the-united-states/slave-populations/735D9C89ED3CBCA73D8CAEE8B9D67930#:~:text=By%20way%20of%20contrast%2C%20nearly,sent%20to%20the%20United%20States https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/comparative-histori....
- cryptonector 2y ago
  Alexis de Tocqueville noted in the 1840s that slave-holding America was much poorer than non-slave-holding America, and why, and it's not the climate because there were cases where simply crossing a river border was crossing from wealth to poverty. Slavery absolutely did not benefit the masters, except in so far as it helped them feel better about themselves. "I'm better than you" is a human instinct that continues unabated to this day -- many absolutely adore that feeling as if it was a mind-altering drug hit.
  - linearrust 2y ago
    > Alexis de Tocqueville noted in the 1840s that slave-holding America was much poorer than non-slave-holding America That's because the north, in particular new england, started industrializing in the late 1700s. While the south, due to a variety reasons, didn't. > Slavery absolutely did not benefit the masters If it didn't, the civil war wouldn't have happened. The wealthy elite who owned slaves benefited immensely. Just visit a plantation turned historical museum in the south. Most southerners didn't own slaves. > "I'm better than you" is a human instinct that continues unabated to this day -- many absolutely adore that feeling as if it was a mind-altering drug hit. Indeed.
    - 2y ago
prmoustache 2y ago
I had a number of cringes moment in spain with my latin american partner when overhearring some spanish people justifying colonization with webroughtthemcivilization bullshit. Also reading plain insults with similar colonization justification bullshit aimed at latin american workers who clean the facilities in the restrooms of a Corte Ingles in Madrid center. Made me want to burn the whole place. In a way colonization hasn't stopped and should still be talked about and denounced.
- lomase 2y ago
  If you expect a spaniard to feel guilt over something Carlos I did. Maybe we should talk about who Carlos I was.

decremental 2y ago

[dead]

myrmidon 2y ago

> Wether we like it or not these are the pillars of the western world Not sure I understand you correctly, but I strongly disagree that colonialism was a necessary foundation for todays wealthy western democracies. I would consider it more another symptom-- once the perpetrators realized how outmatched the rest of the world was in military/logistics (especially compared to their direct neighbors). Older cultures acted exactly the same way, compare e.g. Romans, Huns, Egyptians, Persians (European colonialism just had the naval logistics to make this work on a bigger scale).

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
fock 2y ago
> Not sure I understand you correctly, but I strongly disagree that colonialism was a necessary foundation for todays wealthy western democracies. Then go visit Sevilla and enjoy the output of the mines in the cathedral (no danger at all). And then think a little how amassing enough silver by slavery to make a 60feet high altar 300 years ago didn't give you quite a nice headstart on dominating a world where most other competing cultures valued the same metals as currency. Not saying this is particularly wrong in the grand scheme or we need to all be in eternal deference to anyone claiming to be a descendant of the people our ancestors exterminated for this. But it should be clear, getting access to these resources and ruthlessly exploiting them made Europe rich and enabled all the other colonialization which followed.
- DiggyJohnson 2y ago
  > But it should be clear, getting access to these resources and ruthlessly exploiting them made Europe rich and enabled all the other colonialization which followed. I'm not GP, but the connections you're making between this sentence and the sentences prior to it are the suspicious ones. What you need to do is argue against the claim that it those things that allowed for the accumulation of all this silver that allowed for the success of colonization.
- myrmidon 2y ago
  > And then think a little how amassing enough silver by slavery to make a 60feet high altar 300 years ago didn't give you quite a nice headstart on dominating a world where most other competing cultures valued the same metals as currency. This is where we disagree. My position is that colonialism was a consequence of post-medieval Europe being dominant, instead of the other way around. I'm not disputing that colonialism profitted the perpetrators, but I think giving it major credit for 20th-century Europes wealth is just a misattribution (if I had to reduce that to one word it would be "industrialization" and not "colonialism", very clearly). Early ~1900 power dynamics are another strong indicator-- even at the height of colonialism, the nations engaging very heavily in it (British, Spanish, Portugese, Dutch) struggled to keep up with Germany which did not get significant benefit from it at all. I would also argue that the biggest value of colonies was less in the raw extraction of ressources, but instead in the trade/arbitration (and additional markets) that they enabled (i.e. the big value-add was not so much stealing the silver out of the ground in Argentinia, but instead the act of getting/selling it to China).

blackhawkC17 2y ago

Industrialization is what brought prosperity to the masses. Colonialism and slavery benefited the reigning elite, but the average person almost didn’t see any benefit. Unfortunately that won’t stop people from lying that slavery is the foundation of wealthy western democracies. Brazil had 10x more slaves than the USA [1]. They would have been the richest country in Latin America per capita if slavery was the foundation of rich modern democracies, but that’s far from the case I say this as a Nigerian whose country was colonized by the British. 1- https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/comparative-histories-of-slavery-in-brazil-cuba-and-the-united-states/slave-populations/735D9C89ED3CBCA73D8CAEE8B9D67930#:~:text=By%20way%20of%20contrast%2C%20nearly,sent%20to%20the%20United%20States https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/comparative-histori....

cryptonector 2y ago
Alexis de Tocqueville noted in the 1840s that slave-holding America was much poorer than non-slave-holding America, and why, and it's not the climate because there were cases where simply crossing a river border was crossing from wealth to poverty. Slavery absolutely did not benefit the masters, except in so far as it helped them feel better about themselves. "I'm better than you" is a human instinct that continues unabated to this day -- many absolutely adore that feeling as if it was a mind-altering drug hit.
- linearrust 2y ago
  > Alexis de Tocqueville noted in the 1840s that slave-holding America was much poorer than non-slave-holding America That's because the north, in particular new england, started industrializing in the late 1700s. While the south, due to a variety reasons, didn't. > Slavery absolutely did not benefit the masters If it didn't, the civil war wouldn't have happened. The wealthy elite who owned slaves benefited immensely. Just visit a plantation turned historical museum in the south. Most southerners didn't own slaves. > "I'm better than you" is a human instinct that continues unabated to this day -- many absolutely adore that feeling as if it was a mind-altering drug hit. Indeed.
  - 2y ago

prmoustache 2y ago

I had a number of cringes moment in spain with my latin american partner when overhearring some spanish people justifying colonization with webroughtthemcivilization bullshit. Also reading plain insults with similar colonization justification bullshit aimed at latin american workers who clean the facilities in the restrooms of a Corte Ingles in Madrid center. Made me want to burn the whole place. In a way colonization hasn't stopped and should still be talked about and denounced.

lomase 2y ago
If you expect a spaniard to feel guilt over something Carlos I did. Maybe we should talk about who Carlos I was.