European Colonization
Zimbabwe came up with a "brilliant" plan to kick out White farmers as some imagined solution to racism and the social injustice of colonialism etc. Result: It destroyed the economy and led to hyperinflation.
This post is not about Zimbabwe.
The Black Death occurred in Europe from 1346 to 1353. It was one of the most fatal pandemics in human history killing, possibly half of Europe's population. European colonization of the world begins shortly thereafter.
Typically, poor people take it the hardest in an epidemic. It seems likely to me the Black Death left Europe with a top-heavy society of landed nobles with substantial education, capital and management skills and too few peasants to adequately fill the role of labor, so they began colonizing other lands to get an adequate labor supply.
I'm absolutely certain that lots of well off privileged people are narcissists who think only about "What's in it for me?" I'm certain the Nestle Infant Formula Scandal was about privileged assholes imagining they could force poor people to work harder and buy more infant formula if they gave them just enough formula to let their breast milk dry up.
And instead of growing their profits, babies DIED.
I'm not interested in justifying colonization nor whitewashing it and suggesting it was a good thing. That's not my goal.
But removing the well educated White farmers from Zimbabwe didn't fix their problems. It was disastrous and Blacks in Zimbabwe were probably worse off as a consequence.
So it's extremely clear that well-educated, privileged people can and shockingly often do intentionally victimize people who are less educated and less privileged, etc.
But at the same time, it's not reasonable to suggest that White Europeans somehow owed these people free development out of the goodness of their hearts.
I have no idea HOW we might have gotten some "nicer" outcome where Europeans show up, engage in lengthy diplomatic courtship and learn the language and culture and blah blah blah blah and two hundred years later, we have a nice deal of "I supply management skills and you provide labor and everyone is better off!"
I don't have any idea what a constructive path forward looks like. Zimbabwe tried "Just kick the fuckers out." and basically cut their own throats.
But maybe someone can start by trying to understand what happened in a more neutral fashion and start contemplating how the descendants of colonizers and the descendants of Natives can peaceably work towards a solution that doesn't shaft anyone.
I'm quite confident that fundamental misunderstanding played a part in what happened in North America. I have read that when European trappers first showed up, Natives welcomed them.
Trappers didn't initially take enough to disrupt the economy and Natives were thrilled to get access to things like metal knives. I have read that later, Natives were enamored of guns and it was disastrous for them because they couldn't manufacture the ammunition etc.
So they are fighting Europeans with European weapons and the people they are fighting are the source of the ammunition and oils etc. they need. They began using lard or animal fats to lubricate their guns and had to sleep with the guns in cold weather to reduce misfires because they couldn't afford the oils or perhaps Europeans were going "We're not supplying our enemies with weapons of war, no. You can't buy that anymore."
Odds are good that similar scenarios played out all over the world. Europeans show up, they offer to manage the land in exchange for a cut of the production or whatever, this gives them power even if they aren't looking for it, locals are initially happy to trade with them then later feel shafted.
And I don't know how it might have gone better because poorly educated Natives aren't necessarily the paragons of virtue people like to paint them as.
What happened to Native Americans is sort of like if aliens came down to planet Earth and asked the first random jackass they tripped across "Who owns this sky?" and he was some drunken smart ass tourist just passing through who thought it would be funny to say "Why, I do. I will sell you that patch of sky for a couple of six packs of beer."
The people who "sold" Manhattan Island for a few beads or whatever may have had absolutely no authority whatsoever to sell it. The Louisiana Purchase put resources into the hands of someone in the Americas who had no claim to that much land because there were hundreds of tribes and no one had the authority to sell that much land.
Kind of like if I sold half of Europe to aliens and then France and Germany etc. are whining and crying for hundreds of years about aliens being terrible. While everyone overlooks my role in this mess.
There were Natives who took advantage of the language barrier and the cracks in the system the size of the Grand Canyon and no one is trying to figure out how to hunt them down and sort out justice involving "Wait a minute, Europeans made a good faith effort to PURCHASE the land. Indian Removal was a policy rooted in believing WE own this land. They are squatters who should have cleared out once we PAID for this land."
I identify as mixed race. Natives don't want me. Whites don't want me. I belong nowhere while Whites and Natives both argue about which side has the right to kick out the other and no matter who wins, I probably lose either way.
When you have a feud, both sides believe the other side started it and it's extremely challenging to get both sides to have a civil conversation that results in something like both of them realizing neither is making all that noise and it's birds or something.