Surveys, Media, Colonization and Proselytization, Chapter Two.

Colonialization and Proselytization; in Africa and America

In the African and American continents, the Europeans used more of brutal force to establish their kingdoms, amass wealth and to proselytize. When Europeans set out to conquer the world, the missionaries were part of the colonial forces, because proselytizing was part of their colonization. To achieve success in their mission in Africa; the missionaries entered into an alliance with the BSAC (British South Africa Company). BSAC needed laborers for their gold mines but the natives were not interested. They were self-sufficient farmers and thus had no need for the salaries offered. So the British imposed "hut tax", a form of property tax that must be paid in cash. (The white farmers did not have to pay. The white farmers were already proselytized. So there was no need to recruit them.) Thus, the other Africans were forced to work. If they failed to pay, they were imprisoned and then sent to work as prison laborers. The missionaries, who accompanied the invading armies, used different kinds of coercive methods to subjugate and evangelize the natives along with BSAC. The natives were exploited, enslaved and made to work for the settlers in return for “protection and religious instructions”. In other words they were forced to accept the religion through “hut tax”, intimidation and in disguise of Education. ⁽¹⁾  Taxing was a method they used to cripple the Education System and enforce their Education System in our “Good old bhAratham”, which lead to the proselytization. This can be understood from the statements of the mastermind of it all, Mr Thomas Macaulay himself. ⁽²⁾

From the 15th century, in the Americas also, the invading armies and missionaries used force and coercive methods to recruit them in to the religion or drive away Native Americans who opposed. The natives were exploited, enslaved too. Whoever opposed that were eliminated. Merciless killings were common, so was drugging the natives. Even now, after generations, the addiction continues and they are officially inhabitance of “Indian Nations” [Native American Nations]; but practically isolated in the so-called “Reservations” which are, for all practical purpose verse than the poorest of any remote villages anywhere in the world. A total of up to 15 million of Native Americans have died due to the brutality.⁽³⁾ Two examples of merciless killings are: ‘The massacre of Pequot Tribe Natives’ and ‘The massacre at Wounded Knee’.

William Newell, a Native American from the Penobscot tribe, an anthropologist, wrote thus; “First Thanksgiving was not a festive gathering of Indians [Native Americans] and Pilgrims [meaning Europeans], but rather a celebration of the massacre of 700 Pequot men, women and children.” In 1637, the Pequot tribe of Connecticut gathered for the annual “Green Corn Dance” ceremony. Mercenaries of the English and the Dutch attacked and surrounded the village; burning down everything and shooting whoever tried to escape. Newell notes that the Governor of ‘Massachusetts Bay Colony’ declared: “A day of Thanksgiving, ‘thanking God’ that they had eliminated over 700 men, women and children” that resisted the advances of colonialists and Missionaries. As per him, it was signed into law that, “This day forth shall be a day of celebration and thanksgiving for subduing the Pequot’s.” Most Americans and the world believe “Thanksgiving” was and is a wonderful dinner and harvest celebration. The truth is that ‘Thanksgiving Dinner’ was invented for both to instill a false pride in Americans and to cover up the massacre. ⁽⁴⁾ (Of course some Natives did join the “First Thanksgiving” as they were fighting against the Pequot tribe, in their own internal tribal war; (very much like what some of the rulers did when the colonialists came to our ancient land). This can be corroborated from the book, “History of Plymouth Plantation” written by William Bradford, who was the second Governor of the colony, wherein he graphically describes the massacre. (The quote from the book is in the language of the 17^th century, so you may notice different spellings and grammar.) “They approached the same with great silence, and surrounded ……… and so assaulted them with great courage, shooting amongst them, and entered the forte with all speed; and those that first entered found sharp resistance from the enimie, who both shott at and grapled with them; others rane into their houses, and brought out fire, and sett them on fire, which soone tooke in their matts, and, standing close togeather, with the wind, all was quickly on a flame, and therby more were burnte to death then was otherwise slain; it burnte their bowstrings, and made them unserviceable. Those that scaped the fire was slaine with the sword; some hewed to peeces, others rune throw with their rapiers, so as they were quickly dispatchte, and very few escaped. It was conceived they thus destroyed about 400 at this time. It was a fearful sight to see them thus frying in the fyer, and the streams of blood quenching the same, and horrible was the stinck and sente ther of; but the victory seemed a sweete sacrifice, and they gave the prays therof to God, who had wrought so wonderfuly for them, thus to inclose their enimise in their hands, and give them so speedy a victory over so proud and insulting an enimie.”⁽⁵⁾

The final act in this horrendous drama of American history, the bloody 1890 massacre at Wounded Knee and its aftermath happened on December 29 on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, near Wounded Knee Creek. As part of the elimination of the Natives ‘the U.S. government removed the ‘Navajo Natives’ from their lands in 1860’s. The massacre started as the Chief, “Big Foot” racked with pneumonia and dying, sat among his people. “Suddenly the sound of a shot pierced the early morning gloom. Within seconds the charged atmosphere erupted as Native American braves scurried to retrieve their discarded rifles and troopers fired volley after volley into the Sioux camp. From the heights above, the army guns raked them with gunshot. Clouds of gun smoke filled the air as men, women and children scrambled for their lives. Many ran for a ravine next to the camp only to be cut down in a withering cross fire. When the smoke cleared and the shooting stopped, approximately 300 Sioux were dead, Big Foot among them. Twenty-five soldiers lost their lives. As the remaining troopers began the grim task of removing the dead, a blizzard swept in from the North. A few days later they returned to complete the job. Scattered fighting continued, but the massacre at Wounded Knee effectively squelched the ‘Ghost Dance’ movement and ended the Wars between Natives and the army”. ⁽⁶⁾ All this for gaining power, authority and to proselytize.

“From its beginnings in the late I700s until the middle of the nineteenth century, United States’ Indian [Native American] policy revolved around the displacement off Indian [Native American] people from their lands to allow for Euro-American settlement and the segregation of Indian [Native American] and non-Indian [non-Native American]  populations in order to maintain peace”. Even though that is what they claimed the actual reason was their further expansions into the land of the Native Indians. “This era in Federal [means, US Government] Indian [Native American] relations may be termed removal-isolationist. The Removal Act of 1830 and the assignment of various tribes to districts in the western territories represent the Indian (Native American) policy of this era.”⁽⁷⁾ The removal policy was also constituted as the Native Americans very resistive to proselytization at times.

In America “During the second half of the nineteenth century the federal government reoriented its policies toward Native Americans. Whereas the tradition of removal-isolation had cast Indian (Native American) tribes in the role of autonomous ‘domestic dependent nations’, Indians (Native American) came to be considered ‘wards’ of the government to be tutored in the ways of Euro-American civilization, then assimilated into the Cultural mainstream”. ⁽⁸⁾ In our “Good old bhAratham”, the colonialists were not able to isolate and put us in camps named “Reservations”. But they sure did try to “tutor in the ways of European civilization and then incorporate their ways and means to our people. But as it did not progress as expected. So, they tried to enforce the proselytization through education system by influencing people. For this they decided to decimate our Education system and do it through the British Education System. They succeeded up to a great extent. In fact the proselytization traffic is still flowing very smooth through the highways they paved with the education system. And the so-called “Hindus” and “Buddhists” (and whatever religious labels were attached) are still flowing into the trap very easily. Also, the majority of the people still think the British Education System is the best thing ever happened to our “Good old bhAratham” ever.

In America, the Colonialists had “assumed that, once removed and isolated, these peoples would hold tide to their new homelands in perpetuity. However, the ever-accelerating tempo of white expansion, nourished by the credo of Manifest Destiny, soon demolished the illusion that tribes might retain permanent claim to any tract of land upon which Euro-Americans placed value. The removal-isolationist assumptions that had so long informed government policy could no more defuse the explosive situation between Native Americans and whites than could treaty promises of tribal sovereignty halt the encroachment of settlers on tribal lands.” “It was under these critical circumstances that the ‘Federal-Indian [US Federal Government-Native American] Bureau’ opted for assimilation”-the policy of so-called “civilization and Christianization of native people” – as the most effective and far-sighted method for neutralizing hostilities between Native American and whites. “This choice was not purely, or even primarily, a matter of expedience”. For underlying the shift toward “assimilation was a normative anthropology – a developmental social theory or philosophy of history” - that simultaneously resolved the problems of “who the Indian [Native American] is” and “what the Indian (Native American) ought to become.”⁽⁹⁾

This is what exactly what the British did with their Education System in our land. They assumed what people of “Good old bhAratham” (bhAratheeyan) is, and what we should become according to their needs and norms. The Education System they introduced made it practical for them to achieve that goal. Majority of our people still think that our older generations were all uneducated fools who “were lagging behind” and “barbarians & Savages”. The high degree holders in this group are generally called ‘intellectuals’ by others of that group now. They, along with the Europeans also believe that our history and culture are just Myth. It is also their notion that everything good we have was just gifted to us by the Europeans. If I put it in a different way they made us all just a bunch of cultural slaves.

For Europeans, the safest way to live along with Native Americans was to make them Christians and thus make them hate their own culture. They could not succeed in it fully. This also contributed to their decision to put the Native Americans in Camps away from the Europeans. The British did try and make people of our “Good old bhAratham” also hate our own culture, but in a slightly different way. They had to use a lot of clandestine actions and often do it in concealment. The effects are still very much present as people are divided on different levels and in different names and keep fighting each other. Even though the British were forced to get out of the country, the Systems for division they installed are still there and also other elements they planted. Those are definitely aiding the Missionaries to do their “Soul Harvesting” with the help of the inter community friction created with the “caste” problems. The   inner divisive forces ware and are in action and it is amply fueled by the media, from internet social groups to TV moguls, mostly owned by the Missionary business establishments. This makes sure that there is a slow and study flow for their “soul harvesting”. But our cultural courage or more correctly to say that the dhaRmic discipline and dhaRmic strength provided by Shree NArAyaNa Gurudevan and such other great exponents of braHMavidya is what preventing a ‘complete harvesting’ for them.

In USA, the normative vision by the colonialists was due to their assumptions that “human society displays a pattern of growth as clearly defined and ordered as the ontogenetic structure associated with any particular species”. [They assumed the human beings to be different species. In actuality this “species” is what “JAthi” should be but here misinterpreted it as “Race”. And this is what they tried to make our “Division of Labor” structure we had. In fact we ourselves did wrong when we named this “Division of Labor” as “JAthi”. They made it into “Caste” which is they actually means “Race”. They misinterpreted our linguistic and social terms as what they had and published it. We in turn just accepted and aided them in the process of dividing us for better control.] “Just as the normal development of an organism conforms to characteristic stages, social theorists believed that the life ways of a typical human society pass through phases of maturation that run parallel to those of other nations”. In other words, their normative vision presumed a kind of uniform parallel, but not simultaneous development or evolution of human societies. They placed themselves “at the furthest reaches of this developmental process where the habits and customs typifying European and Euro-American societies.” As per this statement, for the colonialist anyone they felt to be “Lagging behind” their imagined standard “in varying degrees” and was called “barbarians and savages”. So, any contemporary group of people, but non-Europeans whose social institutions were thought to resemble those of the Europeans’ own primitive ancestors” were labeled as “barbarians and savages”. ⁽¹⁰⁾ So, for the colonialist, our “Good old bhAratham” was full of “barbarians and savages”. In their eyes we were also “Lagging behind” at various stages and various “standard in varying degrees” like the contemporary groups of other non-European people whose social institutions were thought to resemble those of the Europeans’ own primitive ancestors.”⁽¹¹⁾ This is what they emphasized in their propagation throughout, especially through the Education System. By this method they also declared the people of the East as uncultured ‘barbarians’ & ‘savages’ who are ‘lagging behind’. This propagation still continues with survey reports like the one published on November 29, 2014, by The Indian Express and similar other reports every now and then published by “Think-Tank” organizations set up remotely by the west. These also include such other by-products like India’s Daughter” “Slam Dog Millionaire” and so on.

Bibliography

1.    (i) ‘Africa in Modern History’, By Davidson, Page 110; (ii) ‘The White Tribe of Africa’, By Harrison, Page 69; (iii) ‘Missionaries’, Pettifer & Bradley, Page 96, 133. (ii) Missionaries, Pettifer & Bradley, Page 72 – 78.

2.    “The Destruction of the Indian System of Education” by Kum. B. Nivedita (Adapted from a speech given under the auspices of Vivekananda Study Circle, IIT-Madras in Jan 1998.)

3.    (i) ‘Africa in Modern History’, By Davidson, Page 110; (ii) ‘The White Tribe of Africa’, By Harrison, Page 69; (iii) ‘Missionaries’, Pettifer & Bradley, Page 96, 133. (ii) Estimating Aboriginal American Population, by Henry F. Dobyns, in Current Anthropology, Volume 7, No. 4, October 1966, pp.395-449.

4.    (i) “Cooking the History Books: The Thanksgiving Massacre” by Laura Elliff, published at the Republic of Lakota website on November 22, 2009.

5.    ‘History of Plymouth Plantation’, By William Bradford, the second Governor of the colony, Page 357, 358

6.    (i) ‘Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee’ by Brown, Dee, (1971); (ii) ‘Eyewitness at Wounded Knee’ (1991) By Jensen, Richard; (iii) The Last Days of the Sioux Nation (1963), By Utley, Robert M.; (iv) “Ninety-six Years among the Indians of the Northwest”, North Dakota History, Wells, Philip, 15, no. 2 (1948).

7.    Sioux Indian Religion, Chapter 6, The Catholic Mission and the Sioux, A Crisis in the Early Paradigm, by Harvey Markowitz Page 115)

8.    Sioux Indian Religion, Chapter 6, The Catholic Mission and the Sioux, A Crisis in the Early Paradigm, by Harvey Markowitz Page 115)

9.    Sioux Indian Religion, Chapter 6, The Catholic Mission and the Sioux, A Crisis in the Early Paradigm, by Harvey Markowitz Page 116)

10.  Sioux Indian Religion, Chapter 6, The Catholic Mission and the Sioux, A Crisis in the Early Paradigm, by Harvey Markowitz Page 116 and 117).

11.  Sioux Indian Religion, Chapter 6, The Catholic Mission and the Sioux, A Crisis in the Early Paradigm, by Harvey Markowitz Page 117).

(Will continue; Copyright © Udayabhanu Panickar)