Rape of the Land / Religion as a Weapon

The article, “Rape of the Land,” truly struck a chord with me right from the start. First of all, I can’t get over how Indians were seen as occupants of the New Land by the colonists. The rhetoric of calling Native Americans “occupants” entitles the whites to claim (a better term would be steal) the land. The colonists felt they had a right to do this because the Native American communities had not been “established by God” (57). Translation: They are not Christians which means they are savages. But let’s take a closer look at the meaning of “savage.”

Dictionary.com defines savage as, “an uncivilized human being.” Ok, well if the Indians were uncivilized, this means the colonists considered themselves to be civilized. Civilized is also defined as, “having an advanced or humane culture.” Here’s the kicker. The definition of humane is, “characterized by tenderness, compassion, and sympathy for people and animals, especially for the suffering or distressed.” Now that these words have been clearly defined, who was really the savage; the Native American or the colonist?

The way I see it, the colonists played their role in the biggest theft in American history and brought suffering onto generations upon generations of Native American people. As “Rape of the Land” points out, the colonists justified their crime using the word of God by saying, “While Christianity may have been forced on Native people, millions of people are in heaven today as a result” (57). This statement is a fallacy because it is not a concrete fact, which means that it should never be used to justify the removal, genocide, and theft of Native American land and culture. Religion should never be used as a weapon and it is unfortunate that it was back then.