On the other side of the river, down in the reeds by the Saginaw, the Indian occasionally casts a stoic glance on the dwellings of his European brethren. Do not go imagining that he admires their works or envies their lot. For nearly three centuries by now the American savage has been in contest with the civilisation that presses on him and surrounds him, but he still has not learnt to know or esteem his enemy. In vain does generation follow generation in both races. Like two parallel rivers they have been flowing for three centuries towards a common abyss; a narrow space separates them, but their waters never mingle. It is not that the native of the New World is always lacking in natural aptitude, but his nature seems obstinately to repulse our ideas and our skills. Sleeping in his cloak in the smoke of his hut, the Indian looks with mistrust at the European’s comfortable house; he for his part prides himself on his poverty, and his heart swells and rejoices at the thought of his barbarian independence. He smiles bitterly as he sees us plaguing our lives to get useless wealth. What we call industry he calls shameful subjection. He compares the workman to an ox laboriously tracing out a furrow. What we call the comforts of life he calls children’s playthings or women’s affectations. He envies us nothing but our weapons. When a man can find cover at night in a tent of leaves, when he can find enough to light a fire to keep off the mosquitoes in summer and cold in winter, when his dogs are good and the country full of game, what more can he ask from the Eternal Being?
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Tocqueville Göre Amerikan Zihniyeti
The emigrant from the United States is only interested in victory for its results; he holds glory but a vain clamour, and thinks that man has only come into the world to gain affluence and the comforts of life. He is brave, nonetheless, but brave by calculation, brave because he has found out that there are several things harder to bear than death. An adventurer surrounded by his family, but one who sets little store by intellectual pleasures and the charms of social life.
Indianlar ve Amerikanların Münasebeti
“But are you not afraid of the Indians?”
“Afraid of the Indians! I would rather live among them than in the society of the whites. No! No! I am not afraid of the Indians. They are worth more than we, provided we have not brutalised them with our strong drinks, the poor creatures!”
This said, the American made a sign to the Indian to come up and began to talk very fluently to him in his
language. It was strange to see what pleasure these two men, so different in birth and manners, took in exchanging ideas with one another. Clearly they were discussing the respective merits of their weapons. The white, having looked at the savage’s rifle very carefully:
“There is a fine carbine,” said he. “No doubt the English have given it to him to use against us, and he will not fail to do so as soon as there is a war. That is how the Indians draw on their heads all the ills that weigh them down. But they know no better, the poor fellows..”
Michigan-Kanada sınır hattındaki Amerikalılar ve Ojibwe (Chippewa) kabilesinin münasebetleri. Sınır hattında kültürlerin kaynaşması, İngilizler yerlileri kışkırtmaya devam ediyor.
William’ın Normanlara Ganimet Vaadi
According to William of Poitiers, the duke pointed out that Harold could offer his men nothing in victory, whereas he, William, was promising those who followed him a share of the spoils. This may explain why, in the end, the Normans agreed to having the terms of their service written down, for the greater the service rendered, the greater the eventual reward.
Richard 2 Neden Baba Olmadı?
He had been saved by the fact of being—as he had always known he was—irreplaceable. If he had had a child, everything might have been fatally different, just as it had been for his martyred great-grandfather Edward II, a king abandoned by his people and murdered, on the orders of his faithless wife, in the name of their son.
Richard 2 Neden İndirildi?
Bordeaux’da doğdu, genç yaşta babası Edward the Black Prince’i kaybetti. Dedesi Edward III yaşlanınca saray entrikalarının oyuncağı oldu ve ölünce taht Richard’a kaldı. Amcaları özellikle Gaunt, Woodstock ve Langley’in gölgesinde geçti. Kendi otoritesini doğru dürüst yansıtamadı, sürekli regency ile uğraştı. Genç yaşta Wat Tyler isyanı etkiledi. Bohemyalı Anne ile evlendi, ama kendisi Edward the Confessor’u örnek aldığından çocuk yapmadı, Anne da evliliklerinin onuncu yılı öldü zaten. Çocuk yapmama sebeplerinden biri de büyük dedesi Edward II’nin başına gelenler. Edward II’yi tahttan indirip oğlu III’ü başa geçirmişlerdi. Richard’a karşı Lords Appellant ufak bi isyanda bulundu, tahttan indiremediler çünkü veliahtı yoktu. Richard eğer veliahtı olursa harcanabilir biri olacağını hissetti. Gözdesi Robert de Vere’yi unvanlara boğmuştu, İrlanda Dükü vs ilan etti. Sonra lordlar bu adamı uzaklaştırıp sürgüne gönderdi. Richard geri getirdi ama tekrar sürgüne yollandı ve sürgünde öldü. Richard’ın kraliyet otoritesi sürekli dirençle karşılaştı. Fransa’ya karşı olan savaşta vergi toplama meselelerinde avam ayak sürüdü. Richard da kendine doğrudan bağlı Cheshire okçuları retainerları topladı. Bu okçular gaddardı ve sağa sola sataşıp şiddet uyguladı, Richard bunları korudu ve yargılamadı. Bu da diğer lordların tepkisini çekti. Richard ayrıca 10 sene sonra Appellant mevzusunu açıp kendisine karşı gelenleri osuruktan sebeplerle infaz etti. Affettim deyip bir kaç sene sonra infaz ediyordu, dolayısıyla bağışlamalarının bir anlamı yoktu ve herkes ondan korkup çekinmeye başladı. Boş kağıda tazminat aflarını imzalattırdı lordlara karşı kullanmak için. Thomas Mowbray, Woodstock’un tutuklanma emrini uygulayıp Calais’e hapsetmişti. Yargılanmak için getirmeye gittiğinde öldüğünü gördü ama ölümü şüpheli. Derby earl’ü Henry Bolingbroke’u uyardı kral bizi avlayacak diye(iki zamanında Appellanttan), Henry ise şüpheye düştü ve babası Gaunt’a mevzuyu açtı. Gaunt da Richard’a. Mowbray ve Henry yargılandı, ikisinin düello yapmasına kararlaştırıldı. Ama düello anında Richard durdurdu ve Henry’yi on yıl, Mowbray’i ebediyen sürgüne gönderdi.
Viking Gerçeği Kahraman mı Korsan mı?
It is perhaps more surprising that Halfdan and his soldiers were willing to settle for cash than that Alfred would offer it. Perhaps, the Great Heathen Army, bloodied by its victories as well as its defeats at Englefield and Ashdown, had also had its fill of fighting for the time being. For all the odes to glory in the sagas, real vikings were closer in temperament to pirates than to heroic warriors. Their favourite targets were defenceless monasteries crammed with wealth. When confronted by a superior enemy army, vikings were more likely to retreat to the safety of a fortified camp than risk their lives and booty in battle.
Ortaçağ Sağlığı ve İskelet Kanıtlarının Paradoksu
The best evidence for early medieval health comes from the skeletal evidence from thousands of excavated burials. There are some difficulties in interpreting this material, as very few early medieval graves include soft tissue, so paleopathologists focus on diseases or traumas that cause changes to bony surfaces. These tend to be chronic diseases such as tuberculosis, leprosy, or long-term infections, which excludes many of the most common causes of death. There is also a “health paradox”—just because a person shows signs of having lived with disease or injury for a long time before their death does not necessarily mean they were the weakest or the sickest in the community: the fact that they survived their condition long enough for it to have caused bony changes strongly indicates that these were people healthy enough to live with their disease, perhaps supported by good care from the community.
Amerikanın Virgin Land Olmadığına Dair bir Teori
European explorers and invaders discovered an inhabited land. Had it been pristine wilderness then, it would possibly be so still today, for neither the technology nor the social organization of Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries had the capacity to maintain, of its own resources, outpost colonies thousands of miles from home. Incapable of conquering true wilderness, the Europeans were highly competent in the skill of conquering other people, and that is what they did. They did not settle a virgin land. They invaded and displaced a resident population.
İskoçların Pesimistliğine Dair
They say we Scots are a pessimistic people. Maybe it has to do with the weather – all those dreary, rainy days. Maybe it’s the endless years of sporting disappointment. Or maybe it was the Calvinism that Lowlanders like my family embraced at the time of the Reformation. Predestination is not an especially cheering article of faith, logical though it may be to assume that an omniscient God already knows which of us (‘the Elect’) will go to heaven, and which of us (a rather larger number of hopeless sinners) will go to hell.