In 1492, there were several hundred independent nations in North America, plus many in Mexico. Some were kingdoms built on a feudal relationship of vassal lords, some were republics allied in confederacies (like the Iroquois Benjamin Franklin pointed to in the Constitutional Convention debates), and some were autonomous communities with freely shifting alliances. Linguists recognize six major language stocks in North America, each as distinct and inclusive of a variety of spoken languages as Indo-European. Archaeologists trace the histories of the contact-period nations back for centuries through sites noted on European explorers’ maps, then outline earlier millennia of cultural developments for which we lack the indigenous names.
Capt. John Smith, at Jamestown in 1607, had no question he faced a king when he met with Powhatan. The Virginia and English monarchs exchanged gifts of royal robes in token of their mutual respect. When Smith, a commoner, insinuated that Powhatan’s daughter Pocahontas had taken a fancy to him, his fellow Englishmen denounced him for trying to marry above his station. Even today, the majority of the First Nations have traditional formal offices. Family lineages that train their children to fulfill leadership and public duties are respected.
In the 1690s, one of the greatest spin doctors who ever lived, John Locke, wrote a pair of treatises to justify policies of his employer, the ambitious Earl of Shaftsbury. Locke argued that private title to land, exchangeable for money, is the necessary sign of civilized societies, and any who lacked this, such as the American First Nations, warranted conquest. By 1845, Manifest Destiny propaganda claimed that only Anglo Christianity embodied God’s will.
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