The woke chorus chants it like a mantra: "America is stolen land." A tidy moral fable, evil Europeans swoop in, snatch paradise from noble, harmonious natives. But reality, as usual, is messier, bloodier, and far more interesting. New genetic breakthroughs shatter the Bering Land Bridge monopoly, revealing Native American ancestry as a Eurasian-East Asian mashup, nearly one-third from ancient Europe-like populations. Meanwhile, historical deep dives expose pre-Columbian America not as a serene Eden but a cauldron of empires, warfare, slavery, and shifting borders. Comanches built hegemonic plains dominions; Aztecs exacted tribute via human sacrifice; Iroquois subjugated neighbours. Land changed hands through conquest centuries before Columbus. So, stolen from whom, exactly? The answer upends the narrative: America emerged from competing civilisations, with European settlers ultimately forging the nation-state we call home. They didn't steal a static inheritance, they won a dynamic arena where no one held perpetual title.

DNA Rewrites the Origin Story: No Pure Pedigree, Just Complex Flows

For decades, textbooks peddled simplicity: Clovis-first hunters from East Asia cross Beringia ~15,000 years ago, sole ancestors of all Native Americans. Enter ancient DNA, game over. Studies from sites like Brazil's Lagoa Santa and Alaska's Upward Sun River reveal "Population Y," an ancient North Eurasian lineage contributing up to 30% of indigenous ancestry in South America, less in the north but undeniable. This ghost population, related to Europe's Mal'ta boy (24,000 years old), predates the land bridge, hinting at multiple waves or coastal routes. A 2023 Nature paper on Anzick-1 (Montana's 12,600-year-old Clovis child) confirms Australasian signals too, distant echoes from Denisovans.

The takeaway? Native Americans aren't a monolithic "from Asia only" bloc. Their story involves interconnected Eurasian threads, mirroring the continent's later turmoil. This genetic patchwork challenges victimhood myths: if origins are hybrid, so are claims to exclusive ownership. No pristine, isolated peoples, just humans migrating, mixing, and clashing, as everywhere else.

Pre-Columbian Power Plays: Empires, Slaves, and Shifting Sands

Woke lore paints natives as eco-saints in harmony. Archaeology and ethnography beg to differ. North America was a geopolitical chessboard:

• Comanche Empire: Pekka Hämäläinen's The Comanche Empire (2008) details how, post-1700 horse adoption, Comanches forged a Southern Plains hegemony. They monopolised bison trade, raided Spanish/Mexican settlements, enslaved captives (e.g., Kiowa, Pawnee), and dictated terms to weaker tribes. At peak, they restrained Spanish expansion more effectively than vice versa.

• Apache Ambitions: Alternating raids and alliances, Apaches dominated the Southwest, enslaving Jumanos and others, selling them in New Mexico markets. They weren't passive resisters, they were player-kings in a brutal game.

• Iroquois Confederacy: The Haudenosaunee waged "mourning wars," capturing and integrating (or enslaving) rivals like Hurons. Their Great League influenced U.S. federalism, but it was built on conquest.

• Aztec Imperialism: Central Mexico's triple-alliance empire demanded tribute from dozens of city-states, sacrificing thousands annually. Far from victims, they were Mesoamerica's Rome.

• Plains Warfare: Sioux, Lakota, and others expanded via buffalo wars, displacing Mandans and Arikaras. Borders fluxed like Europe's medieval marches.

Slavery? Ubiquitous. Northwest Coast potlatches involved captives; Southeast chiefdoms like Cahokia (pre-1000 CE) show mass graves hinting at human sacrifice. A 2024 American Antiquity study on Chaco Canyon's outliers suggests hierarchical violence. This wasn't utopia, it was human history: ambition, conflict, adaptation.

Empire/Confederation Peak Era Key Tactics Conquests/Enslavements

Comanche 1700–1850 Horsemanship, trade monopoly Kiowa, Pawnee captives; blocked Spanish.

Iroquois 1600–1750 Mourning wars, diplomacy Huron subjugation; captive integration.

Aztec 1400–1521 Tribute armies, sacrifice 20+ city-states; 20K+ annual victims.

Sioux/Lakota 1700–1870 Buffalo raids Displaced Mandan, Crow territories.

Land wasn't "owned" in Lockean terms, control was contested, temporary. Tribes allied with Europeans against rivals (e.g., French-Indian Wars), trading furs for guns to dominate. "Stolen"? From fluid possessors who themselves seized via spear and steed.

European Entry: Negotiation, Conquest, and Nation-Building

Columbus didn't discover empty wilderness; he entered an ongoing arena. Early contacts? Treaties galore. Powhatan Confederacy negotiated with Jamestown; Plymouth's Mayflower Compact echoed native pacts. But power shifted: diseases decimated 90% of populations (unintentional biowarfare), guns tilted balances. U.S. expansion involved 370+ treaties (many broken, yes, but formal diplomacy, not blanket theft). Trail of Tears? Tragic, but amid Jackson's wars mirroring native displacements.

The killer blow to "stolen land": No unified indigenous nation existed to "steal" from. Fragmented polities lacked the scale for continent-spanning resistance. Europeans brought Enlightenment institutions, constitutionalism, rule of law, republicanism, fusing with frontier grit to birth the U.S. Founders weren't displacing a proto-America; they created America as a political entity. Borders defined via wars (Revolutionary, 1812, Mexican), purchases (Louisiana, Alaska), and yes, conquests, but in a world where conquest was norm (Ottomans, Mughals, Zulus did likewise).

Settlers became the "true natives" of the nation-state. They imagined, articulated (Declaration, Constitution), and built it. Indigenous governance? Sophisticated (Iroquois federalism influenced Madison), but tribal, not national. The U.S. arose from European civilisational transplant, adapted anew, not spontaneous from soil.

The Woke Simplification vs. Complex Truth

"Stolen land" implies:

1. Unified, peaceful owners.

2. Illegitimate European grab.

3. Moral debt forever.

Reality:

1. Diverse, warring groups with contested claims.

2. Conquest in a conquest-filled world; treaties mixed with force.

3. U.S. as novel synthesis — European roots, American fruit.

Genetics prove hybridity; history proves dynamism. Acknowledging complexity honours all: native empires' ingenuity, settlers' innovation. Woke erasure? It infantilises indigenes as static victims, ignoring their agency. True justice? Recognize the mosaic, then celebrate the republic that, flaws and all, expanded freedoms unprecedentedly.

America like Australia, wasn't stolen, it was forged in the crucible of human ambition. From whom? The last winners in a long chain. The real story: not theft, but transformation.

https://counter-currents.com/2025/10/whites-are-the-native-americans/