Digest for October 17, 2025
Last Monday was Indigenous Peoples Day, which means we once again pretended that reflection counts as redemption. Politicians tweeted something solemn, schools trotted out platitudes, and by early Tuesday we were back to bulldozing what was left.
🌎 Reflection: The Contributions of Invasive Humans
Last Monday was Indigenous Peoples Day, which means we once again pretended that reflection counts as redemption. Politicians tweeted something solemn, schools trotted out platitudes, and by early Tuesday we were back to bulldozing what was left.
History books call it exploration. The truth is simpler — invasion with better PR. We arrived, took what wasn’t ours, renamed everything, and congratulated ourselves for our courage. The native peoples gave us corn, medicine, and balance. We gave them disease, treaties written in disappearing ink, and a few casinos to make the math look fair.
Our greatest contribution as a species has been the ability to rewrite every atrocity as an achievement. We measure progress by what we’ve conquered, not by what we’ve cared for. And the land, patient as ever, keeps the receipts.
So yes, celebrate Indigenous Peoples Day. But maybe skip the hashtags and ask a harder question: how much of what we call “civilization” was really just theft dressed up as destiny?
“They made a desert and called it peace.”
— Tacitus
📘 Recient Posts
❓ This Week’s Quiz
Instructions:
Try to answer each question before expanding the answers below.
1. Who was the first known European to set foot in North America—centuries before Columbus?
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Leif Erikson, around the year 1000 CE, landing in what he called *Vinland* (likely Newfoundland).2. What year did Christopher Columbus first arrive in the Caribbean, claiming the land for Spain?
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1492 — though he never set foot on the North American mainland.3. What doctrine, rooted in papal decrees, gave Christian explorers the supposed right to claim non-Christian lands?
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The *Doctrine of Discovery*, established by papal bulls such as *Inter Caetera* (1493).4. Which 1830 U.S. law led to the forced relocation of tens of thousands of Indigenous people from their ancestral lands?
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The *Indian Removal Act*, signed by President Andrew Jackson — resulting in the *Trail of Tears*.5. Name one major way Native peoples resisted cultural erasure after European colonization.
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Through preservation and revival of languages, oral histories, art, and governance traditions — many of which survive and thrive today.✨ Quote of the Week
“History is written by those who have hanged heroes.”
— George Orwell
🔮 Coming Soon
Topic: A followup for the No Kings protest of October 18th.