Thatcher’s Myth About the Creation of America

“America was created by philosophy.” ~ Margaret Thatcher. I disagree with Thatcher. 

The founders of the USA —Washington, Jefferson, Adams, Madison, Hamilton, and others—were not motivated by philosophy, as Thatcher wanted the world to believe. They were tyrants, who enacted policies which led to the eviction and killing of millions of Native Indians, and the enslavement of blacks from Africa. They were convinced that it was the “manifest destiny” of the Europeans (Americans) to rule over all of North America. The Declaration of Independence did not apply to the African slaves and to the Native Indians.

Since its founding, America has been an expansionist state. The aim of its government was to expand westwards. Even in the eighteenth century, the American government possessed a powerful army. Most settlers in the country were armed. In the frontier areas, private groups used to conduct raids on the natives to evict and kill them. The Americans of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were not philosophers—they were as brutal as the Spanish conquistadors in evicting and killing the Native Indians. 

In 1789, when the United States constitution was ratified, the country had thirteen colonies (864,746 square miles). As the population grew, with the arrival of new immigrants from Europe, the pioneers continued to expand westwards. The expansion happened through land purchases and conquests. Today the country is spread across a mammoth 3,531,905 square miles. In 1830, the American government passed the “Indian Removal Act”—this act led to the wiping out of several native tribes.

When California was conquered by the settlers between the 1840s and 1870s, the number of native hunter-gatherers in the region was about 300,000. These natives were divided into a large number of small tribes, which were mostly unarmed, and consisted of 50 to 500 people. A military style campaign was not required to wipe them out. When the California gold rush began in the late 1840s, the native hunter-gatherers were doomed. Thousands were enslaved and starved and worked to death by gold prospectors and settlers.

Look at what the European settlers did to California’s Yahi tribe which consisted of 2000 unarmed hunter-gatherers. This tribe was wiped out in four raids by the settlers. Seventeen settlers took part in the first raid in 1865. An unknown number of Yahi were killed. The second raid took place in 1866, when the Yahi were surprised in a ravine. In 1867, some Yahi were discovered hiding in a cave. They were massacred. The final massacre happened in 1868 when four cowboys found Yahi survivors hiding in another cave.

Thatcher’s statement that America was created by philosophy is a falsehood—America is a nation of warlike Europeans who created a new nation by evicting, enslaving, and killing millions of natives.