John Locke argues in his Second Treatise of Government that, "the increase of lands, and the right employing of them, is the great art of government" (297). That sentence alone tells much about Locke's way of looking at the world, which had a great deal of influence on the European colonists who came to the Americas, and later established the U.S. and Canada. His way of looking at the natural environment became rather infectious throughout western society and in the colonists as well. From a shortsighted perspective it is easy to see the rational behind Locke's understanding of land and its purpose. He needed a way of proving that your average person in England could rightfully procure property. It was essential to proving that the monarchical tyranny imposed by King Charles and King James was unjust. Though from a long term, holistic perspective, his understanding was rather primitive. I say his understanding was primitive because he did not seem to be aware of the importance of leaving land to its own devices.
The importance lies in the fact that humans need clean water, air and food to survive, all of which are provided by a healthy environment. However, once the environment is disturbed, and plowed down for farming, it no longer can produce those necessities with such ease as it use to. The Native American nations who previously inhabited the Americas much more than they do now, seemed to realize quite easily that nature naturally provided them with the means for survival. As a result they did not promote heavy agriculture and industry, for they already had most of what they needed. However, Locke did not think that what they had was good enough. As is made clear in his Second Treatise, he seemed to have valued material possessions quite highly, and was very fond of those who invested their labour in the land, so as to reap a greater bounty than that which nature naturally provides. Not only did he value property and the labour invested in order to attain such property, but he also appears to have looked down upon those who did not take advantage of the land they lived on so as to produce such a bounty.
Take this quote for instance, "There cannot be a clearer demonstration of anything, than several nations of the Americans, who are rich in land, and poor in all the comforts of life..." (297).
Locke must not have had a thorough or accurate understanding of the Native American communities that inhabited the Americas prior to the arrival of European settlers, or if he did, he did not respect them and their way of life. Though some Native American nations laid claim to the lands they lived on, many in the Great Plains region of the U.S. (such as Blackfoot) chose to live a nomadic lifestyle, partly because they did not consider land or for that matter any part of nature to be a possession of their's; it was the property of nature, or as many Native Americans refer to it, the Great Spirit. That right there is a huge difference in the way Native Americans saw the world compared to the average Englishman. Locke was all about ability to acquire property and the means of protecting it, whereas the Native Americans were more focused on living with the land and treating it with respect, rather than trying to extract the maximum amount of goods from it as is possible.
The comforts of life that Native Americans appreciated were not the same as those your average Englishman appreciated. Many Native American peoples chose to appreciate the beauty of nature and what it naturally offered to them; they also appreciated the sense of community they had and the unity that their shared appreciation for nature brought to them. Unlike Locke and his fellow Englishmen, most Native Americans were not all too interested in razing the natural environment in order to produce a greater abundance of flashy clothing or fine wine. I referred specifically to those commodities because I wish to discuss this quote next.
"For whatever bread is more worth than acorns, wine than water, and cloth or silk, than leaves, skins, or moss, that is wholly owing to labour and industry" (297).
To this quote, all I have to say is this: acorns are almost certainly healthier than bread and require less effort to acquire; wine dehydrates the body, where as water revitalizes it and requires no labor on our part to produce; and leaves, skins, and moss all require much less effort to obtain and make use of than cloth or silk; they also biodegrade and reincorporate into the environment much more easily. Call me a hippy, but Locke's political paradigm helped to destroy the Native American way of life. The early European settlers had much to learn from the Native American outlook on life as well as their means of governance. However, they chose to apply their own framework (or rather a Lockian framework) to the situation, and consequently have degraded the lands which we so dearly require for survival, now more than ever what with the mass pollution of our air, food and water sources around the world.
I am curious, does anyone believe that Locke's "Manifest Destiny" way of thinking has benefitted the world more than it has harmed it in the long run? If so, how and why?
Also, should the European colonists and settlers of the Americas respected the Native American way of life and obeyed the government Native Americans had established?
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