Colonialists Vs Primitive Political Organizations

Native people who occupied what is now “North America” had different political practices and it was the so called primitive government. The thought that they had a non political organization made the Europeans misunderstand the social structure of the natives. They thought that there is a lack of leadership and inhabitants were at a state of anarchy and underdevelopment. This misapprehension was a result of the political authority measurements Europeans considered; natives did not have any while westerners had too much.

When first arrived to south Central America, newcomers were staggered with the society they came upon; this society is so different than the western legitimization of authority. The thinking of no law, no religion, and no king did not make any sense to westerners and that gave them an image of an infant stage of humanity that did not progress as a human binge should.

In Europe, the social hierarchy had a Monarch who have a supremacy over people’s lives and can make a decision on behalf of the whole community in matters that concern them all. With that they accepted the definition of power in terms of violence and subordination. The state held the restricted rights and privileges to violence and justice and it can use these rights in any way it sees fit. Westerns in new America did not see that in the “primitive” society. They failed to see that it was a society functioning on its own but in a way alien to their ways even the early liberals in North America had these thoughts. In such societies power did exist but as a part of a hierarchy and domination. Even the early liberals in North America had these thoughts.

It is unattainable to divide societies among the lines of the existence of political power and the lack of it and this is a mistake that Europeans did fall in to when arrived to the new land. Political power is innate to social power in any given society which makes it questionable to think that the original occupants of the land did not have any. Like any other society the primitive society will face a conflict between “norms” and “reality” and they will try to “reconcile” the old norm with the new reality with their own political interpretations of symbols and actions.

Although Seventeenth century America had a somewhat liberal democratic agenda, it botched to acknowledge the democratic measures of native tribes. In contrast to the Europeans who at that time where still under the rule of the monarch, elections in tribes used to take place constantly by the people of the clan whenever their leader (chief) was no longer able to represent their needs. This action made it obvious that the Chief had no power over his people and that stunned the westerners because they will name some one in a position of power