Why did Europeans continue to call native Americans "Indians"?

Why is this any less legitimate than the view that historical European tribes were a legitimate basis for the later formation of Europe's various ethnic groups, built around the historical subdivision between their different populations?
Most European tribes are not considered the basis for modern European ethnic groups. It's usually large clumps of tribes that sometimes had little to do with one another that are considered one ethnicity. The French for instance could probably be divided into a number of ethnicities depending on how you want to define things. Or you could clump them with the other Romance languages. It's much to variable and political.

I have read in several history books that the Basque are actually the only extant ethnic group native to Europe; all of the others (Indo-Aryan, Turkic, Finno-Ugric, Northern Caucasian, Kartvelian, Semitic and Mongolic) are invasive ethnic groups from Asia and the Middle East.
Small correction here, it's Indo-Europeans in Europe. Indo-Aryan is the eastern branch in Iran and India.
 
For me and most people in my circles, I can usually tell how much they know depending on the term they use. If they call us Indians, it usually means they don't shit about us. For Native American or First Nations, it usually tells me they are at least educated about racial issues, but in a more academic way, and are more than likely at least sympathetic. And if they actually just say Native, to me that's code they're probably down with us, and at least have actually worked with our communities if not just a friend or more.

There's on exception to this that I've noticed, which may just be a Canadian West Coast peculiarity (when I used to live out East, I never noticed this, that doesn't mean that it wasn't there, just that I had fewer Native friends and acquaintances), which is that I know a number of Native activists refer to themselves as "Indians". When I actually ended up in a conversation with one of them as to why they choose to use what I saw as an outdated (and misleading) term, they said that they saw the term "First Nations" as an attempt by the Canadian government to deny Native people the rights they are entitled to under the "Indian Act" (as our legislation governing Native people is still called), by changing the meaning of the term "Indian". Now, these same people don't want me or other white people to call them "Indian". They want us to call them "Native", but they still choose to use "Indian" to refer to themselves.

To be honest, when talking about individual Native people, I usually refer to them by the nation they come from rather than by the term Native. I talk about my one friend who's "half-Tsimshian" or another who's "Algonquin-Cree-Métis", or my ancestors who are "St'at'imc", just as I don't use the term "Asian" to describe my partner's family, but usually use "Chinese" or "Cantonese" instead in order to be more specific. But, there are times when I do talk about Native people in general, and then I usually do use the term "Native".

There are instances where I do refer to "First Nations", but that's usually when talking about the "Nations" than the people who make up those nations. For example, there is an oil pipeline that is planning to be built in Northern BC which will pass through a whole bunch of Native land, and many of the band/tribal governments along the route are opposed to the pipline construction. In such a case, I would say that "the majority of the First Nations located along the pipeline route are opposed to its construction". This doesn't mean that a majority of the people are opposed because no one polled the people, but that a majority of the governments are opposed.

I think one reason I use the term "Native" rather than "Native American" or "Native Canadian" is that both "American" and "Canadian" are identities which stem from colonial nations that many Native people don't identify with. I know a number of native people who refuse to be called "Canadian" because using the term legitimizes the sovereignty of the Canadian government, which a number of Native activists challenge.
 
I don't see why two words terms are so difficult - one word for your racial origin and one word for your nationality. Why not just class different racial groups as African American, European American, Native American, Asian American etc?

Because there are Native people who don't see their nationality as "American", and who see the "American" presence in their land as an occupation of lands which still, de jure belong to them.
 

SinghKing

Banned
African genetic diversity absolutely outweighs any where. Cultural diversity is different though. Somalis have three main language/dialects and as far as I can tell two of them are reasonably mutually intelligible. Either way, Yugoslavia's biggest issues were religious, and as far as I can tell religion is one front Somalia is very homogenous. If it weren't for their religious differences most Europeans would probably consider Bosnians, Serbs, and Croats as one ethnicity.

Never said anything about cultural diversity- in that regard, Somalia's in the bottom half, only 80th on the list. (although by cultural diversity, India moves up to 5th in the rankings).

While there's only limited sources for pre-1500 numbers what I can find seems to show Europe wasn't that far behind India for population. Biggest gap I could find was a bit over double at one point, but that was basically before almost any of Europe's modern ethnic groups existed (and probably similar for India).
For land area, Europe has a lot of cold low density areas, so for discussing viable populated size they aren't too different. As for divisions, Europe has the Alps and a number of other mountain ranges running through the middle, along with being divided with numerous islands and peninsulas. Historically there were also vast forests. There's a number of major river systems. As for Europe's equivalent of the Himalayas, I suppose that would be the Atlantic Ocean, as both for the edge of the region in question. So, I suppose in the end Europe has fewer people, but more geographic divisions over a somewhat larger area, which seems like it should cause more diversity due to greater isolation.

And it almost certainly did have greater ethnic diversity per capita than India did, at some stage. But that's the thing about developing the 'nation' concept first- you got all of the previously distinct European tribal groups amalgamating into confederations (the Germans, Gauls, Celts, Greeks, Romans, Slavs etc.) very early on, and these federal tribal groups then became woven together tightly enough for the tribal confederations, rather than the individual tribes themselves, to become the basis for Europe's ethnic divisions.

Basically, Europe's levels of ethnic diversity are comparable to those which you'd expect to see in the Americas, in an ASB TL where the pre-Columbian Americas get ISOTed around 1500 years back in time from the 1400's; with OTL's smaller and more numerous tribal ethnicities superseded by far fewer federal tribal ethnicities (eg- the Incans, Iroquois, Aztecatl, Mayans etc.), and less 'ethnic diversity' as a result. The Europeans' lower ethnic diversity than the rest of the world today is just an inevitable result of Europe having being ahead of the developmental curve for most of its history.

Pardon? That's not what I was saying at all.:confused:

Sorry, I must have misunderstood. What were you trying to say with that particular comment?
(the 20th century has seen India fall into a demographic trap while Europe saw birth rates decline)
 
Never said anything about cultural diversity- in that regard, Somalia's in the bottom half, only 80th on the list. (although by cultural diversity, India moves up to 5th in the rankings).
Isn't ethnicity basically cultural identity? That's what I've always heard it to be.

And it almost certainly did have greater ethnic diversity per capita than India did, at some stage. But that's the thing about developing the 'nation' concept first- you got all of the previously distinct European tribal groups amalgamating into confederations (the Germans, Gauls, Celts, Greeks, Romans, Slavs etc.) very early on, and these federal tribal groups then became woven together tightly enough for the tribal confederations, rather than the individual tribes themselves, to become the basis for Europe's ethnic divisions.

Basically, Europe's levels of ethnic diversity are comparable to those which you'd expect to see in the Americas, in an ASB TL where the pre-Columbian Americas get ISOTed around 1500 years back in time from the 1400's; with OTL's smaller and more numerous tribal ethnicities superseded by far fewer federal tribal ethnicities (eg- the Incans, Iroquois, Aztecatl, Mayans etc.), and less 'ethnic diversity' as a result. The Europeans' lower ethnic diversity than the rest of the world today is just an inevitable result of Europe having being ahead of the developmental curve for most of its history.
Yeah, that's why ethnicity isn't compatible across regions. The local identities in Europe are typically still there, and in a reasonable number of cases at least some level of local language identity exists. They've just accepted a new label.


Sorry, I must have misunderstood. What were you trying to say with that particular comment?
This. India's population has exploded during the 20th century, historically it was closer to Europe. (At least for any years I can find numbers.)
 

SinghKing

Banned
Small correction here, it's Indo-Europeans in Europe. Indo-Aryan is the eastern branch in Iran and India.

And in another hundred years' time (with globalization speeding the process), we'll probably be calling people of European descent 'Euro-Americans' in the Americas, and using 'Euro-Aryans' as the name for the eastern branch back in Europe.
 
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SinghKing

Banned
Isn't ethnicity basically cultural identity? That's what I've always heard it to be.

I've been using James Fearon's Ethnic Fractionalization Index and Cultural Diversity Index respectively, from the Journal of Economic Growth; you can look through the lists, and the nations' respective scores, on Wikipedia if you want to.

Yeah, that's why ethnicity isn't compatible across regions. The local identities in Europe are typically still there, and in a reasonable number of cases at least some level of local language identity exists. They've just accepted a new label.

After over a thousand years? Virtually all of the pre-amalgamation local identities which may have existed would be long extinct; the local identities in Europe which are there today are mostly branches which have emerged relatively recently, splinter groups from the larger ethnic group entities, which were tied together centuries ago and have historically had a shared heritage with other, far larger and more established ethnic groups.
 
After over a thousand years? Virtually all of the pre-amalgamation local identities which may have existed would be long extinct; the local identities in Europe which are there today are mostly branches which have emerged relatively recently, splinter groups from the larger ethnic group entities, which were tied together centuries ago and have historically had a shared heritage with other, far larger and more established ethnic groups.
A thousand years ago only maybe France and England could be argued to have been a thing, and until the mid 19th century the southern half of France still didn't really speak French (though it was a related language). A lot of Eastern Europe wasn't even semi-stable a millennia ago. I think most modern European cultural identities didn't properly start forming until the late Middle Ages.
 

Artaxerxes

Banned
Because it stuck. Same reason we call… dang, I had it… There are plenty in English. Words for nouns (and more than that) that don’t make much sense other than that’s what they’ve always been. Pineapple, for instance.

Anyway, we might have adopted “indioes” in English.

Pineapple is as good a word as any, its got the outside of a pinecone and the insie of an apple, kind of.
 
In spanish we have the word "indio" which means indian exactly like in english (both for the subcontinent and the americas) and "indiano" which can refer to anything (people, art or whatever) coming from the iberoamerican colonies (that is, also from colonial times. It's not used generally for post-independency period) Since the word "indio" causes confussion, at least in Spain often people uses the term "hindú" for people from the subcontinent, so a mislead leading to another misleading term...

In German, we still use the word Indianer today to describe native Americans.

But the term has no negative connotation, unlike the use English term Indian for native Americans apparently has.

Mandarin uses a similar division, with "Yin du" to denote India and its people and "Yin di an," a loanword from English, for the indigenous people of the Americas. Indian people and the Hindu religion are distinguished by the character 人 (ren) for person or 教 (jiao) for teaching or religion tacked on to the end of 印度 (yin du).

Anyway, I tend to think Native American is just as geographically confusing as American Indian, given the tendency for many people around the world to associate "American" with the United States specifically rather than the Americas in general. People tend to associate Native American with the indigenous people of the US and overlook the indigenous peoples of Canada and Latin America, who stem from the same founding population and in some cases, like the Mohawk, Tlingit, and Tohono Oodham, continue to transcend international borders to this day.

"American Indian" also has this problem, but people often keep the Indian part and tack on other countries or regions - Caribbean Indian, Latin American Indian (used in the US Census), or Canadian Indian.

I've heard that "First Nations" is becoming more common in the Pacific Northwestern US, but I don't have any firsthand experience. When I was in Ecuador, "indigena" seemed to be supplanting "indio" as the most acceptible term in mainstream circles there, but I can't attest to other Spanish-speaking countries.

In Europe, there are 234 extant languages; if we were to extant the same lax criteria of 'mutual intelligibility' which we use to define Amerindian languages (such as Quechua, Mayan and Aymara) from their respective 'dialects', then this would be whittled down to only 16 extant European languages- 9, excluding those 7 extant languages of which aren't actually European in origin. The only extant European languages by this token would Slavic, Romance, Germanic, Celtic, Greek, Baltic, Albanian, Armenian and Basque. Would this seem fair to you?

Am I missing something? Why wouldn't Finnic, Sami, Mari, Mordvin, Permic, and Samoyed be considered native to Europe? Or, if we're counting Armenia as European, the various Caucasian languages like Georgian, Abkhaz, and Chechen? Or Ossetian, the only surviving descendant of the Scythian languages that dominated southeastern Russia before Slavic? I'm curious as to what your other seven non-native languages would be, as my count of Hungarian, Maltese, Romani, Kalmyk, and at least three different Turkic branches in addition to the others mentioned numbers more than that.
 
Same reason why many foreigners are called Franks in other languages: 'firangee'.... just stuck, I suppose.

There's also balanda, from "Holland," used in Malay languages for all white people, or "English," used by the Amish for all non-Anabaptist neighbors.

Pineapple is as good a word as any, its got the outside of a pinecone and the insie of an apple, kind of.

But then there are terms used in various English-speaking countries like guinea pig, french fries, french toast, french press, Turkish coffee, turkey, Irish potato, Irish moss, muscovy duck, Roman candle, Welsh onion, German chamomile, Canada goose, and so on, that suggest a geographic origin that is either too narrow, misleading, or flat-out wrong.
 
I think it is difficult to come up with a good definition of "ethnic group" because some cultures are more endogamous than others. For instance, my impression is that endogamy is much more prevalent in India and Pakistan than in European societies. The caste system is a pretty extreme example of this. However, recent immigration to Europe from countries like for instance Pakistan, have led to the original inhabitants of European countries labeling themselves for instance as "ethnic Norwegians" to differentiate themselves from the immigrants.
 
I've heard that "First Nations" is becoming more common in the Pacific Northwestern US, but I don't have any firsthand experience. When I was in Ecuador, "indigena" seemed to be supplanting "indio" as the most acceptible term in mainstream circles there, but I can't attest to other Spanish-speaking countries.

Both "First Nation" and "indigena" might work in the Americas, but it would be misleading with "indigena" in Spain, as the Amerindians obviously are not indigenous in Spain. The same applies for "First Nation" outside of the Americas. Besides, "First Nation" describes the entire group, not an individual.
 
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