Newsweek Discovers US Buys Land, Omits Stolen Land
This selective history lesson, focusing on neatly documented transactions, conspicuously avoids the vast majority of 'land acquisition' in American history that involved—surprise!—genocide and forced removal of Indigenous peoples. Newsweek highlights the Louisiana Purchase from France in 1803 and the Danish West Indies in 1917, yet somehow glosses over centuries of Native American land theft,
massacres, and broken treaties. It’s a bit like celebrating a chef's 'purchases' of ingredients while ignoring the fact they 'acquired' half of them through armed robbery. One might wonder if the editorial board believes that a receipt simply cancels out the screams. (Or, more cynically, if they're prepping us for future 'lawful purchases' of land currently occupied by, say, Palestinians, from
whoever holds the biggest guns.) This isn't just historical amnesia; it's a deliberate narrative construction presenting a sanitized, almost quaint, version of Manifest Destiny, where the only thing missing from the picture is the actual history of colonialism and its indigenous victims.