There is a comedy show called Reservation Dogs about a group of native teens living in rural Oklohoma and dealing with the loss of their friend who commited suicide. I know, so funny right! There was an episode about "Deer Lady" which is a woman with deer legs that kills bad men. It showed her backstory, which was growing up in an Indian Boarding school, and when her only friend was killed she escaped using the help of a magical deer who turned her into what she is. It sounds dumb but it was such a powerful and beautiful episode that I could not stop thinking about those schools, and how terrible they were. I also think that everyone should know what these schools are because of how important it is in history.
The last thing I told my mother was “Ꭲ ganaquatisdi you.” We were fighting because I hadn’t done my duties for the day, like washing the clothes or helping her feed the horses. I am her star daughter. Out of all my brothers and sisters I am the most responsible and smart, her favorite. All of my siblings should be more like me, but I guess that day I wasn’t in the mood to be her role model. I had never fought with her before that day. I stay up late in my cot sweating pools from the heat as that fight plays over and over in my mind, missing my mother so much my entire body aches. I have two more years at this disgusting prison they call a school. My friends I’ve made here told me to bide my time and just wait it out like everyone else, but I’ve made plenty of friends that aged out of the school who said they’d write letters telling me how they're doing back with their families. Guess how many have written. Go on, take a really good guess. None! I know they get killed, I’ve seen it happen with my own eyes. Let me take it back a bit.
“Alewisdodi!” I heard the cry of a boy, maybe seventeen or eighteen, coming from behind the door of my assigned sleeping room. There were twenty sleeping rooms and forty to fifty children in each room. Now that I’m almost eighteen there are fifty to sixty children in each room. There was a dim yellow light coming from under the doorway, which isn’t common because by this time everyone is asleep, including the nuns and priests. I heard the screams of a young girl from the cot beside me, and a sound that has been burned into my skin and memory, the slap of a leather belt coming from outside the door. The worst part of all of this was that it is a common noise pair to wake up to. What wasn’t common is the sudden stop of the boy’s screams, and blood pooling under the doorway. At this point many children had woken up and the little ones were joining in with the first young girl. A chorus of symphonic screams. I ran to comfort the little one beside me while the older children also got up to comfort them. I walked to the door and tried the knob, which was unlocked. In the haste of dragging the boy out, the nuns must have forgotten to lock it. I opened the door a crack, and looked down the hallway to see my cousin HorseRunner’s dead body being dragged across the floor, oozing blood from a cut slashed across his neck. I tried to hold in a scream as they disappeared around the corner, leaving a streak of blood across the wood floors. As I was closing the doors, the head priest stormed around the corner, holding a wooden paddle. I closed the door but it was too late, he already saw me. The door flew open as I was backing away. He smacked my face and I fell backwards. I knew the familiar pain all too well so I didn’t scream, but as he was about to stride towards me I wanted to. Instead, he looked up and yelled
“All of you should be sleeping, there is no reason for you to be making so much noise!” A little girl looked up through her tears and stammered, “but James! He-”
“SILENCE” the head priest screamed, he walked up to the little girl with a menacing look on his face and pulled back his arm, the girl who was previously comforting her shied away, not wanting to get hit. He struck the little girl with a blow so hard she fell onto the floor next to her cot. She cried out and then went silent.
“MAY THIS BE A LESSON TO YOU ALL. WHEN WE SAY BE QUIET AND GO BACK TO SLEEP, YOU GO TO SLEEP NO QUESTIONS ASKED” he shouted. He let the paddle fall to his side, the blood dripping on the floor. He looked at me with eyes so cold I thought he would hit me again.
“Clean this filth up” he spat as he turned and walked out the door, shutting it so hard the walls shook. I felt everyone in the room breathe a sigh of relief. I slowly got up and felt my face burn as the blood shifted to my head, and walked over to the little girl who was softly crying as she laid on the floor. I picked her up and hushed her while rocking her, a process I’ve done with the little ones here for years after someone gets hurt, or killed. Everyone went back to their beds and laid back down. One thing I’ve learned from this school is that everyone only cares about themselves and unless it involves themselves getting hurt they will not help their friends out, even if they are being killed. They must care to an extent because these people are from their same tribes and families, but you don’t want to get yourself killed over someone who wouldn’t risk their lives for you. Like I said before, this is a prison. No matter how much you try to disguise it as a school. At least prisons don’t strip your identity away. I stared at the pool of blood slowly creeping towards the middle of the room, soaking into the rough wooden floors, and tried not to cry.
A conversation HorseRunner and I had late in the night a few weeks ago suddenly rang in my head as I laid back down on my cot after mopping up his blood. “Ginihanlvga.We do not belong here, no one does. We belong with our sidanelvhi. I’m getting out of here and I want you to come.” I whispered back, “You have no plan. You will get caught and they will kill you! We have to bide our time until we know every detail of how our escape will work.” It was like a light flickered out behind his eyes, I saw his hope diminish. “I had a plan,” he muttered. I smiled at him weakly and replied “si” then turned over, facing away from him. I didn’t want to look into his soulless eyes anymore. I didn’t know I would never look him in the eyes again. It all makes sense now. I needed to scream. I could have saved him if only I had spent more time trying to convince him to wait. My half hearted attempt at stopping him failed. I failed as his cousin and as his family. His blood is in my hands now. Anger swept over me and I stared at the ceiling, thinking of the finishing touches I needed to finalize my plan. I wasn’t just going to escape, I’m going to honor his name in the blood of his killers.
The next day I scoped out which nuns I saw the night before and wrote down their schedules on the back of my bible. A boy next to me looked curiously at what I was scribbling and said
“Why you write bible?” He was around seven and clearly new, his hair freshly chopped and a scared, lonely look in his eyes. “What is your name?” I asked.
“Joseph LongGrass, you like name Joseph? I just got it.” He hung his head and played with the string on his pants. “I like your name, but your real name is LongGrass. You need to remember that.”
“You didn’t told me why you write in bible” he whispered.
“I’m making a plan. You will get out of here one day, and you will need to make a plan too when the time comes.” He smiled hopefully at me and my heart broke for not being able to take him with me. He looked just like RunningHorse when we first got here. I held his hand as I held back tears, until a nun came striding over and slapped our conjoined hands with a paddle, and then slapped his cheek and said to him “You are sinful my child, we have not yet gotten the devil out of ye. She has. No touching until I can fix you.” As she walked away his eyes brimmed with tears. I turned away before I could cause any more harm. I turned back and stuck my tongue out as I waved, and he smiled. “Stay on task” I told myself. There is no time for sympathy, I have a job to do.
I waited until it was pitch black out, and everyone was asleep. I sat up in the dark and took deep breaths, preparing myself for the hell that was about to rise. I reached over to the desk drawers beside my cot, and grabbed the two bibles I own, then wrapped them in my bed sheet and made a bag out of it. Then I rubbed the soot from my oil lamp onto my fingers, and smeared it on my face in my tribe’s traditional war paint style. As I gathered up my few belongings, I heard a whisper come from behind me. My neck snapped back and I prayed that it was just someone who was sleep-talking. By scanning the room I saw LongGrass laying in the bed that used to be HorseRunners. His eyes were wide as he stared at me through the dim moonlight, looking at the ash on my face.
“What are you doing?” He whispered. I walked over to him and stood by his bed, staring at him. I reached up and cupped his face as I smiled
“Anotlvsgv dahnawa.” As I walked away I heard blankets rustling behind me, and I turned to see HorseRunner standing with his bibles in his sheet like mine are.
“I’m coming with you.” He looked determined as he stood there in his pajamas. There was a sparkle in his eye I had not yet seen, and something about it made me know he wouldn’t jeopardize my plan, he would help to complete it. We silently ran through the halls, and into the main wing where the important nuns and priests slept. I had memorized which room was hers, my cousin's killer. “Anidona'a Watsi” I whispered in his ear. He looked at me like he was about to argue, and then realized what was about to happen and fell silent. He nodded. I opened the door a crack and peered inside to see her sleeping. I slipped inside and closed the door behind me. As I looked at her peacefully sleeping, I felt shame and sorrow for what I was about to do, this was a life I’m taking. A life the world will not get back. I sunk to the floor and started uncontrollably shaking, then an image flashed before my eyes. It was of HorseRunner and I playing in the mud when we were small. He looked at me and said “yig dogeha aquatia agvhnage'i.” At the time I didn’t know what he meant, so I just smiled and laughed, then threw a mud ball at him. I can see clearly now. I rose up from the floor and grabbed the bag of bibles. I raised my arm back and smashed it on her head over and over. She tried to scream so I shoved a wadded up shirt in her mouth and continued to beat her body with the bibles until she stopped writhing. I dropped the bibles on the floor and sat on top of her. As I leaned down to whisper in her ear, I carved a cross into her cheek with an envelope cutter I found on her desk earlier that day. “Horserunner deserved to be set free. He did not deserve this. Know this was for him. Know I am the land. Know it is the land that is killing YOU.” I stabbed her throat with the envelope cutter. Once. Twice. Three times. I slumped down off the bed and cried as I wiped the blood from my hands. He has been avenged.
“Alewisdodi!” I heard the cry of a boy, maybe seventeen or eighteen, coming from behind the door of my assigned sleeping room. There were twenty sleeping rooms and forty to fifty children in each room. Now that I’m almost eighteen there are fifty to sixty children in each room. There was a dim yellow light coming from under the doorway, which isn’t common because by this time everyone is asleep, including the nuns and priests. I heard the screams of a young girl from the cot beside me, and a sound that has been burned into my skin and memory, the slap of a leather belt coming from outside the door. The worst part of all of this was that it is a common noise pair to wake up to. What wasn’t common is the sudden stop of the boy’s screams, and blood pooling under the doorway. At this point many children had woken up and the little ones were joining in with the first young girl. A chorus of symphonic screams. I ran to comfort the little one beside me while the older children also got up to comfort them. I walked to the door and tried the knob, which was unlocked. In the haste of dragging the boy out, the nuns must have forgotten to lock it. I opened the door a crack, and looked down the hallway to see my cousin HorseRunner’s dead body being dragged across the floor, oozing blood from a cut slashed across his neck. I tried to hold in a scream as they disappeared around the corner, leaving a streak of blood across the wood floors. As I was closing the doors, the head priest stormed around the corner, holding a wooden paddle. I closed the door but it was too late, he already saw me. The door flew open as I was backing away. He smacked my face and I fell backwards. I knew the familiar pain all too well so I didn’t scream, but as he was about to stride towards me I wanted to. Instead, he looked up and yelled
“All of you should be sleeping, there is no reason for you to be making so much noise!” A little girl looked up through her tears and stammered, “but James! He-”
“SILENCE” the head priest screamed, he walked up to the little girl with a menacing look on his face and pulled back his arm, the girl who was previously comforting her shied away, not wanting to get hit. He struck the little girl with a blow so hard she fell onto the floor next to her cot. She cried out and then went silent.
“MAY THIS BE A LESSON TO YOU ALL. WHEN WE SAY BE QUIET AND GO BACK TO SLEEP, YOU GO TO SLEEP NO QUESTIONS ASKED” he shouted. He let the paddle fall to his side, the blood dripping on the floor. He looked at me with eyes so cold I thought he would hit me again.
“Clean this filth up” he spat as he turned and walked out the door, shutting it so hard the walls shook. I felt everyone in the room breathe a sigh of relief. I slowly got up and felt my face burn as the blood shifted to my head, and walked over to the little girl who was softly crying as she laid on the floor. I picked her up and hushed her while rocking her, a process I’ve done with the little ones here for years after someone gets hurt, or killed. Everyone went back to their beds and laid back down. One thing I’ve learned from this school is that everyone only cares about themselves and unless it involves themselves getting hurt they will not help their friends out, even if they are being killed. They must care to an extent because these people are from their same tribes and families, but you don’t want to get yourself killed over someone who wouldn’t risk their lives for you. Like I said before, this is a prison. No matter how much you try to disguise it as a school. At least prisons don’t strip your identity away. I stared at the pool of blood slowly creeping towards the middle of the room, soaking into the rough wooden floors, and tried not to cry.
A conversation HorseRunner and I had late in the night a few weeks ago suddenly rang in my head as I laid back down on my cot after mopping up his blood. “Ginihanlvga.We do not belong here, no one does. We belong with our sidanelvhi. I’m getting out of here and I want you to come.” I whispered back, “You have no plan. You will get caught and they will kill you! We have to bide our time until we know every detail of how our escape will work.” It was like a light flickered out behind his eyes, I saw his hope diminish. “I had a plan,” he muttered. I smiled at him weakly and replied “si” then turned over, facing away from him. I didn’t want to look into his soulless eyes anymore. I didn’t know I would never look him in the eyes again. It all makes sense now. I needed to scream. I could have saved him if only I had spent more time trying to convince him to wait. My half hearted attempt at stopping him failed. I failed as his cousin and as his family. His blood is in my hands now. Anger swept over me and I stared at the ceiling, thinking of the finishing touches I needed to finalize my plan. I wasn’t just going to escape, I’m going to honor his name in the blood of his killers.
The next day I scoped out which nuns I saw the night before and wrote down their schedules on the back of my bible. A boy next to me looked curiously at what I was scribbling and said
“Why you write bible?” He was around seven and clearly new, his hair freshly chopped and a scared, lonely look in his eyes. “What is your name?” I asked.
“Joseph LongGrass, you like name Joseph? I just got it.” He hung his head and played with the string on his pants. “I like your name, but your real name is LongGrass. You need to remember that.”
“You didn’t told me why you write in bible” he whispered.
“I’m making a plan. You will get out of here one day, and you will need to make a plan too when the time comes.” He smiled hopefully at me and my heart broke for not being able to take him with me. He looked just like RunningHorse when we first got here. I held his hand as I held back tears, until a nun came striding over and slapped our conjoined hands with a paddle, and then slapped his cheek and said to him “You are sinful my child, we have not yet gotten the devil out of ye. She has. No touching until I can fix you.” As she walked away his eyes brimmed with tears. I turned away before I could cause any more harm. I turned back and stuck my tongue out as I waved, and he smiled. “Stay on task” I told myself. There is no time for sympathy, I have a job to do.
I waited until it was pitch black out, and everyone was asleep. I sat up in the dark and took deep breaths, preparing myself for the hell that was about to rise. I reached over to the desk drawers beside my cot, and grabbed the two bibles I own, then wrapped them in my bed sheet and made a bag out of it. Then I rubbed the soot from my oil lamp onto my fingers, and smeared it on my face in my tribe’s traditional war paint style. As I gathered up my few belongings, I heard a whisper come from behind me. My neck snapped back and I prayed that it was just someone who was sleep-talking. By scanning the room I saw LongGrass laying in the bed that used to be HorseRunners. His eyes were wide as he stared at me through the dim moonlight, looking at the ash on my face.
“What are you doing?” He whispered. I walked over to him and stood by his bed, staring at him. I reached up and cupped his face as I smiled
“Anotlvsgv dahnawa.” As I walked away I heard blankets rustling behind me, and I turned to see HorseRunner standing with his bibles in his sheet like mine are.
“I’m coming with you.” He looked determined as he stood there in his pajamas. There was a sparkle in his eye I had not yet seen, and something about it made me know he wouldn’t jeopardize my plan, he would help to complete it. We silently ran through the halls, and into the main wing where the important nuns and priests slept. I had memorized which room was hers, my cousin's killer. “Anidona'a Watsi” I whispered in his ear. He looked at me like he was about to argue, and then realized what was about to happen and fell silent. He nodded. I opened the door a crack and peered inside to see her sleeping. I slipped inside and closed the door behind me. As I looked at her peacefully sleeping, I felt shame and sorrow for what I was about to do, this was a life I’m taking. A life the world will not get back. I sunk to the floor and started uncontrollably shaking, then an image flashed before my eyes. It was of HorseRunner and I playing in the mud when we were small. He looked at me and said “yig dogeha aquatia agvhnage'i.” At the time I didn’t know what he meant, so I just smiled and laughed, then threw a mud ball at him. I can see clearly now. I rose up from the floor and grabbed the bag of bibles. I raised my arm back and smashed it on her head over and over. She tried to scream so I shoved a wadded up shirt in her mouth and continued to beat her body with the bibles until she stopped writhing. I dropped the bibles on the floor and sat on top of her. As I leaned down to whisper in her ear, I carved a cross into her cheek with an envelope cutter I found on her desk earlier that day. “Horserunner deserved to be set free. He did not deserve this. Know this was for him. Know I am the land. Know it is the land that is killing YOU.” I stabbed her throat with the envelope cutter. Once. Twice. Three times. I slumped down off the bed and cried as I wiped the blood from my hands. He has been avenged.
Britain is the Cause of India’s Downfall
India is a beautiful country. With over two thousand ethnic groups, India houses over one billion residents within it’s confinements and is one of the largest countries in the world. Known for its spices and interesting architecture, the country receives over seven million tourists each year, sometimes up to twenty million. Do you think these statistics would be lower or higher if the British had never colonized India? Do you think they would have been more unruly and laced with poverty if the white people didn’t swoop in to the rescue? Would India have been better without British rule? Personally, I think India could have improved significantly over time, becoming richer through their own development of government without any intervening. Especially when that intervention involves stealing India’s resources in order to be greedy and take what is already built. Let’s discuss it.
Due to the Indian ocean network, which was the dominant trade route in the world from about 800 to 1500 CE and stretched across all of Africa, Asia, and Europe. This great country successfully traded their silk and cotton textiles all over the world, which was in very popular demand, along with different forms of crops, spices, metalwork and gems. This caused India’s resident’s at the time to do well in excelling in a trade and working at it to make money, which in turn caused there to be very little poverty rates in the 16/1700s. To keep up with the trade systems, the Mughals built a somewhat sustainable taxation system that helped to build roads and schools and government buildings, all money that, even though it came from the citizens pockets, rose to help them have better access to transporting their goods. India was doing so well financially and there were few poverty rates because the citizens were so wealthy, it caused Emperor Akbar to earn an annual revenue of seventeen million euros, more than the sixteen million euros the treasury of Great Britain made two hundred years later. It also caused India’s share of the global economy to go up to a whopping twenty four percent. It’s pretty obvious why Britain decided to take it all for themselves. It was like looking at a block of gold surrounded by rocks. India was the most promising country to take control of, and they left that block of gold destroyed.
Britain destroyed any worth of India and took all the riches for themselves. In 1950, three years after the British lost control and left, that share had been reduced down to four percent leaving India in poverty and struggling to feed its people or pay its debts. For the most part, this wasn't caused by a poor ruler or lazy citizens. It had been because they had their way of making their goods destroyed, and were dumbed down to a resource plant essentially. The British government had changed India from an exporter of finished products to an importer of British finished goods, so they took India’s raw materials and shipped them over to London’s mills and factories. Then they took them back over to Indian markets and because it was much cheaper to buy produced goods from Britain, the original Indian products didn’t sell as easily as before, and thousands of previously well off Indians became poor and lost their jobs. Britain also successfully destroyed many factory set-ups and businesses in order to slow production. A common example of this is Dhaka muslin weavers. Muslin was one of the most wanted fabrics in the world at the time and was sold to kings and queens all over the world. It was a lightweight, see through fabric that took immense skill to weave and was fairly expensive. The British went to Dhaka and destroyed their looms and cut off the thumbs of the weavers so they couldn’t make the fabric anymore, plus the usual taxing and restricting of the factory like they did to all of the industries.
I want to compare this situation to African history with the British. Africa had built a very impressive trade system decades before other countries had even thought of advancing to that level of transportation and world trade. When people think of the first democracies and civilizations, they usually think of Mesopotamia and the indigenous people of America and Australia, but in reality everyone really originated from Africa and Egypt. One of the earliest political systems in world history was developed in present day Sudan, and it is the first state to ever exist. It’s called Ta Seiti. When old historians would talk about how Africa is not a substantial part of history and demoralize all the work they did to build up their country’s wealth and development, it was because they felt that people of color were lesser than them and the white peoples way of living was superior. We all came from the same animal man! African history isn’t credited or talked about enough, and I feel it is that way with India as well, and no one really thought to talk about, hey, maybe the reason British museums are filled with stolen African and Indian art is because they were terrible people and took everything from them? In history you learn about the British a lot considering it takes up a very large portion of American and world history, but we really gloss over the fact that they were just terrible people who thought it was okay to steal and sell other countries hard earned work and money.
Something that is often brought up in argumentative discussion on this topic is, Well if we left them to their own devices they would have wreaked havoc with war on other countries and their own. Many kingdoms would rise and fight each other and it would all go to ruin anyway. and yes, they make a fair point, but people forget how many races and religions there are in India. A good amount of them believe in different entities, of course some would go to war. Do christians not ostracize satanists from their homes and families? Does the catholic church not make “schools'' to strip indigenous children from their identity and beliefs? Is there not a genocide currently going on because Isreal decided that Sunni shouldn’t get to believe in what they want, and that they should instead become Jewish? People have fought because of disagreements on race and religion for centuries, our own country did it. Are we not one of the biggest and wealthiest countries in the world today? What would stop India from doing the same, even if wars divided them in the 1700s. It would make sense for the trade to decline though, over the years. The Mughal emperors were not very open to other religions and were weak when it came to defending Delhi from invaders and attacks, which is the most common reason why they would have continuously failed. During the wars that would ensue after other religions rose up, the trade routes and movement of finished goods would ultimately be destroyed and that would set back the economic growth of the country. When a larger religion rises up and the fighting stops, at least temporarily, they will rebuild what they had lost in the wars and will go back to almost normal, with the exception of the Mughal. The road to more trade pathways and Indian produced goods will continue its long trek and pay off as time goes on, plus it would help with causing India to become a second world or even first world country. If you gathered up all the money that Britain drained from India it would be close to around 45 trillion You could quite literally fix 95% of earth's current issues with that amount. Oh you don’t want to ceasefire? Will here’s 100 million for your troubles that should cover it. If that amount alone does not prove to you my point I don’t know what will.
In the end, India would have been so much richer and full of resources the people there need to survive if only Britain hadn’t been a terrible country and drained the economic value and structure so they could profit from it. Try and defend Britain now, this is only one example in history
I showed persuasion in my project in multiple ways throughout each section. In art I wanted it to be from the perspective of a child who was getting their braid cut off. It argues that cutting off indigenous peoples hair is very significant and abusive towards their culture and religion, and to them it's so much more than hair. For history I wrote a persuasive essay on Britain colonizing India and the substantial effects. It argues that India wouldn't be a third world country and would have been extremely rich without British rule. For english I wrote a short story about an indigenous child who is escaping from an Indian Boarding School, because one of the catholic nuns killed their cousin. The story shows persuasion when their debating to go through with their plan or not, trying to forget that the nun is still a person and it's wrong to kill. Then they think of a memory with their cousin and how much they miss him and this killing is for a reason. It shows how a person can do so much wrong and you still hesitate before hurting them. It shows you are human. Thank you for looking at my project.
India is a beautiful country. With over two thousand ethnic groups, India houses over one billion residents within it’s confinements and is one of the largest countries in the world. Known for its spices and interesting architecture, the country receives over seven million tourists each year, sometimes up to twenty million. Do you think these statistics would be lower or higher if the British had never colonized India? Do you think they would have been more unruly and laced with poverty if the white people didn’t swoop in to the rescue? Would India have been better without British rule? Personally, I think India could have improved significantly over time, becoming richer through their own development of government without any intervening. Especially when that intervention involves stealing India’s resources in order to be greedy and take what is already built. Let’s discuss it.
Due to the Indian ocean network, which was the dominant trade route in the world from about 800 to 1500 CE and stretched across all of Africa, Asia, and Europe. This great country successfully traded their silk and cotton textiles all over the world, which was in very popular demand, along with different forms of crops, spices, metalwork and gems. This caused India’s resident’s at the time to do well in excelling in a trade and working at it to make money, which in turn caused there to be very little poverty rates in the 16/1700s. To keep up with the trade systems, the Mughals built a somewhat sustainable taxation system that helped to build roads and schools and government buildings, all money that, even though it came from the citizens pockets, rose to help them have better access to transporting their goods. India was doing so well financially and there were few poverty rates because the citizens were so wealthy, it caused Emperor Akbar to earn an annual revenue of seventeen million euros, more than the sixteen million euros the treasury of Great Britain made two hundred years later. It also caused India’s share of the global economy to go up to a whopping twenty four percent. It’s pretty obvious why Britain decided to take it all for themselves. It was like looking at a block of gold surrounded by rocks. India was the most promising country to take control of, and they left that block of gold destroyed.
Britain destroyed any worth of India and took all the riches for themselves. In 1950, three years after the British lost control and left, that share had been reduced down to four percent leaving India in poverty and struggling to feed its people or pay its debts. For the most part, this wasn't caused by a poor ruler or lazy citizens. It had been because they had their way of making their goods destroyed, and were dumbed down to a resource plant essentially. The British government had changed India from an exporter of finished products to an importer of British finished goods, so they took India’s raw materials and shipped them over to London’s mills and factories. Then they took them back over to Indian markets and because it was much cheaper to buy produced goods from Britain, the original Indian products didn’t sell as easily as before, and thousands of previously well off Indians became poor and lost their jobs. Britain also successfully destroyed many factory set-ups and businesses in order to slow production. A common example of this is Dhaka muslin weavers. Muslin was one of the most wanted fabrics in the world at the time and was sold to kings and queens all over the world. It was a lightweight, see through fabric that took immense skill to weave and was fairly expensive. The British went to Dhaka and destroyed their looms and cut off the thumbs of the weavers so they couldn’t make the fabric anymore, plus the usual taxing and restricting of the factory like they did to all of the industries.
I want to compare this situation to African history with the British. Africa had built a very impressive trade system decades before other countries had even thought of advancing to that level of transportation and world trade. When people think of the first democracies and civilizations, they usually think of Mesopotamia and the indigenous people of America and Australia, but in reality everyone really originated from Africa and Egypt. One of the earliest political systems in world history was developed in present day Sudan, and it is the first state to ever exist. It’s called Ta Seiti. When old historians would talk about how Africa is not a substantial part of history and demoralize all the work they did to build up their country’s wealth and development, it was because they felt that people of color were lesser than them and the white peoples way of living was superior. We all came from the same animal man! African history isn’t credited or talked about enough, and I feel it is that way with India as well, and no one really thought to talk about, hey, maybe the reason British museums are filled with stolen African and Indian art is because they were terrible people and took everything from them? In history you learn about the British a lot considering it takes up a very large portion of American and world history, but we really gloss over the fact that they were just terrible people who thought it was okay to steal and sell other countries hard earned work and money.
Something that is often brought up in argumentative discussion on this topic is, Well if we left them to their own devices they would have wreaked havoc with war on other countries and their own. Many kingdoms would rise and fight each other and it would all go to ruin anyway. and yes, they make a fair point, but people forget how many races and religions there are in India. A good amount of them believe in different entities, of course some would go to war. Do christians not ostracize satanists from their homes and families? Does the catholic church not make “schools'' to strip indigenous children from their identity and beliefs? Is there not a genocide currently going on because Isreal decided that Sunni shouldn’t get to believe in what they want, and that they should instead become Jewish? People have fought because of disagreements on race and religion for centuries, our own country did it. Are we not one of the biggest and wealthiest countries in the world today? What would stop India from doing the same, even if wars divided them in the 1700s. It would make sense for the trade to decline though, over the years. The Mughal emperors were not very open to other religions and were weak when it came to defending Delhi from invaders and attacks, which is the most common reason why they would have continuously failed. During the wars that would ensue after other religions rose up, the trade routes and movement of finished goods would ultimately be destroyed and that would set back the economic growth of the country. When a larger religion rises up and the fighting stops, at least temporarily, they will rebuild what they had lost in the wars and will go back to almost normal, with the exception of the Mughal. The road to more trade pathways and Indian produced goods will continue its long trek and pay off as time goes on, plus it would help with causing India to become a second world or even first world country. If you gathered up all the money that Britain drained from India it would be close to around 45 trillion You could quite literally fix 95% of earth's current issues with that amount. Oh you don’t want to ceasefire? Will here’s 100 million for your troubles that should cover it. If that amount alone does not prove to you my point I don’t know what will.
In the end, India would have been so much richer and full of resources the people there need to survive if only Britain hadn’t been a terrible country and drained the economic value and structure so they could profit from it. Try and defend Britain now, this is only one example in history
I showed persuasion in my project in multiple ways throughout each section. In art I wanted it to be from the perspective of a child who was getting their braid cut off. It argues that cutting off indigenous peoples hair is very significant and abusive towards their culture and religion, and to them it's so much more than hair. For history I wrote a persuasive essay on Britain colonizing India and the substantial effects. It argues that India wouldn't be a third world country and would have been extremely rich without British rule. For english I wrote a short story about an indigenous child who is escaping from an Indian Boarding School, because one of the catholic nuns killed their cousin. The story shows persuasion when their debating to go through with their plan or not, trying to forget that the nun is still a person and it's wrong to kill. Then they think of a memory with their cousin and how much they miss him and this killing is for a reason. It shows how a person can do so much wrong and you still hesitate before hurting them. It shows you are human. Thank you for looking at my project.