Long-winded ramble forces me to make uncomfortable conclusion

Disclaimer.
I don't necessarily believe in all or any of the ideas in this blog post. I'm playing devil's advocate. My primary objectives are to provoke thought and force people to justify their convictions. Please remember that no offense is intended.

Ramble.
Many of Alaska's first white settlers regarded the indigenous tribes of the region as a relatively homogeneous race of savages, not akin to true citizens of America in any significant way. The settlers' misunderstandings of the original inhabitants of the state have become common knowledge, and most people today consider it deplorable that a better understanding was not established between the two groups of people.

I've been aware of these bigoted attitudes for a long time. But something new struck me as I browsed through the paper written by William Hensley and the Alaska Native Land Claims e-book. The language of this early legislation portrays the natives not necessarily as an inferior race, but as a childlike one which is earlier along the route towards maturation. According to the verdict of United States v. Cadzow, for instance, which Hensley cites in his paper, "the uncivilized native tribes of Alaska are wards of the government; [and the] United States has the right, and [the] duty, to protect the property rights of its Indian wards" (emphasis added). The term "ward" is often used to describe people (especially minors) who are dependent on others for their welfare. The implication in this clause seems to be that natives were helpless without the U.S. government.

Alaska's indigenous tribes, of course, never consented to being adopted either by the United States or Russia. The thousands of years that indigenous people flourished in Alaska before the conquest of the white man makes it abundantly clear that they were capable of providing for themselves, even though their conception of civilization differed from Western ideals.

But according to Cadzow, in addition to a number of other documents from the same time period (see the letter from the Office of the Solicitor in Chapter 12 of the Alaskool e-book, for instance), the U.S. government voluntarily shouldered the responsibility of protecting the natives and helping them to achieve maturity as full-fledged citizens of the United States. Only civilized, grown-up natives would, according to Article 3 of the Treaty of Cession, "be admitted to the enjoyment of all the rights, advantages, and immunities of citizens of the United States."

The implicit supposition in this attitude toward the "immature" native tribes is that progress is linear and unidirectional. This view holds that the tribe's abandonment of their "barbaric" cultural practices and their assimilation into the relatively homogeneous society of the United States were definitely steps in the right direction. The adult society inducted the childlike society into adulthood.

Is it really the case that the United States' industrial development and civilization made it the more grown-up of the two conflicting societies? In other words, would the Alaskan natives, given enough time, have made the same technological innovations and discoveries as the progress-driven white folks, thereby embarking on the same path toward societal maturity? Or is it possible that the progress of different peoples across the globe does not converge on a single, one-way vector, but actually diverges along any number of paths toward societal actualization?

I think that most people's gut response to this question would be that Alaskan natives were just as sophisticated as the Russians and Americans who colonized their land, and that it was therefore ridiculous for the U.S. government to act as some kind of adopted big brother or father to the natives without their invitation.

But the question is not as straightforward as it might seem. We must remember that our instinctive reactions to questions of cultural supremacy are as much a byproduct of our education and background nowadays as they were a century ago. As the European settlers were taught that their nations and culture were superior to those of the aboriginal tribes, so most Americans today are taught that different peoples and cultural practices are fundamentally equal. Like our forerunners, we are a product of our times. We don't know the absolute truth of the matter any more than they did.

We should also remember that most societies in Eurasia developed along somewhat parallel paths for thousands of years, more or less independently of one another. All across the Old World, and even in Mesoamerican societies in the New World, tribes of people eventually abandoned their subsistence lifestyle, developed a sustainable form of agriculture, and settled down in one place. These small settlements gradually grew and merged together to form towns and cities. The rest is history.

Outside of southeast Alaska, however, most natives lived off the land, traveling seasonally between a number of campsites rather than living in one place year-round. Given enough time undisturbed by colonists, would the natives have eventually embraced sedentary agriculture and urbanization like the rest of the world? Or would they maintain their traditional ways?

At least in its southcentral and interior regions, Alaska contains large tracts of fertile land. It's conceivable that natives eventually would have cultivated these lands if it were not for the intrusion of white settlers. Moreover, since agriculture has always been the impetus for a nomadic band to settle down in one place, natives would probably have abandoned their hunter-gatherer ways if this had occurred.

This train of reasoning seems to illustrate a developmental trajectory similar to that of many other early human civilizations.

The logical conclusion of these premises is that, prior to the arrival of American settlers, native Alaskans were at an earlier point along the path of societal development than the Europeans. The settlers who imperiously adopted the indigenous peoples as their "wards," and gave lip-service, at least, to the idea of integrating them into mainstream American society, truly were the adults in the partnership.

Note that this conclusion does not say anything about the inherent superiority of one race over another. It simply acknowledges that there is a certain justification in the language of the legal documents cited above.

What was lost, perhaps, when white settlers invaded Alaska was not the possibility of preserving the natives' age-old civilization, but rather their self-determination---the opportunity to travel along the same path as Europe and the rest of the world without being prematurely dragged forward.

This conclusion is rather troublesome to me, as I believe that all peoples are fundamentally equal, and the acknowledgment that Alaskan natives were, in some respects, at an earlier stage of civilization than the American settlers seems to be a sign of creeping racism. Please save me from my logic. I invite you to poke holes in my argument. Have fun.

(Please remember, of course, that I am playing devil's advocate.)