The Real “Great Replacement” Already Happened

Posted on by under education, History, Law and justice, Political commentary, Racism & Bigotry, Social commentary

I’ve got a sad story to tell those people who have tied themselves to the lie known as the “Great Replacement theory” … the replacement has already happened.  Oh no, not in the way you think … white people are still a relevant portion of the population in the United States, and unfortunately, they still largely hold the reins of power … white males do, at least.  But the replacement happened many years ago … let me tell you the story.

The story begins in the year 1492 when there were an estimated 10 million people living in an area of land that is now known as the United States.  A Spanish explorer named Cristoforo Colombo stumbled onto a land mass he mistakenly thought was the East Indies, and thus he described the natives he met as “Indians”.  On his first day, he ordered six natives to be seized as servants.

Fast forward to the year 1620 when white European settlers arrived on ‘American’ shores hungry for land—and the abundant natural resources that came with it.  Now, the Indigenous People, the native tribes, saw themselves as stewards of the land, not owners, but the Europeans wanted to own the land.  Forget those cutesy little stories you learned in 1st grade about the Natives and the Europeans sharing that 1st Thanksgiving dinner.  Wake up to the reality … the white men wanted the land, the resources, and to turn the Natives into their slaves.  Over the next 200+ years, they worked hard to accomplish that goal.

The Gnadenhutten Massacre, 1782
Archive Photos/Getty Images

I have neither the time nor energy to give a full history lesson, but in a nutshell, the white men established a ‘government’ that would authorize some 1,500 wars, attacks and raids on the Natives, the most of any country in the world against its Indigenous people.  By the close of the Indian Wars in the late 19th century, fewer than 238,000 Indigenous people remained in the nation now known as the United States, a mere fraction of the 10 million who once made their homes here.

White Americans often feared and resented the Native Americans they encountered. To them, Native Americans seemed to be an unfamiliar, alien people who occupied land that white settlers wanted (and wrongly believed they deserved).

Execution of Dakota Sioux Indians in Mankato, Minnesota, 1862
Library of Congress/Photo12/UIG/Getty Images

In 1830, President Andrew Jackson signed into law the Indian Removal Act, which gave the federal government the power to exchange Native-held land in the cotton kingdom east of the Mississippi for land to the west, in the “Indian colonization zone” that the United States had acquired as part of the Louisiana Purchase. (This “Indian territory” was located in present-day Oklahoma.)  Indigenous Peoples were forced to vacate the land they had lived on for generations, and in the winter of 1831 the Choctaw became the first nation to be expelled from its land altogether. They made the journey to Indian Territory on foot, some bound in chains and without any food, supplies or other help from the government. Thousands of people died along the way. It was, one Choctaw leader told an Alabama newspaper, a “trail of tears and death.”

A painting depicting the Trail of Tears, when Native Americans were forced by law to leave their homelands and move to designated territory in the west Al Moldvay/The Denver Post via Getty Images

The Indian-removal process continued with the Creeks and then the Cherokees.  By 1840, tens of thousands of Native Americans had been driven off of their land in the southeastern states and forced to move across the Mississippi to Indian Territory. The federal government promised that their new land would remain unmolested forever, but as the line of white settlement pushed westward, “Indian Country” shrank and shrank. In 1907, Oklahoma became a state and Indian Territory was gone for good.

Burial of the dead after the massacre of Wounded Knee

That, my friends, was the unconscionable ‘great replacement’ and it was perpetuated by the ancestors of the very people who are spreading lies and conspiracy theories about an attempt to ‘replace’ white people.  What white people did to the Indigenous People of this nation was nothing short of genocide.  Today’s ‘great replacement theory’ is a stupid, nonsensical lie, but also a very dangerous one. People without adequate intellect or education to see through the lie are buying into it, hence the shooting spree that killed 10 and wounded 3 others in Buffalo, New York last weekend.  Next time you hear somebody whine that there is a plot afoot to ‘replace’ white people in this country, tell them this true tale about the real replacement that took place at the hands of their own ancestors.

58 thoughts on “The Real “Great Replacement” Already Happened”

  1. I FINALLY got around to reading this one, Jill; I’d wanted to ever since you posted it. It’s brilliant. So many kids, myself included, were done a grave disservice in school, being taught the whitewashed version of American history. And the effort to continue the whitewashing goes on. It MUST BE STOPPED!

    Liked by 1 person

    • Thank you so much, Larry!!! We are doing a huge disservice to our children by sweeping these things under the rug, by whitewashing the history of this nation. As I’ve said at least a thousand times before, quoting George Santayana, “Those who cannot remember the past are destined to repeat it.” We are already repeating some of it every day as racism is on the increase here. Our schools are becoming institutions that teach only technical skills, not history or how to think for oneself. Yes, it MUST BE STOPPED … but how?

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  2. I wish that I had been properly taught in school about the reality of what happened when European settlers reached America. I appreciate posts like this for spreading this type of information about history that many people want to sweep under the rug.

    Liked by 3 people

  3. Jill, when you become as wasted and lost as they are there is no other solution than for them to experience the folly of their ways ..sooner or later their thinking will lead them to a very dark place … along with the rest of us unfortunately …Read a little History of how Hitler came to power and what the end result of that was for those who placed him on such a high pedestal. People should remember that Hitler was elected by the popular vote. The people who put him into power learned the hard way that voting has its consequences. We have been on a similar tack with the right wing for quite some time now. They are on their way and leading the rest of us in their wake.

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    • You are so very right, John. Oh yes, I’ve studied the history of how Hitler came to power and the parallels I see today are chilling. I’ve been called an alarmist, but as I was writing a piece for later today about the CPAC being held in Hungary, I literally felt a chill go down my spine. Reading some of the things the ‘conservatives’ say they would like to change, how they hang on Orbán’s every autocratic word … that is exactly what they want to turn this nation into. And if the people don’t wake up soon, they may well succeed.

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  5. When you say, ” …People without adequate intellect or education to see through the lie…” you are describing approximately 80-million of the people who currently occupy The United States of America. By the way, this is the same bunch that swallows “The Big Lies” of the former administration.

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  6. Reblogged this on It Is What It Is and commented:
    IF you know your country’as history, you know that the ‘great replacement theory’ has already taken place!! Can’t be denied … here’s a summary!! — “The story begins in the year 1492 when there were an estimated 10 million people living in an area of land that is now known as the United States.”

    Liked by 3 people

  7. Pingback: The Real “Great Replacement” Already Happened — Filosofa’s Word | Barbara Crane Navarro

  8. I know the “I” word comes from Columbo’s Conceit, and was accepted historically, but it is INSULTING and IGNOM8NIOUSLY INCORRECT! Indian describes people from India, and NO ONE ELSE! Please desist in using it, even in historical terms!

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  9. Pingback: THE REAL ” GREAT REPLACEMENT ” ALREADY HAPPENED. |jilldennison.com | Ramblings of an Occupy Liberal

      • I had read, liked, and commented on Keith’s fine post, Jill. I mentioned that the Biden administration has done a great deal to improve the job status in the US. In addition, the elements of BBB that we came close to getting and can secure if we increase our Senate and House majorities include free community college, which meshes with Keith’s observation that we need more training. Ditto to support for unions that provide apprenticeships.

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        • Ach! My bad … I should have checked. Sorry, Annie. I fully agree … there are so many things we need to get done, but with the Senate in its current state and the possibility that both chambers of Congress could fall into Republican hands next year, little is likely to be accomplished that helps people in any way, shape, or form. I’m with you, though … Democrats need to work hard to expand their majorities in both chambers in November … it’s not impossible, but it’s definitely an uphill battle. We need to make people listen … AND we need to get the voting restriction laws halted by the courts, if at all possible.

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  11. Thank you so much for writing this Jill! I had been working on a piece about this exact subject! My great-grandmother was a Sauk and Fox Tribal woman who lived and died on the reservation in Tama, Iowa. I never met her but I’m told I’m just like her personality wise. Thank you again.

    Liked by 4 people

    • Thank YOU, my friend, for your kind words. Your words remind me why I keep on doing what I do! The history of white people’s treatment of Indigenous Peoples in this nation has been swept under the rug for far too long, just like slavery, Jim Crow, and many other atrocities committed by the white majority in this nation. So, for white people now to be claiming that some nefarious ‘other’ is trying to replace them simply galls me … such hypocrisy!!! Stay well, Gypsie-Ami!

      Liked by 1 person

    • Thanks, Keith! You know what they say about ‘great minds think alike’, yes? 😉 You’re right … throughout history there are examples, but today’s crazy theory is … it shouldn’t even see the light of day, but there are far too many gullible souls in this nation, people who will follow the loudest voice even as it leads them off a high cliff. Sigh.

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  14. They’ll deny that too.
    They’ll deny everything that doesn’t suit them.
    Then one day, while they are busy denying, as happens someone will come along and replace then, maybe not in numbers but certainly in government, and they will be so much ‘White Trash’ to be shoved around and used as common labour.
    And a lot of ghosts will laugh and know peace.

    Liked by 3 people

  15. There are, always going to be, take overs of an originally existing people in a certain location, by the, “new comers”, who believe, that, they are, a hell of a lot more superior, than the people who already, lived, on a certain, piece of, land, and, the newcomers, always, suppress, oppress those who originally, lived at that particular location, thinking that they are, more, civilized, not realizing, that the act of, taking over, makes them, the true, barbarian.

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    • Throughout history, there have certainly been many such ‘replacements’, but why is it inevitable? Why can people not simply be content to live and let live, to learn from other cultures rather than demonize them? The older I get, the less I understand the human mind.

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    • It is sad, and it’s a story that has largely been covered up in the teaching of history. Yes, today’s conspiracy theorists are living in some other world, and the scary part is that so many actually believe them, join them in that fantasy world. Sigh. xx

      Liked by 1 person

  18. “Cristoforo Colombo stumbled onto a land mass he mistakenly thought was the East Indies”

    He didn’t even discover America but an island group in the Carribean, nowadays known as the West Indies.

    Liked by 2 people

      • It would seem we’ve tried that a few times in the past. As long as we keep sweeping our true history under the rug, we’ll never be able to learn from our past ‘mistakes’.

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  19. No, Jill, you can’t tell the truth; it’s too dirty, too imperfect. I wish we could force these “Great Replacement” storytellers to repeatedly watch footage of the horrible genocide you just eloquently described. Perhaps that would cause them to face up to and tell the truth. But I doubt it. Their “Great Replacement” lies are too compelling to them … and too profitable.
    Have you ever heard “Indian Wars” by Bruce Cockburn? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9t1a5DLmR8U

    Liked by 6 people

    • It is indeed dirty and imperfect, but I’ll keep telling it anyway, my friend. This is yet another of our history lessons that has been whitewashed, swept under the rug, and covered up. It seems that white supremacists need conspiracy theories to make their point, for otherwise they have no point, and they must somehow rile the masses, instill fear and loathing, so they can come out on top. Sigh. I hadn’t heard that one before … sad song, but one that speaks volumes. I also like “Indian Reservation” by Paul Revere and the Raiders from way back when.

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  22. I definitely have to reblog this one, my friend. I have to share something that makes me proud of the folks I volunteer with. One thing that we always do before our training sessions is recognize that we lived on stolen Indigenous land here in California. This lesson you give in this post is priceless.

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