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Indigenous American critics sparked the European Enlightenment

The Enlightenment was the sudden exposure of a group of backwards religious fanatics to the cultures of the rest of the world.

It is not a coincidence that Europeans had feudal, dynastic monarchy 2000+ years, and then got enlightened right after meeting Americans.

It is also true that eastern cultures had an influence. As did classical Greek and Roman thought. But medieval Europeans had access to Greek and Roman thought. And Asia wasn't so far away that folks didn't travel and trade.

The spark of the Enlightenment was lit by contact with Americans. The most important Enlightenment concepts, like democracy and reasoned debate, came from America.

Enlightenment books were often about Americans

Enlightenment books often took the form of debates or dialogues with Americans. For example, Lahontan's "Curious Dialogues With A Savage Of Good Sense" (1703), recorded his debates with Kandiaronk, a Wendat statesman, warrior, politician and orator.

Many of the most popular texts of the time were travelogues or novels romanticizing Americans. Madame de Graffigny's Zilia (1747), about an Inca princess, was the first European novel about a woman that didn't end with her dead or married. And it may have been the first work to introduce the idea of state socialism through redistributive taxation.

Montaigne often said explicitly that he was inspired by Americans.

And everyone knew the "state of nature" was America. Rousseau's state of nature is remarkably similar to Aztec myths about the Chichimec.

Montesquieu likely got his theory of separation of powers after hearing the Osage talk about their system of government.

Americans weren't sock puppets for European radicals

These dialogues didn't only offer radicals with political cover.

2 sets of skeptics have made this claim:

  1. Racists who deny the possibility that Indigenous Americans could have had ideas that were superior to European ideas.
  2. Woke revisionists who claim that Europeans could not have possibly understood Indigenous Americans while also colonizing and killing them.

These skeptical types have even claimed that Leibniz, who explicitly called for European governments to adopt Chinese-style bureaucracies, wasn't influenced by Chinese thought.

Philosophical debate was, literally, the Jesuit’s job. Of course they debated the Americans.

The Enlightenment's emphasis on rationality, over other rhetorical techniques, came from Americans

The Jesuits were pleased to debate everyday Americans because the average American was a far more interesting conversation partner than the average Frenchman.

The Iroquois valued rational debate highly. This value came from their freedom to disobey. They obeyed only when they agreed with the leader's reasoning. So reasoning was power. And because anyone could disagree, everyone got the opportunity to practice.

Notably, Iroquois chose to favor reason over other rhetorical techniques, like appeals to emotion, myth, or prophesy. It's telling that the Enlightenment thinkers also favored reason. In Europe, before contact with Americans, obedience had been a far greater virtue than rationality. That changed shortly after the Europeans met the Americans.

Human Rights were invented to criticize the profitable violence of colonization

Cortes and Pizarro were unauthorized. But also profitable. So there was great demand for a justification.

The Conquistadors tried least 3 unsuccessful justifications:

  1. Classifying Americans as infidels--re-usuing the justification of the Crusades. But unlike non-Christians of the Ottoman Empire, Americans hadn't had a chance to read the Bible.
  2. Reading a Latin declaration calling on people to convert right before attacking, but this was clearly not a fair chance to convert.
  3. Claiming Americans weren’t human, which was clearly untrue.

This dilemma--that the Conquistadors' extreme violence was both troublesome and profitable--lead to the concept of Human Rights. Human rights or Natural Rights are the rights we have simply by virtue of being human.

Note: Sam Moyn would draw a sharper contrast between the "Natural Rights" of the Enlightenment and "Human Rights".

See: Not Enough (2019)