Contests of civilization
I am reading The Dawn of Everything by David Graeber and David Wengrow, and I was fascinated by the stories that describe how, during the time of European settlement in the Americas, white settlers who had integrated into Native American life would often refuse to return to Western way of living.
By contrast, Native Americans brought into European society tended to return to their tribes at the first opportunity, often with little regard for the material possessions or comforts they were leaving behind.
Here is Graeber and Wengrow describing the reasons for this:
Many who found themselves embroiled in such contests of civilization, if we may call them that, were able to offer clear reasons for their decisions to stay with their erstwhile captors. Some emphasized the virtues of freedom they found in Native American societies, including sexual freedom, but also freedom from the expectation of constant toil in pursuit of land and wealth. Others noted the‘Indian’s’ reluctance ever to let anyone fall into a condition of poverty, hunger or destitution. It was not so much that they feared poverty themselves, but rather that they found life infinitely more pleasant in a society where no one else was in a position of abject misery.
By far the most common reasons, however, had to do with the intensity of social bonds they experienced in Native American communities: qualities of mutual care, love and above all happiness, which they found impossible to replicate once back in European settings.
