The third installment of this series of quotes and related questions from An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz as I make my way through the book while taking part in a Zoom book group with East Suburban Unitarian Universalist Church in Murrysville …
Gold fever drove colonizing ventures, organized at first in pursuit of the metal in its raw form. Later the pursuit of gold became more sophisticated, with planters and merchants establishing whatever conditions were necessary to hoard as much gold as possible. Thus was born an ideology: the belief in the inherent value of gold despite its relative uselessness in reality.
FROM “CHAPTER two: culture of conquest” IN AN INDIGENOUS PEOPLES’ HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES BY ROXANNE DUNBAR-ORTIZ