Quote Originally Posted by TheCurmudgeon View Post
The American child grows up in a world free from want for what he needs to survive. He will most likely never be concerned with his next meal and never thinks that any of his brothers or sisters will not live to a ripe old age. Most of his concerns revolve around his individual identity. He is not truly dependent on anyone other than his parents and does not grow up reliant on anyone. In his environment, individual autonomy is the need he is most likely to be concerned with and his society is designed to fulfill that need.
You will need to be strict with how you operationalize ‘individual,’ ‘identity,’ and ‘autonomy.’ One of the frustrations you see voiced time and time again in the documentation left by European colonial administrators amounts to a complaint about how individualistic the natives are. As Father Paul Le Juene said in the 17th century in a rant so insightful and hilarious that I refuse to do it damage by translation:

Il n’y a rien de si difficile que de régler les peuples de l'Amérique. Tous ces Barbares ont le droict des asnes sauuages: ils naissent, viuent et meurent dans vne liberté sans retenuë; ils ne sçauent que c’est de bride ni de caueçon; c’est vne grande risée parmi eux de dompter ses passions, et vne haute Philosophie d'accorder à ses sens tout ce qu’ils désirent.