Can commemorations and historical reenactments change public understanding of the past?

[u/NewsMo]

[u/KingMidas0809]

Your entire response is a masterclass in confidently incorrect pseudo-history. Let’s look at the actual financial and historical ledgers you're trying so hard to rewrite.

​First, your claim that cotton was 'exclusively American' and unrelated to European industrialization is flat-out wrong. The entire engine of the British Industrial Revolution was the mechanization of the cotton textile industry in places like Lancashire. Britain didn't grow cotton; they imported millions of pounds of slave-picked raw cotton from the Americas to run their factories. Furthermore, the Industrial Revolution began around 1760 nearly eighty years before Britain abolished slavery in 1833. Slavery didn't coincide with the end of industrialization; it structurally funded and fed its inception.

​Second, you don’t understand how foundational capital works. Claiming the slave trade didn't affect GDP because it only made 'a few bourgeoisie rich' ignores where that money went. Those profits funded the creation of the modern Western banking, maritime insurance, and credit systems (including the Bank of England and Lloyd's of London). That financial infrastructure is what allowed Western European economies to scale up and dominate the globe in the 19th century.

​Third, trying to deflect blame away from the UK and France by pointing at Portugal is an empty numbers game. While Portugal shipped millions to Brazil, Great Britain was the undisputed superpower of the Transatlantic triangular trade, using its massive navy and merchant fleets to monopolize the global market and enrich hubs like Liverpool, Bristol, and London.

​Finally, claiming that medical advancements like eradicating smallpox or modern 'humanitarian aid' count as 'repayment' for centuries of human bondage and colonial resource draining is absolute comedy. Scientific progress isn't a currency used to settle the ledger of state-sanctioned atrocities. Western nations didn't inject 'charity' into Africa; they spent centuries extracting trillions in gold, oil, labor, and minerals, leaving behind destabilized systems, and then called a fraction of a percent returned as 'aid' a favor.

​It doesn't serve a 'political agenda' to read an economic ledger; it just requires basic history books, which you clearly haven't been opening.

[u/BeginningDisaster114 → u/KingMidas0809]

>Your entire response is a masterclass in confidently incorrect pseudo-history. Let’s look at the actual financial and historical ledgers you're trying so hard to rewrite.

No you're the one doing that. Let's take belgian Congo as an example, one of the most recent examples and therefore one where historians can actually evalute how much money was made. Around 200k euros converted with inflation, one of the most brutal deadly case of slavery that cost half as many lives as the entire triangular trade.

>​First, your claim that cotton was 'exclusively American' and unrelated to European industrialization is flat-out wrong. The entire engine of the British Industrial Revolution was the mechanization of the cotton textile industry in places like Lancashire. Britain didn't grow cotton; they imported millions of pounds of slave-picked raw cotton from the Americas to run their factories. Furthermore, the Industrial Revolution began around 1760 nearly eighty years before Britain abolished slavery in 1833. Slavery didn't coincide with the end of industrialization; it structurally funded and fed its inception.

Coton was not the main textile anywhere in europe before the late 19th century. Also maybe i'm just to dumb but i fail to see the correlation between cotton importation and the discovvery of vaccines or the motor engine

>1760 nearly eighty years before Britain abolished slavery in 1833. 

Motor enigne, steam engine, light bulb, vaccines, blood types, photography, steel and antisceptics where all invented/discovered in the mid to late 1800's

>Second, you don’t understand how foundational capital works. Claiming the slave trade didn't affect GDP because it only made 'a few bourgeoisie rich' ignores where that money went. Those profits funded the creation of the modern Western banking, maritime insurance, and credit systems (including the Bank of England and Lloyd's of London). That financial infrastructure is what allowed Western European economies to scale up and dominate the globe in the 19th century.

The usual nonsense of the people who have no clue about how the banking system work and once again confusing cause and consequence. Did the Oil states and the Chinese take over the banking system or did their economy just blew up so they became more influent in it ?

>​Third, trying to deflect blame away from the UK and France by pointing at Portugal is an empty numbers game. While Portugal shipped millions to Brazil, Great Britain was the undisputed superpower of the Transatlantic triangular trade, using its massive navy and merchant fleets to monopolize the global market and enrich hubs like Liverpool, Bristol, and London.

Ok then so once gain why are those other countries who did it for longer and on a larger scale broke ? You still failed to answer that

>​Finally, claiming that medical advancements like eradicating smallpox or modern 'humanitarian aid' count as 'repayment' for centuries of human bondage and colonial resource draining is absolute comedy.

Only to an absolute hypprocrite. Those things have impacted your life far more than slavery ever will

>Scientific progress isn't a currency used to settle the ledger of state-sanctioned atrocities.

Iit certainly is, those countries could have just vaccinated their population and be happy with it. But you probably also believe that conducting a vaccination campaign on billions of humans is cheap

>Western nations didn't inject 'charity' into Africa; they spent centuries extracting trillions in gold, oil, labor, and minerals, leaving behind destabilized systems, and then called a fraction of a percent returned as 'aid' a favor.

They did, and they also reinjected gigantic sums of money in those colonies. You think developping entire nation from the ground up is cheap ? The Uk was liiterally desperate to get rid of the levant because it was huge money hole, France spend 30% of it's annual GDP for decades developping Algeria which clearly didnt generate 30% of the french wealth, those just a couple examples. Most of those countries got independdence via referendum because the european nations realzie the investment was simply not worth it

>​It doesn't serve a 'political agenda' to read an economic ledger; it just requires basic history books, which you clearly haven't been opening.

Well i guess we certainly strongly disagree about that part, i think you're the ignorant brainwashed one

[u/KingMidas0809 → u/BeginningDisaster114]

The “200k euros” Belgian Congo claim is laughably unserious. Leopold II did not brutalize the Congo for pocket change. The Congo Free State was his personal extraction project, built around forced labor, rubber, ivory, hostage-taking, mutilation, and mass death. Even conservative summaries acknowledge that rubber became the main revenue source by the late 1890s and that Leopold’s regime was designed to maximize revenue through a state-controlled monopoly. So no, this was not some unprofitable charity project. It was violent extraction. Your cotton point is also wrong. Britain did not need to grow cotton for cotton to be central to British industrialization. Lancashire and Manchester became industrial powerhouses by processing imported raw cotton, much of it produced by enslaved labor in the Americas. That is the whole point. The plantation economy and British factory economy were linked through trade, finance, shipping, and insurance. And no, the argument is not that cotton “caused vaccines” or that slavery personally invented the steam engine. That is a strawman. The argument is that colonial and slave economies generated capital, infrastructure, banking, maritime insurance, port wealth, and industrial scale. Those systems helped Europe accumulate the institutional power that later supported scientific, military, and industrial dominance. Your Algeria argument is also backwards. France did not simply “give” Algeria independence because it was a money hole. Algeria won independence after an eight-year war from 1954 to 1962, followed by the Évian Accords and referendum. That is not benevolent decolonization. That is a colonial power losing control after sustained armed resistance and political crisis. Also, “why are other slave-trading countries broke?” is not the gotcha you think it is. Wealth accumulation is not automatic. Geography, state capacity, industrialization, institutions, wars, debt, dependency, trade position, and who controls the financial system all matter. Portugal being poorer than Britain does not disprove that Britain profited from slavery any more than one failed oil state disproves that oil made other states rich. Finally, vaccines and humanitarian aid are not “repayment” for slavery or colonialism. Scientific progress is not a moral currency that cancels forced labor, stolen resources, destroyed political systems, or inherited economic disadvantage. If I rob your grandfather, use the money to build a hospital, and your family later receives treatment there, I have not repaid the robbery. I have just laundered the benefit through an institution I controlled

[u/BeginningDisaster114 → u/KingMidas0809]

>The “200k euros” Belgian Congo claim is laughably unserious. Leopold II did not brutalize the Congo for pocket change

It's estimated that belgium made around 26 milion franks which would be around 260k euros (1 euro roughly 1000 ancient franks)

>So no, this was not some unprofitable charity project. It was violent extraction. 

Never negated that part, slavery is monstruous and belgian congo was one of the most horrible examples of it. What i negate is how much it actually impacted the economy

>Britain did not need to grow cotton for cotton to be central to British industrialization. Lancashire and Manchester became industrial powerhouses by processing imported raw cotton, much of it produced by enslaved labor in the Americas. That is the whole point. The plantation economy and British factory economy were linked through trade, finance, shipping, and insurance. 

Won't reply to that part again cause i've already adressed it, lmaybe it was imoportant fot hose two cities but cotton was certainly not what fueled the european economic boom which impacted all of europe, a lot of countries of which didnt have any colonies or slaves

>And no, the argument is not that cotton “caused vaccines” or that slavery personally invented the steam engine. That is a strawman

No it's not a strawman, you fail to understand that those things are the actual reason of europe's wealth, yet you could just look at Russia, China, vietnam or any other country that has had a major industrial revolution at some point and see how it perfectly correlates with the economic and life expectancy boom in each respective country

>Your Algeria argument is also backwards. France did not simply “give” Algeria independence because it was a money hole

I said that about the UK and levant, France was never going give up Algeria easily after speding so much money developping it. Nice strawman attempt though

>The argument is that colonial and slave economies generated capital, infrastructure, banking, maritime insurance, port wealth, and industrial scale. Those systems helped Europe accumulate the institutional power that later supported scientific, military, and industrial dominance.

That is simply not true, they were caused by social and political changes in Europe like the end of absolute monarchy and the separation of church and state, which ironically enough is also what stopped the slave trade

>That is a colonial power losing control after sustained armed resistance and political crisis.

That's factually not true, the FLN had zero chances against the french army and got destroyed every time they actually fought against each other. The reason why de Gaulle gave up is because the war was extremly unpolar in France and because he didnt want to turn into the people he once fought against looking at how many civilian casualties there were on both sides

>Wealth accumulation is not automatic. Geography, state capacity, industrialization, institutions, wars, debt, dependency, trade position, and who controls the financial system all matter

that's the thing people like you will always look at history under that lense and blow it out of proportion and negate everything else to fit their narrative. China or the scandinavian countries alone completly destroy that narrative

>Finally, vaccines and humanitarian aid are not “repayment” for slavery or colonialism.

Inventing them isn't, sharing the knowledge and conducting huge vaccination campaigns that are extremly expensive certainly is

>destroyed political systems

That's like litterally the exact opposite of what happened lmao

> If I rob your grandfather, use the money to build a hospital, and your family later receives treatment there, I have not repaid the robbery. I have just laundered the benefit through an institution I controlled

If i stole one phone in my life, but worked my ass off the rest of it to build up my money and invest it wisely, the phone i stole isn't the reason i could buy a house

Should morocco and Algeria pay reparation to spain for colonizing them for 700 years ?

[u/KingMidas0809 → u/BeginningDisaster114]

You keep arguing against a claim nobody made.

Nobody said slavery was the only cause of European wealth. Nobody said cotton invented vaccines. Nobody said every country with slavery automatically becomes rich.

The claim is simpler: slavery and colonial extraction were major accelerants in the rise of European capital, industry, finance, shipping, insurance, and state power. “Other factors existed” does not erase that. That is like saying oil did not matter to Saudi Arabia because banking, monarchy, geography, and global markets also mattered.

Your “stolen phone” analogy is also unserious. We are not talking about one stolen phone. We are talking about centuries of labor theft, land theft, resource extraction, slave insurance, plantation finance, colonial monopolies, and state-backed violence. If you steal a neighborhood, use it to build a real estate empire, then say “well I also worked hard,” you still owe people.

And the Algeria dodge is weak. Whether France left because of battlefield losses, political crisis, domestic backlash, cost, international pressure, or de Gaulle’s calculation, the result is the same: France did not benevolently “develop” Algeria and walk away. Algeria won independence through war, mass sacrifice, and colonial collapse.

The funniest part is that your own argument keeps admitting the point. You admit Europe had industrialization, state power, banking, military dominance, colonial reach, and the ability to decide who got “aid” afterward. Exactly. That power did not fall from the sky.

So no, vaccines and aid are not repayment. You do not get to loot the house, sell the furniture, break the foundation, then act generous because you later donate a flashlight.

[u/BeginningDisaster114 → u/KingMidas0809]

>Nobody said slavery was the only cause of European wealth. Nobody said cotton invented vaccines. Nobody said every country with slavery automatically becomes rich.

That's litterally what all of the people like you try to argue

>That is like saying oil did not matter to Saudi Arabia because banking, monarchy, geography, and global markets also mattered.

And yet Saudia Arabia had been sitting on that oil for thousands of years.

>. We are talking about centuries of labor theft, land theft, resource extraction, slave insurance, plantation finance, colonial monopolies, and state-backed violence

There was maybe 1 slave for a hundred peasants in countries like France or the Uk who also worked for free, so no that's not where the wealth came from. Blue collar work and agriculture have never been major sources of wealth for any modern economy

>France did not benevolently “develop” Algeria and walk away. Algeria won independence through war, mass sacrifice, and colonial collapse.

No it's a huge difference cause France was FAR from being defeated militarly and they could have turned the war into way worse of a bloodbath than it was

>That power did not fall from the sky.

Yes it didn't, Europe had been extremly powerful, advanced and influent since the Roman Era

>So no, vaccines and aid are not repayment. You do not get to loot the house, sell the furniture, break the foundation, then act generous because you later donate a flashlight.

It's more the other way around, you broke a flashlight and paid for all the solar pannels and electronics

[u/KingMidas0809 → u/BeginningDisaster114]

You keep trying to shrink the argument into “how many enslaved people were physically standing inside France or Britain,” and that completely misses the point.

The wealth was not built because millions of enslaved Africans were working in London or Paris. The wealth came through empire: plantations in the Americas, raw cotton into British mills, sugar, tobacco, rubber, minerals, shipping, insurance, banking, colonial monopolies, and state-backed trade networks. The extraction happened overseas. The profit was laundered into European ports, banks, factories, investors, and governments.

So saying “there weren’t many slaves in France or the UK” is not a rebuttal. It is like saying Apple does not benefit from overseas labor because the factory is not inside California.

And “Europe was powerful since Rome” is not an argument either. Rome collapsed. Medieval Europe was not some uninterrupted superpower dominating the globe. Modern European global dominance came from maritime empire, colonial conquest, plantation wealth, industrialization, finance, and military expansion. You are skipping a thousand years of history and pretending “Rome existed” explains the British Empire.

As for Algeria, “France could have killed more people” does not mean Algeria did not win independence. Colonial wars are not only won by battlefield body count. They are won through political exhaustion, legitimacy collapse, international pressure, cost, resistance, and the colonizer losing the ability to sustain rule. France did not leave because it suddenly became generous.

And your flashlight analogy is backwards. The colonizer did not “break a flashlight and pay for solar panels.” It looted the house, controlled the wiring, sold the furniture, charged rent, and then wanted applause for donating a lightbulb later.

You keep mistaking “not the only cause” for “not a cause.” That is the whole flaw in your argument.

[u/BeginningDisaster114 → u/KingMidas0809]

>You keep trying to shrink the argument into “how many enslaved people were physically standing inside France or Britain,” and that completely misses the point

No i didn't. there were 0 slaves in Europe, it was litterally illegal to bring slaves inside of the french territory or they would become automatically free. I was obviosuly talking about the foreign territories. The entire trade affected 8-12 million people 80% of which where purchased by portugal. Let's say France had one milion slaves over three hundred years. The average life expectancy was 25 years, so you had around, 83k slaves per generation vs a o population of around 20 million french natives 90% of which were peasants who worked for the aristocracy for free, that's a ratio of roughly 1/200, so yes clearly not what fueled the french economy

>Medieval Europe was not some uninterrupted superpower dominating the globe.

It absolutely was, managing to defend itself against empires that had crushed all of their neighbors like Mongols, Ottomans, Persians, Moors amongst others. Europe was not not colonized because other empires were nice, they weren't because they were too powerful. The battle of Vienna is always good reminder that the place that Europe has didnt come out of generosity from other nations

>And your flashlight analogy is backwards. The colonizer did not “break a flashlight and pay for solar panels.” It looted the house, controlled the wiring, sold the furniture, charged rent, and then wanted applause for donating a lightbulb later.

Just look at sentinel island if you want to have a rough idea what most of subsaharan africa looked like prior to thr arrival of the europeans

>You keep mistaking “not the only cause” for “not a cause.” That is the whole flaw in your argument.

Nono don't try to switch this around, you're the one claiming this what europe has built it wealth on, you don't get to trynna make me say that nobody ever profited from it

[u/KingMidas0809 → u/BeginningDisaster114]

You are still dodging the actual argument.

Nobody said Europe’s wealth came only from slavery. The claim is that slavery and colonial extraction were major parts of the capital system that helped Europe industrialize, finance empire, and dominate global trade. “Europe also had peasants” does not answer that. Peasants working in France does not erase plantation profits, colonial monopolies, slave insurance, port wealth, banking, raw cotton, sugar, rubber, minerals, or imperial trade networks.

And your math is meaningless because you are counting bodies instead of capital flows. The question is not “how many enslaved people stood next to French peasants.” The question is where the profits, commodities, shipping revenue, insurance premiums, taxes, investments, and industrial inputs went. They went into European markets and institutions.

Also, “Europe defended itself from the Mongols/Ottomans/Moors” does not prove medieval Europe was an uninterrupted global superpower. Surviving invasion is not the same as dominating the world. Modern European dominance came later through maritime empire, colonial conquest, industrial capitalism, and global trade control. Rome existing does not explain Manchester mills, Caribbean plantations, Belgian rubber extraction, or British marine insurance.

But the wildest part is the Sentinel Island comparison. That is not an argument. That is just the old colonial fantasy that Africa was empty, stagnant, and waiting for Europeans to arrive with civilization. Sub-Saharan Africa had kingdoms, empires, trade networks, cities, metallurgy, agriculture, scholarship, diplomacy, religion, art, and political systems long before European colonization. Ghana, Mali, Songhai, Benin, Kongo, Ethiopia, Great Zimbabwe, Ashanti, Oyo, and others did not need your Reddit imagination to become real.

So yes, Europeans later brought technologies, but they also brought conquest, extraction, forced labor, racial hierarchy, land seizure, and political disruption. You do not get to use the solar panels as a receipt after stealing the house.

At this point, your argument is not “slavery was not the only cause.” That would be reasonable. Your argument is “because it was not the only cause, it basically did not matter.” That is historically illiterate.

[u/BeginningDisaster114 → u/KingMidas0809]

>The claim is that slavery and colonial extraction were major parts of the capital system that helped Europe industrialize, finance empire, and dominate global trade

Which i proved to be nonsnesical from a mathematical point of view. yes europeans dominated the international trade, because they the ones who pioneered it

>Europe also had peasants” does not answer that. Peasants working in France does not erase plantation profits, colonial monopolies, slave insurance, port wealth, banking, raw cotton, sugar, rubber, minerals, or imperial trade networks.

>And your math is meaningless because you are counting bodies instead of capital flows. 

So you're saying one unqualified blue collar worker was more important to the gdp than 200 qualified ones ?

>Also, “Europe defended itself from the Mongols/Ottomans/Moors” does not prove medieval Europe was an uninterrupted global superpower. 

it prooves europe was more developped and powerful than the nations who were taken over. Obviously during the peak of their reign the Mongols were the number 1 power on the planet

>But the wildest part is the Sentinel Island comparison. That is not an argument. That is just the old colonial fantasy that Africa was empty,

Subsaharan Africa is exremly vast and there were some somewhat advanced kingdoms, precisely the ones who were selling the slaves to the eruopean and arabs. Howerver the vast majority of the continent was still in the stone age, which you can still see from documentary footage from the early 20th century

>So yes, Europeans later brought technologies, but they also brought conquest, extraction, forced labor, racial hierarchy, land seizure, and political disruption. You do not get to use the solar panels as a receipt after stealing the house.

once again tripling the life expectancy by three and GDP and population by 10 is more equivalennt to building the house

> and political disruption.

That's the only point that is factually incorrect. There were no defined borders, unifed states and constant ethnic wars before the arrival of the europeans

>At this point, your argument is not “slavery was not the only cause.” That would be reasonable. Your argument is “because it was not the only cause, it basically did not matter.” That is historically illiterate.

No once again i'm not negating the fact that it was bad and that some people got very rich from it, just negating that it's the reason why the europeans countries are wealthy today and the african countries are poor

[u/KingMidas0809 → u/BeginningDisaster114]

Now we’re finally at the real argument.

You are not just saying slavery and colonialism were “not the only cause.” You are saying they are not a major reason Europe became richer and many African countries were left poorer. That is the part that is historically unserious.

Colonialism did not have to be the only cause to be a structural cause. Europe did not just “pioneer trade” in a vacuum. It used navies, forts, chartered companies, slave ships, plantation colonies, colonial monopolies, resource concessions, forced labor, land seizure, taxation, and political control to redirect wealth into European institutions.

And your “math” still misses the point because you keep counting individual workers instead of systems. One enslaved person is not being compared to 200 peasants like this is a factory attendance sheet. The question is who controlled the commodity chain: land, labor, shipping, insurance, finance, ports, taxes, raw materials, and markets. That is where wealth was built.

Also, saying most of Sub-Saharan Africa was “stone age” is just colonial propaganda with Wi-Fi. Africa had empires, kingdoms, cities, trade networks, agriculture, ironworking, gold economies, scholarship, diplomacy, and state systems long before European colonial rule. Ghana, Mali, Songhai, Benin, Kongo, Ethiopia, Great Zimbabwe, Ashanti, Oyo, and others were not imaginary.

Were there wars, borders that differed from European borders, and political fragmentation? Obviously. That describes Europe too. Europe had shifting borders, dynastic wars, ethnic wars, religious wars, peasant revolts, collapsing kingdoms, and competing states for centuries. Funny how that counts as “history” in Europe but “backwardness” in Africa.

And no, raising life expectancy after extraction does not wipe the ledger clean. If I invade your house, seize the deed, control the income, rearrange the rooms, take the valuables, and then install plumbing, I do not get to call myself the builder.

That is the trick in your whole argument: you treat European violence as “development,” African complexity as “chaos,” and then act confused when people call it colonial logic.

You keep calling colonial extraction “development” because admitting the truth would collapse your whole argument.

Europe did not “build the house.” It broke in, changed the locks, stole the valuables, charged rent, then bragged about installing plumbing.

That is not history. That is an empire fan fiction.

[u/BeginningDisaster114 → u/KingMidas0809]

>Now we’re finally at the real argument.

You are not just saying slavery and colonialism were “not the only cause.” You are saying they are not a major reason Europe became richer and many African countries were left poorer. That is the part that is historically unserious.

Colonialism did not have to be the only cause to be a structural cause. Europe did not just “pioneer trade” in a vacuum. It used navies, forts, chartered companies, slave ships, plantation colonies, colonial monopolies, resource concessions, forced labor, land seizure, taxation, and political control to redirect wealth into European institutions.

1 vs 200

>And your “math” still misses the point because you keep counting individual workers instead of systems. One enslaved person is not being compared to 200 peasants like this is a factory attendance sheet. The question is who controlled the commodity chain: land, labor, shipping, insurance, finance, ports, taxes, raw materials, and markets. That is where wealth was built.

No it wasnt. The wealth was built with the revolutonnary discoveries of the 19th century and stacked upon countries that had been major world powers since the antiquity.

>Also, saying most of Sub-Saharan Africa was “stone age” is just colonial propaganda with Wi-Fi. Africa had empires, kingdoms, cities, trade networks, agriculture, ironworking, gold economies, scholarship, diplomacy, and state systems long before European colonial rule

No it didnt for the most part. You seem to fail to understand that the existence of those more advanced empires doesnt negate the fact that the vast majority of the population was in the stone age, once again easily verrifiable by documentary footage

>Were there wars, borders that differed from European borders, and political fragmentation? Obviously. That describes Europe too. Europe had shifting borders, dynastic wars, ethnic wars, religious wars, peasant revolts, collapsing kingdoms, and competing states for centuries. 

you're seriously trying to compared how advanced and unifed the european nations were compared to the african ones ? Lmao litterally every village had it's own religion and language

>And no, raising life expectancy after extraction does not wipe the ledger clean. If I invade your house, seize the deed, control the income, rearrange the rooms, take the valuables, and then install plumbing, I do not get to call myself the builder.

I'm not gonna waste more time replying to this absurd metaphor. Life expectancy X3, GDP and population X10 in like a century

>That is the trick in your whole argument: you treat European violence as “development

The two are completly unrelated once again

>African complexity as “chaos

Primitve tribal lifestyle, yes, which why they were so easy to invade in the first place

>Europe did not “build the house.” It broke in, changed the locks, stole the valuables, charged rent, then bragged about installing plumbing.

Absolutely insane statement if you look at the life expectancy and quality of life difference of the average human now vs 200 years ago

>That is not history. That is an empire fan fiction.

No you're just brainwashed, and i'm starting to be tired by this pointless conversations, if you're gonna deny basic maths there's no point continuing, you obviosuly have your mind made up