the people indigenous to the tarim basin are called "tokharian" in the western sources (which are recent, exclusively - neither greeks, nor romans, nor venetians had any contact with these people) and "yeuzhi" in the ancient chinese sources. they were white buddhists that spoke a unique branch of indo-european, but utilized sanskrit as a liturgical language. so, they were culturally most similar to the iranian and indian cultures to their south.

the second people to enter the region were the han chinese, who conquered it during roman times in order to control the trade routes in the region. while the chinese did not always have direct control over the region after the initial invasion (during roman times), the indigenous tokharians almost always accepted the chinese as legitimate overlords, and saw themselves as satellites of chinese civilization. it is actually from this region that buddhism spread to china.

it is not until many centuries later that the turks came in and displaced both the han chinese (who had administrative colonies in the region) and the indigenous tokharians, who continually aligned with the chinese emperors to try to resist turkification.

the region consequently became turkish first and then muslim second through a process of colonial replacement, cultural imperialism and violent coercion.

now, you can argue that that was a long time ago and it doesn't matter anymore, but why is that a different argument when applied in the tarim basin than it is when applied to british columbia?

regardless, my request is just to get the fucking history right - and stop sounding like an ignoramus when you're talking about this. the idea that the uighurs are indigenous to the tarim basin is not just wrong, but offensive in it's absolute ignorance of the history of the region. it's like suggesting that the spanish are indigenous to mexico, or arabs are indigenous to malaysia. stop doing it...