Anonymous #1 11w

The natives were genociding and ethnic cleansing themselves. Most native deaths were unintentionally caused by disease

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Anonymous OP 11w

And the west wasn't/isn't? The notion that all natives were "savages" is ahistorical nonsense.

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Anonymous #2 11w

human sacrifice and constant warfare was eventually halted by western society. By 1492 things like the crusades were over yet natives were still in constant warfare. If it wasn’t for the unfortunate spread of disease maybe native society would have ended up better

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Anonymous OP 11w

Native communities were fighting each other. That does not justify Europeans committing genocide against all of them. Even native communities who allied themselves with the United States and made themselves peaceful with treaties still had those treaties broken, their reservations cut up, and their children sent to boarding schools. The Cherokee were our allies. They had made peace with us. But Americans wanted their land.

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Anonymous OP 11w

By 1492 the crusades were over???? Dude in 1492 Spain just finished the reconquista over the whole Iberian peninsula and committed a genocide against Jews and Muslims. France, Portugal, the Netherlands, Spain, and England in the colonial era then proceeded to create global warfare of unseen scale.

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Anonymous #1 11w

My point is I guess that 90% of the genocide was unintentional disease spread. There was definitely intentional genocide too (California mission system and ignored treaties) but overall if smallpox didn’t exist western ideals would have helped natives not kill and enslave each other so much

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Anonymous #1 11w

Like come on bro native tribal warfare sucked but the Spanish invented concentration camps. These were then expanded upon by the U.S., British, and imperial Germany, and then perfected by the Nazis. Western society invented chemical warfare and industrial genocide and world wars.

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Anonymous OP 11w

Disease spread isn’t genocide. That’s just disease. Sure disease caused a lot of deaths, but if the disease had happened and then Europe didn’t colonize, the native populations would have all recovered. What native communities mean today when they say genocide was done with guns and broken treaties.

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Anonymous #1 11w

I’m gonna have to disagree. The primary reason that natives were able to be subjugated is due to the fact that 90% of them died from smallpox. Completely unintentional

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Anonymous OP 11w

“Western ideals would have helped natives not kill and enslave each other so much.” The native population of the Florida peninsula was entirely eradicated by other tribes selling them the English in Charleston to then be exported to Barbados where they would die on slave plantations. The European demand for slaves increased indigenous slavery to an unprecedented scale both in the American South and Amazon basin.

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Anonymous #1 11w

I’m looking at it from a central and western American point of view where that was not the case

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Anonymous #1 11w

Furthermore, indigenous warfare and genocide was massively amplified by the European demand for furs. That’s what started the beaver wars. The fur trade and associated guns allowed the Iroquois to conquer their rivals on an unprecedented scale, all with the support of the British.

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Anonymous #1 11w

I don’t know that much about Florida because I’m thankfully never been there but I know the trail of tears was a thing. I’m just saying that overall the natives were not some noble savages as we like to think them to be

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Anonymous #1 11w

I do know about the Iroquois though and once again calling them a peaceful people is ahistorical

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Anonymous OP 11w

The act of subjugating them is still intentional. If you beat up a sick person you still chose to do that.

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Anonymous #1 11w

The thing is they weren’t beating up sick people. Most of the natives died before Europeans even arrived to their area

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Anonymous OP 11w

That’s part of the reason the myth exists that natives were a sparse people with little society. Obviously not true

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Anonymous #1 11w

When the Crow were displaced west by the expanding Lakota, it was because the Lakota were displaced by the Cree and Ojibwe. The Cree and Ojibwe were moving west to gain pelts to sell to Europe

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Anonymous OP 11w

I’m sure the Purepecha in Mexico were so happy that Europeans were there as conquistadors pillaged them. I bet those Taino in the Caribbean were thrilled to be worked to death on slave plantations.

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Anonymous OP 11w

Right! The Europeans were conquering and massacring people who were still alive. Their population being reduced doesn’t change that the Europeans still did that shit! History is complex. Some groups like the Tlaxcaltecs benefited from the colonial process. Most groups didn’t.

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Anonymous #1 11w

And what is so particularly acute to me isn’t just that the Europeans went to war with native peoples and won. It’s that America proceeded to break nearly every treaty it made. Even if a native tribe like the Crow was reliable U.S. allies, the treaty was still broken and their lands taken.

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Anonymous #1 11w

I’m not saying that European ideals were perfect, just that ideas like borders and sovereignty brought by Europeans were better than their endless warfare over land control

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Anonymous #1 11w

It’s wrong to whitewash native societies as peaceful. They were fuckin brutal as hell. It’s also completely wrong to pretend that the Europeans were noble colonizers who would civilize the natives and stop all that violence. The Europeans proceeded to invent chattel slavery on all that land they conquered.

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Anonymous #1 11w

There was still plenty of slavery, capitalism, tribalism etc from natives but European ideals of sovereignty, freedom, and individual freedom eventually won out over them

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Anonymous #1 11w

I wish that in a fluke of history native Americans had some semblance of immunity against smallpox because then our current society would be a little more collectivist. But compared to pre European contact native society was inferior to post enlightenment society

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Anonymous OP 11w

Endless warfare over land control? You mean like the Hundred Years War? The seven years war? The Mexican American war? The napoleonic wars? World war 1? World war 2? The Europeans clearly didn’t care that much about sovereignty if america just decided to take reservation land away arbitrarily.

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Anonymous OP 11w

But that was only after Europeans killed millions of black and native people on slave plantations in the name of cheap sugar and cotton.

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Anonymous #1 11w

I’m looking at how western society eventually turned up, which is definitely preferred to endless fighting over land and power

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Anonymous OP 11w

Yeah that’s how it turned out eventually. There is a lot of dead people killed in the meantime. Btw given you mentioned you weren’t too familiar with Florida, black people would actually flee the Carolinas and Georgia to Florida to join the Seminole tribe because it was better than being enslaved.

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Anonymous OP 11w

And yes, I think native tribes should have some power over how public lands are controlled, but it’s not westerners fault that they all died of smallpox

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Anonymous #1 11w

The world as it exists now only happened because of world war 2. That doesn’t justify Naziism.

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Anonymous OP 11w

Stop talking about the goddamn smallpox. The smallpox didn’t take their land. The fucking Europeans did. I live in Modoc country in California and Oregon. You know what happened to the Modoc? When they left the reservation they were massacred and then sent to Oklahoma. Smallpox didn’t do that. The American government did.

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Anonymous OP 11w

Meanwhile, europe was a plague-infested cesspit where they burned people alive for being witches and werewolves lmfao

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