Excuse me while I vomit

what about the horrors before the "discovery." Everyone makes the natives out to be peaceful farmers who sat around and smoked peyote all day. That is absolutely NOT THE CASE.

 

True, but the natives never thought to totally exterminate a people. They'd have their raids, and their torture and all that mess, but it wasn't a "my way or die" bent. It was "i'm going to do it my way, in my area...stay the fuck out of my area or pay the price." Small societies like theirs had no police, so it was adventageous to be brave and ferocious as a person and as a culture. Most of their "wars" were over blood fueds, it wasn't to conquer or exterminate.

Of course, there are exceptions. The Iroquois Confederacy seemed to start doing this, but one could argue it was was due to European influence: they now had guns, and were stuck in the middle of the French and British (and later, British and American) alliances and wars, they picked a side, and used it to their advantage. They were devestating many tribes, especially the Huron, burning whole towns, and many tribes were displaced or subjected to Iroquois rule.

 

Id like to see you prove that they were over "blood feuds."

I would just like to see evidence to something that points to systematic genocide. Many of the indian massacres were precipitated by indian hunting parties killing whites. Does that justify it? Absolutely not. I wouldnt call that genocide though.

I love how its always european influences that make these guys bad. Many native tribes were warrior tribes. They fought and killed everyone they came into contact with. This happened before europeans got there!

You can argue that whites didnt want to 'conquer' or exterminate, but just push them off the land and move them westward. Is that genocide? Nope. Thats greed for the land. Trail of tears comes to mind. I wouldnt call that genocide. A horrible part of our history, but not genocide.

 

maybe it wasn't intentionally genocide, but it was genocide nevertheless

 

thats not possible.

Genocide has to show intent to utterly destroy a whole race. Otherwise its not genocide, just a disaster

 

hmmm....i don't think they were saying .."let's kill off all the indians"...it was more like "let's only kill the indians that are in our way"..so maybe i won't call it genocide exactly...but i won't call it just a disaster either

 

Its no doubt a blight on history.

 

and now it has become a fairytale and lil kids to run around screaming "bang bang your dead indian." Everything America does is "good"...or so that is how we are taught....

 

These days? Hey, I was raised in the 50s and 60s, and that's when children were blindfolded to the truth about what happened with the Indians. Check out the movies from back then, in nearly all the Westerns the Indians were the bad guys, massacring innocent settlers, until the heroes, the cavalry, came to the rescue. Eventually movies like Little Big Man and Soldier Blue presented the other side of the story. As a kid I heard all about Custer's Last Stand but it wasn't until years later I learned about Wounded Knee.

I grant you the white man's conquest of this land was wrong, but once it got started there was no stopping it. That may be one of the positive spins I talked about, but who can deny it?