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Did I say it has nothing to do with what happened after?
It goes directly to how many people are misinformed about Native Americans and how they lived prior to European contact.
And in case you didn't know, the "genocide" wasn't always intentional. The majority of NAs died from diseases they had never been in contact with prior to European colonization. Not all Europeans or later Americans even wanted animosity, some wanted to live peacefully. Before you bring up the "smallpox blankets" because many do, the Europeans actually traded supplies like the blankets innocently at first. They didn't know back then how diseases spread and didn't know that giving others the used blankets could make them sick. It's believed that when they started putting two and two together they continued the practice anyway but the reality is that most NAs died from contact with diseases they had no immunity to. This affected the Europeans as well.
The death of so many NAs was largely an unfortunate but natural consequence of conquering an area. The Europeans did not land here with the intention of finding all these people and killing them. They came here initially thinking it was unknown and uninhabited land - and at one point it probably was, prior to NA arrival, because they came from somewhere else as well. I think almost everyone can agree that some intentional practices to hurt or kill the natives were terrible but the overall intention was never to wipe out all these people. Even when the Americans offered them their reservations they still didn't want them DEAD. If the Europeans and then Americans really wanted a total genocide, they probably could have made it happen.
Places have been conquered and the previous residents killed all the time throughout history. It's what people used to do, in a way it's what people STILL do. I don't get too hung up on it or place so much bitter blame. It is what it is, we can't change it.
That's the official party line, but the fact is that the Grant administration used the US Army to depopulate the Great Plains. They hired buffalo hunters to exterminate the buffalo, and send General Phil "The only good Indian is a dead Indian" Sheridan to attack native winter camps, burn their possessions and kill their livestock. In only 10 years he managed to kill most of the natives on the Great Plains through exposure and starvation, and force the rest onto reservations where there was little food or shelter. The concentration camps are where they died of disease. The Germans modeled their Jewish death camps after the US treatment of Native Americans.
I have very little empathy for the not-in-my-backyard people. Oil has to come from somewhere. Utilities must run through someone's property whether electric, phone, gas, etc.
Your prejudice is blinding you to reality. Social media is the only way that protesters can get their message out. You saw the video of police firing on demonstrators. Why do you think that's not front page news? It's because big money interests own your mind. They try to keep you ignorant because that way they can control you. Why do you think they have arrested and jailed independent reporters trying to cover the story?
They feed you **** and you just suck it down. Those Indians are not just protesting for themselves, they are defending the water of millions of people who live downstream on the Missouri and Mississippi.
Keep up the protests.
I drive trains for BNSF and you would rather a derailment of a mile long oil train. Ok. I make an obscene amount of money doing that. The pipeline would take that away from me. Google Lac Le Megantic disaster.
I have very little empathy for the not-in-my-backyard people. Oil has to come from somewhere. Utilities must run through someone's property whether electric, phone, gas, etc.
These indians jump in their SUV to protest oil.
Then they shouldn't have moved it from the original plans.
Oh lord that statement had water squirting out my nose I laughed so hard.
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