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probably biggest death toll of native americans was in mexico brought to the new world from spain, smallpox, enormous, no resistance to this disease at all, millions died.
As well as other tribes! Mn if only they had they had a drivethru? Yes, I am Na, I will have 2 dead babies to go, 2 rapes, 4 lies and a case of small pox to go w/ a side order of syphallis to go!
I PROMISE not to go off on one of my "Multiculturalism is a dangerous concept unless carefully controlled, because cultures themselves are normally incompatibe" messages..at least I'll try.
But MUCH of the ugliness, violence, hideous behavior, and reprehensible history connected with the "conquest of the New World" had its roots squarely in a serious 'culture clash'. Quite simply, this was a case of two broad cultures, almost totally alien to each other, coming into contact with diastrous results.
White Americans during these years had ALREADY been living for generations in a culture that thought in terms of "organized civil authority", and in which family ties were tenuous at best. Virtually ALL of these whites had come from 'far way', and probably almost NONE of them were born where their grandparents had been. Many of these whites, even the US Army troopers, were actually immigrants, who had almost NO concept of any 'attachment' to the land. They were 'drifters'. White culture was fluid, dynamic, constantly 'on the move', and organized along 'legal' lines. It relied heavily on written documents, etc.
Whites sometimes sat down and 'convinced themselves' they were entering a 'treaty' with Indians. This was naive, at best. Most North American Indians had absolutely NO concept of 'private property', and simply couldn't comprehend how anyone could "buy or sell" land, any more that he could "buy or sell" wind, sunshine, or water...it was an insane idea.
Treaties were signed, many times to be promptly broken..not by the whites who signed them, but by OTHER whites. Sometimes Indians would 'sell' land under duress, then 'trespass' upon it, to the annoyance of the new 'owner'. The opportunities for misunderstanding were endless, and, predictably, tempers 'flared'.
Not to minimize the human evil which took place, I'm only saying MUCH of this had its roots in simple cultural incompatibility. I read once (don't remember where) that in virtually EVERY case where the Indians first came into contact with whites, the meetings were FRIENDLY. Indians often helped early white traders and explorers. Most white "mountain men" had Indian wives. Human 'goodness' ruled, for a while. It was later, when the "new" whites moved in, that they simply began to overwhelm the natives, the 'bad feelings' started, and eventually this led to hurt feelings, violence, and bloodshed.
I continue to believe that very FEW whites decided to "go out and exterminate an Indian today". I just don't believe the average person was that evil. What I DO believe (married, as I am, to a 'native') is that the Indians had a culture that required lots of freedom, and lots of space...and that the white culture was simply incompatible with this, it quickly overwhelmed the 'natives', and this led to misunderstandings and fighting. Once the fighting began, of course it was easy to begin referring to people as 'savages', 'devils', etc etc. That's how wars are fought.
Indians simply couldn't comprehend why these "white intruders" needed to 'tame' everything, why they had to 'subdue' nature, and why they were so big on this thing called 'legal ownership'..it made no sense.
Whites, on the other hand, couldn't understand "why, if we NEED this area, the Indians don't want to sell? We made them a good offer, we signed the papers...why don't they want to move? MY family has had to move. In fact, I've never even SEEN the place my family came from. What's so bad about moving ?"
What was 'so bad' was that the Indians had been in one 'place', or at least one region, since time immemorial. They had an attachment to the land, and a reverence for it, that was simply beyond the comprehension of most whites. The Indians saw the land...THEIR part of it...as a part of THEM. Whites, by the very definition of who they WERE, were 'sojourners', far from their roots, and to them, "land" was simply a commodity, to be bought and sold, and then it was time to move on. Two cultures, totally on different 'wavelengths'.
Whether this was "genocide", I'm still in doubt. What white arrival DID do, though, is essentially destroy the culture of the Indians, making it impossible for them to carry on life as they knew it. When you take away a man's way of making a living, you take away his 'manhood'. The result can often be despair, depression, shame, and sometimes an eruption into violence. And when the Europeans 'conquered' the New World, I don't know if it was genocide...but it was definitely the destruction of a culture, and a way of life. When that happens, some people will learn to 'adapt', and others won't.
WASP's rule. The indians weren't subject to anything worse than what they were subject to from other tribes and the Spanish explorers/missionaries. Scalping, train raping, raiding conquests, tribal wars, slavery to the spanish, exposure to european disease, ect... were all common. Heck, some of the savages further south even practiced human sacrifice.
Seems to fit the definition of 'genocide':
"In the early 18th century, the states of Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Jersey promoted a genocide of their local Natives by imposing a "scalp bounty" on dead Indians. "In 1703, Massachusetts paid 12 pounds for an Indian scalp. By 1723 the price had soared to 100 pounds." 10 Ward Churchill wrote: "Indeed, in many areas it [murdering Indians] became an outright business." 6 This practice of paying a bounty for Indian scalps continued into the 19th century before the public put an end to the practice. 10
In the 18th century, George Washington compared them to wolves, "beasts of prey" and called for their total destruction. 4 In 1814, Andrew Jackson "supervised the mutilation of 800 or more Creek Indian corpses" that his troops had killed. 6
Extermination of all of the surviving natives was urged by the Governor of California officially in 1851. 4 An editorial from the Rocky Mountain News in Denver, CO in 1863; and from the Santa Fe New Mexican in 1863 expressed the same sentiment. 6 In 1867, General William Tecumseh Sherman said, "We must act with vindictive earnestness against the Sioux [Lakotas] even to their extermination: men, women and children." 6
In 1848, before the gold rush in California, that state's native population is estimated to have been 150,000. In 1870, after the gold rush, only about 31,000 were still alive. "Over 60 percent of these indigenous people died from disease introduced by hundreds of thousands of so-called 49ers. However, local tribes were also systematically chased off their lands, marched to missions and reservations, enslaved and brutally massacred." 12 The price paid for a native scalp had dropped as low as $0.25. Native historian, Jack Forbes, wrote:
"The bulk of California's Indians were conquered, and died, in innumerable little episodes rather than in large campaigns. it serves to indict not a group of cruel leaders, or a few squads of rough soldiers, but in effect, an entire people; for ...the conquest of the Native Californian was above all else a popular, mass, enterprise." 11 Genocide of Natives in the Western Hemisphere, starting 1492 CE
Smallpox was used as a bio-terrorism weapon:
This reference [for the story of American Indians and deliberate smallpox spreading ]is from American Indian Holocaust and Survival: A Population History Since 1492, by Russell Thornton, 1987 (Norman: U. of Oklahoma Pr.) pp.78-79
It is also during the eighteenth century that we find written reports of American Indians being intentionally exposed to smallpox by Europeans. In 1763 in Pennsylvania, Sir Jeffrey Amherst, commander of the British forces....wrote in the postscript of a letter to Bouquet the suggestion that smallpox be sent among the disaffected tribes. Bouquet replied, also in a postscript, "I will try to innoculate the[m]...with some blankets that may fall into their hands, and take care not get the disease myself."
....To Bouquet's postscript, Amherst replied, "You will do well as to try to innoculate the Indians by means of blankets as well as to try every other method that can serve to extirpate this exorable race."
On June 24, Captain Ecuyer, of the Royal Americans, noted in his journal: "Out of our regard for them (i.e. two Indian chiefs) we gave them two blankets and a handkerchief out of the smallpox hospital. I hope it will have the desired effect."
(quoted from Stearn, E. and Stearn, A. "Smallpox Immunization of the Amerindian.", Bulletin of the History of Medicine 13:601-13.)
Thornton goes on to report that smallpox spread to the tribes along the Ohio river. Modern History Sourcebook: Smallpox, Indians, and Blankets
Newspaper editorials are not indicitive of government policy. Uncle Billy Sherman liked to talk tough but his actions were generally milder than his words. When he got the recalcitrant Kiowa Satanta in hand he jailed him, he didn't kill them.
I already talked about the Brits at Fort Pitt with the pox and that was the British, the topic of the thread is whether The United States practiced genocide. It didn't, as can be proved by the number of Indians still around.
The Indians of California were destroyed by disease and private enterprise, not The United States government.
WASP's rule. The indians weren't subject to anything worse than what they were subject to from other tribes and the Spanish explorers/missionaries. Scalping, train raping, raiding conquests, tribal wars, slavery to the spanish, exposure to european disease, ect... were all common. Heck, some of the savages further south even practiced human sacrifice.
The Spanish didn't enslave Indians, it was against the law. They could enslave people from the Old World, including Whites, but not Indians.
Indians were redeuced to a form of serfdom instead. There's a difference. And unlike the Anglo the Spaniard never denied the humanity of the Indian or used dehumanization as an excuse for cruelty. Nope, the Spanish would slaughter Germans, Dutch, Swiss, French, Turks and Berbers with the same gusto as they'd massacre Indians.
Ahh, this is like talking to a wall.
Last edited by Irishtom29; 06-14-2008 at 12:32 PM..
WASP's rule. The indians weren't subject to anything worse than what they were subject to from other tribes and the Spanish explorers/missionaries. Scalping, train raping, raiding conquests, tribal wars, slavery to the spanish, exposure to european disease, ect... were all common. Heck, some of the savages further south even practiced human sacrifice.
Heck, some of the savages from Europe practiced human sacrifice. Oh, but I bet that is another historical fact we want kept under wraps. We will just call it human offerings for the betterment of mankind. Don't want to upset anyone's fragile sensibilities.
Seems to fit the definition of 'genocide':
"In the early 18th century, the states of Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Jersey promoted a genocide of their local Natives by imposing a "scalp bounty" on dead Indians. "In 1703, Massachusetts paid 12 pounds for an Indian scalp. By 1723 the price had soared to 100 pounds." 10 Ward Churchill wrote: "Indeed, in many areas it [murdering Indians] became an outright business." 6 This practice of paying a bounty for Indian scalps continued into the 19th century before the public put an end to the practice. 10
In the 18th century, George Washington compared them to wolves, "beasts of prey" and called for their total destruction. 4 In 1814, Andrew Jackson "supervised the mutilation of 800 or more Creek Indian corpses" that his troops had killed. 6
Extermination of all of the surviving natives was urged by the Governor of California officially in 1851. 4 An editorial from the Rocky Mountain News in Denver, CO in 1863; and from the Santa Fe New Mexican in 1863 expressed the same sentiment. 6 In 1867, General William Tecumseh Sherman said, "We must act with vindictive earnestness against the Sioux [Lakotas] even to their extermination: men, women and children." 6
In 1848, before the gold rush in California, that state's native population is estimated to have been 150,000. In 1870, after the gold rush, only about 31,000 were still alive. "Over 60 percent of these indigenous people died from disease introduced by hundreds of thousands of so-called 49ers. However, local tribes were also systematically chased off their lands, marched to missions and reservations, enslaved and brutally massacred." 12 The price paid for a native scalp had dropped as low as $0.25. Native historian, Jack Forbes, wrote:
"The bulk of California's Indians were conquered, and died, in innumerable little episodes rather than in large campaigns. it serves to indict not a group of cruel leaders, or a few squads of rough soldiers, but in effect, an entire people; for ...the conquest of the Native Californian was above all else a popular, mass, enterprise." 11 Genocide of Natives in the Western Hemisphere, starting 1492 CE
Smallpox was used as a bio-terrorism weapon:
This reference [for the story of American Indians and deliberate smallpox spreading ]is from American Indian Holocaust and Survival: A Population History Since 1492, by Russell Thornton, 1987 (Norman: U. of Oklahoma Pr.) pp.78-79
It is also during the eighteenth century that we find written reports of American Indians being intentionally exposed to smallpox by Europeans. In 1763 in Pennsylvania, Sir Jeffrey Amherst, commander of the British forces....wrote in the postscript of a letter to Bouquet the suggestion that smallpox be sent among the disaffected tribes. Bouquet replied, also in a postscript, "I will try to innoculate the[m]...with some blankets that may fall into their hands, and take care not get the disease myself."
....To Bouquet's postscript, Amherst replied, "You will do well as to try to innoculate the Indians by means of blankets as well as to try every other method that can serve to extirpate this exorable race."
On June 24, Captain Ecuyer, of the Royal Americans, noted in his journal: "Out of our regard for them (i.e. two Indian chiefs) we gave them two blankets and a handkerchief out of the smallpox hospital. I hope it will have the desired effect."
(quoted from Stearn, E. and Stearn, A. "Smallpox Immunization of the Amerindian.", Bulletin of the History of Medicine 13:601-13.)
Thornton goes on to report that smallpox spread to the tribes along the Ohio river. Modern History Sourcebook: Smallpox, Indians, and Blankets
Excellent post! I appreciate your research into the subject.
It is very sad that the Native American nations and most of the cultures have been so reduced or eliminated. They were not perfect cultures (torture, cannibalism,etv) by any means being Stone age as they were. However in moral terms they were no worse than the western cultures and nations that replaced them. It was not Americans who initiated the reduction of Native America...it was Europeans. Americans ,in spite of Britains best efforts, just carried it to the greatest possible extent.It was greed and need that precipitated the decline and no room was left for existing side by side with the whites. I am one quarter Native American (I don't sunburn) but I am three quarters European extraction.History moved on pushed by the profit motive and the survival mode. Truly it is sad and stands next to other great extictions like Carthage except it was worst by an order of magnitude. It certainly resembles genocide (like Serbs killing Muslims) but I hesitate to label it as such because of the lack on one concerted power or effot marshalled against the many tribes.Truly in almost all its manifestrations it was evil but greed and need are seldom denied.
Extermination as pests is a better description of whites attitude toward the american natives. Another reason to be proud of our country.
Many tribes used the arrival of whites to exterminate rival tribes. Several tribes were wiped out by other tribes prior to the arrival of Europeans. Read up on the various tribes like the Crow etc.
No country is perfect, certainly not ours...heck 100 years ago you couldn't vote if you were a woman. Get some global perspective though and come back about what an awful country this is.
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