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The Trail of Tears didn't happen because of smallpox
It was shameful. Shameful.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ergohead
Christians are filthy savages.
And so are almost all other religions. Just remember, you must have The True God on your side.
Good luck!
Quote:
Originally Posted by KARL_MARX
Of course, and it once again shows that Americans have never live by their founding Principles.
America is not perfect and never will be.
If every single Indian in North America had been killed, however, it would still be a mere drop in the bucket compared to the unimaginable slaughters committed by Mao, Good Old Unca Joe, WWII Japan, or 'dolf.
In fact, it would probably be a drop in the bucket compared to how many of his own soldiers Stalin had murdered after WWII. A threat, you know.
Similar to the "threat" presented by today's "right wing extremists" as viewed by DHS and other like-minded Big Brother organizations.
It's called WAR, many bad things happen in war. Natives were neither helpless, or wiped out. The fought in numerous battles/wars against colonists (Who consisted not only of White Soldiers, but even of Blacks known as the Buffalo Soldiers). And FYI, Ward Churchill was denounced and discredited by the American Indian Movement, so his integrity and credibility is crap.
Many groups though out history have suffered the same fate. Inidans practiced this on settlers or tried to as often as any.Then it was often called defeating your enemy.
Yes. There have been countless violent injustices committed towards the Native American population from Canada to Chile. Countless massacres, battles, Indian wars, forced evacuations, lynch mobs, intentionally destroying sources of food for the Native population, and so on committed by both governments and individuals.
No. The Native population had been dropping dramatically since 1492. European explorers and settlers along with African slaves brought influenza, TB, smallpox, and countless other diseases. You see the Europeans had been raising livestock for thousands of years and had become quite resistant to the diseases that crossed over to humans and Africans had become rather resistant to the many tropical diseases they faced in Africa. The Natives from mostly temperate areas and who were mostly hunter-gatherers had little to no resistance to these diseases. Needless to say, they were at the losing end of hundreds of pandemics which wiped out many tribes completely. Also, although there were perhaps thousands of battles and massacres between Native Americans and whites, it was not always as cut and dry as you might think. It was not uncommon for certain Native American tribes to ally with white settlers to fight a common enemy. The Spanish were able to defeat the great Native empires in Central America and South America because they were despised by the less powerful tribes and although they considered the Spanish enemies, they preferred Spanish rule to Aztec or Mayan or Inca domination (having give up tens of thousands of your countrymen so a more powerful civilization can have slaves and people to slaughter to appease their Gods can do that to you).
In the end, while I would not say that they suffered genocide exactly, I would say that the Native population of the Americas greatly suffered and that it is a black mark against every country in the Western Hemisphere. While every European power did mistreat the Natives in its territory (or at least in territory it attempted to acquire), it wasn't always cut and dry. The French and Spanish frequently married Native women (giving rise to the Mestizo and MetÃs ethnic groups). The British and the two nations that they gave birth to often allied with Native tribes to fight other tribes which were much more warlike.
I'm not defending the Trail of Tears or residential schools or the countless treaties that were violated. But I am rather stating that as a whole the picture is much more complex and nuanced that tools like Ward Churchill would like to admit.
I hate to comment on things about which I have no direct knowledge, but I also hate when someone else comments about that which they have no direct knowledge. This professor may be very intelligent and well educated on these matters, but he also simply wasn't there and has to at some point accept what someone else told him. We can assume that a number of these persons died in direct conflict with Westerners upon which and the form of which we have some documentation of the facts, primarily from the point of view of the Westerners. We also know that a number of these Native Americans were the victims of European, African and Asian diseases for which they had no natural defenses. Native Americans were also in conflict with other Native Americans. The introduction of western technology to include horse riding, fire arms and ethanol ingestion likely increased these conflicts and self-destructive behavior. Safe to say few Native Americans needed a liver transplant until Europeans came along. Genocide carries with it the idea of intentional elimination of an unwanted race. From what I have learned, this was certainly the case, but I also wasn't there.
Yes. There have been countless violent injustices committed towards the Native American population from Canada to Chile. Countless massacres, battles, Indian wars, forced evacuations, lynch mobs, intentionally destroying sources of food for the Native population, and so on committed by both governments and individuals.
No. The Native population had been dropping dramatically since 1492. European explorers and settlers along with African slaves brought influenza, TB, smallpox, and countless other diseases. You see the Europeans had been raising livestock for thousands of years and had become quite resistant to the diseases that crossed over to humans and Africans had become rather resistant to the many tropical diseases they faced in Africa. The Natives from mostly temperate areas and who were mostly hunter-gatherers had little to no resistance to these diseases. Needless to say, they were at the losing end of hundreds of pandemics which wiped out many tribes completely. Also, although there were perhaps thousands of battles and massacres between Native Americans and whites, it was not always as cut and dry as you might think. It was not uncommon for certain Native American tribes to ally with white settlers to fight a common enemy. The Spanish were able to defeat the great Native empires in Central America and South America because they were despised by the less powerful tribes and although they considered the Spanish enemies, they preferred Spanish rule to Aztec or Mayan or Inca domination (having give up tens of thousands of your countrymen so a more powerful civilization can have slaves and people to slaughter to appease their Gods can do that to you).
In the end, while I would not say that they suffered genocide exactly, I would say that the Native population of the Americas greatly suffered and that it is a black mark against every country in the Western Hemisphere. While every European power did mistreat the Natives in its territory (or at least in territory it attempted to acquire), it wasn't always cut and dry. The French and Spanish frequently married Native women (giving rise to the Mestizo and MetÃs ethnic groups). The British and the two nations that they gave birth to often allied with Native tribes to fight other tribes which were much more warlike.
I'm not defending the Trail of Tears or residential schools or the countless treaties that were violated. But I am rather stating that as a whole the picture is much more complex and nuanced that tools like Ward Churchill would like to admit.
Excellent post.
The figure is something like 90 - 95% of native inhabitants died of disease, not extermination. Most likely died without ever seeing a white or black man to directly contract the diseases.
The "small pox blankets" Ward Churchill hiSTORY has been discredited and challenged, yet it's something that is told over and over in schools, and everyone remembers it because it is so graphic a depiction. Even if it happened once or twice, however, everyone seems to think it was this massive white man policy to go after Indians with small pox blankets.
A nice challenge to Ward Churchill's theory is here, though it's quite long:
It goes without saying that Euro settlers and governments took great advantage of the natives, displacing them and warring with them (move or be killed approach). It's very hard for me to attribute special sorrow status to the natives, however, given that the entire history of the world, Europe included, is one of conquest, murder, subjugation, colonization and sorrow. Had the natives not been susceptible to old world diseases, their numbers would NEVER have dwindled as far or fast, and they wouldn't have been so easily displaced and subjugated. There'd be a LOT more natives in this country right now.
White people (specifically, those descended from Western Europeans) have a special collective guilt that seems to be absent from other people, when it comes to the actions of their ancestors, however.... even though there are very few people in this world who can claim their ancestors never engaged in war, slavery, subjugation or violent acts against "others." Personally, I will never fully understand it. Guess it's a cultural thing.
The key now is to figure out ways to help native peoples living TODAY. What can be done to help them TODAY?
So I see somewhat of a consensus building that says that Genocide was not so much the factor, as, lets say, ignorance was.
I can agree with this. Though there were wars both among the settlers and the indian nations themselves, ignorance of things like disease and how it spread was a major contributing factor in the demise of these once proud and mighty cultures.
Vices, as was mentioned earlier in this thread, was a two way street however. The natives gave Europians tobacco and the smoking of it, while the Europians gave the natives certain terror techniques, like say, scalping, for instance.
I would guess that if by some stretch, the North American Natives all spoke the same language, and had the abilty to unite all at the same time, that the white settlers and their armies would have found a force to be reckoned with, even in spite of the being outgunned and disease arguments.
I think that the amount of time, 400 years, plays into this as well. In that Genocide, as we might know it, happens in the shortest possible amount of time and often involves the maximum amount of individuals.
Since nations have a history of rising and falling on this planet, and languages and peoples come and go, how many years, do you think would be sufficient in order to warrant calling something like this, Genocide? 10, 40, 400, 4,000 years?
Could a nation, or a people losing ground, over a very long period even be considered Genocide?
And I ask this question with all of the Americas in mind, from the tip of Argentina, to the ends of the Aleutian Islands.
Last edited by bigskydude; 09-12-2009 at 12:48 PM..
It does seem at least that in North America meaning the US and Canada that the Native population even thought it seems to have increased it is still no where close to the native population in Central America and South America.
Read this:
Quote:
May 09, 2008
Today's Native population
It's difficult to locate Native populations figures for North and South America on the Web. But from what I could find, the total for all the Americas seems to be about 50 million today.
According to the 2000 census, about 2.5 million people in the United States reported they were Native Americans. Some 1.5 million others reported they were Native American plus another race, typically white. The two figures together represented a 26 percent increase over the 1990 census figures. Overall, Native American people accounted for about 1 percent of the total U.S. population.
Recent estimates of Latin America’s total indigenous population vary from 40 million to 49 million people. Native groups are spread unevenly throughout the area. The majority of indigenous people live along the mountainous spine of Middle and South America, in densely settled villages in the Mesoamerican highlands and the Andes Mountains.
The size of indigenous populations varies widely from country to country in Latin America. In some countries, indigenous people make up almost half or more of the population. These countries include Bolivia (60 percent of the population), Peru (45 percent), Guatemala (44 to 53 percent), Ecuador (43 percent), and Mexico (8 to 30 percent). Bolivia is the only country that officially describes itself as having a Native American majority.
The countries with large indigenous populations—notably Mexico, Ecuador, and Peru—also have very large numbers of people, even majorities, who are mestizo. The term mestizo refers to people of mixed indigenous and European or African ancestry who generally do not practice indigenous lifeways. Mestizos make up between 70 and 92 percent of Mexico’s population, 40 percent of Ecuador’s population, and 37 percent of Peru’s population.
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