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In a Word.............. YES! Maybe at thanksgiving everyone should remember why thanksgiving is celebrated each year. My wife is half cherokee and i have learned a lot from her. The Native American saved the settlers from starvation and were rewarded with near annialation.... Deception, smallpox etc. A proud people who were defending their homeland !
this run down on wikpedia is more than enough to answer the question. the government wanted their lands and did all they could to wipe the american indian off the face of the earth.
Woohoo someone knows their history. The Indians cared about conquest just as much as the White man did, the White man just happened to be a better soldier.
You also have to imagine that the White man wasn't as caught up in vice as Indians were while they were losing battles.
That is not necessarily true. However, what should be noted is the technological difference. Europeans had guns. When the natives got guns, the Europeans by that time also had TONS of people and resistance to the disease that plagued the natives. Instead of harmonizing with nature, the Europeans conquered nature and the people who chose to live side by side with it.
So it was a conquer attitude, not a harmony attitude, and an unwilingness of the native tribes to band together and forget petty historical feuds in the face of a much wider threat which did in the native tribes.
That is an ignorant thing to say. Care to back that up with some context?
Ignorance is not knowing the truth and believing that you do.
Here's the context you asked for!!
Jeffrey1 Amherst and Smallpox Blankets
Lord Jeffrey1 Amherst's letters discussing germ warfare against American Indians
... Captain Simeon Ecuyer had bought time by sending smallpox-infected blankets and handkerchiefs to the Indians surrounding the fort -- an early example of biological warfare -- which started an epidemic among them. Amherst himself had encouraged this tactic in a letter to Ecuyer. [p. 108]
Did whites ever give Native Americans blankets infected with smallpox?
P.S. I will try to inocculate the Indians by means of Blankets that may fall in their hands, taking care however not to get the disease myself. As it is pity to oppose good men against them, I wish we could make use of the Spaniard's Method, and hunt them with English Dogs. Supported by Rangers, and some Light Horse, who would I think effectively extirpate or remove that Vermine.
An idea of what people felt were acceptable to do to other human beings!
I suppose it was okay though for Indians to bum-rush a fort where a mixed group of Indians and whites were having diner and kill everyone there, including the babies by grabbing them by their feet and smashing their heads against the walls of the fort. There is always two sides, or more, to every story.
Native Americans were CONQUERED. We didn't every intend to commit genocide.
I suppose it can be argued that the unintended consequence of conquering the Natives WAS borderline genocide, but throughout history I think the motive is pretty clear... We wanted the land and the natives were in the way. If we could have had the land without killing one native I'm guessing we may have chosen that route....
Little consolation for the Native Peoples, I understand that.
I suppose it was okay though for Indians to bum-rush a fort where a mixed group of Indians and whites were having diner and kill everyone there, including the babies by grabbing them by their feet and smashing their heads against the walls of the fort. There is always two sides, or more, to every story.
The problem with your scenario is that in order for that fort to be standing there, the people who had rights to that land had to be kicked off.
So you shoot me, run me off, molest,rape and bully me, slaughter the animals I use for food, clothing, housing, and heat. You leave me cold, hungry, exposed to the elements.
The Indians living in the fort are reduced to human servants, only allowed there because they serve the inrerests of the inhabitants of the fort and help in the location and enslavement of other indians.
They are bribed/controled with alcohol, trinkets, food and shelter and threatened with expulsion and the punishment their people will exact upon them without the protection of the fort.
So as an Indian I'm daily reminded of my condition by the sight of that fort and the people and traitors inside that are destroying my ability to survive and the culture of my people.
My choice is obvious, eliminate those that refuse to peacefully co-exist with me, eliminate those that refuse to leave my land, and eliminate those of my people that assist in my destruction.
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