Americans committed the worst genocide in world history

Originally posted by ThinkingHuman


No, we are worse. We had 20 Presidents and their administrations support genocide.

Lots of "we". Need a toilet for how many times it keeps getting used here.

Every Country has blood on its hands. We all know this. No one said otherwise. Continue to blame....



Your title says "the worst" also.

Mother Earth begs to differ. That is the ONLY Fact you cant come to grips with, while you thump your chest for all those indigenous peoples, all the while blaming the United States. Cause if you are going to say America, get it right.

Its the United States.

Originally posted by Shamrock6

 

just curious....my family didn't get over here until after the turn of the 20th century. my family suffered at the hands of the English in the early and mid 19th century. so am I supposed to feel bad for the Native Americans that were killed off

1) You can feel however you want, or however you feel. Not even your spouse can force you to feel a certain way.

2) Even if your grandparents had been in the US at the time, I would not blame you, probably not even them, for the fate of the Natives. History happens. Countries invade, people migrate.

3) History is not about placing blame but to understand the past, in the hope it will tell us something about the future. Denying the past prevents us from learning from it. We need to let "the chips fall where they may". What is the danger? It is PAST.

Hope this answered your question.

Originally posted by tadaman


so this entire thread is still alive for the spirit of malace, name calling, discord and vile blame games.......

you see MY point?

Im out of this thread.

To summarise I think it's fair to say that the vast majority of Native Americans died as a result of their vulnerability to diseases that were brought to The New World by European settlers.
There was no deliberate attempt by these colonists to infect the native people, they were largely completely ignorant of the nature of these diseases, how they spread and the lack of immunity.
The colonists were largely unaware of the devastation they caused, the major epidemics occurred prior to significant contact.- these epidemics spread with frightening speed right into the 'American' heartland.

No-one can deny that allied to this the policies and actions of the colonists and the colonial powers, be they British, French, Spanish, German etc, contributed to the decline in numbers of the Native Americans.
The European powers continued their wars on the American continent and quite frequently Native American tribes allied themselves with Europeans and / or colonists to fight in these wars and to fight against other tribes.
Many Native American tribes had fought with each other for centuries prior to European colonisation and more than just a few of these tribes saw the wars that these immigrants brought with them as an opportunity to increase their own power and to eliminate their rivals.
The European nations and colonists were more than willing to exploit this as they sought to expand their empires not just in the Americas but worldwide.

Now at what point do the colonists stop being 'European colonists' and start being 'Americans'?
As far as I'm aware from around 1730 colonists of European origin had been identified specifically as 'American', and probably more importantly started describing themselves as American.
During The American War Of Independence numerous Native American tribes fought on both sides

Once the USA gained independence they began their drive westward and the notion of Manifest Destiny which whilst has never been an open policy it has been a major influence on US strategy and approach, perhaps even to this day.

During all this there is no question that millions of Native Americans died and that they suffered many injustices.
But was their really a deliberate policy of genocide?
I'm not sure.

Of one thing I am certain of is that every nation / people etc concerned should shoulder varying degrees of responsibility.
Pointing the finger at 'Europeans', 'British' or 'Americans' only is simply incorrect and serves no purpose whatsoever.
And we shouldn't fall into the trap of judging people then by the standards of today - but perhaps more relevant is that we can't go around blaming people alive today for the actions and events of hundreds of years ago.
Yes, as a nation Britain was partially responsible for many of the atrocities carried out against Native Americans, but it has absolutely nothing to do with me or any other Britain who is alive today.

Now I freely admit that I know far too little about the current circumstances surrounding Native Americans and how they are treat - surely that should be more of a concern for Americans, whether they be Native or whatever else type of American.

Yes, we need to learn from the past, but people should concentrate on dealing with the today and planning for the tomorrow rather than arguing the toss over who is to blame for yesterday's sins.

Apologies for the rant like nature.

reply to post by TerryMcGuire


you provided nothing to back up your opinion...why should I. simply read it again and double check what you say.....I don't feel like doing your homework.

reply to post by SLAYER69

Your thread has no credibility and not historically accurate as to who was involved and when.

I agree

The Truth: There's a pretty important detail our movies and textbooks left out of the handoff from Native Americans to white European settlers: It begins in the immediate aftermath of a full-blown apocalypse. In the decades between Columbus' discovery of America and the Mayflower landing at Plymouth Rock, the most devastating plague in human history raced up the East Coast of America. Just two years before the pilgrims started the tape recorder on New England's written history, the plague wiped out about 96 percent of the Indians in Massachusetts. Read more: www.cracked.com...

Historians estimate that before the plague, America's population was anywhere between 20 and 100 million (Europe's at the time was 70 million). The plague would eventually sweep West, killing at least 90 percent of the native population. For comparison's sake, the Black Plague killed off between 30 and 60 percent of Europe's population. Read more: www.cracked.com...

But it's just more fun to believe that your ancestors won the land by being the superior culture. Read more: www.cracked.com...

reply to post by ThinkingHuman


well i guarantee that if we
stumble across a human
habitable planet that we
will attack and destroy
the original beings living there.

we meaning all the people on earth. red and yellow black and white

Originally posted by sonnny1
Every Country has blood on its hands. We all know this.
Your title says "the worst" also. Mother Earth begs to differ.

What did "Mother Earth" tell you? Who was worse?

If we know this then why do you try to deny it?

Can someone PLEASE answer a serious question for me? I suspect nobody will give me a serious answer because it kind of undermines your whole thing, but I'm asking you to be honest and answer this question.

Before Europeans came to the Americas there were tribes and civilizations that went to war with each other, stealing land, taking slaves, etc etc. These were ALL Native Americans of North America and South America doing this.They raped, killed, and pillaged EACH OTHER.

The Europeans came here, set up camp, and began expanding and doing EXACTLY what the natives of this continent had ALREADY been doing. They stole land, people, and goods from their enemies.

So my question is, why are Europeans evil for doing the same thing Native Americans had already been doing for thousands of years? Do you hold Europeans to a higher standard? If so, that seems truly racist to hold Native Americans to a lower standard, as if them killing each other is OK because they are "just native americans" but Europeans killing them is bad.

Kind of like how it's OK that young black men are killing EACH OTHER at a ridiculously high rate, but when someone of another race kills a black person instantly it's a big deal and everyone needs to take notice.

Do you see the double standard? The Europeans were superior militarily and able to take over the natives of America.The Europeans also unwillingly carried illness with them, it worked well for the Europeans, and while there were instances of purposeful infection of natives, the majority of deaths were due to just regular spread of illness among a non-resistant population. It's not as if Europeans, while leaving Europe, made sure to have sick people on board to bring illnesses to the new world.

So I ask again as to be direct, why are you making Europeans to be villains when they did nothing different than the Native Americans? You are basically just punishing them for winning. If any native tribe was as powerful and numerous as the Europeans they would have conquered the Americas themselves and decimated the other tribes, and I'm sure you wouldn't have a problem with it. You only have a problem because its WHITE people doing the bad stuff. When any other race does anything, it's ignored and glossed over. When whites do the SAME EXACT thing they get called evil for it.

Every single patch of land on this Earth has been stolen, conquered, every people have had some sort of bad history. I don't understand the relevance of you singing out Europeans treatment of the natives. What is it you are trying to say? Are you just going to make threads on EVERY single battle and population change throughout human history as part of a "History of violence" series of threads you are writing for ATS?

reply to post by UnifiedSerenity

Many Americans have said we feel terrible for what happened to the natives. What exactly are you wanting us to do?

Most Americans don't KNOW what happened to the natives and I can't speak for anyone else but I sure would like to see more people make the effort to find out what actually did happen to them.

Or did you think the "Indian Removal Act" was about burying the poor Indians who died from disease?
en.wikipedia.org...

"They made us many promises, more than I can remember. But they kept but one - They promised to take our land...and they took it." -- Chief Red Cloud

Originally posted by spirited75

 

well i guarantee that if we stumble across a human habitable planet that we will attack and destroy the original beings living there. we meaning all the people on earth. red and yellow black and white

So you are happy to commit genocide? You would not vote for the party that opposes it? I am not saying that I condemn it, but I want you to be clear about it.

Originally posted by ThinkingHuman

Originally posted by spirited75

 

well i guarantee that if we stumble across a human habitable planet that we will attack and destroy the original beings living there. we meaning all the people on earth. red and yellow black and white

So you are happy to commit genocide? You would not vote for the party that opposes it? I am not saying that I condemn it, but I want you to be clear about it.

spirited makes an excellent point. You are vilifying Europeans for simply conducting themselves as all human races have conducted themselves throughout time. Maybe once all of us Humans commit genocide against another alien species entirely, we can come together as humans and forget out skin color, because we will be united in committing genocide against an alien race! Hooray!

Originally posted by ThinkingHuman

Originally posted by Shamrock6

 

just curious....my family didn't get over here until after the turn of the 20th century. my family suffered at the hands of the English in the early and mid 19th century. so am I supposed to feel bad for the Native Americans that were killed off

1) You can feel however you want, or however you feel. Not even your spouse can force you to feel a certain way.

2) Even if your grandparents had been in the US at the time, I would not blame you, probably not even them, for the fate of the Natives. History happens. Countries invade, people migrate.

3) History is not about placing blame but to understand the past, in the hope it will tell us something about the future. Denying the past prevents us from learning from it. We need to let "the chips fall where they may". What is the danger? It is PAST.

Hope this answered your question.

your OP reeks of blame game and, essentially, 'white/American guilt.' the post i'm quoting here is much more open minded sounding and informative. your OP smacks of telling Americans how effed up we are as people because of something that, to my knowledge, none of us was personally involved in. that's why i made my comment. i don't deny what happened, but i don't feel compelled to make public declarations of accepting guilt, blame, or feeling bad about it either. for example: why do you exclude people who died by starvation under Mao? that grossly cuts into the estimate of the number of people he killed off (40-70 million, not the "only" 20 million you claimed). so i guess if you whittle down the parameters of something so that it suits the point of what you want to say, and toss out things that don't and ignore things that don't, you can make any point you want to?

Originally posted by frazzle


"They made us many promises, more than I can remember. But they kept but one - They promised to take our land...and they took it." -- Chief Red Cloud

THEIR land!??!

I guess Native Americans weren't such nice, in-tune, nature loving, children of mother nature everyone always says. I guess the whole idea of "nobody owns the land but the Earth" isn't one the natives believe in, despite what we have been lead to believe that they were a peaceful people and everything was hummingbirds and honey before the Eurotrash showed up.

The second you take ownership of something is the second you open yourself up to getting it stolen.

reply to post by ThinkingHuman

3) History is not about placing blame but to understand the past, in the hope it will tell us something about the future. Denying the past prevents us from learning from it. We need to let "the chips fall where they may". What is the danger? It is PAST.

Hope this answered your question.

And what are you hoping to gain, education wise, by dredging up all these sore spots? What was the lesson in creating this thread?

Originally posted by James1982

 

Before Europeans came to the Americas there were tribes and civilizations that went to war with each other, stealing land, taking slaves, etc etc. These were ALL Native Americans of North America and South America doing this.They raped, killed, and pillaged EACH OTHER.

I don't understand the relevance of you singing out Europeans treatment of the natives. What is it you are trying to say? Are you just going to make threads on EVERY single battle and population change throughout human history as part of a "History of violence" series of threads you are writing for ATS?

An analogy I can think of is, two kids fighting with each other. Nothing particularly wrong with that. Two adults fighting with each other a fair fight, okay. One adult goes to a kid and the fight ends in the kid dieing, something is wrong. Millions of times over, very wrong.

Your second question, Genocide seem to me to be classified correctly under "Social Issues". This is not about a 'single battle'. If you don't get the relevance by page 20, I'm sorry. I don't get the point of your question either.

reply to post by James1982

The second you take ownership of something is the second you open yourself up to getting it stolen.

They were as intimate with the land as we are with our husbands and wives. They relied on the land for food, shelter, and all forms of survival. Everything they needed, they got from the land. The land was their god. And you think it's unreasonable that they look upon that land and call it their own? They had lived hundreds of years on that soil, their parents and grandparents and children and grandchildren were born and died on that soil...they gave their sweat, their blood, their tears to that land, and the land gave back to them in almost every way they asked.

They had far more right to that land, far more reason to appreciate it and mourn its loss, than the white men who came to take it because they didn't respect the people who were already standing on it. The white men wanted the land, but the Native Americans needed it. The white men kicked in their doors and commandeered their homes, destroyed their resources and disrespected their families. They killed and cursed, raped and pillaged. The first white men on American soil, the pioneers of the world that would eventually become the United States, didn't earn the American land. They stole it. They stole it the same way the outlaws stole the caravans of supplies on the dusty old trails in the west.

And the Native Americans remember that.

reply to post by James1982

Before Europeans came to the Americas there were tribes and civilizations that went to war with each other, stealing land, taking slaves, etc etc. These were ALL Native Americans of North America and South America doing this.They raped, killed, and pillaged EACH OTHER.

Source please. And since no European was here to record these amazing events, please make it an American Indian source, preferably someone who was here at the time and witnessed all this gratuitous raping and pillaging and killing.

I propose we change the name of the country to the United States of Make Believe.

Originally posted by Shamrock6

Originally posted by ThinkingHuman

Originally posted by Shamrock6

 

just curious....my family didn't get over here until after the turn of the 20th century. my family suffered at the hands of the English in the early and mid 19th century. so am I supposed to feel bad for the Native Americans that were killed off

1) You can feel however you want, or however you feel. Not even your spouse can force you to feel a certain way.

2) Even if your grandparents had been in the US at the time, I would not blame you, probably not even them, for the fate of the Natives. History happens. Countries invade, people migrate.

3) History is not about placing blame but to understand the past, in the hope it will tell us something about the future. Denying the past prevents us from learning from it. We need to let "the chips fall where they may". What is the danger? It is PAST.

Hope this answered your question.

your OP reeks of blame game and, essentially, 'white/American guilt.' the post i'm quoting here is much more open minded sounding and informative. your OP smacks of telling Americans how effed up we are as people because of something that, to my knowledge, none of us was personally involved in. that's why i made my comment. i don't deny what happened, but i don't feel compelled to make public declarations of accepting guilt, blame, or feeling bad about it either. for example: why do you exclude people who died by starvation under Mao? that grossly cuts into the estimate of the number of people he killed off (40-70 million, not the "only" 20 million you claimed). so i guess if you whittle down the parameters of something so that it suits the point of what you want to say, and toss out things that don't and ignore things that don't, you can make any point you want to?

I couldn't agree more.

And what's really funny (or just sad) is that there IS "American Guilt" that we are supposed to feel for things like the genocide against the natives..

But, in this instance, when they say "American" they mean WHITE people should feel bad about what was done to the natives. Why don't any black Americans take the blame for what happened to the native americans? Because they had nothing to do with it? BINGO! Nothing to do with it, JUST like ALL the white people in America too.

When America does something bad it's not America, it's WHITE people. When America does something good then America means ALL the races in the country. Another funny (or sad) double standard.

It's also sad that nobody has answered the question from my first post. I guess people are too cowardly to be honest and say they think europeans are worse just because they are white and whites are evil. That's how they feel. They can sugarcoat it as much as they like, but it's no different than a white southern closet racist. Because there is no difference in what the Europeans have done compared to every other race, except Europeans are white so they have to be evil, where as other races that do the exact same thing aren't evil, they are just humans and that's what we do.

Double standards built upon double standards. People need to just stop.

Originally posted by frazzle
reply to post by James1982

 

Before Europeans came to the Americas there were tribes and civilizations that went to war with each other, stealing land, taking slaves, etc etc. These were ALL Native Americans of North America and South America doing this.They raped, killed, and pillaged EACH OTHER.

Source please. And since no European was here to record these amazing events, please make it an American Indian source, preferably someone who was here at the time and witnessed all this gratuitous raping and pillaging and killing.

I propose we change the name of the country to the United States of Make Believe.

Source? LOL! Really? You need a source to prove that tribes in the Americas went to war against each other?

SERIOUSLY?

LOL!

You cannot be for real.

Are you implying Native Americans are genetically superior to the rest of the planet's people that they would be above war, theft, and murder? Really?

This has been taken to a whole new level of ridiculousness now. What's next, you want a source that proves native americans had sex with each other? You want a source to prove Native Americans breathe air and drink water?

Get a grip on yourself man, you look desperate.