Americans committed the worst genocide in world history

There were 50 million Natives living in what is now US territory. We decimated them. Ruthlessly. Without concern for their families, their cultures, their human rights. Now there are less than 3 million. Lets do the math, 50 minus 3 equals 47. Millions that is.
en.wikipedia.org...

We didn't even respect them enough to call them what they are, Americans. We called them "Indians" when the slaugther was going on, maybe because "Indians" means that this is like from another planet, rather than human. We had known for centuries that they were not from India. In the same way as NAZI Germany de-humanized the Jews, Americans de-humanized the Natives.

The NAZI's, Stalin and Mao each killed "only" about 20 million (excluding those who died from starvation caused by Mao's polcies). However, in each of the three cases, it was only one tyrannical regime, essentially one person.

Here in the US, whole-sale slaughter of Native people went on for more than a century, incuding about 20 Presidents' administrations. And we, today, celebrate those Presidents!

Once we had killed most of them, we shoved the rest into prisons, that we call "reservations".

As an American I am not happy to write this. But I do because it is the truth.

Yet, despite the staggering number, America gets a pass. It is glossed over, it had to be done. It wasn't out of hatred. Settlers were forced, they had no choice but to "defend" themselves. Did the Natives need to be killed for the betterment of the world?

Americans committed the worst genocide in world history and to this day, not only are we not accepting the blame for it, we are not even accused of it commonly. For some reason, everybody else in the world feels the same way, it is okay for 20 of our Presidents to collectively committ the worst genocide in human history. It is okay that we cut off their scalp and be rewarded for it.

Astounding how stupid the whole world is collectively. We are smart individually but like a Zombie collectively. Can anybody explain this?

reply to post by ThinkingHuman


My wife and her family, on both sides, hail from Muleshoe, TX. They were there before Texas Independance. They are as native as it gets.

We call them "Mexicans". But they are really natives.

Some native retain their heritage. They try to maintain a line of culture. Many do not. They just call themselves "Latin", "Mexican", or "Hispanic". On the census box, they check "Caucasian". Go figure.

Interesting take. It is true. We decimated a continent of people. Destroyed their history. Especially in the centrial Americas. Instead of remembering the people they come from, they took the graft of Western history, identified as Latin, and went on about building a new history. Thus, we have celebrations for Cinco de Mayo, and Diez y seis de Septembre here in the southwest.

I'm not sure where your numbers come from. I'm headed to bed and too tired to bother getting the accurate numbers on Natives and who killed who between the French, British, Spanish (among others) and later, last but not least, the Americans themselves after independence. However, the estimates on the others is factually wrong by a wide margin.

Source List and Detailed Death Tolls for the Primary Megadeaths of the Twentieth Century

Stalin is good for 20 Million by himself. Mao is solid for 40 million with some estimates running as high as 60 million for just China during his rule and Cultural Revolution. Hitler is estimated close to 6 million in the camps alone.

Running between the 3 though, it's at least 66 million people murdered....since that figure isn't counting combat related deaths in the war (the 66 million).

Nothing very honorable about what Americans of the 19th and prior century did to the Natives. Nothing Honorable at all. Although comparisons just don't quite fit, as the Natives gave as much as they got, if not in sheer numbers. They fought like hell and they fought well for their right to live.

Mao, Stalin and Hitler murdered in a near assembly line fashion in some examples and systematically in all three cases. Just warm bodies to convert into cold ones.

That's why the 18th century slave trade took off so big. You'd killed all the home-grown ones and had to start importing.

Sorry to disappoint you, but I don't feel guilty.

I was born in the 1960s and didn't have anything to do with it...I also didn't have anything to do with the slaves. My relatives still lived in Germany until the 1930s and sorry to say they didn't have anything to do with it either.

What exactly is your point? Should I still be angry with the Romans for enslaving my long lost relatives? I am responsible only for my actions and my life. I am more concerned with the problems of today. At least with those I can actually work towards a solution.

Originally posted by Metallicus
Sorry to disappoint you, but I don't feel guilty.

I was born in the 1960s and didn't have anything to do with it...I also didn't have anything to do with the slaves. My relatives still lived in Germany until the 1930s and sorry to say they didn't have anything to do with it either.

What exactly is your point? Should I still be angry with the Romans for enslaving my long lost relatives? I am responsible only for my actions and my life. I am more concerned with the problems of today. At least with those I can actually work towards a solution.

I am not sure what the OP point is. But the facts are true: Europeans destroyed the cultures that were existing here. Our founding fathers were very happy to borrow many of their governmental concepts from the Indians. There were valuable cultures here. Up north there are traces of the Indians Further south.....not so much. They don't identify with their indian heritage. They identify with the culture that supplanted them.

Correction, the Europeans committed the worst genocide in world history. I don't know where you get calling the Europeans "Americans," or even confusing them.

reply to post by ThinkingHuman

Whats the saying, "sure you can trust the government, ask an Indian".

Its a reference to the countless treaties which were broken by the US government.

In history books, its taught as "manifest destiny". What it really means is that settlers and their future generations were going to head westward and take the land along the way, by force, regardless of who might be on it.

Not much has changed. They still have this power domestically called eminent domain.

And internationally, they either install dictators or invade and occupy.

Disgusting and criminal, to put it lightly.

Originally posted by ThinkingHuman


Astounding how stupid the whole world is collectively. We are smart individually but like a Zombie collectively. Can anybody explain this?

What do you want?

REVENGE?

REPARATIONS?



The Mohammedan Conquest, The Romans, the list goes on and on.

I just dont know what you really are getting at, except maybe a history lesson, or a passing fancy at taking a Swipe at America.

History is inundated with Countries getting Passes. We are doomed to repeat. The Truth.

Originally posted by FidelityMusic
Correction, the Europeans committed the worst genocide in world history. I don't know where you get calling the Europeans "Americans," or even confusing them.

Not nearly.
Ghengis khan was Asian.

reply to post by ThinkingHuman


Wow.

Thats some interesting math you did there.

From your own source, the spanish Conquistadors came and did quite a number. After they arrived 90% of the indigenous population was wiped out, not to mention this was several hundred years before the united states of America was established.

So are you playing word games or number games? Not sure where you are going with this, but you are WAAYYY OFF!

Yeah ok Americans that lived in America at the time (the continent) came and decimated their own people. Whoah!


There was also small pox and a hefty number of influenza related illnesses.

Good lord, do you even read what you are posting and check your facts, or do you just post out of vitriol and rage?

Originally posted by sonnny1

 

Astounding how stupid the whole world is collectively. We are smart individually but like a Zombie collectively. Can anybody explain this?

What do you want?

What do I want? I want somebody to explain it.

I picked this example only because it is close to home.

I want to raise awareness that collectively we are Zombies. We Americans sometimes feels superior to, say, Afghanis with their warlords. It seems that we are not superior, except in our ability to start wars. We are just as Zombie.

Originally posted by Wrabbit2000

 

Stalin is good for 20 Million by himself. Running between the 3 though, it's at least 66 million people murdered....

Your numbers are almost identical to mine, 3 times 20 equals 60. I rounded mine because the numbers are not in dispute, and they are not the main issue I raised.

Originally posted by Metallicus
Sorry to disappoint you, but I don't feel guilty.

I was born in the 1960s and didn't have anything to do with it...I also didn't have anything to do with the slaves. My relatives still lived in Germany until the 1930s and sorry to say they didn't have anything to do with it either.

What exactly is your point? Should I still be angry with the Romans for enslaving my long lost relatives? I am responsible only for my actions and my life. I am more concerned with the problems of today. At least with those I can actually work towards a solution.

I was born in 1980 and I'm the son of a Norwegian immigrant to Canada so I don't have any guilt over it either. But the fact remains: It happened (Both in the U.S AND Canada). Let's not try to gloss it over, shall we? Lord knows the jews sure get their moment of silence for having lived through the holocaust. Where is the same diligence for the native peoples of North America?

Colonialism and imperialism wiped them out from North America through Central America all the way to South America. It was a disgraceful period in human history despite how glorified the renaissance is portrayed as today. Entire languages and peoples were made extinct. Think about that for a moment.

I won't suggest that you should foot the bill for it by any means, but I will suggest you should have some respect for entire cultures that were misplaced or wiped out so that you could call yourself an American (or I a Canadian).

Originally posted by ThinkingHuman

What do I want? I want somebody to explain it.

Man is a species that can be the kindest or the cruelest.

Originally posted by ThinkingHuman
I picked this example only because it is close to home.

Um, Ok.

Originally posted by ThinkingHuman
I want to raise awareness that collectively we are Zombies.

The World has a herd mentality. Not just those in the US.

Originally posted by ThinkingHuman
We Americans sometimes feels superior to Afghanis with their warlords. It seems that we are not superior, except in our ability to start wars. We are just as Zombie.

Really? And NO OTHER Country has blood on their hands, Past , Present, Future?

America isn't superior. No Country is.

Originally posted by txinfidel

 

WAAYYY OFF!

Okay, why don't you give me your numbers? Do you have any?

reply to post by ThinkingHuman


Yes various people from several different countries traveled to what we call the United States...and (some) did some horrible things to Native Americans...and that is a part of history that has always bothered me.

There were many Native Americans that were willing to sign peace treaties and they were willing to share the land and its resources; and they were deceived; lied to.

Also...they were many who immigrated from Europe; they wanted to settle in a new land and live in harmony with the Native Americans...and there were some Native Americans that were ruthless and killed and scalped those settlers.

That is the other side of the coin...that you did not mention...many Native Americans killed many settlers too...when those settlers were people who wanted peace and to be left alone to live their lives.

Also...perhaps some of our distant ancestors participated in some of what you say...and I for one am certainly disturbed by that part of history...but it was those people that did those wrong things. Myself and many others never have done those things and we never would. I am a believer that those who directly did wrong actions should be held accountable...and not their future ancestors...who have never done those actions themselves.

Originally posted by FidelityMusic
Correction, the Europeans committed the worst genocide in world history. I don't know where you get calling the Europeans "Americans," or even confusing them.

I get it, its not the Americans' fault. Never mind that they were Americans by then. Never mind that they're our grandparents.

Just as I said, Americans don't get blamed.

reply to post by ThinkingHuman

The most lethal of the pathogens introduced by the Europeans was smallpox, which sometimes incapacitated so many adults at once that deaths from hunger and starvation ran as high as deaths from disease; in several cases, entire tribes were rendered extinct. Other killers included measles, influenza, whooping cough, diphtheria, typhus, bubonic plague, cholera, and scarlet fever. Although syphilis was apparently native to parts of the Western hemisphere, it, too, was probably introduced into North America by Europeans.

About all this there is no essential disagreement. The most hideous enemy of native Americans was not the white man and his weaponry, concludes Alfred Crosby,"but the invisible killers which those men brought in their blood and breath." It is thought that between 75 to 90 percent of all Indian deaths resulted from these killers.

Were American Indians the Victims of Genocide?


Some more interesting facts.

Originally posted by Metallicus

 

Sorry to disappoint you, but I don't feel guilty.

You should be sorry. We are talking about millions of people killed, entire civilizations wiped out, by your ancestors and mine.

And you don't even ask yourself why?

Maybe you have never been on the "other side" of history.