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eaglecap
Tsar
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Topic: The European invasion of the Americas Posted: 29-Mar-2005 at 14:33 |
Was this equal to genocide?
European diseases wiped out entire tribes, greatly reducing the native population. Sometimes the settlers passed out blankets laced with small pox or other diseases on purpose, very sad.
California had 300-500,000 Indians but shortly after the Spanish arrived it was reduced to about 160,000. Twenty years after the conquest of California by the Americans it dropped from around 160,000 to 17,000.
I took a class in California history.
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Cywr
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Posted: 29-Mar-2005 at 19:53 |
Desease, no, Genocide (a hilariuosly politicaly loaded term) tends to
suggest intent, those Spaniards didn't intent to kill them off with
Small Pox anymore than those Indians intended to get Europeans addicted
to Tobacco.
As for the Later US involvement, there was an intent to take there
land, which at the very least suggests ethnic cleansing, whether there
was an explicit intent to kill them all, or merely a cronic
indifference to their fate in the thirst for farm land, i don't know.
There may not seem a fantastic difference between the to on the ends
front, but policitos will argue over inane sematics when it comes to
the word genocide, just look at Sudan.
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Paul
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Posted: 29-Mar-2005 at 20:40 |
Must be remebered the Indians gave the Europeans Syphilis and killed millions too.
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Tobodai
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Posted: 29-Mar-2005 at 20:58 |
yes but thats barely comparable, 90% of Native Americans died from European diseases on teh whole, a few million palefaces died of syphillis, though it was gruesome.
However I agree it wasnt genocide at all. The Spanish would have prefered then natives to live for labor purposes, and their death brought about the needing of the slave trade from Africa. In a similair fashion the US westward expansion was based more on resources and appeasing populace, most creulties were more likely to happen because of settlers and their culture than official government policy. Nonetheless it still could count as cultural genocide, with the reservations and the forced adoption of farming.
The wrost was the school systems who would beat students who spoke in native toungue or did not convert to christianity.
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"the people are nothing but a great beast...
I have learned to hold popular opinion of no value."
-Alexander Hamilton
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Guests
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Posted: 30-Mar-2005 at 07:05 |
It was no genocide, but on several occasions it was ethnic cleansing.
Those two terms are often confused. Ethnic cleansing is 'just' getting
rid of an ethnicity, not necesarily by killing, but by things like
deporting, sterilizing, making their Heimat unlivable, etc.
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Paul
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Posted: 30-Mar-2005 at 11:30 |
Originally posted by Tobodai
yes but thats barely comparable, 90% of Native Americans died from European diseases on teh whole, a few million palefaces died of syphillis, though it was gruesome.
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It's got to be remembered small pox is quite preventable but syphilis is still rampant, it's been killing for 5 hundred years now, that's quite some total. Also it's spread from Europe to Asia and Africa and rampant in places with little medical care. 90,000 people a year die from it in Africa alone. I wondered which really has killed the most.
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Cywr
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Posted: 30-Mar-2005 at 12:54 |
There is evidence to suggest that syphillis was present in teh old
world before Colombian contact. But the Spainish then inevitably
brought it back again, and set in motion a process where it would
spread to all the major ports around the world.
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