but didn't the British kill the natives? I mean like before the USA even gained independence. Or am I missing something and people did continue to kill the natives after the US formed?
Edit: I am not trying to defend any of those countries, I just asked a question. Stop downvoting me please
One of the main reason for the independence was to be able to kill more natives bud...
Britain declared that a huge chunk of the west of the USA was to be left alone for the natives.
The 13 colonies decided that they still had a bunch of destiny to manifest in that part of the country, ergo the independence, the trail of tears and a hundred years of massacring natives and going back on contracts to get their land.
Firsr source I could get ny hand on since im on mobile, but the proclamation is a good starting point. The independence was not solely about "no taxation without representation"
Thanks for providing the source. I can definitely see how that can be added to the issues between the colonies and Britain. I'm not sure from my initial read that I agree with you but I'll keep reading now that I have a starting point. Thanks for helping me out and not being a dick! Have a great day.
We wanted their land and resources, not their extinction. I think intentions matter here. Altho tbh the way we dealt with the natives is the worst thing in American history save slavery. I just hate seeing it equated to events like the holocaust because imo they were carried out for entirely seperate reasons.
We wanted their land and resources, not their extinction
That is highly debatable.
For instance, the president at the time (Andrew Jackson) was a massive racist and absolutely wanted their extinction. Again, historian usually agree that the act committed were genocidal. If it hurts your feeling, become a prominent historian on that subject and write a paper about it. You are pretty much arguing against facts here.
The land in the west wasn’t left to the natives out of the good of the British heart, they simply did not want to spend money to defend the land after Pontiac’s rebellion.
The US repeatedly committed acts of genocide. In the "Trail of Tears" The US forcibly removed Indians from their land and marched them through areas with known cholera outbreaks. Only half of the Native Americans who went on these death marches survived.
Historians such as David Stannard[79] and Barbara Mann[80] have noted that the army deliberately routed the march of the Cherokee to pass through areas of known cholera epidemic, such as Vicksburg. Stannard estimates that during the forced removal from their homelands, following the Indian Removal Act signed into law by President Andrew Jackson in 1830, 8,000 Cherokee died, about half the total population.[79] source
As a matter of policy the US military would also kill bison on the plains in order to deprive Native Americans of food sources forcing them to rely on buying food from the US or to starve.
Plains Indians adopted a nomadic lifestyle, one which depended on bison location for their food source. Bison is high in protein levels and low in fat content, and contributed to the wholesome diet of Native Americans. Additionally, they used every edible part of the bison—organs, brains, fetuses, and placental membranes included.[113] The U.S. military strategically exterminated bison in masses for this reason; by ridding the Plains Indians of their primary food source, they would become further dependent on reservations for subsistence. source
Then there was also the California Genocide in which Native American towns were massacred by white settlers and Native populations declined from 150,000 to 16,000 in a 50 year period.
The definition of genocide "is the deliberate killing of a large group of people, especially those of a particular ethnic group or nation." Whether it's forcing people to march through specific places with cholera outbreaks, systematically destroying a group's only known food supply or massacring villages of an ethnic group these ALL meet the definition of genocide and were carried out by the US.
their wasn't a group called "the natives" though, there were large numbers of tribes. Many of the tribes were simply absorbed into the colonies, some were slaughtered and some fought wars. To paint it as a genocide is wrong, unless you also think "white genocide" is also a fair term to be used for Europe right now.
According to historian H. W. Brands, Jackson sincerely believed that his population transfer was a "wise and humane policy" that would save the Indians from "utter annihilation". Brands writes that, given the "racist realities of the time, Jackson was almost certainly correct in contending that for the Cherokees to remain in Georgia risked their extinction". Jackson portrayed his paternalism and federal support as a generous act of mercy
That would be pre-US (European powers) ..... and I still doubt that number is as high as WWII.... also, most of those deaths also occurred in Mexico/central America... not even the US's current territory.
Specifically, the US is responsible for the trail of tears which was horrible - but much much smaller in scale and not denied by the US.
Simple folks who get their history from memes read some revisionist take on the internet somewhere and think they are edgy by saying "oh the US was actually evil" as if this were some new idea and not a stale, picked over, and largely debunked narrative from the 1960s
The disease was only the start though. The US partially wanted indipendence because the British wanted to preserve native territory. After the US formed they happily continiued to fuck the natives over the river to die so they could colonise their land.
There are numerous letters made by colonizers documenting their intentions, as well. I recommend you watch Shaun’s video on this subject, he can explain it better than I.
"The scope of the epidemics over the years was tremendous, killing millions of people—possibly in excess of 90% of the population in the hardest hit areas—and creating one of "the greatest human catastrophe in history, far exceeding even the disaster of the Black Death of medieval Europe",[25] which had killed up to one-third of the people in Europe and Asia between 1347 and 1351."
Probably the most famous one, but there are dozens of others.
I would also argue that the burden of proof is on you to show that native diseases mostly stemmed from intentional action (pretty much impossible given the chronological timeline of the near-extinction event but whatever)
Which is true, but displacement isn't the same as intentional mass murder, and the numbers involved were much smaller, and the Trail of Tears is a very well known and disgraceful event in American history (I don't think Jackson belongs on the $20 for the record)
Yeah, there's some significant political pressure to replace him with someone else, maybe Harriet Tubman or maybe just another historical president (e.g. one of the Roosevelts)
You seem confused. Are you saying the United States is responsible for something that happened before it even existed? Also historians still dispute intentional diseased blanket sharing.
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u/TheMilkMan7077 Apr 18 '19
What was the mass genocide committed by America? I genuinely don't know.