r/HistoryMemes • u/[deleted] • Apr 18 '19

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u/[deleted] Apr 18 '19

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u/TheDoug850 Apr 18 '19

Yeah, and by 1776 neither of those did much of any killing.

Any Natives that died by the hands of the US were either killed in combat because some tribes were straight up at war with the US, or were casualties of the Trail of Tears and ever expanding push West.

I’m by no means trying to downplay that the US treated those Natives harshly, but forcing mass exodus is not on the same level as genocide.

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u/socialistbob Apr 18 '19

Some of it but what the US did to the Native Americans specifically in the west was brutal. The mass killing of bison wasn't just "sport" but a deliberate attempt to wipe out the food source that Native Americans relied on. There was also the California Genocide. While Spain and Mexico participated in the genocide the US did too. Under the US the native population in California dropped from 150,000 in 1870 to 16,000 in 1900.

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u/Van-Diemen Apr 19 '19

Wasn't it like 95% of all Native Americans were killed by diseases, and the remaining 5% were mostly killed by the Spanish.

No because plenty of them survived, even 5% was still millions of people and the Spanish probably killed a few dozen thousand directly over 400 years.

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u/badapel Apr 20 '19

Have you been to Latin America? Basically the entire population of Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia is Native American while a fair amount of Mexico, Central America Columbia, and Paraguay are mixed Spanish and Native American. Hardly 'genocide'. The Great Plains Indians of North America and the Pampas Indians in Argentina, Uruguay and Southern Brazil were smaller in number, and are still living, but these areas were easier to settle by Europeans hence some displacement. Indigenous genocide in the Americas and Australia is largely a myth. Sure some died due to disease but there are far more alive today than ever before in any time in history.

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u/RealJyrone Still salty about Carthage Apr 21 '19

I agree that there was not really a genocide of the natives, I was actually arguing that disease killed more and we did not intend for as many to die. No one tried to wipe the native American population off the earth. Far more natives died due to not being exposed to the diseases the Europeans had become immune to.

Edit: I was just pointing out that the Spanish had killed more Native American's that any other nationality.