this post was submitted on 09 Oct 2023
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So... Average history?
How's the genocide of a whole continent "average history"? The magnitude of destruction in the Americas is not common and this downplay of a continent-wide genocide is annoying.
Because you’re lumping in the unavoidable disease transfer of first contact with intentional conquest and violence. Take away that, which was going to happen whenever any Afro-Eurasian community first interacted with people from the americas, and you get a very comparable situation to many things throughout history.
The genocide didn't happen solely after the first contact, the massacre of natives lasted centuries. Many nations were wiped out in the XIX century.
And a quote for you
Professor Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
Did disease not account for the vast majority of death? Even still, I never discounted the brutal conquest that was engaged in. My point is that Europeans aren’t special for brutal conquests. Imperial Japan is a prime example this.
You’re also treating a bunch of competing individuals as a hive mind with a coherent plan. I find that “grand scheming entity” kind of narrative to be just as naive as the people buying into racist narratives. It doesn’t make sense when it’s Jewish people and they’re a smaller demographic than “Western European”.
Look, the reality is that disease did kill the majority of natives.
The genocide after that is not made any less horrible by that reality, but it was made POSSIBLE because of it.
If European settlers had to deal with the full original population, things would have been VERY different.