Was there an Indian Holocaust in America?

[angminas]

A people should know when they are conquered ...

Would you? Would any of us?

 

[WelshBloke]

He had 500 men and they had an army, IIRC, of over 100,000. Cortez didn't have modern machines guns and tanks -- he had musket-style weapons and 100,000 men in even a loosely coordinated effort could've overrun him with little difficulty.

Horses, heavy armour, muskets and steel swords were the equivalent of tanks and machine guns.

 

[Nograts]

Would you? Would any of us?

Even in Independence Day when you thought it was game over for us.... Will Smith in a spaceship, drunk anal abuse victim redneck in a plane, and a Jeff Goldblum super virus saved the fucking planet.

Think about that next time nay sayers.

 

[Nograts]

Horses, heavy armour, muskets and steel swords were the equivalent of tanks and machine guns.

The way I read it they were seen as God's and most didn't even fight back if any.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

Horses, heavy armour, muskets and steel swords were the equivalent of tanks and machine guns.

500 Spanish vs. 100,000 Aztecs (I'm ignoring allies and small pox). I'd give you the Spanish if they were outmanned 10:1, but 200:1? Remember, the Aztecs did have weapons capable of piercing Spanish armor:

http://www.aztec-history.com/ancient-aztec-weapon.html

Yeah, it is an academic argument but I find it very interesting.

 

[NikolaeVarius]

500 Spanish vs. 100,000 Aztecs (I'm ignoring allies and small pox). I'd give you the Spanish if they were outmanned 10:1, but 200:1? Remember, the Aztecs did have weapons capable of piercing Spanish armor:

http://www.aztec-history.com/ancient-aztec-weapon.html

Yeah, it is an academic argument but I find it very interesting.

1) What battle are you talking about?
2) Yeah, ignoring the tens of thousands of native allies that the Spanish had, the Aztecs should have crushed them. But you know, tens of thousands of native allies helped the Spanish fight.

 

[purbeast0]

"estimates of 2 million to 18 million"

lol .... might as well just say "estimates of 0 to 80 trillion"

 

[IndyColtsFan]

1) What battle are you talking about?
2) Yeah, ignoring the tens of thousands of native allies that the Spanish had, the Aztecs should have crushed them. But you know, tens of thousands of native allies helped the Spanish fight.

We're just talking Spanish vs. Aztecs right now. Granted, it is an academic discussion and mainly a thought experiment, but would Spanish tactics and armaments be enough to overcome a 200:1 advantage by themselves even if the Spanish were in a fairly defensible location? We're not talking an actual historical battle here; WelshBloke's contention is that the Spanish advantage would be enough to win and I am struggling to see it.

"estimates of 2 million to 18 million"

lol .... might as well just say "estimates of 0 to 80 trillion"

Lol, I laughed at that too.

 

[feralkid]

A people should know when they are conquered ...

Would you?

 

[brainhulk]

Wasn't this an episode on deadliest warrior?

 

[Printer Bandit]

was there an equivalent to MLK that was Native American?

 

[zinfamous]

I'd wager that it's relatively miniscule compared to the number of original pre-columbian settlers that were later massacred by the pre-columbian natives that we know.

some rather crazy PopGen stuff coming out, these days....

 

[DrPizza]

Yes, it was genocide. Scalping didn't originate with the Indians - scalping originated as a bounty for killing Indians - you were paid by the number of scalps your brought back. There were all sorts of atrocities committed against Indians - wholesale extermination of Indian villages. (I suffered through a grad class on this topic. Professor was the Malcolm X of Native Americans) As I recall, in California, they would wipe out entire Indian villages and burned them to the ground - they threw babies into the fire to spare their ammunition.

Here's one account:

The whites attacked and the bullets were everywhere. Over four hundred and fifty of our people were murdered or lay dying on the ground. Then the whitemen built a huge fire and threw in our sacred ceremonial dresses, the regalia, and our feathers, and the flames grew higher. Then they threw in the babies, many of them were still alive. Some tied weights around the necks of the dead and threw them into the nearby water.

http://www.cabrillo.edu/~crsmith/anth6_americanperiod.html

What makes all of this really disturbing is that such wanton killing was subsidized by both the State and Federal governments. Almost any white could raise a volunteer company, outfit it with guns, ammunition, horses and supplies and be assured that the government would reimburse all costs. In 1851 &1852, the California legislature passed several Acts authorizing payment of over $1.1 million to reimburse citizens for "private military forarys." And again, in 1857, the State authorized an additional $410,000 for the same purposes. And the U.S. Congress reimbursed the state for what was nothing less than SUBSIDIZED MURDER and GENOCIDE. As if that was enough, in 1854, Commissioner of Indian Affairs in California, T.J. Henly, proposed to the federal government that all California Indians be hauled off to a reservation east of the Sierra Nevada mountains in order to "rid the state of this class of population."

 

[zinfamous]

"estimates of 2 million to 18 million"

lol .... might as well just say "estimates of 0 to 80 trillion"

no different the estimates attributed to Stalin or Mao, for example:

25 million, up to 150 million or 200 million.

10 million, up to 50 or 75 million, etc.

 

[gotsmack]

Cortez way outclassed the Americans in arms and armour. Theres no way the natives could have held him off. They might have slowed him down slightly but the slaughter would have been frightful.

No, if the natives were organized they could have defeated him. Muskets were nowhere as accurate as rifles and the gunpowder had issues with the humidity of the region. Remember that at this time european wars were still fought by forming a line and charging the enemy. Thousands of native warriors could have over run 500 armored europeans.

 

[Gooberlx2]

then it's stupid to use the word holocaust.

It's stupid to use the word "holocaust" to address the hundreds of years entirety to European conquest of the Americas. There absolutely are pockets of genocide, however. Jackson's Indian Removal policy was essentially a state sponsored holocaust. Though the intent wasn't to wipe out the populations, it did have the effect of killing several thousands during their relocation.

 

[DrPizza]

More California:

And it became geocide when the popular press proclaimed, as the Yreka Herald of 1853 did:

We hope that the Government will render such aid as will enable the citizens of the north to carry on a war of extermination until the last beloved patriot of these tribes has been killed. Extermination is no longer a question of time -- the time has arrived, the work has commenced, and let the first man that says treaty or peace be regarded as a traitor.
​

​

 

[Gooberlx2]

No, if the natives were organized they could have defeated him. Muskets were nowhere as accurate as rifles and the gunpowder had issues with the humidity of the region. Remember that at this time european wars were still fought by forming a line and charging the enemy. Thousands of native warriors could have over run 500 armored europeans.

Yep. This isn't 2 Abrams tanks vs. 10,000 Chinese cavalrymen after all.

 

[Markbnj]

It's stupid to use the word "holocaust" to address the hundreds of years entirety to European conquest of the Americas. There absolutely are pockets of genocide, however. Jackson's Indian Removal policy was essentially a state sponsored holocaust. Though the intent wasn't to wipe out the populations, it did have the effect of killing several thousands during their relocation.

The history can be picked apart and analyzed endlessly, and sometimes even profitably. I was just commenting on the logical conclusion the OP was attempting to derive from the statement quoted.

 

[KMFJD]

We're just talking Spanish vs. Aztecs right now. Granted, it is an academic discussion and mainly a thought experiment, but would Spanish tactics and armaments be enough to overcome a 200:1 advantage by themselves even if the Spanish were in a fairly defensible location? We're not talking an actual historical battle here; WelshBloke's contention is that the Spanish advantage would be enough to win and I am struggling to see it.




Lol, I laughed at that too.

A great book on this is - Conquest: Montezuma, Cortes and the Fall of Old Mexico

http://www.amazon.com/Conquest-Corte.../dp/0671511041

 

[AznAnarchy99]

Sure it was. But we as the victors don't give a damn. You think if Germany won WW2 they would give a damn about the Holocaust?

 

[qliveur]

I'm inclined to view it as genocide, yes.

 

[Linflas]

A great book on this is - Conquest: Montezuma, Cortes and the Fall of Old Mexico

http://www.amazon.com/Conquest-Corte.../dp/0671511041

Or this one: "The Hummingbird and the Hawk: Conquest and Sovereignty in the Valley of Mexico 1503-1541"
http://www.amazon.com/The-Hummingbir...dp/0061318981#

 

[TallBill]

Sure it was. But we as the victors don't give a damn. You think if Germany won WW2 they would give a damn about the Holocaust?

I didn't know that we're of Spanish descent. Besides, the United States Government came to be out of revolution. We didn't start killing innocents until way later

 

[purbeast0]

no different the estimates attributed to Stalin or Mao, for example:

25 million, up to 150 million or 200 million.

10 million, up to 50 or 75 million, etc.

yes and those are equally as retarded.

might as well say 0 million up to