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Reeotch
Trad climber
Kayenta, AZ
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It was the United States, under our beloved Andrew Jackson, that actually had a policy of extermination towards the native americans, the Indian removal Act of 1830.
I would guess that the U.S. military once it got involved in the removal process, probably killed the most natives in a violent way.
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rockermike
Trad climber
Berkeley
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I've had this book recommended by more than one scholar (though I haven't read it yet).
American Holocaust: The Conquest of the New World (available at Amazon (of course). Book gets excellent reviews from the serious book press.
Basically he considers the conquering of the Americas the greatest genocide (and the most denied) in the history of humanity.
http://www.amazon.com/American-Holocaust-Conquest-New-World/dp/0195085574
(see the reviews at the bottom of the amazon page), and look inside to read the first few pages of the intro. Powerful stuff.
Oh yea - but at least the Spanish had the respect to marry local women - I guess after they killed off all the men.
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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It would definitely be los pinches gachupines although I think
the Detroit automakers should get some votes too.
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Dolomite
climber
Anchorage
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Re: Spanish conquest of Mexico: "on the eve of the conquest, its population is about 25 million; in 1600, it is one million." From The Conquest of America by Tzvetan Todorov.
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Jennie
Trad climber
Elk Creek, Idaho
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David S Jones, in Virgin soils Revisited, writes that native Indian populations declined by as much as 95 percent in the first century after the arrival of Christopher Columbus.
Epidemiological vulnerability studies led William McNeill and Alfred W. Crosby in the 1970s to claim the overwhelming majority of native polulation decline was due to disease. Many argue that the depopulation of the Americas was almost completely and inevitablly the result of contact between disease-experienced Old World populations and the "virgin" populations of the Americas
Most estimates of the native population at Columbus' arrival in the Americas run between 22 million and 120 million.
Oppression demands a wider definition and measure than blood or body count. How do we relate and correlate resource exploitation of Spaniards to the land grabbing of the English, the ruthlessness and forcd labor of the Spanish to the arrogance and ethnocentrism of the English?
Perhaps we'd rather compare the evils of Nazism vs Bolshevism. .....doesn't hit as close to home.
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Josh Nash
Social climber
riverbank ca
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this guy hands down
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rockermike
Trad climber
Berkeley
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Jun 14, 2012 - 05:20pm PT
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^^^^who is "this guy"?^^^^
Another recommended book (though quite long) on related subject - 'Conquistadors', full bloody detail on Cortez's conquest of the Aztecs. Ruthless people - on both sides I suppose. Many non-Aztec Indians joined forces with Cortez because they were sick of the Aztecs. But in true Cortezian fashion, once the Aztecs were out of the way he turned on his allies. What a fine species we are.
Available on Audible.com if you need something to listen to while working out (which is how I get most of my reading done these days. ha)
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hb81
climber
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Jun 14, 2012 - 05:26pm PT
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^^^^who is "this guy"?^^^^
Vlad the Impaler aka Dracula
Batshit crazy, but not a conquistador
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dirt claud
Social climber
san diego,ca
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Jun 14, 2012 - 05:57pm PT
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This book is available as a TV series on Netflix on free streaming I believe.
Another good one on there is called Conquistadors.
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aspendougy
Trad climber
Los Angeles, CA
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Jun 14, 2012 - 06:52pm PT
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I read that the Yosemite Indians were nearly wiped out by a disease epidemic about 200 years before the white man showed up; then they had repopulated the area by the time the Mariposa Battalion went in. Many epidemics were introduced by whites, but maybe not all.
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Mighty Hiker
climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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Jun 14, 2012 - 07:28pm PT
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^^^
There is some discussion as to how far diseases introduced by Europeans into the eastern Americas in the 16th and 17th centuries propagated westward before fading out. Once a disease such as smallpox caught on in Amerindian populations on the east coast, there was sufficient population density for it to infect successive populations westward at least to the prairies. Whether the diseases managed to find enough victims to leapfrog across the western plains and mountains, with much lower population density, being the key.
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Tobia
Social climber
Denial
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Jun 15, 2012 - 12:47am PT
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Timing is everything. I am knee deep into American Holocaust that rockermike is speaking of.
Disease certainly was devastating; but it was incidental. At least when it was unleashed in the 16th Century by the Spanish. The blood-letting was intentional and meant for total annihilation, no defensive posturing in their motives.
The English Governor of Virginia, William Berkeley, had genocidal warfare figured out with a balanced budget plan to slaughter all adult Indian males and sell the women and children in the lucrative slave market to cover the cost.
When the native population shrinks from 100,000 to less than 600 and the colonists population starts at zero and hits 60,000 in the same time frame, there is some serious killing goin' down.
From what I've read in this book I'd say the brutality was split even between the European powers. Whichever nation was lacking in numbers made up for it in style points.
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Tobia
Social climber
Denial
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Jun 15, 2012 - 01:15am PT
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Tony,
I guess every one that thirsts for blood has a lighter side and vice versa, even someone who could dream up the Cowardly Lion. On the other hand, he also came up with those evil flyin' monkeys.
Nice guys didn't win in the age old struggle of good over evil in the Western Hemisphere. I can't quite wrap my mind around that kind of greed and brutality.
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juar
Sport climber
socal
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Jun 15, 2012 - 01:25am PT
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at the time,
africans cost money. it was investment
the irish cost nothing. the brit were subsidizing their export. so in the early colonies an irish slave cost much less than an african. you took care of your african slave because he cost money. you abused and threw away your irish slave because the streets were full of them.
the first landed owners in the new world immediately started tying down the irish women they got and giving their african slave a go at them.
cuz a darker skinned child was more valuable than a white one
business here, turn of the 17th
whatever the spanish were doing,
they wernt enslaving their next door neighbors, shipping them off and forcing them to breed as a a business model based on selling children
or were they?
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Jun 15, 2012 - 01:56am PT
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Ironic how easily we see the abuse and genocide, intentional and unintentional of the past and yet the present is hardly in question.
and the aftereffects of colonialism threaten our existence many years after it's demise. Without colonialism, there would have been no Iraq war, no Vietnam War (2-3 million dead), and the Israeli-Arab conflict that could spark WW3 comes right from colonialism too.
And while germs were the big unintended killers way back in the day, who knows which of our new innovations will kill millions in retrospect? We nuked the Japanese in WW2 and if their #4 reactor building at Fukushima were to fall and burn, in turn making them abandon the whole plant to overheat and burn, it's possible that the Japanese could wind up nuking us right back
Peace
Karl
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Tobia
Social climber
Denial
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Jun 15, 2012 - 02:05am PT
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I don't think it is a matter of questioning the happenings of the present. But it is difficult to discuss all the world's trouble at once.
Understanding the past sheds a lot of light on the present. As the sayings go: history repeats itself and greed is the root of all evil.
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giegs
climber
Tardistan
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Jun 15, 2012 - 02:08am PT
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Tim Flannery does a good job of advancing and refining Diamonds argument in The Eternal Frontier. By distinguishing the characteristics of French, Spanish, and British invasions he argues that the English was the least mutualistic.
French invasion into the continent was sparse and the nature of the fur trade promoted friendly relations and more intermingling.
The Spanish were able to graft their system of governance onto a society accustomed to conquerors. This can be framed as a transfer of power and helps explain the extent of indigene slavery in Spanish colonies.
The part of North America conquered by the English had experienced a great ice age for soil creation and need for control of soil rather than furs and the lack of readily subverted power structures made expansion expulsion and extermination the most sucessful means of invasion.
Brief summary of the argument, but it certainly has its appeal.
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Jun 15, 2012 - 02:13am PT
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On a lighter note
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