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burythehatchet Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Jun-22-05 08:04 PM
Original message
Does anyone know how many native Americans
were exterminated or killed in battle during the European conquest of America?
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Mythsaje Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Jun-22-05 08:11 PM
Response to Original message
1. Far too many...
the numbers, no...

Sorry
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Warpy Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Jun-22-05 08:22 PM
Response to Reply #1
9. But far fewer than were killed by the new diseases
that Europeans brought with them.

Something like 90% died of disease within two years of first contact, at least in the east.

It was a holocaust of disease and warfare, but the disease was surely the worst part of it.
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Mythsaje Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Jun-22-05 08:31 PM
Response to Reply #9
13. At least some of that
was unintentional.
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burythehatchet Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Jun-22-05 08:39 PM
Response to Reply #9
17. I'm starting to learn that the victors write the history books
why wouldn't the white man have contracted the diseases of the native?
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Kraklen Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Jun-22-05 08:55 PM
Response to Reply #17
25. Well, they did.
Small pox was a tremendous problem for Europeans in the late 18th century. Because of that, and the Plague, and a host of other diseases, Europeans and a much better immune system for those specific diseases. Which is why they could sell the Native Americans small pox ridden blankets and get away with it.
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lenidog Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Jun-22-05 08:14 PM
Response to Original message
2. No body knows because no one knows how many there were at
any time during the conquest of America. All we have is educated guesses.
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cynatnite Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Jun-22-05 08:14 PM
Response to Original message
3. There were an estimated 20 million native americans
prior to europeans coming here. The numbers got down to about 150,000 people at their lowest point.

This is what we were told in Native American History when I was in college.
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Mika Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Jun-22-05 08:18 PM
Response to Reply #3
6. It was 400 yrs of multigenerational conquest..
Edited on Wed Jun-22-05 08:20 PM by Mika
.. so a simple count of total pop #s from one date to another severely under counts the total.

I've seen figures that range from 70 mil to 170 mil. :shrug:

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enigami Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Jun-22-05 08:14 PM
Response to Original message
4. Most of them?
If you include smallpox.
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burythehatchet Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Jun-22-05 08:20 PM
Response to Reply #4
8. Smallpox had to do
because chemical weapons were not yet available I suppose.
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cynatnite Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Jun-22-05 08:23 PM
Response to Reply #8
10. Starvation as well
There was obscene neglect on the reservations which lead to a lot of death. There were also forced marches. Check out the Trail of Tears. I call that a massacre.



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CatWoman Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Jun-22-05 09:10 PM
Response to Reply #10
29. and don't forget the near extermination of the buffalo
the buffalo provided Natives with not only food, but clothing, tools, shelter, etc.
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CatWoman Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Jun-22-05 08:16 PM
Response to Original message
5. ....
"By conservative estimates, the population of the United states prior to European contact was greater than 12 million. Four centuries later, the count was reduced by 95% to 237 thousand.

http://www.iearn.org/hgp/aeti/aeti-1997/native-americans.html
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burythehatchet Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Jun-22-05 08:19 PM
Response to Reply #5
7. get my point?
Edited on Wed Jun-22-05 08:19 PM by burythehatchet
Its not like this culture isn't capable of it.
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CatWoman Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Jun-22-05 08:37 PM
Response to Reply #7
16. Selected Death Tolls for Wars, Massacres and Atrocities
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EFerrari Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Jun-22-05 08:43 PM
Response to Reply #7
19. Is this an illegal immigration thread?
:)
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burythehatchet Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Jun-22-05 08:44 PM
Response to Reply #19
20. I've always said "Native Americans had a Horrible Immigration Policy"
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Kraklen Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Jun-22-05 08:57 PM
Response to Reply #20
26. I'm here because of the Native American immigration policy.
So I've really got no moral business complaining about it, or other lax immigration policies.
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burythehatchet Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Jun-22-05 09:06 PM
Response to Reply #26
27. didn't work out too good for them
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Kraklen Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Jun-22-05 09:08 PM
Response to Reply #27
28. Yeah.
But that was because of murdering, raping, pillaging white men.

It's not like it was because of perfectly peaceful hardworking mexicans or anything non-threateninglike that.
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whistle Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Jun-22-05 08:26 PM
Response to Original message
11. The Spanish pretty much wiped out the Aztecs of Mexico and ....
Edited on Wed Jun-22-05 08:36 PM by whistle
...the Incas of Peru. Mexico had a 25 million and Perus and Chile had some 14 million people spread across their empires. Between war and diseases they wiped out over than 95%. The Portuguese were ruthless against the natives in the Amazon rain forest areas and river basin. There were also natives living in the islands of the Caribbean which were reduced and exterminated. Perhaps as many as 5 million or more of these people were killed.

Then the American settlements by the British and French began their push against the coastal tribes on the east coast and into the Upper and Lower Canada regions around the St Laurence River and the Great Lakes. Where there was resistance from the Iroquois and Mohican's the white Europeans slaughtered and subdued and starved the natives. But it was the Americans who committed the greatest acts of genocide. The great push westward resulted in the resettlement of whole nations on special reservations where they were exploited, starved and subjected to wholesale murder.

<snip>
Native American Genocide Still Haunts United States
By Leah Trabich
Cold Spring Harbor High School
New York, USA

In the past, the main thrust of the Holocaust/Genocide Project's magazine, An End To Intolerance, has been the genocides that occurred in history and outside of the United States. Still, what we mustn't forget is that mass killing of Native Americans occurred in our own country. As a result, bigotry and racial discrimination still exist.

"In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue" . . . and made the first contact with the "Indians." For Native Americans, the world after 1492 would never be the same. This date marked the beginning of the long road of persecution and genocide of Native Americans, our indigenous people. Genocide was an important cause of the decline for many tribes.

"By conservative estimates, the population of the United states prior to European contact was greater than 12 million. Four centuries later, the count was reduced by 95% to 237 thousand.

In 1493, when Columbus returned to the Hispaniola, he quickly implemented policies of slavery and mass extermination of the Taino population of the Caribbean. Within three years, five million were dead. Las Casas, the primary historian of the Columbian era, writes of many accounts of the horrors that the Spanish colonists inflicted upon the indigenous population: hanging them en mass, hacking their children into pieces to be used as dog feed, and other horrid cruelties. The works of Las Casas are often omitted from popular American history books and courses because Columbus is considered a hero by many, even today.

<more>
<link> http://www.iearn.org/hgp/aeti/aeti-1997/native-americans.html

<other link> http://www.millersv.edu/~columbus/data/art/STANN-01.ART
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Tsiyu Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Jun-22-05 08:26 PM
Response to Original message
12. Also under-reported is the slavery
of Native Americans. There are many a mean tale which shall never be told....
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CatWoman Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Jun-22-05 08:32 PM
Response to Reply #12
15. Did you know that some natives kept African American slaves?
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Kraklen Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Jun-22-05 08:44 PM
Response to Reply #15
21. They were more of a "equal opportunity slavers" though...
weren't they? African Americans, whites, other tribes...
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CatWoman Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Jun-22-05 08:49 PM
Response to Reply #21
23. Dunno -
they were no more "equal opportunity" than whites I suppose.

Whites never met a race they didn't try to enslave.
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Kraklen Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Jun-22-05 08:53 PM
Response to Reply #23
24. Agreed.
I think the Native American practice of "slavery" was utterly and completely different. "Slaves" were considered members of the tribes, had personal freedoms, etc. Sacajawea, she was a "slave" before marrying the Frenchmen and then returning to her home tribe with Lewis and Clark.

I really don't know that much about it. White people killed Native Americans off before there was much documentation.
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Tsiyu Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Jun-22-05 09:11 PM
Response to Reply #15
30. No doubt
Rotten folks in every race, eh Catwoman?
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Zen Democrat Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Jun-22-05 08:32 PM
Response to Original message
14. There were 3 million killed after Columbus ravaged Hispanola.
Edited on Wed Jun-22-05 08:32 PM by Zen Democrat
3 million Arawaks were killed according to the young priest Bartolome de las Casas. Read the first chapter of Howard Zinn's "A People's History of the United States."

The number of millions killed in this hemisphere is incalculable.
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burythehatchet Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Jun-22-05 08:43 PM
Response to Original message
18. The point of the thread is that it is not such a huge leap
Edited on Wed Jun-22-05 08:43 PM by burythehatchet
to imagine what we are capable of inflicting. The Nazis could not kill fast enough. If they had more technology they would have killed many more. This cabal today has more technology. How many millions do you suppose one nuclear missle will inflict? These people are not far from there.
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CatWoman Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Jun-22-05 08:47 PM
Response to Reply #18
22. you really have to watch "Auschwitz: Inside the Nazi State"
it's out on DVD now.

It documents the Nazi killing machine, from it's beginning to end.

They tried firing squads, but needed alternate methods due to the trauma inflicted on the soldiers doing the killing. Too up close and personal.

They next tried dynamiting them. Still too bloody, and up close and personal.

When they first started using gas, it was limited to rigged vans and such.

They finally graduated to the huge chambers, and the rest is history.
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