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Comment by Synaesthesia | Hacker News Reader

Read "American Holocaust" The Conquest of the New World by David Stannard. You will have a different conception of that period of history. After reading it I was convinced there was an official policy of wiping out the native inhabitants, which was largely successful. The smallpox may have been accidental, but beyond that it was genocide, in both South and North America.

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Tribes wiped each other out from time to time. Native tribes did at as well as pale tribes coming over in boats.

It's awful. I don't think people should do it anymore. But "native inhabitants" isn't a uniform group any more than "white men". And both groups have had their share of unsavory individuals.

They fought but not with the degree of murderous violence that Europeans had, and native Americans were immediately enslaved, called subhuman, savaged etc and were deliberately exterminated without trying to hide the fact. Like I said I thought it was an exaggeration but having read the book, it changed my perspective on history.

When the first European explorers arrived in South America, there was a massive and advanced civilisation there. Far greater and larger than I ever thought. Massive cities were destroyed, some of them engineering marvels. The enslavement and murder of native Americans continued there for centuries.

Not with the degree of murderous violence?

You are aware of what the Aztecs (for instance) did with enslaved tribes?

They may have been brutal but I think it was exceeded by the scale of the European brutality. Are you aware of what Europeans did with captured natives? Made them work in silver mines in horrendous conditions, bound together with irons around their necks. Then if one fell down a mountain the whole gang did.

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