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Comment by ivanca | Hacker News Reader

Americans killed all the natives, then they killed all the Mexicans in California (ok "expulsed" some). And now everyone must believe they are the good ones and kicking Latinos is the right thing. You know what, fuck you, prove you are different than ISIS, prove you are rightfully the world police .

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Actually the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo extended citizenship to the formerly Mexican citizens of California at the end of the Mexican-American war, 90% accepted this offer. Legally the United States considered individuals of Mexican heritage, "white". America certainly has a difficult history, however it is incredibly misleading to say that they killed all the Mexicans in California. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Guadalupe_Hidalgo

The majority of (living) Americans had nothing to do with those things. But yeah, as an American I should be doing more to improve the world and in response to your vitriol I will try to do better.

>Americans killed all the natives, then they killed all the Mexicans in California

That's long time ago. The mind set and cultures were different back then. If you want to use history as some sort of mockery or prove a point. Every countries/citizens in the world can be blamed for something.

What? It's not even accurate. All as a substitute for some?

What are you talking about?

I'm pretty sure all the natives weren't killed as I talked to my father today which constitutes proof of the falsity of the statement.

You've chosen a nice arbitrary point to start judging people. Europeans didn't disturb some idyllic peace in the Americas. The natives were slaughtering and conquering each other left and right. The difference is that the Europeans had the advanced technology and culture to win.

Unwitting biological warfare helps too. Conquest is a whole lot easier when something that gives your people the sniffles more than decimates your enemies.

But yeah, the Aztecs and the Incas didn't become great empires by sitting around the campfire and singing kumbaya. Which is part of the reason Cortez and Pizarro were able to beat them with such small armies of Spaniards... backed up by tens of thousands of native allies.

Yeah, the Aztecs were particularly brutal. They would actually hold off from fully conquering some neighboring tribes to use them as punching bags for ritual warfare and the taking of captives for human sacrifice.

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