How’s the genocide of a whole continent “average history”? The magnitude of destruction in the Americas is not common and this downplay of a continent-wide genocide is annoying.
Because there are other examples of continent wide genocide.
Humans are the fucking worst and it isn’t unique to one area
because there are other examples
…ok? I guess I don’t get why there needs to be any comparison, since it inevitably ends up sounding like “oh, well this one wasn’t as bad as that one. Happens all the time.”
Other examples existing does not change that it is historically unprecedented and far from the norm. And its just a really strange and pointless thing to point.
Person A: “my dad died in a car bomb” Person B: “ehh, average family death” A: “uhh what?” B: "well, there are other examples of people dying in car bombs, dude! "
The root comment was “average history”. I replied to someone suggesting it wasnt, and disagreed with them.
To use your analogy,
"My dad died of old age.
What? That’s insane no one dies of that.
No, it’s pretty normal"
Did they? I was under the impression they came in, did a conquer, and basically left with the conquered understanding that the horde’d be back for their tribute.
Yeah they obliterated smaller outside towns to scare the bigger cities into giving them shit. They killed a lot but I’m not sure it counts as genocide since the eradication of people wasn’t the point.
Because you’re lumping in the unavoidable disease transfer of first contact with intentional conquest and violence. Take away that, which was going to happen whenever any Afro-Eurasian community first interacted with people from the americas, and you get a very comparable situation to many things throughout history.
The genocide didn’t happen solely after the first contact, the massacre of natives lasted centuries. Many nations were wiped out in the XIX century.
And a quote for you
Proponents of the default position emphasize attrition by disease despite other causes equally deadly, if not more so. In doing so they refuse to accept that the colonization of America was genocidal by plan, not simply the tragic fate of populations lacking immunity to disease.
Professor Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
