> I doubt you understand how large the US is if you think > that. Most of it was empty. The union was already strongly > formed before the genocide of the west

> I doubt you understand how large the US is if you think > that. Most of it was empty. The union was already strongly > formed before the genocide of the west got under way. According to the book 1491 (which is a great read, highly recommended), the population of the New World was much larger, and more more historic than we may be lead to imagine. Millions of Native Americans lived on the east coast alone. What may have did them in was disease (smallpox, etc) that desecrated the people before even the pilgrims came on the scene. What the first colonist may have seen was just all that was left of a epidemic. (I also agree a genocide also happened in the West, from what survivors there were)