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there are recorded incidents: https://project1492.org/small-pox-blankets/ https://project1492.org/small-pox-blankets/ the controversy is mostly around whether
by paimapi 2mo ago
there are recorded incidents: https://project1492.org/small-pox-blankets/ https://project1492.org/small-pox-blankets/
the controversy is mostly around whether or not it was a systemic, pervasive form of biological warfare. the evidence base is fairly small but needs to be considered in context of Native American cultural habits around durable recordkeeping (eg trade ledgers) vs colonial, and if colonists would record such an act
there was also active ethnic cleanses and genocides committed by the US government repeatedly throughout US history too and those are very well documented, all dotted with stories as bad or actively and intentionally worse than biological warfare
https://news.uoregon.edu/content/historian-examines-native-american-genocide-its-legacy-and-survivors https://news.uoregon.edu/content/historian-examines-native-a...
"He was speaking in opposition to a treaty that proposed the Cherokees sell off 20 million acres of homeland—a large portion of present-day Kentucky and Tennessee. This tension exploded with the commencement of independence hostilities in July 1776; some Cherokee leaders sided with the British, and in response the US charged thousands of colonial troops with “the utter extirpation of the Cherokee Nation.”
https://sites.uab.edu/humanrights/2017/04/17/indian-removal-act-genocide-native-americans/ https://sites.uab.edu/humanrights/2017/04/17/indian-removal-...
"Throughout American history, the treatment of indigenous Native Americans has violated numerous articles of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. These violations resulted in the loss of numerous Native American homelands, the Cherokee being only one example, and the genocide of numerous other smaller tribes since the beginning of European colonization. This is largely due to Eurocentric ideals, like the natural law of the Puritan worldview, which elevates the status of European peoples over that of indigenous, Native American peoples through a biased worldview. This mindset is so pervasive and powerful that it still prevails today, evidenced by modern films and television that paint Native American tribes as savage, ignorant and of ill intent toward the “white man”, and the policies of the current United States government."
see also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_American_genocide_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_American_genocide_in_th... or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Indian_massacres_in_North_America https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Indian_massacres_in_No... or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denial_of_genocides_of_Indigenous_peoples#Denial_examples https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denial_of_genocides_of_Indigen...
- culi 2mo agoMalcolm Harris' book Palo Alto: A History of California, Capitalism, and the World goes into surprising depth on the history of the California Genocide[0] in the first few chapters. It's a very well-researched work [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_genocide https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_genocide
- WalterBright 2mo agoFrom your reference: "it is the colonizers who get to write the history" There's a simple explanation for this. The colonists were literate, and would keep diaries and write letters about their experiences. Churches would log births, deaths, and marriages. Printers would print newspapers. Later, these materials were fodder for academics who converted them into historical narratives. The Indians were not literate and so did not write letters and keep diaries. Even things like the number of Indians cannot be pinned down with any precision.
- paimapi 2mo agothe Native Americans were highly literate, they just didn't record granular details to ledgers because they didn't have strictly hierarchical institutions that utilized this data for controlling their population there is so much easily searchable resources for this and though it might not be your intent, your comment reads as willfully ignorant for being so broad and bought into the type of 16th century Puritan Eurocentrism that many of the articles above discuss in depth * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesoamerican_writing_systems https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesoamerican_writing_systems * https://www.science.org/content/article/roots-mesoamerican-writing https://www.science.org/content/article/roots-mesoamerican-w... * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ojibwe_writing_systems https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ojibwe_writing_systems * https://www.britannica.com/topic/Indigenous-languages-of-North-America https://www.britannica.com/topic/Indigenous-languages-of-Nor...
- WalterBright 2mo agoHighly literate? From your britannica reference: "No native writing system was known among Indigenous peoples of North America at the time of first European contact" And yes, I was referring to the North American Indians. I know the Mayans had writing. I even have a book on the Mayan writing system. > they didn't have strictly hierarchical institutions that utilized this data for controlling their population People did not write letters and keep diaries in order to control their population. The book "Empire of the Summer Moon" which is a history of the Commanche empire, and the book laments that their only sources were diaries and letters written by colonists.