You might also mention the use of force to get rid of the Nazis, and the use of force to stop the Muslim invasions of Europe, as well.
As for "slaughtering the Native Americans" -- that's one-sided, although well-intentioned. The indigenous nomadic hunter-gatherers did quite a bit of slaughtering the European farmers for "stealing their ancestral lands" on their own side, too.
Take, for example, my own Ojibwe ancestors, who, by their narratives, used to live along the shores of a salt water body (disputed exactly where but in Canada) and were forced to move south by Global Cooling (the end of the Medieval Optimum). They kicked out the Sioux from their woodland habitat, forcing the Sioux onto the Great Plains.
Among the tactics used on both sides were torturing and slaughtering entire villages, men, women, children, and the aged and infirm, and cannibalism. Which was not learned from, nor practiced by, the European settlers. They killed each other for access to food, and access to trade routes after the Europeans showed up.
The biggest cause of death among the indigenous populations of the Americas after the Europeans came was lack of resistance to disease. European diseases killed perhaps 90% of the original inhabitants. (African, too, like malaria and yellow fever, but the Europeans brought the Africans.)
Not that I deny that Europeans slaughtered Native Americans. Just that it was one-sided. |
