The literature on the history of California Indians from the early eighteen hundreds to nineteen hundred is well documented and there isn't much to dispute. It was a pretty one sided campaign.
>>"Really? The Indian villages were just "minding their own business" and had no intention of waging total war against the white man intruding upon their lands?"
The terms "War of extermination" are repeated over and over again in the literature of the time period. From news papers to the mouths of public officials.
With what I know, using 20/20 hindsight, and if I were an Indian, I imagine I would have willingly gone to my death avenging wrongs against my people. But that is not what is described in the history books for Indians of that period. What is described is wanton brutality, rape, abuse and starvation in a once abundant land. For the most part Indians were taking it because they were out gunned, out numbered, out of options, frustrated and confused.
There is some history of military conflict with the Indians after some local uprising but a remarkable number of the campaigns are described as either uneventful (resulting in treaties) or bloody massacres of entire villages. Seriously take a look for yourself.
en.wikipedia.org
What I have shown you is just a smattering of the accounts. Check it out for yourself. It isn't a left winger perspective, it is overwhelming documentation of what actually happened that should be removing any doubt that the treatment of American Indians was a genocidal action.
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Ten, what I am somewhat skeptical about is the exaggeration the first explorers/settlers used to describe the innocence and kind nature of Indians. They were looking for sponsorship for further escapades and needed a good story. The Europeans were technically advanced and I am convince that was the single significan factor that came between the cultures. On the one hand the Europeans were probably treated to the fatted calf, so to speak, but partly because the Indians saw some trade goods coming from the Europeans they figured were invaluable based on their own experiences. They were probably friendly and welcomed the Europeans, after all a boat load of Europeans didn't amount to that many, what would be the harm? In any event the first couple of hundred years was relatively friendly.
People are people, so I doubt that as a group the Indians were any better or worse than Europeans ... at least until the appetite for more realestate became a necessity for early Americans. Then everything was taken from any Indians who were not willing to assimilate into European life style, and after that even those who were willing were force out of their homes, their businesses confiscated and their property seized, as in the Trail of Tears episode. There would be many Indian extermination or removal campaigns to follow.
The description given by early explorers was of a land of plenty when it came to wild life and of Indians who engaged in productive farming. By the time we get to the California gold rush, Indians are being deliberately starved to death as a strategy to exterminate them. The removal of the buffalo was no willy nilly incidental side effect of westward expansion. General Sherman who perfected the idea of destroying supply lines was the architect of the buffalo decimation.
Indians throughout the west who did not go to reservations were without resources needed for mere sustainance, resources that had once been abundant, of course they were desparate.
Was it genocidal?? There is absolutely no doubt that is was. Even you seem to be coming around, though you still wont use the politically incorrect but accurate term ...
.>>>...having to resort to this sort of "ethnic cleansing."
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