# Denial of Native Americans and Native Australians by analysts **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 14, 2014, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/denial-of-native-americans-and-native-australians-by-analysts/695544 "2014-08-14T20:36:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2014, 12:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/denial-of-native-americans-and-native-australians-by-analysts/695544/41 "2014-08-20T12:13:28Z")
> [@ILikeForeignLanguages](#): > > So, I’ve recently started hearing Dinesh D’Souza and Rush Limbaugh And there’s your problem. While I would be interested in a few quotes, at the same time my interest is pretty much killed by the fact that we’re talking about a pair of dishonest right-wing hucksters. Rush Limbaugh, as a source, is akin to Alex Jones, Mike Adams, or the shit-flinging hobo in the alleyway across the street. If you’re listening to him and taking him seriously, there’s something very wrong. D’Souza is only marginally better. So could we have some real quotes, please? ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2014, 12:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/denial-of-native-americans-and-native-australians-by-analysts/695544/42 "2014-08-20T12:27:09Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#): > > On treaties - part of the problem with treaties with Native Americans is the whites really had no good way to communicate with the Indians. They had to use interpreters who were not always reliable or had the language ability they claimed so often times the Indians signed treaties they really did not understand. This lead to many conflicts. Rather more often, the Indians understood the treaties quite well and the encroaching whites simply violated them. There have been numerous lawsuits over the past 30 years with various nations suing the Federal Government for its violation of, (or its failure to prevent states’ violation of), treaties. In a large number of those suits, the Indian Nations have prevailed. There were a few occasions when nomadic nations perceived land ownership differently than the encroaching settlers, but the agricultural nations from the Mississippi basin to the East Coast had no such misapprehensions. > [@Urbanredneck](#): > > The thing is in history one has always had to protect your land from outsiders. Both in North America and Australia the Europeans came, saw the land, and wanted to take it plain and simple. The Indians and Aboriginals were divided up among small tribes with no coherent government and military means to stop them. Their simply was no way to stop them. And if the Europeans hadnt done it you can bet that an Asian power would eventually have taken Australia or the Aztecs would have taken North America. > > Look, we cannot change the past. I live in Kansas on land that once was the land of the Shawnee Indians but I’m not going anywhere. Nor is any resident of Sydney. The best we can do is honor those that are left. > > Oh, by the way. Their is nothing stopping anyone who truly feels bad about the past from selling all their property, giving it to an Indian tribe, and moving to Europe. You appear to be arguing against points no one in this thread has raised. No one has made a claim that we should restore the stolen lands. Too much history has already swamped that idea. The question of the OP is in regard to the factual assessment of how much of the depopulation of North America and Australia were deliberate acts that we would now regard as genocidal. ---
**Author:** ![tnetennba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7993a0/32.png) [@tnetennba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tnetennba)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2014, 12:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/denial-of-native-americans-and-native-australians-by-analysts/695544/43 "2014-08-20T12:36:18Z")
This is a good thread. Now, regards Limbaugh, I vaguely remember something from his heyday in the 1990s when he said there were more Native Americans now than then, so obviously (his conclusion) they were doing fine. It wasn’t accurate, and even if it was true, it makes no sense – they’ve a couple of hundred years to rebound, after all – but it speaks to the mind-numbing lack of logic and information he uses to tell ignorant people what they want to hear. ---
**Author:** ![Askance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/askance/32/8281_2.png) [@Askance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askance)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2014, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/denial-of-native-americans-and-native-australians-by-analysts/695544/44 "2014-08-20T15:46:28Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#): > > But how long could the aboriginals hoped to have held out? > > They were very primitive, even more so than native americans. They lived in these small, family clans and were constantly nomadic. No unifying governments or even language. Carrying little or nothing with them and most were always naked. That means it doesn’t matter whether there was genocide or not, does it? ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2014, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/denial-of-native-americans-and-native-australians-by-analysts/695544/45 "2014-08-20T16:35:43Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > Throwing out the phrase “‘scorched earth’ campaign” does not actually remove the action from the realm of genocide. I noted that the Sullivan raid was executed as reprisal in my post. While the attack at Cherry Valley, (and the far worse one at Wyoming Valley), were horrible examples of warfare, the reaction of the Sullivan campaign ratcheted up the level of violence by an order of magnitude by not merely attacking civilians, but by making their lands and farms uninhabitable. I think it does. When you go to war against a nation, then what happens back as retaliation is a act for war not genocide. Otherwise we have to start calling Hiroshima, The Blitz, Dresden etc “genocide”. And, since the Sullivan campaign was not against all Indians but only those nations that were at war with the fledgling USA, it wasn’t even racially based, but politically. ---
**Author:** ![Poysyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f4b2a3/32.png) [@Poysyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Poysyn)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2014, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/denial-of-native-americans-and-native-australians-by-analysts/695544/46 "2014-08-20T17:22:44Z")
Speaking as a Canadian, I know that our government very systematically tried to eliminate our Aboriginal people through assimilation. [Yeah - Wiki Link - Residential Schools](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Indian_residential_school_system) - a very sad (and not that long ago) chapter in Canadian history. As a country, we have been wrestling a lot with what we can do now - we can’t fix what happened in the past, and clearly throwing money at the Bands/Reservations isn’t helping (in a lot of cases, the money is lost to corruption), so how to best help **now?** Personally, I wish more bands would do what this one did - [Chief Clarence Louie leading from the front](http://www.calgarysun.com/2013/01/14/chief-clarence-louie-took-his-band-from-rags-to-riches). Many of the reservations are located on what was believed to be worthless land (at the time), but may hold gas/oil or other potential for successful enterprise. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2014, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/denial-of-native-americans-and-native-australians-by-analysts/695544/47 "2014-08-20T17:25:29Z")
> [@Poysyn](#): > > Speaking as a Canadian, I know that our government very systematically tried to eliminate our Aboriginal people through assimilation. > > [Yeah - Wiki Link - Residential Schools](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Indian_residential_school_system) - a very sad (and not that long ago) chapter in Canadian history. > > . It’s tru those were mostly misguided, but since it appears that the Canadians meant well, I would not call that Genocide. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2014, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/denial-of-native-americans-and-native-australians-by-analysts/695544/48 "2014-08-20T17:50:35Z")
> [@Poysyn](#): > > Speaking as a Canadian, I know that our government very systematically tried to eliminate our Aboriginal people through assimilation. Well, it beats trying to eliminate them through elimination. But only just. ---
**Author:** ![ILikeForeignLanguages](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/bc8723/32.png) [@ILikeForeignLanguages](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ILikeForeignLanguages)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2014, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/denial-of-native-americans-and-native-australians-by-analysts/695544/49 "2014-08-20T18:39:17Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > A million was Mooney’s estimate for the US and Canada, but pretty much everybody now agrees that’s too low. The current low estimates are around 4 million. Russell Thornton, an anthropologist at UCLA focusing on Native American population numbers, estimates the population when the Europeans came was about 7 million, 5 million in the contiguous US, 2 million in Canada, Greenland, and Alaska. So, what I’m going to do is take this estimate of five million US natives, and subtract from it the number of natives remaining, using a calculator I have here in my home. 5, 000, 000 - 2, 000, 000 = 3, 000, 000. So, apparently the “genocide” was the killing of 3 million people. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2014, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/denial-of-native-americans-and-native-australians-by-analysts/695544/50 "2014-08-20T18:47:36Z")
How many were you expecting them to kill, exactly? ---
**Author:** ![Human\_Action](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ac91a4/32.png) [@Human\_Action](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Human_Action)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2014, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/denial-of-native-americans-and-native-australians-by-analysts/695544/51 "2014-08-20T19:07:24Z")
> [@ILikeForeignLanguages](#): > > So, what I’m going to do is take this estimate of five million US natives, and subtract from it the number of natives remaining, using a calculator I have here in my home. > > 5, 000, 000 - 2, 000, 000 = 3, 000, 000. So, apparently the “genocide” was the killing of 3 million people. Huh? 500 years elapsed between the two figures. The two million or so Native Americans alive today aren’t the same ones who were alive in the 16th century. This approach makes no sense. Do you assert that had no Native Americans died due to disease or war with settlers, there’d be five million alive today? ---
**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2014, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/denial-of-native-americans-and-native-australians-by-analysts/695544/52 "2014-08-21T00:07:12Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#): > > But how long could the aboriginals hoped to have held out? > > They were very primitive, even more so than native americans. They lived in these small, family clans and were constantly nomadic. No unifying governments or even language. Carrying little or nothing with them and most were always naked. Up along the Murray River, where the fish traps supported a high population density, there were static settlements. As in Europe and the Americas, there were massive population dislocations due to disease, which made it easier for other peoples to move in. ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2014, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/denial-of-native-americans-and-native-australians-by-analysts/695544/53 "2014-08-21T03:58:15Z")
> [@Melbourne](#): > > Up along the Murray River, where the fish traps supported a high population density, there were static settlements. > > As in Europe and the Americas, there were massive population dislocations due to disease, which made it easier for other peoples to move in. True, but it doesn’t really address Urbanredneck’s point. The very primitive nature of Aboriginal existence meant that there was no real chance they could prevent encroachment once agriculturalists established a foothold. The variable nature of the climate in Australia meant that agriculturalists had a hard time establishing a foothold, but it was inevitable that would occur sometime before the end of the 19th century. After that, with or without disease the outcome for Aboriginal Australians was going to be the same. One data point to look at is northern Australia, where millennia of outside contact meant that there was minimal mortality due to “traditional” diseases like smallpox or measles. But the population still crashed. That was due primarily to reduced fertility caused by venereal disease, which was itself a symptom of social collapse in the face cultural competition. The technology of of Aboriginal Australians was never going to be competitive with agriculturalists, and the culture had no method of dealing with cultural encroachment. Even without disease, it’s inevitable that HGs of that kind will succumb to agriculturalists, just as they have everywhere in the world. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2014, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/denial-of-native-americans-and-native-australians-by-analysts/695544/54 "2014-08-21T04:16:24Z")
> [@ILikeForeignLanguages](#): > > So, what I’m going to do is take this estimate of five million US natives, and subtract from it the number of natives remaining, using a calculator I have here in my home. > > 5, 000, 000 - 2, 000, 000 = 3, 000, 000. So, apparently the “genocide” was the killing of 3 million people. As has been pointed out, this is a nonsensical approach. World population in 1500 is estimated at 400 to 500 million, so that the population of Native Americans in the US then would have been 1% of the global total. If there hadn’t been differential mortality and reproduction, the Native American population today would be expected to be 1% of the current global total of 7 billion, or 70 million. Now I wouldn’t consider the loss of hypothetical people to be a genocide, but there are 68 million fewer Native Americans around than there might have been. Even so, I have no idea why you would put genocide in quotes when speaking of the death of 3 million people. Doesn’t three million qualify as a genocide in your book? If not, what does? ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2014, 4:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/denial-of-native-americans-and-native-australians-by-analysts/695544/55 "2014-08-21T04:32:38Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > Even so, I have no idea why you would put genocide in quotes when speaking of the death of 3 million people. Doesn’t three million qualify as a genocide in your book? Europe lost 3 million to the Black Death. I’ve never heard it referred to as genocide. Japan lost 3 million in WWII. I’ve never heard it referred to as genocide. Genocide has nothing to do with numbers. It has to do with intent. I can’t really see why you think that the number has any relevance at all. ---
**Author:** ![Askance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/askance/32/8281_2.png) [@Askance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askance)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2014, 12:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/denial-of-native-americans-and-native-australians-by-analysts/695544/56 "2014-08-21T12:00:54Z")
> [@Blake](#): > > True, but it doesn’t really address Urbanredneck’s point. > > The very primitive nature of Aboriginal existence meant that there was no real chance they could prevent encroachment once agriculturalists established a foothold. > > The variable nature of the climate in Australia meant that agriculturalists had a hard time establishing a foothold, but it was inevitable that would occur sometime before the end of the 19th century. After that, with or without disease the outcome for Aboriginal Australians was going to be the same. > > One data point to look at is northern Australia, where millennia of outside contact meant that there was minimal mortality due to “traditional” diseases like smallpox or measles. But the population still crashed. That was due primarily to reduced fertility caused by venereal disease, which was itself a symptom of social collapse in the face cultural competition. > > The technology of of Aboriginal Australians was never going to be competitive with agriculturalists, and the culture had no method of dealing with cultural encroachment. Even without disease, it’s inevitable that HGs of that kind will succumb to agriculturalists, just as they have everywhere in the world. None of which addresses the point of the thread - was there deliberate genocide (or an attempt at it) or wasn’t there? The evidence seem to say there was, or were. The possibility that, had there not been, Aboriginals may have fared badly anyway is a different topic. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2014, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/denial-of-native-americans-and-native-australians-by-analysts/695544/57 "2014-08-21T15:16:07Z")
> [@Blake](#): > > Europe lost 3 million to the Black Death. I’ve never heard it referred to as genocide. > > Japan lost 3 million in WWII. I’ve never heard it referred to as genocide. > > Genocide has nothing to do with numbers. It has to do with intent. I can’t really see why you think that the number has any relevance at all. **ILikeForeignLanguages** seems to. ---
**Author:** ![ILikeForeignLanguages](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/bc8723/32.png) [@ILikeForeignLanguages](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ILikeForeignLanguages)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2014, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/denial-of-native-americans-and-native-australians-by-analysts/695544/58 "2014-08-22T01:57:13Z")
I have decided to take some liberal estimates (Wiki type stuff, no more or less accurate than any other statistics on this subject) and add them up on my calculator in order to sum up as many taken indigenous lives as I can. Tongue River - 1 killed native Wounded Knee II - 2 killed natives Battle of the Wabash - 21 Dakota War of 1862 - 38 Queen Anne’s War - 50 Battle of Washita River - 103 Battle of Little Big Horn - 136 Wounded Knee I - 178 Sand Creek Massacre - 200 Jamestown Conflict/Liquor Poisoning of 1622 - 201 Black Hawk Wars - 600 Choctaw Removal - 2500 King Philip’s War - 3000 Red Stick War of the Muskogee - 3000 Cherokee Removal - 4000 Seminole Wars I, II and III - 10000 Total - 24, 030 Bear in mind, there were other numbers of killed Native Americans that I couldn’t find; goodness only knows how much larger the number of deaths would be if I could find them. My overall verdict: Was there a Native American massacre by whites? Yes. Was it a deliberate “genocide” in the vein of Hitler’s Holocaust? No. But regardless of what terminology you use to describe it, I will still admit it was odious and wrong. And it wasn’t just the killing of indigenous people - it was also relocating them to reservations, subjecting them to segregation (signs like “Indians and Dogs Not Allowed,” “Positively No Beer Sold to Indians,” etc.), taking them from their parents and forcing them to attend residential schools, forbidding them to speak their languages, making them forget their culture and even abusing and killing some of the students at these schools. Even if we didn’t have a “genocide” in the vein of Australia’s aboriginal genocide, we did have “stolen generations.” It has just taken us longer to admit it than it took Australia. ---
**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2014, 6:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/denial-of-native-americans-and-native-australians-by-analysts/695544/59 "2014-08-24T06:13:27Z")
> [@Blake](#): > > True, but it doesn’t really address Urbanredneck’s point. > > The very primitive nature of Aboriginal existence meant that there was no real chance they could prevent encroachment once agriculturalists established a foothold. I was addressing the idea, in the post I responded too, that they were all naked and nomadic. The idea that ‘the aboriginals’ were going to die out anyway, in the face of a ‘stronger’ culture, is very unpopular in Australia at present, and many people would find the suggestion more offensive than any discussion of genocide. Not least because it sometimes includes arguably false assertions, and often includes non sequiturs. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2014, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/denial-of-native-americans-and-native-australians-by-analysts/695544/60 "2014-08-24T14:02:52Z")
> [@ILikeForeignLanguages](#): > > I have decided to take some liberal estimates (Wiki type stuff, no more or less accurate than any other statistics on this subject) and add them up on my calculator in order to sum up as many taken indigenous lives as I can. Of course, this sort of calculation still understates the issue when one considers the destruction of their ability to raise crops or otherwise sustain themselves. What is the number for the people who starved, (or even failed to have more children), due to the destruction of the herds of bison? What is the number of lives lost to starvation or generations not created when farming nations were relocated to reservations where their customary farming practices would fail due to poor or different soil or insufficient rain or rivers? I am not arguing for genocide, _per se_, but a total of direct deaths in wars does not actually address all the facts needed for the discussion. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/denial-of-native-americans-and-native-australians-by-analysts/695544.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/denial-of-native-americans-and-native-australians-by-analysts/695544.md?page=4)