Pretty much. The article is light on details on how it reaches those numbers, but it would seem to blame the genocide in Cambodia on the United States, which is a whole lot of “what the fuuuuuuuck…?” going on there.
I’d need to see people constantly saying this, as I’ve only heard a few idiotic fanatics try and make this assertion, and usually they are quickly shut down because it’s such a silly and easily debunked assertion. Basically, whoever is saying this would be wrong. Even if you added in all of the indigenous peoples killed in all of the America’s since the Europeans came here (which would be unfair and silly), it wouldn’t hold a candle to China or Russia. Mao alone killed 40 million of his fellow citizens during his reign. The US isn’t even in the same universe as that wrt all the wars, slavery, war on terror, WW2 and ‘massacre of the indigenous’ rolled into one. Same goes for Stalin.
At a guess looking at the ‘proof’ being asserted, slavery was around 12 million…and even if you want to put all of those on the US’s ledger, it’s not going to bring you close. Lumping in every indigenous death, that brings us to around 32 million. Still far below Mao (and Mao was only in power for a time…you are talking about historical nations for their entire history). WW2…well, are you again lumping in every death and putting them all at the US’s feet like we just did with those other two? The
n we are now past Mao at least, and at around 100 million. War on terror adds adds another 5 or so million, again if you put every death at the US’s feet.
So, let’s say it’s 110 million all told. Trouble is, it’s ridiculous to put all those on the US. The 12 million from the slave trade, for instance, can mainly be placed on the ledgers of several European nations. The majority of the indigenous deaths, again, can be placed mainly on European nations. The majority of deaths in WW2 were, again, not really on the US. I’d say the war on terror CAN mainly be placed on the US. Which brings us back to be way lower than just Mao or even Stalin or Hitler. And WAY lower than China, Russia/USSR and Germany, let alone the UK, who I’d guess would be in the top 5. The US wouldn’t be.
Of course, it all hinges on how you are doing your count and what you are counting. My guess is those making this claim are fairly ignorant as well as playing fast and loose with their counting, putting a lot more on the US’s ledger and giving other countries a pass to puff up the body county.
Matthew White wrote a book, The Great Big Book of Horrible Things: The Definitive Chronicle of History’s 100 Worst Atrocities (later re-titled Atrocities: The 100 Deadliest Episodes in Human History)
The Wiki page for the book gives his rankings.
World War II took the top spot.
Number 2 and 3 were a tie between Genghis Khan and Mao Zedong.
The Atlantic Slave trade barely made the top 10. The Middle East slave trade was number 8.
Also, some majority (I hesitate to quote an exact figure) of the transatlantic slave trade went to the Caribbean and South America, mostly for sugar cane farming, mostly by Europeans.
That does not relieve the US of its due share in the guilt over that hideous practice, it simply means one cannot assign the entire number to the US out of some urge to inflate the figures.
To change the subject slightly, I’m impressed enough people today remember the Hungarian uprising of 1956 to base slang on it.
These numbers do not jibe with Matthew White’s consensus-based calculations here (the whole list is grimly fascinating):
Aha, scooped while trying to format a list of the first 11 items by death toll. Apparently I’m not good at formatting tables in whatever this forum software is.
About 4% of slaves went to British North America or the US. The total was about 472,000.
Just to add to puddleglum’s (accurate) numbers, from the data tables at the Slave Voyages website, it looks like fewer than 4% of the people who were brought over in the Atlantic slave trade wound up in what is now the United States (and the total is indeed about 472,000 people). Over 44% went to Brazil, 22% to British colonies in the Caribbean (Jamaica and Barbados and so forth; of course, a bit under three-quarters of the slave trade to what is now the United States took place when the region was still English or British colonies); not quite 13% to Spanish America; over 10% to French Caribbean colonies; and somewhat over 4% to Dutch colonies.
Of course there was also an intra-American slave trade, and especially before the American Revolution I don’t think there would be much to prevent sale and purchase of slaves from Jamaica or Barbados to Virginia or the Carolinas or Maryland; or from the mainland of North America to the Caribbean.
Total mortality for the Middle Passage was about 15%–over 1.8 million people were put on ships in Africa, but never disembarked anywhere. The cumulative mortality rate of the Middle Passage specifically to what is now the U.S.A. looks to have been about 18%; a touch lower than Spanish America (19%) but substantially higher than the trade to Brazil (12% mortality) and a bit higher than the mortality rate for the trade to the British and French Caribbean colonies (both about 16%). My understanding is that, after the Middle Passage itself, slavery in the Caribbean (mostly sugarcane plantations) was substantially more lethal than slavery on the mainland of North America (tobacco plantations and other crops, and later of course cotton plantations).
I would propose counting relative horrendousness by what fraction of global population was slaughtered. But that won’t work because 1) we can only guess at world numbers, 2) many atrocities cited took place over a period of time, maybe several to many generations, so the percentage is a moving target, and 3) mass death in one locale may occur under various regimes. USA involvement with slavery and indigenous genocide only began in 1776 because no USA existed earlier, so blame European overlords.
Then we have incidental, unplanned genocides, like massive depopulations of both the Americas and Europe after Columbus. Do we count plagues in murderous death tolls? I think not. Blame any convenient deity and hold their followers at fault. Or do those followers count abortions as murders? This way lies calculated madness. Yikes.
Definitely the British Empire.
China has spent the last 3000 years oscillating between slightly bloody emperors and extremely bloody civil wars.
Based on what? I did some quick google searching (numbers of people killed in mass violence by a country), and they are putting the death toll for the British Empire at something between 25-35 million. Definitely nothing to sneeze at, but that’s well below the top contenders. China is being put at 130-150 million. Germany at 40-55 million. Russia 40-60 million. Not sure where this data is coming from, as it’s just a list of kills by countries (I seem to recall Cecil did an article on this years ago but haven’t tried to look that up), so it’s probably going to hinge on how you count such things. FWIW, the US is at 5 million. The Mongols make the list too, they are at 56-62 million. Hell, Belgium is at 10-15 million and France at the same. Japan is 22-27 million. The Roman empire was, surprisingly, only 5-8 million…would have thought it much higher.
For some context though, the Mongols killed maybe 60M out of a world population of maybe 350M. That’s some pretty impressive butchery, especially when you consider technology levels. If you add in that they may have triggered the Black Death it’s even more impressive.
Don’t forget they fought their wars in a pre-industrial age. Back then a battle that was considered massive might have fifty thousand combatants.
The Romans weren’t like the Mongols. They didn’t pillage countries and move on. Instead, their plan was to take over countries and collect taxes. So they tried to conquer territories and populations with minimal damage. They were often even willing to leave the local government in charge as long as it submitted to Rome.
The Romans also didn’t have an ideological agenda. They didn’t try to destroy the local religion or social system. We think of them as bloodthirsty because one of the only exceptions was their persecution of Christians - and Christians ended up writing the history books.
The British Empire preferred to do a lot of its killing via famine and poison, instead of mass violence.
You seem to have left the numbers of abortions out of any discussion in this thread …
Is there a reason for that and if you add that in what country would be the leading killer?
They killed enough people they probably helped cool the planet a bit.
This is the “example” I think of. While the US was one of the participants in the chain of events that led to the Khmer Rouge wiping out a large fraction of their countrymen, the US certainly wasn’t hoping that would happen nor directed that it happen or any such thing. The massacre solely rests on Pol Pot and cronies. They are they ones that choose to do and carried it out.
Other countries and groups participated in this chain. You can’t have all of these take the blame individually.
Example: I sell a car to someone. They take my former car and drive it into a crowd and kill a bunch of people. Am I responsible? Only if there was a lot more going on. E.g., I knew this is what they were planning to do, etc. An ordinary car sale doesn’t fit.
I think that Roman figure has to be too low. White estimated 3.5 million in gladiatorial games alone, leaving out warfare entirely.
There are about 23 million abortions per year in China. This includes clinical abortions and “plan B”-type medications taken at home.