# Which nations have succesfully committed genocide? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 6, 2011, 5:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-nations-have-succesfully-committed-genocide/573664 "2011-03-06T05:12:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2011, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-nations-have-succesfully-committed-genocide/573664/21 "2011-03-06T16:48:51Z")
> [@t-bonham@scc.net](#): > > Not exactly a nation yet, but _Homo Sapiens_ did it to _Homo Neanderthal_. > And quite completely & effectively. Every one of them was wiped out, even their very existence was forgotten until recently, when remains were found. _Homo neanderthalensis_ is the proper term. And we don’t know that they were “wiped out” or if they were simply out-competed or if they were (as seem more and more likely) absorbed to some extent into the European populations of _H. sapiens_. And saying that their existence was “forgotten” is pretty meaningless. Everything before historical times was “forgotten”. ---
**Author:** ![FatBaldGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ecd19e/32.png) [@FatBaldGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FatBaldGuy)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2011, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-nations-have-succesfully-committed-genocide/573664/22 "2011-03-06T17:00:38Z")
> [@Enola\_Straight](#): > > I’m fairly sure ancient Israel slaughtered everyone they came across upon entering Canaan. Actually, even according to the Bible they didn’t. They were commanded to, but let some people live. ---
**Author:** ![dhkendall](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a9adbd/32.png) [@dhkendall](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dhkendall)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2011, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-nations-have-succesfully-committed-genocide/573664/23 "2011-03-06T18:01:03Z")
> [@clairobscur](#): > > No, that’s just what is stated in the bible. It didn’t happen. Cite? > [@FatBaldGuy](#): > > Actually, even according to the Bible they didn’t. They were commanded to, but let some people live. So there are Ammonites, Edomites, etc. around today? ---
**Author:** ![Heyoka13](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Heyoka13](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Heyoka13)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2011, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-nations-have-succesfully-committed-genocide/573664/24 "2011-03-06T18:05:47Z")
Don’t forget those darn Amelekites! ---
**Author:** ![BlinkingDuck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/eada6e/32.png) [@BlinkingDuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlinkingDuck)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2011, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-nations-have-succesfully-committed-genocide/573664/25 "2011-03-07T19:43:24Z")
The Turks did a pretty good job in western Anatolia IIRC. ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2011, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-nations-have-succesfully-committed-genocide/573664/26 "2011-03-07T20:22:38Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > I think the answer to the question would depend on how you define “extinction of an ethnicity”. The Mongols under warlords like Genghis Khan and Tamerlane would often commit mass murder after invading an area. However, it’s doubtful that they really killed ever last individual. Survivors would be incorporated as slaves. The culture would be gone, though. The situation regarding some tribes in Mexico conquered by the Aztecs was probably similar. > [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > As I recall, Genghis Khan did destroy entire cultures and languages, to such an extent they are only known to have existed from archaeological digs. “Caucasians” are named such because they were originally thought to have originated in the Caucasus mountains; the scale of the Mongol massacres was such that they disguised the fact that Caucasians originated farther east. While the Mongol invasions were traumatic and may have inflicted some permanent damage in the region of Khurasan in particular, I can’t think of any _culture_ that went extinct as a direct result. Mongol massacres were generally of the coldly pragmatic sort - resist and get slaughtered ( locally, not en masse as a people ) or submit and get new masters. Under Genghis Khan unauthorized plundering of areas that had submitted was harshly punished ( one high-ranking general got busted down to a common trooper for just such an offense and died fighting on the front lines ). As a result a number of cities were decimated or even briefly destroyed, with tremendous loss of life. But there was not any attempt to extirpate entire populations. The Mongols under GK didn’t practice genocide as a matter of policy - they practiced mass intimidation and were content with bloody examples. > [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](#): > > What about the ‘Old Prussians’? I’ve read a few histories that suggested they were exterminated rather than assimilated by the germanic folks who moved in. No, often brutally oppressed and discriminated against, but not wholesale exterminated. Indeed elements of the Old Prussian nobility semi-assimilated as feudal nobles at the expense of the bulk of their people that were ( depending on the area ) often forced into a grinding serfdom. There is a fairly decent book called The Northern Crusades by Eric Christiansen ( 1980, 1997, Penguin Books ) that goes into this in more detail. > [@BlinkingDuck](#): > > The Turks did a pretty good job in western Anatolia IIRC. Unlike the Armenian genocide ( incomplete per the OP’s definition ), that episode might be better defined as “ethnic cleansing.” The Greeks were mostly sent packing ( and a good number simply fled ahead of the Turkish armies before the “exchange,” like many Arabs during the first Arab-Israeli War ), rather than wholesale butchered and of course it was also reciprocal, though not balanced. Several hundred thousand Muslims were expelled from Greece at the same time ( most of them colloquially “Turks”, but most of those would have been descended from Greeks who converted rather than Turkish settlers ). ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2011, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-nations-have-succesfully-committed-genocide/573664/27 "2011-03-07T20:32:34Z")
Oh and re: the Aztecs, probably not. The Aztec “empire” was a confederated league of city-states ( in which Tenochitlan increasingly was the dominant member ) with a large tribute network of involuntary client states. As such they don’t seem to have been cultural hegemons. On the other hand the Inca state was much more of your standard centralized empire and _does_ seem to have been quite aggressive about attempting to suppress conquered cultures. ---
**Author:** ![BlinkingDuck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/eada6e/32.png) [@BlinkingDuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlinkingDuck)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2011, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-nations-have-succesfully-committed-genocide/573664/28 "2011-03-07T20:52:16Z")
> [@Tamerlane](#): > > Unlike the Armenian genocide ( incomplete per the OP’s definition ), that episode might be better defined as “ethnic cleansing.” The Greeks were mostly sent packing ( and a good number simply fled ahead of the Turkish armies before the “exchange,” like many Arabs during the first Arab-Israeli War ), rather than wholesale butchered and of course it was also reciprocal, though not balanced. Several hundred thousand Muslims were expelled from Greece at the same time ( most of them colloquially “Turks”, but most of those would have been descended from Greeks who converted rather than Turkish settlers ). Don’t try to equivolate it. The Turks were much more the assholes here than the Greeks/Byzantium and the Greek/Byzantium culture and people were pretty much gone from this area till this day. It fits the OP well. Is ‘Turk’ a slur? I thought it was pretty neutral. If it is, I apologise. ---
**Author:** ![JeffB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jeffb/32/188_2.png) [@JeffB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JeffB)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2011, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-nations-have-succesfully-committed-genocide/573664/29 "2011-03-07T21:00:23Z")
The [Yahi](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yana_people) might quailify, though it’s the “deliberate and systematic” criteria that might a problem. The movie [The Last of His Tribe](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0104690/) is about the last survivor of the Yahi. ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2011, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-nations-have-succesfully-committed-genocide/573664/30 "2011-03-07T21:23:15Z")
> [@BlinkingDuck](#): > > Don’t try to equivolate it. The Turks were much more the assholes here than the Greeks/Byzantium and the Greek/Byzantium culture and people were pretty much gone from this area till this day. It fits the OP well. Not trying to saying both sides were equally at fault, but both sides [ratified the treaty](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convention_Concerning_the_Exchange_of_Greek_and_Turkish_Populations_%281923%29) and [both sides were affected](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_exchange_between_Greece_and_Turkey), though as I said many more Greeks were expelled from Turkey than vice versa.. It wasn’t a genocide IMHO - populations were expelled, not exterminated. Was it a disgraceful, awful episode in the history of humanity? Absolutely. Ethnic cleansing is an evil thing. But a slightly different, though related variant of evil relative to genocide. > [@](#): > > Is ‘Turk’ a slur? I thought it was pretty neutral. If it is, I apologise. Oh, not at all. I was just pointing out that in Greece many of the Muslims were referred to as “Turks,” but most of them were descended from Greeks who converted, as on [Crete](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cretan_Turks) and were generally bilingual in Greek and Turkish. ---
**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:** [March 7, 2011, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-nations-have-succesfully-committed-genocide/573664/31 "2011-03-07T21:48:41Z")
The original intent wasn’t to wipe them out, but the [Lucayans](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucayan) of the Bahamas were eradicated by the Spanish within 30 years of their discovery by Columbus by slave-raiding. ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2011, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-nations-have-succesfully-committed-genocide/573664/32 "2011-03-07T22:36:37Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > The original intent wasn’t to wipe them out, but the [Lucayans](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucayan) of the Bahamas were eradicated by the Spanish within 30 years of their discovery by Columbus by slave-raiding. Another example in that general vein are the [Guanches](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guanches) of the Canary Islands. ---
**Author:** ![Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e47c2d/32.png) [@Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biffy_the_Elephant_Shrew)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2011, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-nations-have-succesfully-committed-genocide/573664/33 "2011-03-08T00:42:24Z")
> [@clairobscur](#): > > No, that’s just what is stated in the bible. It didn’t happen. > [@dhkendall](#): > > Cite? [The things that you’re liable to read in the Bible, it ain’t necessarily so.](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBOgH5f36cQ) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-nations-have-succesfully-committed-genocide/573664.md?page=1)