It is true that Meso-Americans indulged in human sacrifice but were not the Europeans also putting to death witches and heretics to appease their God during the same period as well? I doubt Native villages were any more septic than most European cities of the time. Most Native Americans also bathed more often than Europeans of the time.
Many of the staple crops today such as maize, potatoes, chocolate, squash, tomatoes and pumpkins were first developed by Native Americans. Most societies in North America were egalatarian and practiced democracy. Chiefs rarely had dictatorial powers and women had great influence on who the leaders would be. Traditional Native Americans valued honesty and always telling the truth. Native societies worked for thousands of years. They were destroyed more by European diseases than by any military conquests. The first European explorer on tha Amazon described a high degree of culture along the Amazon River. He said it was teeming with bustling cities but today it is all gone, due to disease.
Native Americans should be accepted as people. "Savages" are unfortunately found in all races and groups as even this message board sometimes evince.
The "Mourning Wars" involved northern tribes that abducted children of other tribes to raise them as their own, and when pursued, they left a head on a stick every mile to taunt their pursuers.
Moreover, there are two new books out saying that essentially the Plains Indians destroyed much of the bison population long before "Buffalo Bill." As to the diseases, the numbers are shifting all the time: whereas only 20 years ago anthropologists were thinking there were 100 million Indians in North and Central America, now the UPPER-BOUND number is only 50 million, and some put it as low as 8 million. What all this means is that notions that European diseases killed 50 million Indians are baseless.
And just this week, there was even NEWER evidence that many diseases are being discovered in the pre-Columbian bones, meaning that the Indians already HAD these diseases.
Well, to be nitpicky, at least some tribes used dogs to drag their equipment around on a sled-type contraption. They had dogs and they used them for all types of different things (including food).
It is true that Meso-Americans indulged in human sacrifice but were not the Europeans also putting to death witches and heretics to appease their God during the same period as well?
Some groups of Indians did indeed have human sacrifice, but killing witches and heretics in Europe did not serve the same purpose. While the Europeans could be quite brutal (hanging, drawing and quartering come to mind), if not more so than the Indians in many respects, drawing some sort of moral equivalence by insinuating that God was pleased with the blood of witches and heretics, or needed their blood to survive or make the crops grow is not appropriate.
Most Native Americans also bathed more often than Europeans of the time.
That's an inaccurate generalization on the same level as calling all Indians dirty savages. The ancient Romans were into bathing, and the Europeans all through history indulged in hot baths more often than is generally known. Many villages had bath houses--the Nordic people had their saunas. I don't think your average Native American bathed any more often in winter than your average European.
Most societies in North America were egalatarian and practiced democracy. Chiefs rarely had dictatorial powers and women had great influence on who the leaders would be. Traditional Native Americans valued honesty and always telling the truth.
Again, that's also an inaccurate generalization. Societies in North America were just about as diverse as societies in Europe. They had ways of ruling that fit their culture and their environment. They were not egalitarian or democratic. They had counsels or groups of elders that arrived at most decisions by mutual consensus--which works for small groups of people, but not large populations--that's not the same as a majority vote. I'm sure Native American women had just as much influence on things as European women (which is more than what the feminist movement will allow). Native Americans valued honesty and telling the truth just as much as Europeans did, although they relied on someone's word more, since most of them couldn't write.
I think that Indians have been crapped on about as much as anyone could be and still survive. I personally think that it is probably the most shameful segment of American history. The Bureau of Indian Affairs is a joke. But romanticizing the Indians and demonizing the White Man is counterproductive to improving the lives of Indians today. Trying to make their cultures somehow more pure, and their characters so superior to that of Europeans is a lot of hooey. Native Americans were then, and are now, no better or worse than anybody else when it comes to human nature.