[FLT-bird]

Your view of the American Indian at least as how you expressed it is still naive. They were a neolithic people who surprisingly enough behaved neolithically. They had no special corner of the market on morality in how they interacted with peoples outside of their particular ‘people’. If in certain competition with others firm friendship was called for, they did that. If continuous war and even genocide they did that. If conditions changed and a problem developed with the firm friendship case. The solution was such that massacre and genocide solved the problem they did that! In short, they behaved just like any other group of humans did in those situations. Archaeology of neolithic Europe, Asia and Africa show many examples. In the case of North\South America they ran into competitors who were somewhat more advanced technologically. More importantly thanks to the contiguous Eurasian landmass Europeans had a better tested immune system. That lessor immune system the natives here had due to their splendid isolation all of a sudden that isolation wasn't so splendid. Accidental biowarfare was truly how the West was won from sea to shining sea. It wouldn't have mattered when we palefaces had arrived blowing kisses and throwing skittles the result would have been the same. Of course, it's more socially & politically popular to wallow in self-guilt about being on the surviving side. It had to be done immorally right? We shouldn't be here!

the way we Palefaces treated the Natives was no different from how one tribe treated another. The strong took what they could. The weak endured what they had too. Yes, some (not all but some) tribes could be absolutely vicious. Still, the reality is that the federal government made treaties and broke them, committed ethnic cleansing and genocide. If you want to go around the world you'll find conduct as bad or worse just about everywhere you look but they did do it.

then again slavery goes back as far as recorded time. It was practiced all over the world. It wasn't particular to the West or to America or to the Southern states. Yet that doesn't stop people from moralizing endlessly about it.

I can and do disagree with both but then again, that's easy for me to say. I'm a product of the late 20th century in America. Everybody around me disagreed with both all my life. I was never taught otherwise. I'm a product of my time. So were the people back then. That's why I'm not so quick to judge. When I was taught history, I was taught that Presentism is the cardinal sin....the one thing you should NEVER do if you truly want to understand the past. It seems that's all anybody does today. Its so much more easy being self righteous and smug than it is to read and think and gain some actual understanding of the past.

[Reily]

“...Still, the reality is that the federal government made treaties and broke them, committed ethnic cleansing and genocide. If you want to go around the world you’ll find conduct as bad or worse just about everywhere you look but they did do it.
...”

As did everybody else including those “not-so-vicious” tribes. You just have a fuzzy snapshot of their history recorded by poorly informed observers with little to no written native sources. Easy to hide successes and atrocities if there is no written language therefore no historians to hail the victories and\or damn the atrocities. Minoan civilization for a long time was hailed as peaceful purely commercial, now they’re finding weapon caches from the period and a local weapons industry.

Note: I always wondered how modern historians could draw the “peaceful Minoans” conclusion. The “Theseus and the Minotaur” legend clearly states Athens was a tributary to Knossos, so much so they had to send their youth to Crete for human sacrifice! You don’t have to accept the story “in toto” to conclude that somehow Knossos had real physical control and power on mainland Greece, if not Athens then somewhere.