21–30 of 71 posts
I do wish the historians/reporters for this article were more accurate in their use of "decimation". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimation_(Roman_army)#Curren... The 1491 book put the death rates at around 1 in 20 surviving - ie 19 out of every 20 people dying from disease etc.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Neither. They died.
That's not correct. There are tens of millions of Native American ancestors living across Latin America today. Latin America has roughly 600 million people, they are not all European and African.
When I first saw this post I thought (Amazon.com) came out with a new product called "rainforest." Anyway, so did the natives breed with the Europeans when they "wiped them out" or did the native people migrate to another part of the continent?
They first tried to enslave them, but finished killing most of them as they obviously fought against it. Europeans behaving just like what we expect from white supremacists.
To put this in perspective, this period came right after 100 years of bloody civil war in Spain that produced some of the most efficient killers the world had ever seen.
[EDIT] I shouldn't have said that they weren't Europeans, but that not all of Europe was represented, only Portugal and Spain. That blaming Poland or Germany for the activities of the Spanish was pretty unfair.
I recall reading about this some in the book 1491, which is quite interesting, and talks about how the Americas were prior to Columbus. http://amzn.to/1HQYgSY
Seconding this recommendation - I'm planning on assigning this book in a college course on the Columbian Exchange next year. It's got the readability of a longform New Yorker article and the scholarly credibility of an academic book. Totally fascinating material that will up end much of what you learned in high school textbooks.
I do wish the historians/reporters for this article were more accurate in their use of "decimation". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimation_(Roman_army)#Curren... The 1491 book put the death rates at around 1 in 20 surviving - ie 19 out of every 20 people dying from disease etc.
In fact most Greek and Latin words have been altered a lot in meaning post adoption.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Seconding this recommendation - I'm planning on assigning this book in a college course on the Columbian Exchange next year. It's got the readability of a longform New Yorker article and the scholarly credibility of an academic book. Totally fascinating material that will up end much of what you learned in high school textbooks.
Thirded. It took me years to become interested in history, and books like this are what finally broke through.
I recall reading about this some in the book 1491, which is quite interesting, and talks about how the Americas were prior to Columbus. http://amzn.to/1HQYgSY
Great content!
Earlier quoted context omitted.
They first tried to enslave them, but finished killing most of them as they obviously fought against it. Europeans behaving just like what we expect from white supremacists.
These weren't Europeans in the rain forest (which is a large continent of many different peoples), but mostly Spanish and Portuguese. Who married and had kids with native Americans. They weren't racist as we think of it today, they just held little regard for human life, especially little regard for non-christian human life. To put this in perspective, this period came right after 100 years of bloody civil war in Spa…
I do wish the historians/reporters for this article were more accurate in their use of "decimation". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimation_(Roman_army)#Curren... The 1491 book put the death rates at around 1 in 20 surviving - ie 19 out of every 20 people dying from disease etc.