Why did the americans kill off the red indians?

Question

as it is such a vast country why didn't you just let them have their land and you have yours?if they had been stronger and imposed their way of life on you, do you think society would be less fucked up?
i ask from the viewpoint of an alien!!

for the likes of michelle what do you mean "read a few history books"isn't the whole point of this to find out the answers to things you don't know?wasn't taught american history at school, but i bet you were taught british history as we have so much of it!

Answer 1

You mean the native americans, right ;-) Because they had ancestral ownership of the best lands in the country. And, no I don't think life would have been better, just different.

Answer 2

the study of american history as students learn in schools today is short on facts and information. The native people also had their wars and land grabs like any nation, except the white people had better weapons , lies, and diseases. The rich heritage of the native people lies not only in their prayerful song and dance, but also in their beliefs. Had the white man had listened with their hearts there would not had been a Trail of Tears, a Wounded Knee, or even the concentration camps many of the people are still forced to live on. All europeons must share some blame for the loss this land suffered as differant powers allied themselves with differant tribes to gain an advantage, then turned against that tribe for their own gain. The history of the world is full of such events.

Answer 3

Actually, it was the 'invaders' who killed off the native people of America!! The 'invaders' weren't actually American at the time... and the natives weren't red, or Indians!

And they killed so many native Americans because they were "in the WAY"!

It wouldn't have worked if they'd said "you have your land, and we'll have ours!" It would just be a bigger version of Israel! You know, the people who were already living there (Palestinians / native Americans) get pushed to one side, expected to live on the worst part of the land, denied 'permission' to have their own ports / airports, annexed into little areas so that they have to go through lots of checkpoints - where they sometimes disappear forever! The problem IS that 'white man' thought (and some still do think) that 'native' dwellers - especially if they were of a different religion - were 'less than human'! Some sort of sub-species! That's why they found it so easy to persecute Blacks.

So dividing America into 2 sections would never have worked, because the arrogance of the invaders would have wrecked the whole noble philosophy!
Shame really, if only the invaders weren't so damned arrogant, it would have been a great way to solve the problem created by having invaders there in the first place..!

I speak as a white person by the way, but not an American - so I can criticise whites if I want, because I am one, and I can criticise Americans if I want, because they probably share similar roots to me!
; )

Answer 4

I was going to pass up on giving an answer.

I did read the question ever so carefully as there is no such thing as a stupid question, only stupid answers and I come to Yahoo to read all the stupid answers.

The reason why the Red [American] Indians were killed off is the same as why the descendents of those White Savages are in Iraq today.

To para-phrase some of your own question :

as it is such a vast world why don't you just let them have their land and you [keep] yours? But you can't keep your greedy paws off the middle-east oil so you find an excuse to go to war there.

So what else has changed in 150 years west of the Atlantic?

Answer 5

Get off of it and do some historical reading or research. Americans have not pillaged or conquered people or lands anymore than any other group of people around the world. Look what the Turks did to the Armenians, North Vietnam to South Vietnam, China, the Middle East, and on and on. You want to solve the problem of why one group feels compelled to conquer another you better get out of politics and look more into what motivates human nature. No all are endowed with the desire to conquer others but as long as there are any people or groups so motivated than you can count on their being even more attempts at conquest.

Answer 6

Pick almost any country on the globe. Sometime in history, it was taken over by someone else - most countries several times.
This, obviously causes a war - and people get killed in wars. A few "native americans" live in reservations, but most have blended in & intermarried like everyone else. Be proud of whatever bloodlines you have. If people would get the chip off their shoulders, blood lines are very interesting and amusing conversation topics with friends.

Answer 7

There were not that many Native Americans to kill, actually.

When the Europeans first came here......yes, I said Europeans, the most vicious conquerors in history....as in English, French, Spanish, Dutch, Portuguese, etc....when they first arrived they brought flu, small-pox and other diseases that decimated maybe 1/3 of all North American inhabitants within a relatively short time.

The vastness of the American territory was HUGE compared with the very few Natives that occupied the land, originally. "We" didn't have to actually KILL the American Indian to make life miserable for them. The Europeans came and hunted, farmed and de-forested so much land that hunting became difficult for The Indians' traditional way of hunting. The Indian culture did not meld well with European culture.....alcoholism, for instance, was an epidemic that destroyed much of the traditional Indian culture and tribal continuity.

Indians did not get along with OTHER Indians and there were MANY wars and MANY lives lost on "internal" disagreements.

The European forms of government and treaty-writing was stacked against the American Indians...they had no chance to argue their cases forcefully with good representation.

My Great, Great, Great, Great Grandfather was David Crockett and he hated Andrew Jackson's treatment of the American Indians SO MUCH that he SECEDED himself as a citizen of the USA and went to Texas to make a life away from the Indian killers in Washington.

The Native Indians in Mexico fared worse, probably.....they were slaughtered and became subjects of Spain....as was the rest of North, Central and South America.

Money was the cause, God was the excuse and sheer numbers...TENS of millions of whites every year tramping across THOUSANDS of miles of Indian Territory and with only a few hundred thousand Indians to protect its sanctity.

The Europeans began this. The Europeans began African slave trading....along with Africans , themselves.

Americans were STUPID and GREEDY enough to go along with it and prosper from it.


Fortunately America won WW2 and the Cold War and saved what was left of Native North and South Americans from the ravages of another European/Asian invasion.

We still need to help them thrive. With Americans' addictions to gambling and alcohol the American Indian casino-owning tribes will soon be able to afford the life-styles that they always deserved !!!!!!!

Answer 8

How do you figure the "red Indians" got killed off? If you're referring to Native Americans or Aboriginals ( and please don't confuse with Aborigine) There are plenty of them around. I think you're getting the wrong information somewhere.

cold_dur: I don't think you're getting any warmer, When Christopher Columbus landed here he was lost. He was in search of the west Indies. So when he landed here he thought he was in the West Indies that is how Native people got the name Indians.

Answer 9

Because this is the christian way of doing things. They were not americans, they were foreigners that came to this land and killed the indigenous people because they didn't believe in their God so if they wouldn't become christians they were murdered or enslaved. Greed also played a huge part in why this Holocaust was allowed. The land was very rich and needed to be exploited by greedy europeans.

Answer 10

More specific than "read history books" is the concept of "manifest destiny". The settlers believed that God gave them the land so it was ok to kill off the 'heathens'.
I'm not advocating this, just trying to state the settlers mindset.