It's safe to say that 19th century white American and Australian authorities didn't exactly have the well-being of their countries' original inhabitants high on their priority list; in fact, the sentiment that they were dying peoples doomed to extinction and/or that they needed to go extinct was quite common. So, what if, in the 19th or the 20th century, the government of Australia, that of the United States, or both, had been able to exterminate 100% of their respective native populations, not through accidental means, but on purpose, plainly stated on official papers? What would be the impact of such policies on the history of either country, and the world?
WI: Aboriginal Australians and/or (US) Native Americans genocided to extinction, on purpose.
- Thread starter Neoteros
- Start date
SwampTiger
Banned
The US did try to eradicate and remove Native Americans. Note the near extinction of bison and the constant 'Indian' Wars. It failed because of the financial costs and public sentiment changing slightly.
USA and Canada both tried this, it proved prohibitively expensive and too morally repugnant even to 19th century imperialists to systematically exterminate every last Native. Easier to shove them onto bantustans and abuse them.
Can you please provide a source of either countries legislation approving the total genocide of the native population please.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Removal_Act A deliberate act of law explicitly empowering the government to ethnically cleanse Natives by forced removal.
Just to start.
Maybe you are confused, i asked about total genocide, not ethnic cleansing, i´m trying to find legislation on it, but it clearly isn´t appearing which makes you statement utterly false on the attempts of a government in North America to eradicate a group of peoples.
The entire point was to get nativefrei lebensraum. That they were forcibly removed rather than slaughtered en masse doesn't really matter as to the intent of the law and the ideology behind it--which was that the Native peoples needed to be removed from the continent for the benefit of the white population of the USA. Logically, this would have eventually resulted in the extermination of the Native peoples, but people started growing consciences as early as the 18th century and by the time ol' "nits and lice" Chivington murdered a bunch of Native kids as target practice at Sand Creek, there was enough public opposition to outright genocide that he was hauled in front of Congress to explain himself and even Kit Carson the famous (or infamous) frontiersman and agent of US ethnic cleansing thought that Chivington was a monster. So the nebulous ideas of lebensraum were largely shelved (especially since the only lebensraum not ethnically cleansed by that point was shit land that we were using as bantustans), and the government just sort of sat on the bantustans until people noticed that Natives were being treated like shit on the bantustans and said "hey, this isn't right!"
I should also note that the California genocide did involve deliberate liquidation of some Native populations, actively encouraged by state authorities and white militias allied to the state government. It wasn't industrial "kill every last one including the babies and make sure we don't miss a single one" Hitler levels of crazy, but it was a 1990s Yugoslavia "destroy them and take that land" kind of genocide. But this happened across the Rockies in the 1840s, so nobody cared.
Yes on this we can agree. It was an unwarranted use of violence and deceit, but people didn´t just magically grow a conscience in the 18th century, there were europeans vouching for indian rights from the get go, especially in Spanish and Portuguese Americas, with de Las Casas and António Vieira. But in colonial times, there was a prevailing kill or be killed mentality, especially with all the massacres commited by both sides. But later on once the natives were defeated, and ridden by disease were the biggest excesses commited, on terms of long term exploitation, loss of land and culture. I just think this was almost a bait thread trying to get people to say US=Nazi Germany and such. But you are mostly correct in your arguments and i apologise if i seemed to imply there was no persecution.
The above conversation brings up a question: Between the U.S., Canada and Australia (not counting New Zealand because A: It's got the population of a mid-sized U.S. state, and B: Treaty of Waitangi), whose natives got it the worst?
Australia, I imagine. We fucking nuked an area that we knew to be inhabited by aboriginal tribes because... reasons?
Australia, presumably. It didn't help that they were the most "primitive" of the native groups (being exclusively hunter-gatherers).
This is the sort of hair splitting that almost always leads to an unfortunate end.
Just sayin'.
I was just trying to disprove the idea that a complete eradication of native americans was ever on the table, so to speak. Not trying to imply that horrible and inadequate measures were never taken. But one must be clear in the purpose of an argument.
I wonder how effective direct sanctioned action from the federal/main government would be over simply not having any reservations or any attempt at integration(forced or not) or government help towards native communities.
Instead of having forced schooling or similar such attempts at forced integration, you instead have continuous negligence and no real recognition/creation of native territories and institutions, in such a condition more mixed race people would most likely integrate with their European side and native identities would fade away without any legal backing, I imagine death rates would be higher as well.
Instead of having forced schooling or similar such attempts at forced integration, you instead have continuous negligence and no real recognition/creation of native territories and institutions, in such a condition more mixed race people would most likely integrate with their European side and native identities would fade away without any legal backing, I imagine death rates would be higher as well.
Last edited:
I would see a great guilt in later generations.
Archaeologists would be very interested in trying to recover as much information on those are extinct societies as possible
Archaeologists would be very interested in trying to recover as much information on those are extinct societies as possible
Probably bloodier border wars. Reservation was often imposed to the defeated, as a "peace treaty", if there wasn´t even this offer, i´d bet many tribes would prefer going down fighting. Imagine sioux war but on steroids. Frontier violence escalates, settlers flee in their thousands, bloody repressions, an almost never ending cycle of violence.
I was more looking at the post war climate, I mean afterall reservations themselves weren't super respected or taken care for, but the thing is what would happen if instead of just not having de facto consistent support there was no legal and administrative base for modern tribal nations and identities? In such a scenario assimilation of mixed communities would happen, few to no mixed people would have any reason to go and remain part of tribal nations, so the communities would either be more dispersed within the general population or so politically/legally marginalized they wouldn't be in the position of creating stable communities retaining mixed race groups that would inevitable form through contact with European locals. Today mixed race people identifying also as natives form 45% of the native community and honestly I imagine the real % is even higher.
In a post war situation the male population would have been decimated, what few survivors were left wouldn´t have anywhere to go. I´d imagine a rapid population decline would take place and what few survivors remained would have to assimilate more thoroughly, and still be largely marginalized. The loss of culture would be irrecoverable.