WI there had been a genocide on American Indians?

[Admiral Canaris]

(Disclaimer: This author does not in any way support or excuse genocide or the politics behind it, but is merely positing a hypothetical alternate history scenario.)

If the American states had, for some reason, officially or implicitly pursued a policy of genocide on the American Indians, how would the world change? The assumption is that the Americans actively attempted to exterminate the Indians, throughout North and South America alike, and then destroyed what traces remained of them in a Carthaginian fashion. By 1900 at the latest, the process would be complete (an arbitrary date set for a rough outline).

The differences would be most noticeable in South America, of course, but what would change elsewhere, in the US and in the world?

 

[Uber_Amoeba]

There kind of was a genocide, wasnt there? Albeit indirect......

Military expeditions, forced re-locations, and use of biological warfare is hardly indirect.

 

[Keenir]

(Disclaimer: This author does not in any way support or excuse genocide or the politics behind it, but is merely positing a hypothetical alternate history scenario.)

If the American states had, for some reason, officially or implicitly pursued a policy of genocide on the American Indians, how would the world change? The assumption is that the Americans actively attempted to exterminate the Indians, throughout North and South America alike, and then destroyed what traces remained of them in a Carthaginian fashion.

The differences would be most noticeable in South America, of course, but what would change elsewhere, in the US and in the world?

that depends: why would France, England, Holland, Spain, and Portugal all pursue such a policy of outright extermination?

 

[Admiral Canaris]

Military expeditions, forced re-locations, and use of biological warfare is hardly indirect.

There were individual acts of genocide, though IOTL most Indians died from disease and other non-intentional factors. Here, I posited a deliberate genocide.

 

[Admiral Canaris]

that depends: why would France, England, Holland, Spain, and Portugal all pursue such a policy of outright extermination?

A societal trend? The Pope declaring the Indians demons? I don't really know for sure, and I didn't go that deep into causality, since I was more interested in the consequences. Though it's good if we can outline a more specific reason, of course.

 

[Admiral Brown]

(Disclaimer: This author does not in any way support or excuse genocide or the politics behind it, but is merely positing a hypothetical alternate history scenario.)

If the American states had, for some reason, officially or implicitly pursued a policy of genocide on the American Indians, how would the world change? The assumption is that the Americans actively attempted to exterminate the Indians, throughout North and South America alike, and then destroyed what traces remained of them in a Carthaginian fashion. By 1900 at the latest, the process would be complete (an arbitrary date set for a rough outline).

The differences would be most noticeable in South America, of course, but what would change elsewhere, in the US and in the world?

While I could imagine a scenario in which the Americans actively try to eliminate all native Americans from US territory, you don't see why on Earth would they take the trouble to conquer all South America (ASB in itsealf) in just to be able to send troops into the Amazon to kill all the Indians they find. This is not only impossible (tribes where find in 1996 who had never been in touch with "civilization") but completely unreasonable.

Not to mention than South American nations won't let themselves be conquered in the first place, if conquest means total anhihilation (specially if the Americans came in with a one drop rule analogus that puts even the ruling clases of countries like Peru or Guatemala as potential victimes of this totaly crazy genocide). And Europe would obviosly help South America, even if it's for their own reasons.

so, sorry, but I don't see how this could happen, on such a large scale

 

[Admiral Brown]

well, thinking it through again, there is one way. Maybe the US start doing this on uS soil based on a new pseudo-scientific racist ideollogy on vogue in the XIX century that says that Amerindians are a genetic threat to civilization, or something alike. This ideology is adopted by the rulling classes of Latin American countries, who say: "well, if the Northerners are doing this, it must be right". It's still ASBish, but, a tiny bit less Asbish...

In this scenario, you won't get the total extermination of Amerindians. Mestizos and Amerindians communities submitted long ago and deeply Christianized will probably survived. But the unsubmitted tribes in Patagonia, Chaco, or the Amazon might have a really hard time, as well as the Mayans in Central America and Southern Mexico. Not that they'll disappear completely anywhy, as these states probably wouldn't be able to achieve ia complete succes in this policy. Fortunatelly.

 

[carlton_bach]

Like German persecution of the Hereros in Namibia....

That didn't work either, did it?

 

[Cromm Crúaich]

Let's see;
I. the US is viewed more negatively by Europe (for not taking up the white man's burden, those barbaric colonials!)
II. Mass migrations into Mexico and Canada by American Indians as the USA expands west.
III. as a result of II, Reservations eventually spring up in Canada, and the Brits and Canadians are more anti-american because of this unwelcome influx.
IV. In Post-Spanish south america, if the Criollos in high positions suddenly loose their grasp of reality and begin persecuting anyone with native american blood, we see huge unrest, revolution, and eventually left-wing nativism (Indigenous-ism?).
V. If the racial ideology becomes popular during Spanish rule, and becomes associated with it, the new south american nations will reject it vehemently, but not necessarily embrace "indigenous-ism".
VI. If you specifically meant the USA invading and conquering all of Latin America and slaughtering a large percentage of its population on general principles; ASB.

As for how it comes about, have a butterfly flap its wings around 1710, and have the generation of wealthy intellectuals that revolt against the British be rabidly racist, and specify that all white men are equal and everyone else inferior in the US constitution. They then draw up all sorts of genocidal schemes and test them over the Appalachians, justifying it as clearing the land of pagan savages for settlement, and by the time of the Louisiana Purchase (or Conquest) they are horribly good at it. The african slaves are kept due to usefulness, and there is either a much larger Liberia, genocide on a huge scale, or perhaps a freedom-in-exchange-for-sterilization scheme (which certainly won't work out too well...). In any case, the South is going to be a complete mess.

 

[Talkie Toaster]

Many people argue that the US' (yeah, the Europeans did quite a bit of damage too but we're talking about US genocide here) actions against the Natives does constitute genocide. They did all sorts of things apart from the obvious massacres etc. For example they paid hunters to kill thousands of buffalo to deplete the Natives' only real source of food. Buffalo were slaughtered and left to rot on the plains. I studied this period at GCSE, it's surprising how little this is focused on.

 

[Moobles]

Yeah, perhaps the question should be what if they didn't genocide the Natives.

I think this one was carried through. In Canada, which was more lax with regards to First Nations rights then in America, we did some absolutely disgusting things to get land. Although we only outright killed natives who refused to submit to the crown, often we'd simply began planting alcahol during trade and then seize their assets while they're drunk- issuing them things called scrips and buying them for more alcahol, etc. And if anyone had a problem with it, we'd shoot them. Very disgusting.

 

[Admiral Canaris]

The Indians weren't victims of a concerted policy of genocide, although there were local initiatives that sometimes worked out to that effect. The entire point of the WI was what would've changed if there had been one.

 

[Talkie Toaster]

The Indians weren't victims of a concerted policy of genocide, although there were local initiatives that sometimes worked out to that effect. The entire point of the WI was what would've changed if there had been one.

I suppose you could argue that, but the national army was involved in many cases...in fact most cases. Was manifest destiny an official policy or just a philosophy?

 

[Admiral Canaris]

As I understood it, the official line was always that the Indians should be integrated into general American society, or by the then-prevalent terminology be forcibly civilised. The stated intention was not to kill them, although settlers and local authorities sometimes used such methods in rivalries over ground or in the aftermath of armed conflicts.

 

[Condottiero]

I could imagine this in the US, Canada and perhaps Argentine where the amerindians are a minority, but in Bolivia? Mexico? Perú? Ecuador? Why would any government kill 90% of their people?

 

[Valdemar II]

Yeah, perhaps the question should be what if they didn't genocide the Natives.

Except that they didn't, they had rather unpleasant policies which for some tribe de facto was the same, but if they had gone after Amerindians with genocide in their mind there would not have been any resevations, and the actual direct killratio would have been larger*


*I read somewhere that only 5000 Amerindians was directly killed in the Indians Wars, while the rest died of indireck causes.

 

[Joseph Solis in Australia]

All countries in Hispanic America (From Mexico to Argentina) would resemble to Spain in terms of culture, race and economy and Hispanic America would be a stable region in the Americas than in OTL.

 

[Admiral Brown]

All countries in Hispanic America (From Mexico to Argentina) would resemble to Spain in terms of culture, race and economy and Hispanic America would be a stable region in the Americas than in OTL.

Spain wasn't particularly "stable" through the 1800s and 1900s. It didn't become a prosperous democratic country until the death of Franco. It even had a (failed) coup the état attempt as late as 1981. Chile was probably more stable, politically speaking, in spite of having an important indigenous minority (yes, I know, Pinochet and all that... but I'm taking into consideration two centuries of its history, not the lasts 30 years)

Having 1 % of Amerindians and 10 % of mestizos didn't prevent Argentina from being richer becoming than Spain in the begining of the XX century.

And, by the way, Argentina's occupation of Patagonia or Chaco wasn't probably a genocide, but it was close. How did that helped to make our country more stable politically?

No, the problem of Latin American is cultural and economic, not racial. In fact, the region is probably more etnically integrated than several much more developped nations.

Latin America has a lot of problems, obviously. But the cause isn't ethnic diversity. In fact, the region should be ranked much better than many other in that field . The fact remains that, in spite of the brutallity of the Spanish conquest, the killings, the imposition of forced labour and the (wrongly called) "caste" system, the Spanish managed to created a society in which all its members (Indians, blacks, mulatos, mestizos, zambos, whites) felt part of the same society. Which is something that didn't happened elsewhere, or took much longer to occur. Consider that, in spite of its diversity, there haven't been practically etnically-based separatists movements in the region.

Sorry, but I don't see how anything good could come as a result of such a genocide.

 

[wkwillis]

Most US southerners and all US blacks are mestizo. Ditto Quebecois. It's a simple population dynamics function. The Europeans didn't have enough food and didn't increase their European population quickly. The American population did increase quickly.
The pure bred Indians died off to disease but if you were an Indian woman and had children by a European or an African, your children would be able to have many, many, children for many, many, generations. Which is what happened.
Five hundred years with a doubling time of 15 years is the theoretical maximum. I'm surprised we didn't fill up a damned sight faster.

 

[Snake Featherston]

As I understood it, the official line was always that the Indians should be integrated into general American society, or by the then-prevalent terminology be forcibly civilised. The stated intention was not to kill them, although settlers and local authorities sometimes used such methods in rivalries over ground or in the aftermath of armed conflicts.

Try reading up on good ol' Colonel Chivington and Andrew Jackson. Please, do this. The Indians were a victim of a genocide.

They're still here, but then, Hitler and Stalin didn't exactly succeed 100% at killing Jews and Kulaks, either.

IMHO, the experience the Indians had would have been a lot better for them had they been able to keep their full 1491 population in dealing with Europeans. Hell, that just gives me an idea for an ASBs thread...