Native American Genocide Quotes
The economic development contribution of military spending is not new and not limited to today’s military bases and defense contracts and plants. See {623902} for Sheridan’s famous prediction.
The Spaniardes have executed most outragious and more then Turkishe cruelties in all the west Indies
He was one of the strongest English advocates of colonization of the New World. At that time this was as strong an epithet of cruelty as could be made by Europeans. It was an accurate assessment.
This editorial was written just after the Massacre of Wounded Knee. An irony is that this editor who called for the extermination of Native Americans was later the author of The Wizard of Oz.
Genocide generally means the intentional destruction and elimination of a people. In the case of Columbus and the Spanish Conquistadors, they thought little of the lives of the indigenous people of the New World, but they wanted them for slaves to extract the gold and silver. They wiped out several peoples, mostly as a result of the communicable diseases (mainly smallpox) they brought from Europe for which the South Americans had little or no immunity. Also the size of the invasion forces (the Spanish) was relatively small. The size in land and number of people who they invaded was huge. The Spanish were the worst of the European empires from the point of view of the native colonized people. And Columbus was the trigger. So Chavez has a point in castigating Columbus and the Spanish but, typically, and like many politicians, his oratory lacked the precision of total accuracy.
Roosevelt had little respect for Miles who was an enemy of the President’s. Incredibly enough, Roosevelt wrote this sentence in a letter to the general. However, the President’s aids persuaded him not to send the letter not only because it was so confrontational with Miles but it was a Presidential admission that there had been a “massacre” for which the United States military was responsible. For a parallel situation in World War II England, see Winston Churchill {597711}. Roosevelt remembered the incident and later when Miles stepped out of line, Roosevelt ended the general’s career—see {589012}. This quotation when considered against the {588991} quotation demonstrates the very complex nature of TR’s character and views. He did not like Indians and had disparaged them and commented that dead Indians were good Indians. Yet he had a very strong sense of honor and was greatly offended by the massacre of unarmed Indians and women and children.