Basic intelligence in America.(rant)

[Anomalocaris]

In their defense..they did loose a war...

And they very handsomely lost the war they loosed.

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Absolutely, of course it goes both ways, we mythicize the lives of the indigenous people who were displaced and prefer to view them almost uniformly as hapless victims. They were no such thing. They were also human beings, capable and willing to enact terrible violence upon each other. This place wasn't paradise before our culture came here and continues to avoid becoming so afterwards. The complacency and willingess of the natives to throw each other under the bus without foresight as to what their benefactors might do when all of the other savages were "dealt" with forms a great deal of the history surrounding these events (especially so in the case of Florida btw). Of course they also have a long history of warring against each other prior to our arrival.

So, perhaps, not all good, not all bad -oftentimes horrible, often brilliant, always human?..lol

(As a small aside and factoid about Florida and it's now eradicated indigenous peoples... Going as far back as first landing conquistadors were more often greeted with open arms and gifts than resistance. Not because the natives were friendly, but because invariably the natives had a problem with some tribe just upriver, and the conquistadors seemed to them to be a good solution for this problem. Spanish parties actually leapfrogged across the peninsula eradicating one group after the next with the expressed guidance of this or that tribe who would, ultimately, fall to the axe themselves at the behest of some other tribe with more to offer the raiders. This pattern continued for centuries.....)

However, the fact remains that right from its days as colonies of Britain, America has adopted an explicitly exterminatory policy towards the Indians. Even Washington and Franklin wrote about the necessity and inevitability of complete eradication of the natives. This theme and sentiment was repeated time and again throughout the 19th century by people in the higest echelons of American society, including by many whom we continue to mythologize as paragons of American humanity and liberalism.