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Reese1313 t1_iugatd3 wrote

So they gunned the indigenous people down?

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LimeMime565 t1_iugbl0t wrote

As you do. Can't have savages running around YOUR new island that you just discovered

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War_Hymn t1_iugcgc0 wrote

I don't think Guatemala is an island?

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Belchera t1_iugpcj0 wrote

Not yet, my friend… not yet…

muahahahah

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Gulanga t1_iuiiub5 wrote

I don't think that is a question.

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[deleted] t1_iuhl694 wrote

[deleted]

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LimeMime565 t1_iuhlj53 wrote

Yes advanced government and architecture as well as a history spanning possibly thousands of years what dirty dumb savages

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Riimpak t1_iuhrnjc wrote

Advanced how?

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LimeMime565 t1_iuhx9da wrote

They had city states and archived architecture that's lasted almost millennia. Not very different at all from many European states before and during the dark ages

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Artanthos t1_iuig0sq wrote

The Aztec had better sanitation than the Europeans.

In fact, they had better access to potable water than London had until mid-19th century.

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NecroticPustule t1_iuirzpe wrote

Access to potable water < has guns and the ability to cross oceans

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Artanthos t1_iuj1uqs wrote

Ability to kill =/= civilized.

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NecroticPustule t1_iujc79n wrote

Yeah but that doesn't mean anything if your civilisation is gone

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Artanthos t1_iujdrot wrote

The ability to kill does not make a society advanced.

The Aztecs where an an advanced society, but their areas of advancement were not all military.

But apparently the people on Reddit feel that that only thing that defines civilization is the ability to kill.

By that definition, Rome was less civilized than the Germanic tribes that overthrew them.

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DammitWindows98 t1_iuhpi9l wrote

Well yes, that's a pretty big part of this whole "war" thing: people getting shot.

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McGrillo t1_iuiexaw wrote

There’s a difference between a war and a genocide. Just because the genocided people are fighting back doesn’t make it okay for them to be gunned down.

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KingDudeMan t1_iuipay7 wrote

I don’t think anyone is defending it but Genicide is a relatively recent term, war usually implied genocide up until WWII.

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McGrillo t1_iuisqqa wrote

That’s just like, not true…

While the word “genocide” has only existed for about a century, the concept has existed for longer as have localized translations for it.

And saying most wars pre WW2 had the express purpose of genocide is…. not correct. The American or Russian Civil Wars? The Napoleonic Wars? WWI? The innumerable wars of Medieval Europe or Japan? Very rarely are “wars” fought for the sole purpose of genocide. Wars are fought for a variety of reason, however the “wars” fought against indigenous Americans were almost all about either exterminating them or pushing them off their land. Just because the word didn’t exist at the time doesn’t change the fact that these are not wars, they’re genocides.

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iisbarti t1_iuiyrgn wrote

The term genocide may be new but war def is not and was not mutually exclusive with genocide before WW2

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Artanthos t1_iuifj0l wrote

Only the ones not killed by European diseases or enslaved.

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Skullerprop t1_iuilmki wrote

It’s still a genocide.

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Artanthos t1_iuj2y5y wrote

Never said it wasn’t.

But diseases killed the vast majority of the natives.

The only reason the Spanish won is because the natives were too sick to fight back.

The survivors endured centuries of slavery.

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Skullerprop t1_iuj5faq wrote

And who brought the diseases? And who weaponised the diseases once they realised that the natives have no kind of immunity against it?

It was a with multiple extermination methods.

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[deleted] t1_iuhv3db wrote

[deleted]

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H4rryTh3W0lf t1_iuinu05 wrote

Not really. Diseases did most of the job. The Spaniards where not really interested in killing millions of people that could be useful. Sometimes the Europeans didn't even need to arrive at a place to exterminate a population, like the people of the Mississippi valley, an advanced civilization with big towns and agriculture, diseases arrived and collapsed that society, by the time the Spanish people arrived only empty towns remained, by the time the French and British arrived nothing was left.

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