• arymandias@sh.itjust.works
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        11 months ago

        Both can be (and are) true, while the Europeans and later Americans did many things that would now be classified as genocide and ethnic cleansing, the majority of the native population simply died inadvertently of diseases. It’s actually unlikely that the Europeans would have been able to so thoroughly conquer the Americas if the native population would have survived the first wave of diseases.

        • BCsven@lemmy.ca
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          11 months ago

          This makes me think you did not read the full article and the timeline. Of course the indigenous people survived the first wave of diseases. The majority did not die out, This is why the colonizers were later fruatrated with the situation of trying to expand into more land. There are so many historic books about the systematic elimination of “Indians”. The diaease trope is what is taught in american school so we can feel detached from their ultimate demise. But if you don’t have time to search and read, just look at this wiki link on how many were genocided rather than the paltry few you think were left over from disease. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide_of_Indigenous_peoples

  • Match!!@pawb.social
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    11 months ago

    native ppl: these dudes are sickly, scurvied, and so pale they look like they’re about to die, we have to give them food

    europeans: they bring us offerings! they must think we’re gods, probably

    • Madison420@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      The white people as gods myth likely comes from Australia where pale people were thought of as ghosts and treated well and given things they’d need on their trip to the aboriginal afterlife of sorts.

  • Bondrewd@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    Gets off the boat, gets out his gun: “Let me show you a magic trick!”

  • DillyDaily@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    I mean, I’d be confused and concerned too if a time travelling European from the 18th century stepped off a boat in 1492

    • Transporter Room 3@startrek.website
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      11 months ago

      People genuinely do not understand history.

      I think a good comedic example of this is in Futurama, where some characters from the year 3000 get tossed back to Roswell in 1947. They try to blend with “period correct clothes” and lingo, but since they’re 1000 years out of place, they’re combining things that hadn’t been invented yet with stuff from 1947s past.

      A lot of people seem to think cleopatra was hanging out with the dudes who built the pyramids and think it’s weird Sparta and Rome never went to war. I mean, sure technically they both existed in an overlapping period of about 50 years, but technically the USA has had diplomatic contact with the Holy Roman Empire for a few years.

      Imagine if a shuttle landed on the planet and someone from 2402 popped out with their neon implants, xarthan death spikes proudly displayed, and an onion on their belt. Everyone knows they don’t show up until at least 2215.

  • ExLisper@linux.community
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    11 months ago

    Ok, I see we have run out of memes and are staring to repost everything again. Time to start new service guys.

  • PolandIsAStateOfMind@lemmy.ml
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    11 months ago

    To be fair, this is looking more like late XVIII century man with advanced syphilis, but after looking some of late XV century portraits the point still somewhat stands anyway.

    • feedum_sneedson@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      Apparently this is largely a myth, somebody did try it on a single occasion but it doesn’t actually work to spread smallpox. That guy was clearly an arsehole, but yeah, apparently it wasn’t a thing. I don’t know how important this is given the near total genocide of the Native Americans, but it’s funny how some things become “common knowledge” and some things never really get out. Soap made of Jews is another one - it was apparently an urban legend at the time due to the letters written on the rationed bars of soap. Again, more than enough evil to go around without the soap. It does seem that one insane commandants wife collected people’s tattooed skin and likely did make a lampshade out of human skin. People say that didn’t happen, but there’s a pretty convincing photograph out there of all the seized items at one camp. Can’t remember why I started talking about this, think I was trying to distract myself from a stomachache.