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I agree that "savage brutality" is probably
rhetorical overkill, and the point that the indigenous peoples did not wage war
for ideological reasons is a very interesting idea I had never considered. And,
too, the horrors of the Inquisition in the name of Christ must certainly set
some kind of record in the history of humanity for hypocrisy. I can't think of
anything I know of to parallel (sp?) it with the Native Americans.
Nonetheless, taking great delight in the suffering
of prisoners - indigenous or white - being tortured to death was a staple of
entertainment for many Native American tribes, and their willingness to turn on
each other for pay from the whites - the Hurons definitely come to mind, and I
remember Kit Carson, who specialized in helping the U.S.
Cavalry exterminate whole tribes by first guiding the soldiers to their
hidden crops so they would starve and then guiding them to their hiding places
so the soldiers could kill them in their weakened state - certainly does them
no honor, and reinforces the idea that most tribes were as
murderous toward the members of other tribes as the Nazis were to the Jews,
Gypsies and Poles.
I think that one or another of the Native American
tribes, sooner or later, left to their own devices, would have developed
sufficient technology to become a version of the Nazis. Then the horrors that
already occurred in America at a relatively low rate would have been multiplied
just as many-fold as ever happened in the concentration camps of the
Nazis.
I remember learning that one of the tribes, I
forget which one, which was a notably peaceful tribe, nonetheless only
applied the concept "human" to people of their own tribe.
So, I think it's really a matter of quantity, not
quality. The Nazis were really efficient, but essentially there was no
difference.
Charles
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