Replying to a message of Thees Peereboom to Phil Payne:

 TP> From: Thees Peereboom 

 TP> On Sun, 23 Mar 2003 17:17:31 +0100, Phil Payne
 TP>  wrote:

 >>> The US didn't kill 1.2 million of it's own civilians.
 >> 
 >> Really?  How many native Americans were there when the palefaces
 >> arrived? 
 TP> Phil,

 TP> I sincerely hope you realize that you're reaching.

Not much, though.  Early on the kind, caring European settlers were nice
enough to give lots of nice wool blankets to the local (north east coast at
the time) tribes.  'course, those blankets had been used by smallpox
patients and caused an epidemic of that disease that decimated a population
that had never had any exposure to the disease (it is not native to
America) and thus had no resistance to it at all.

 TP> I don't like these Bush fellows not one bit more than you do, but
 TP> comparing the US with Iraq under Saddam Hussein because of the tragic
 TP> faith of the Indians is really too much.

Actually, despite the many massacres of the 19th century (Colonel 'nits
make lice' Chivington at Sand Creek, for instance; or General 'all the good
indians I saw were dead' Crook for another) I believe there are actually
more native Americans on the planet now than there were in 1492.  The
tribal populations most likely vary from their relative sizes at that time,
however.

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