No it wasn’t. Stealing land? Sure. Forced religious conversion? Sure. Invasion and occupation? Sure.
Genocide, though, only really started in this millennia. Before that, land conquest would just involve replacing the government and institutions, not killing/displacing the local population to have them replaced with settlers. It just didn’t make sense for most of human history.
Not to say things were good! Instead of genocide, the more common tactic throughout history was mass enslavement.
“Started this millennia” is not the same thing as “USA was the first to ever do that”. Of course groups expanded into territory held by others and pushed them out and killed them. I mean, there’s tales of similar things in the Bible. It’s also not really the same as what is happening in Gaza at all.
I would say the concept of genocide didn’t really exist before the concept of the nation-state, which is a relatively recent development that happened to coincide with the so-called “discovery” of the New World. That’s hardly the USA’s invention though! Europe pioneered the concept and used it to colonize all over the world.
It was done all over the world for millennia long before that.
No it wasn’t. Stealing land? Sure. Forced religious conversion? Sure. Invasion and occupation? Sure.
Genocide, though, only really started in this millennia. Before that, land conquest would just involve replacing the government and institutions, not killing/displacing the local population to have them replaced with settlers. It just didn’t make sense for most of human history.
Not to say things were good! Instead of genocide, the more common tactic throughout history was mass enslavement.
@queermunist
Er, I think you mean the last millenium, not this one!
lol okay yeah, started within the last 1000 years
“Started this millennia” is not the same thing as “USA was the first to ever do that”. Of course groups expanded into territory held by others and pushed them out and killed them. I mean, there’s tales of similar things in the Bible. It’s also not really the same as what is happening in Gaza at all.
I would say the concept of genocide didn’t really exist before the concept of the nation-state, which is a relatively recent development that happened to coincide with the so-called “discovery” of the New World. That’s hardly the USA’s invention though! Europe pioneered the concept and used it to colonize all over the world.