Comment by blueyes

Thanks for the history PSA.

That wasn't the point of my comment. North America has been settled and re-settled for thousands of years, much like Europe, the Middle East and most of Asia. It's called immigration. It's happening in North America even as we speak by people who are not "from here." Who cares? There are no natives. Just a bunch of people who need to learn to live with each other.

Of course, the Americas were quite densely settled before their first contact with Europeans. By the 15th century, they had produced civilizations, notably those we know as the Aztecs, that were arguably more advanced than any of their contemporaries.

But the Aztecs, the Incas, the Mound People of the Mississippi Valley and the various warring tribes of New England were all decimated by diseases that the Spaniards brought with them unwittingly. Small pox and other diseases wiped them out as part of the Columbian Exchange.

While the Europeans did all the usual things that conquering peoples do, they cannot be blamed for that, because the disease ran ahead of them by decades and wiped out tribes that had never seen a white man. They had no idea how diseases propagated themselves, and fell equal victim to some of them (yellow fever, malaria).

If you want to reflect on what actually happened in the European settlement of the Americas, read 1491 and 1493.

And then maybe we can talk about what it was like to be a homesteader in the late 19th century.