While the specifics of the pox infected blanket story might not be true, ...

I'm sure glad this was Rick DeMent instead of, say, Mary Mapes. ;-)

Yes the indians are not "native Americans". You could call them native savage landers or native anti-Americans, but you cannot call them native Americans. It was white anglo saxon protestant Europeans who were the native Americans. They created the America we have today. The indians did everything in their power to ensure there would be no America at all!

You can also make a case that European domination of the world is owed to the plague. By shaking up the society order, making labor scarce and thus allowing for more value for labor, taking out a third of the people enabling the land to not marginally but richly support the survivors and finally giving incentive to innovation to replace the labor, Europe went from being behind the Islamic world (which would raid Europe for slaves) to being in charge of the world.

So yes, there is a great case to be made that the colonization of America would not have proceeded as it did without the devastation of the small pox. But I think Africa or Asia is likely to give a better example of what the result would be rather than to say that Europeans would have never penetrated into America.

As an aside, if you look at the projected death rates in Africa due to Aids, then look at the resources available in Africa, you can start to speculate on a similar European Renaissance in Africa, except that the dominant western culture is likely to butt up against it immediately.

While the specifics of the pox infected blanket story might not be true, the facts are that without the introduction of disease that was introduced to the indigenous population by European settlers the complexion of the north American Continent would not have been as white as it became.

White euro's owe a debt to the small pox virus for making manifest destiny possible.

Or to take a different tack, I have no doubt that somewhere in my family tree were some Danes who decided to go a viking. The most likely took prisoners (aka slaves), burned, pillaged, etc. Now can you admire 'viking' military successes while still not suggesting the viking way of life should be how we live today? Absolutely.

No one forces the Indians to live in squalor on reservations. They are not prisoners for God sakes! In fact they are a lesson in liberal politics of what happens when you GIVE people money for doing nothing. Do you know how much money we GIVE to each and every Indian every month? Sick!

Indians have always been small groups of nomadic peoples from the beginning. Were they supposed to have exclusive rights to the lands of America forever? Plus, Indians in the late 16th century and early 17th were savages-sorry, true. They slaughtered wholesale whenever they had the chance. That would be akin to me and a thousand of my camping buddies living alone in Washington state and killing anyone that came within its boundaries. Ridiculous!

Hey Indians: get over it! Here in SW Washington state we are fighting them coming in (uninvited)with one of the largest proposed casinos in the country. Talk about your revenge...

It isn't necessary to condemn those in the past for not living up to what Sir Thomas More might then have considered utopian ideals any more than it is to condemn those today who cannot live up to the utopian ideals of the Angry Left. Of course, bad things happened, even by the yardsticks used then. But at some point you have to, dare I say it, Move On and adjust to your new environment or live with the consequences. By all means, teach and remember, but let's not rewrite history or obsessively dwell on ancient wrongs from the past. We rightly ridicule the Islamist rantings about the loss of Andalusia in 1492. Why should this be different?

Not that it matters, but I'm part Cherokee as well. So does that give me absolute moral authority to speak on this topic? Oh, and oskee-wow-wow for any other Illinois fans out there. Go Chief!