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"More Irish people killed more Indians than anyone else"

2

Comments

  • Registered Users Posts: 51 ✭✭Tinytemper


    Irish people did horrible things as members of the British armed forces. That's not a secret. It's why they were rightfully ostracised by many upon return and by our government when we had the chance. It's also why revisionists trying to commemorate the black and tans etc are receiving strong opposition. These people are Ireland's shame, we shouldn't forget them, they should be remembered so others are discouraged from repeating the same mistakes.


    Mod note:
    Please keep on topic and avoid generalistation/inflamatory statements. You are invited to read the History forum charter,


  • Registered Users Posts: 2,566 ✭✭✭Yellow_Fern


    Peregrinus wrote: »
    No. I think you are conflating two very different periods of history.

    The plague of epidemics followed first contact/exploration; it was rapid and severe. But "rapid" is the key word here; from about a century after first contact the population was recovering again - i.e. from the early 1600s. And the repopulation of the land with new, changed societies - e.g. the plains Indian culture - was extensive. As well as acquiring smallpox from Europeans, Native Americans acquired domesticated horses, and this completely changed their way of life, enabling different, and very successful, patterns of land use, settlement and migration.

    It was another two hundred years or more before European settlers on the Eastern seaboard began their aggressive westward expansion and settlement program. They were not settling in depopulated lands, but in repopulated lands, of which the well-established indigenous people had to be disposessed.
    Nope. It's you are confused. The thread is about the entire history of New World colonisation. There were massacres towards the end of the 19th century but they were also massacres in the 16th century and Irish present from very early on. There is evidence of plagues hitting far later the early 1600s, even in the second half of the 19th cen but even if there was wasn't, it wouldn't disprove my point. The populations never recovered their numbers, despite substantial cultural change and evolution like the adoption of horse use. There was probably a few areas like on the Plains where horses allowed a net increase exlcuing the impact of plagues but that is an exception.


  • Registered Users Posts: 2,566 ✭✭✭Yellow_Fern


    Peregrinus wrote: »

    I’m not particularly interested in defending the “more Irish” claim. For what it’s worth, I think it’s a very dodgy claim. I was more responding to your claim that “no ethnic cleansing was needed” to facilitate the settlement of Indian territories by white settlers. It certainly was.

    Boards.ie brings out the worse in people. No one said this. My point was that even if there was no massacres that the end result would be the same.


  • Registered Users Posts: 4,811 ✭✭✭Padre_Pio


    odyssey06 wrote: »
    The 90% figure seems to be a widely accepted estimate for losses after contact through disease.

    When you look at the battles between native Americans and European settlers, the numbers involved are minuscule.

    Most have less than 2,000 participants total, compared to a Napoleonic battle which could have 100 times more combatants.

    The population was either ridiculously small to begin with, or so absolutely devastated that the settlers could easily raise an army larger than the indigenous peoples.


  • Registered Users Posts: 13,563 ✭✭✭✭Thelonious Monk


    People have this view that the Irish are saintly and never got involved in any atrocities, and it's the Brits who are the devils of the world.
    Irish were involved with mistreatment of Australian Aboriginals, Native Americans, and committed many atrocities while being part of the British army. That O'Dwyer guy was responsible for the massacre in India that inspired Ghandi to protest for independence.
    There were also plenty of Irish slave owners.
    We're just like any other humans, will kill/pillage for food/money/power when necessary.


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  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 9,078 ✭✭✭IAMAMORON


    I initially thought about the Duke of Welly when I saw the title.

    Massacred thousands in India.


  • Posts: 0 [Deleted User]


    We're just like any other humans, will kill/pillage for food/money/power when necessary.

    Nothing more to say ...[/thread]


  • Registered Users Posts: 13,563 ✭✭✭✭Thelonious Monk


    Also that old joker Lord Haw Haw, Nazi cheerleader, was Irish. We're no different to anyone else.


  • Registered Users Posts: 6,191 ✭✭✭RandomViewer


    Blunt instrument of whatever flag they served,


  • Registered Users Posts: 51 ✭✭Tinytemper


    And those Irish people who committed these crimes were rightly vilified and ostracised upon return. We don't celebrate these people.


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  • Registered Users Posts: 13,563 ✭✭✭✭Thelonious Monk


    Isn't the very fact there are so many Irish names in Australia/North America proof that we were colonisers?


  • Registered Users Posts: 15,630 ✭✭✭✭whisky_galore


    Tinytemper wrote: »
    And those Irish people who committed these crimes were rightly vilified and ostracised upon return.

    Were they??


  • Registered Users Posts: 729 ✭✭✭Granadino


    Tinytemper wrote: »
    And those Irish people who committed these crimes were rightly vilified and ostracised upon return. We don't celebrate these people.

    Like John Mitchell and Fr Kenyon?


  • Registered Users Posts: 51 ✭✭Tinytemper


    Were they??

    Yes.


  • Registered Users Posts: 51 ✭✭Tinytemper


    Granadino wrote: »
    Like John Mitchell and Fr Kenyon?

    Yes, they were praised for other deeds but not for their dark history. We don't celebrate this viciousness dispalyed by Irish people partaking in disgusting crimes, unlike other countries.


  • Registered Users Posts: 15,630 ✭✭✭✭whisky_galore


    Tinytemper wrote: »
    Yes.

    Care to expand on that?


  • Registered Users Posts: 51 ✭✭Tinytemper


    Care to expand on that?

    Yes, those Irish people who committed these crimes were rightly vilified and ostracised upon return.


  • Registered Users Posts: 13,563 ✭✭✭✭Thelonious Monk


    Tinytemper wrote: »
    Yes, they were praised for other deeds but not for their dark history. We don't celebrate this viciousness dispalyed by Irish people partaking in disgusting crimes, unlike other countries.

    We celebrate the fact that we colonised Australia and USA though, which wasn't our land. We are no different to any other people.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 572 ✭✭✭Errashareesh


    I think some Irish people have this yearning to depict the Irish as the bad guys - it's part of the colonial legacy of self loathing I suspect. Anti semitism is a card they love to throw around. Obsessed with De Valera being matey with Hitler (not that he actually was). There is this tendency from some to find it difficult to admit that the Irish were badly treated - that their colonial masters weren't that bad and they should be grateful that their betters taught them the way.

    Of course there were going to be bad eggs among the Irish. Of course they weren't all innocent angels, but the fact remains that they were a powerless group compared to the British and other colonial powers. And the Irish undoubtedly experienced severe prejudice in Britain and the new worlds of the northern and southern hemispheres. It eventually passed - due to a lot of hard work and determination - but there's no denying it was once there in a substantial quantity.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 2,281 ✭✭✭CrankyHaus


    People have this view that the Irish are saintly and never got involved in any atrocities, and it's the Brits who are the devils of the world.
    Irish were involved with mistreatment of Australian Aboriginals, Native Americans, and committed many atrocities while being part of the British army. That O'Dwyer guy was responsible for the massacre in India that inspired Ghandi to protest for independence.
    There were also plenty of Irish slave owners.
    We're just like any other humans, will kill/pillage for food/money/power when necessary.


    The crucial difference is that we were under foreign rule at the time ourselves, and many of the "Irish" people in positions of responsibility for oppressive acts overseas were from the colonial class planted on this island to subjugate us.



    How many acts of Imperialism has Ireland or even Irish people engaged in since independence?


    It's good and timely to highlight evil done by individual Irish people in the service of other Empires, British, American, whatever. The Indian Wars is an excellent example. But to put it on the same level of national legacy as that of say Britain for its empire is a false equivalence.


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  • Registered Users Posts: 51 ✭✭Tinytemper


    We celebrate the fact that we colonised Australia and USA though, which wasn't our land. We are no different to any other people.

    No, we don't. Any Irish person involved assisting other countries in colonisation are rightly looked down upon as scum. The only Irish people who excuse this sort of person are usually in favour of colonisation by other nations anyway.

    Mod note:
    @Tinytemper. Your post falls outside the scope of the History forum in terms of content and language. Please do not post again in this thread for the rest of the day


  • Registered Users Posts: 13,563 ✭✭✭✭Thelonious Monk


    Tinytemper wrote: »
    No, we don't. Any Irish person involved assisting other countries in colonisation are rightly looked down upon as scum. The only Irish people who excuse this sort of person are usually in favour of colonisation by other nations anyway.

    We do. How many times do you hear people banging on about the Irish building America etc.
    As opposed to the poster above, I think we like to paint ourselves as Saints who'd never harm a fly, whereas we're just the same as any other people.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 572 ✭✭✭Errashareesh


    CrankyHaus wrote: »
    The crucial difference is that we were under foreign rule at the time ourselves, and many of the "Irish" people in positions of responsibility for oppressive acts overseas were from the colonial class planted on this island to subjugate us.



    How many acts of Imperialism has Ireland or even Irish people engaged in since independence?


    It's good and timely to highlight evil done by individual Irish people in the service of other Empires, British, American, whatever. The Indian Wars is an excellent example. But to put it on the same level of national legacy as that of say Britain for its empire is a false equivalence.
    Yeah I've heard "the fella who masterminded concentration camps was a Kerryman!" Earl Kitchener may have been born in Kerry but he was hardly your run of the mill Kerryman.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 572 ✭✭✭Errashareesh


    We do. How many times do you hear people banging on about the Irish building America etc.
    As opposed to the poster above, I think we like to paint ourselves as Saints who'd never harm a fly, whereas we're just the same as any other people.
    Building America as in working as labourers.

    And nobody is saying the Irish were perfect.

    You however are depicting them as this army of brutes akin to the colonisers. I don't know why you'd want to put out such a false statement.


  • Registered Users Posts: 13,563 ✭✭✭✭Thelonious Monk


    Building America as in working as labourers.

    And nobody is saying the Irish were perfect.

    You however are depicting them as this army of brutes akin to the colonisers. I don't know why you'd want to put out such a false statement.

    Well we were only too happy to reap the rewards of colonisation is what I mean.
    Not as bad as The Imperial Brits of course.


  • Registered Users Posts: 13,563 ✭✭✭✭Thelonious Monk


    Yeah I've heard "the fella who masterminded concentration camps was a Kerryman!" Earl Kitchener may have been born in Kerry but he was hardly your run of the mill Kerryman.

    Very fond of naked statues of boys too


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 2,281 ✭✭✭CrankyHaus


    Yeah I've heard "the fella who masterminded concentration camps was a Kerryman!" Earl Kitchener may have been born in Kerry but he was hardly your run of the mill Kerryman.


    Reminds me of Field Marshall Montgomery going on to BBC's Desert Island Discs and listing "Danny Boy" as he explained that he was in fact Irish himself.


    Not to negate Anglo-Irish identity but it is a complex issue, the nuances of which tend to be ignored when people nowadays talk about "Irish People" as having been complicit in the horrors of the British Empire.


  • Registered Users Posts: 4,219 ✭✭✭tipptom


    Yeah I've heard "the fella who masterminded concentration camps was a Kerryman!" Earl Kitchener may have been born in Kerry but he was hardly your run of the mill Kerryman.

    "Just becuase you were born in a stable does not mean you are a horse".
    Im sure Mr Kitchener would have agreed with his fellow "Kerryman".


  • Registered Users Posts: 27,381 ✭✭✭✭odyssey06


    The Sioux probably had their hands full figuring out the differences between Anglo Americans, Irish Americans, German Americans.
    I think it might be a bit much expecting them to break it down into Irish Irish, Scots Irish, Anglo Irish...

    "To follow knowledge like a sinking star..." (Tennyson's Ulysses)



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  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 9,078 ✭✭✭IAMAMORON


    John Mitchel gets more divisive the more you read about him. A Presbyterian Irish nationalist who also was pro slavery. He just does not suit the stereotype of a united Irishman, even though he was one.

    John_Mitchel_%28Young_Ireland%29.JPG

    His opinion on the great famine will prick your ears. He was convinced it was a genocidal conspiracy dreamt up by Sir Robert Peel and associates.

    I often think that the real power in America are happier for virtue signallers to bitch about slavery and racial segregation because it deflects from the real crime of genocide which occurred during the inception of the US and the frontiers. Millions died then, not just shot on the spot either, disease killed them also. A common European flu would annihilate a tribe from the Chesapeake Bay. It happened the same in Australia too. I don't believe for a second that Aboriginals lived only in the desert, they were forced out there for sure.


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