Charlie Bell wrote: > > Really? I'm sure Native Americans, original Australians (especially > in Tasmania where they were wiped out), the "fuzzywuzzies" who were > made to build railways in Africa and so on would disagree with > that. Britain has just as shameful a past in slavery and > extermination as the French, Dutch, Belgians, Portugese... Maybe more. > I think we must separate what was deliberate extermination, accidental extermination and assimilation. The Portuguese Empire had this crazy idea that half of the world was theirs, to make them good catholics sudits of the King of Portugal.
The craziest thing is that they _almost_ succeeded, at an enormous cost to Portugal itself. I've read somewhere that between 1500 and 1580 (or so, when Dom Sebastião vanished and Portugal was anschlussed by Spain) the population of european Portugal was reduced to _half_, as they desperately tried to grab half of the world. What I mean is that the portuguese genocide of brazilian natives was either accidental (diseases) or assimilation. Each native tribe that spontaneously converted to catholicism - and many of them did, as the technology of the invaders was really impressive - was immediately accepted in equal terms with the portuguese colonists. They wouldn't be able to conquer such a vast area in so little time otherwise - just to compare, by 1580 or so all coastline of Brazil was firmly secured in Portuguese control, and then they (and here I am almost replacing "they" by "we"...) began digging to the inside. OTOH, there were some episodes of deliberate genocide, with - as usual (WTG! take note on this! Religion is evil!!!) - a theological justification. Canibal tribes were considered soulless (how can a canibal resurect on Judgment Day, when most of this flesh comes from other people? It's absurd that God would resurect a man with missing parts, so the natural conclusion is that canibals don't have a soul), and were fair game to extermination. Alberto Monteiro _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
