How was the genocide against the Jews different from those of the Middle Passage against the Native American Indians? In the intensely motivated and directed effort at total extermination and also the level of technology employed in trying to do so.
There was no motive to exterminate in the Middle Passage. Indeed the more deaths, the less value the cargo. But, the desire to take many over and to feed cheaply led to conditions in which many indeed died.
As for the Native American Indians, there were certainly US presidents such as Andrew Jackson who were extremely hostile. There were certainly numerous movements to remove Indians from certain lands, by death or by forced exile. There were successful local efforts to wipe them out in certain areas. But most of the Indian deaths were due to diseases brought in by the Europeans. Except for certain instances of "giving blankets with smallpox" most of those deaths were not centrally and consciously directed.
These issues of conscious direction, etc. apply to some of the other discussions of who is guilty of mass murder for how many numbers, etc. that we have seen here. Barkley Rosser On Tue, 19 May 1998 16:39:11 -0400 Charles Brown <charlesb at CNCL.ci.detroit.mi.us> wrote:
> Max Sawicky wrote:
>
> Then again, maybe I'm an exclusivist. I think
> the European Holocaust is different from, say, the
> Middle Passage or the European conquest and settlement
> of the Americas. Not more horrible, but different.
> Why is a long story which might require an attending
> psychiatrist, but does this make one an exclusivist?
>
> Charles - How specifically different ? I could see an argument for the fastest rate of murder (6 million in 3 years).
>
> Max-
> I suppose we should try to theorize about why
> mass murder happens. I guess I wish such discussion
> was more informed by historical material and less by
> heroic efforts to reduce such events to minimalist
> economic, class, or sociological models.
>
> Charles - I think we should too. I still think it is significantly rooted in capitalism. Sort of on mass destruction as an opposite in unity with mass production and other things.
>
> Charles Brown
>
>
-- Rosser Jr, John Barkley rosserjb at jmu.edu