Chris, I am not in disagreement with you or John on the issue that the native populations of America or Asia were decimated by European colonization. What I find disagreeable is the "who killed more people" rhetoric that indiscriminately attributes all death to a hated political factor of one's choice. The very same logic forms the foundation of right wing diatribes against communism - so what is bad for the goose is also bad for the gander.
Any large socio-demographic shifts, be it migration, colonization, shifts in the mode of production (e.g. foraging to agriculture, changes in the methods of farming, or change from agrarian to industrial society) carries a human cost i.e. the number of death and suffering directly on indirectly caused by the change. Some of that cost is unavoidable, some of it is accidental, some of it is discretionary i.e. resulting from political choices of which some are bona fide mistakes (i.e. consequences could not be predicted when the decision was made), some of them result from ineptitude and poor information, some of them are malicious (i.e. consequences were intended) and some are a combination of the above.
Good analytical work will try to carefully examine these factors and attribute consequences accordingly. Propagandistic bullshit, otoh, will use some form of death statistics (to create an illusion of scientific objectivity) and summarily attribute it to the political enemy of choice - "communism" "capitalism" "white man" "primitive man" and so forth.
I used to swallow this kind of propaganda raw, but as I get older, my bullshit tolerance decreases exponentially. At this point, I am fed up with the fear and hate mongering of various political persuasions produced in this country - and I am yearning for a more rational discourse.
Which btw reminds me of an old joke. Two Jews, Mr. Rosenbaum, and Mr. Silberstein meet in a pre WW1 Vienna in a café. They pick up magazines from the rack. Mr. Rosenbaum picks up a respectable liberal daily, Mr. Silberstein - a rabidly anti-semitic tabloid. Mr. Rosenbaum: "I do not understand you, Mr. Silberstein, why are you reading such trash?" Mr. Silberstein: "Your paper writes about pogroms in Russia, discrimination of Jews in Germany, and the plight of Jewish immigrants in America. My paper writes about Jews hoarding all the wealth and secretly controlling European governments. You see, Mr. Rosenbaum, I prefer the good news."
Wojtek