All countries have had their share of genocide and slavery over the centuries, but which is the bigger stain in America's past: slavery or the genocide of the native population of the country?
by 
hijklmno
ANSWERS: 8
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I believe both are equally reprehensible. Both reflect cruelty to people to unimaginable proportions.
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the genocide of the native indians.
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Both seem rather large in the past, but to look at the modern effects, I would have to say that of the First Nations.
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I see no distinction in the level of atrocity between the genocide of native Americans and slavery. Human beings were deprived of their rights in both cases, treated as nonhumans, their resources and their bodies used for the benefit of the conquerors. Make no mistake, any time a person or a people are deprived of their rights and of their dignity as human beings, it is a stain on all of us. It is true that we who still have rights are either a part of the problem or part of the solution. Those of us who do nothing are part of the problem. There is no excuse.
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i have read that somewhere between 100-500millon Africans died during the slave trade. But it should also be mentioned that Native Americans were originally used as slaves by Columbus. The truth is, its like comparing apples to apples. Both are terrible, and both should hold an important place in our history, but to say one was worse means belittling the other event.
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Both are equally heinous, and the repercussions continue today. Worse still are the fundamental ideas and intentions of each. Both also were based on common practices of the day. Both are infernal wounds which have not healed. Perhaps it's better to focus on how to move beyond the atrocities. The problems are so complex that understanding why they happened is extremely difficult.
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The number of American Indian deaths are reported to be almost 12 million on this website http://hnn.us/articles/7302.html . While the numbers of American Slaves reported in the 1860 US census is less than 4 million male and female http://www2.census.gov/prod2/decennial/documents/1860a-15.pdf . Therefore in terms of numbers who lost their freedom by death or slavery the American Indian has more than 3 times the loss. The relative value of loss can be debated forever.
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I would say both are equal. But in regard of slavery I would say that the life of slaves under british or french rule was harder as it was under the rule of the people of the south. The reason was quite simple: In the south slaves were more expensive and in the West Indies or French colonies slaves were extremely cheap so that everyboda could afford slaves. In the West Inidies the system (mostly ruled by ladies) was that hard that a slave did not liv emore than 4 to 8 years and then he was replaced by another cheap one. The ladies who ran those plantations clearly decided that it was cheaper to let their slaves work as much as they could in a short and then replace them. So rebellion was extremely rare and the profit was extremely high. In America the replacement of slaves was more expensive and so they were treated better.
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