Yes, it is true. It does not matter the number of people killed in genocide (one person or millions). Indigenous people were killed and replaces by the invaders. This is a fact documented by historians.

All colonizers have done just that: obey my commands or get killed. Today, we immigrate after fulfilling certain conditions. When you enter the new country by yourself, you try to survive, but you don't need to kill anyone-the police is watching.

When the colonizers entered what is now USA there was no police, you do whatever you thought was necessary. I hear the figure of 7 million victims for N. America, but nobody has counted.

Perhaps, the only expedition that was not intending to kill, but spread culture instead was that of Alexander the Great. He wanted to unite all tribes into a universal community, something that we do in some places today.

People on here saying it is true do not have all the facts. There was tremednous de-population of N. America coinciding witht th apprearance of Europeans however most of the death was the result of disease which the first nations had no immunity to. So, it was accidental death on a mass scale not intended to be genocide. Some people may claim Europeans gave indigenous people 'infected blankets' this is an urban myth and not true, Still the Europeans treated them badly as did some indigenous groups themselves (think Aztec mass ritual murder) People should arm themselves with honest historical knowledge before knee jerk responding.

I agree, statements should be supported by documented facts. But the problem is that most of evidences, up to now, seem to demonstrate that whole peoples were exterminated, not only during the conquest in the sixteenth century, but also during the different processes of expansion in later centuries, both in North America, and in South America, as in the cases of Argentina and Chile.

Moreover, until recent times it was seldom attempted to deny that fact, at least as far as I had read, even from the accounts of the conquerors and colonizers themselves (BTW, in my country there is a city and province called Matanzas, which translated into English means slaughter, massacre, due to the number of indigenous people killed in that place). This tendency to re-interpret events is relatively recent. That is why I am interested in knowing on what new arguments are based that tendency to affirm that there was no genocide.

And regarding Aztecs bloody rituals, they should not justify mass killing and exploitation, in the same way that Inquisition should not justify those rituals.

In Latin America the colonisers unwittingly introduced diseases, such as measles, to which the indigenous population had no immunity, but there was also devastating conflict.

And (possibly) as an exchange, syphilis was introduced to Europe. If so (and there is debate about this) it was deserved.

In North America the indigenous population were kind and generous to settlers, such as the 'Pilgrim fathers', but conflict soon arose.

In a genocide, one factor is to hate and eliminate the human being as human being systematically, together with other causes of death, as war, economical exploitation, etc. Otherwise, is more exact to speak of crims againts humanity, crims of war, etc.

Since we judge the elimination by the Osmans on the Armenians as genocide, since we judge the war of the Germans vs the Herero tribe in 1904 in German Southwest Africa (today Namibia) as a genocide, then obviously the conquest in America was a genocide...technical argument

Regarding this question, from a Spanish newspaper:

https://elpais.com/politica/2019/04/24/sepa_usted/1556103173_598449.html?fbclid=IwAR0ZLX3Kz6A20yNLh5QvR0ty3m2scEZarXGEoTl4mUVZz5YweURDq7XR9Es

Many of the conquerors were bloodthirsty and went hunting for the natives. But remember that the Spaniards were hundreds compared to the Indians who were millions. It is practically impossible that a few hundred ended up with millions, in addition that they did not count on weapons of mass destruction.

The real Spanish academy defines the term genocide as

Systematic extermination or elimination of a human group on the basis of race, ethnicity, religion, politics or nationality

Not all the conquerors had that action.

The religious and even the Spanish Crown protected many indigenous peoples from abuses by Spanish encomenderos.

Historians and demographers often agree that the infectious diseases nonexistent in America, carried by the European colonizers, mainly smallpox, were the main factor in the collapse that affected the American Indian population, which had no defenses against them.

The demonstrations in many chronicles do speak of mistreatment, abuse and specific cases of violence, but not an orchestrated plan to eliminate the indigenous people.

In North America there weren't so many diseases that killed the natives in order to produce immensity of crimes against the natives, in addition with the passage of time in Latin America there was a process of mestization that didn't exist in North America.

The conquest of Latin America was a violent process carried out by the majority of the conquerors who were only looking for riches.

It would be interesting to analyze each one of the conquerors in order to understand which was his eagerness, his objective and possibly the answer will be the search for wealth and social ascent.

Here is a list of the conquerors

https://www.geni.com/projects/Conquistadores-espa%25C3%25B1oles/255

I am inclined to think that this unbridled zeal pushed the majority to violent actions, but there was no orchestrated plan to exterminate the Indians. The treatment of the indigenous people was also very cruel.

Then, there are two points of view: there were not mass killing of native Americans, only many of them died due infectious diseases, against which native Americans lacked of immunological resources. Other, there were mass killing but, here again there is a "bifurcation" in the interpretation of that fact: technically, it was not a genocide, because conquerors had motives, different from those characterizing genocide. Others say, yes, that was a genocide.

I think in the case of the later, they are generalizing the meaning of genocide. BTW, that frequently is currently done. In any case, America conquest was not one of the most bright events in the History of the human kind.

certainly not...

I believe the definitive answer lies in Stannard's (Yale, San Fran. State) American Holocaust. The genocide was not wholesale, but genocidal attitudes were prevalent. At the very least, most colonizers were prejudicial toward native peoples, and in many cases North American leaders, including political leaders, called for the "extermination of the savages." You will find Stannard's work compelling and very well documented -- which is the hallmark of good scholarship.

https://www.amazon.ca/American-Holocaust-Conquest-New-World/dp/0195085574

In History, it is important to study accurately chronology and differents periods, particularly when we examine a long trend of three centuries, as in the Spaniard colonization, for exemple, A too panoramic view is not ever a good method. Historiens distinguish between the caribbean colonization and the continental colonization by Hispanic Monarchy. In the second, we find a correction legal of the first, fo example in the prohibition of native's slavery, etc. The mortality ws also higher in the Carib (Hispaniola, now Dominicana). At this time, the moral controversy on this matter is well known as well as the protectory measures of the "Leyes de Indias" (truely insufficients and not ever applicated".

Despite the differences between different colonial powers colonization is a disgrace.While British power calling for the cessation of slavery in the Arabian Gulf in mid-19th century, it exercised extreme force destroying and burning Ras al-Khima (Emirates) in the last decade of the 19th century.

For the moral controversy on conquest, I have forgotten the name of father Bartolomé de las Casas et anothers. After the prohibition of slavery (in benefit of natives, not of Africans), the colons obtained of the Crown the system of "encomienda", a manner of feodal power on indian comunities.