• BlameTheAntifa@lemmy.world
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    12 hours ago

    303 natives were convicted and sentenced to death following the Dakota War of 1862. Lincoln actually commuted the sentences of 264 of those natives, allowing the convictions to stand only for those he believed personally engaged in the murder of innocent women and children.

    Therefore, the last one is deliberately and intentionally misleading.

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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      8 hours ago

      The Dakota War came out of a strategic starvation campaign imposed by the Union Army over Sioux Territory. The original tribes had been forced off the productive soil around the Minnesota River and displaced into barren wasteland. Subsequent crop failure and long winter made trading for foodstuffs from their home territories the only means of survival. And the settlers took maximum advantage, deliberately scamming and price gouging the Sioux for the remains of their family wealth. This, after a series of treaties had been casually violated from administration to administration.

      The war was quite literally a fight for survival by the Sioux. Lincoln’s largess in hanging only the young men directly involved in the raid did nothing to prevent the Sioux population from continuing its rapid decline, as the surviving elders were left to starve to death in the wilderness and the children were forced into Christian schools notorious for brutalizing and killing the kidnapped youths.

    • Randomgal@lemmy.ca
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      12 hours ago

      He didn’t kill ALL the innocent, whose land he stole and whose relatives he murdered. Only those that dated fight back.

      Yeah, sounds like Trump.

      • RowRowRowYourBot@sh.itjust.works
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        8 hours ago

        He didn’t steal any land. The battles fought between Natives and non-native populations were rarely a fight that had “good” vs “evil” sides.

        They executed those that wantonly murdered innocent people. It tirns out murdering people for their food, goods, and horses is something the government did not want to encourage.

        • Randomgal@lemmy.ca
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          2 hours ago

          No, they were, very much. Europeans were invaders, taking land that didn’t belong to them by force. The government explicitly encouraged murder and turned a blind eye to any abuses. If you don’t want people to defend their land and avenge the love domes you murder, maybe don’t invade and ethnically cleanse the are to begin with?

          Do you also think Russia v. Ukraine or Israel’s genocide don’t have “evil” vs “good” sides?

          Because if you’re invading and murdering innocent people, its a clear cut for most people.