The treatment of Modern native populations and their rights on Land and other issues.

[DaVinci]

I’m going to assume you meant “scrupleless” as in “without moral considerations”.

That's right, thanks for the correction ... i again used 'Esperanto' ...lol.
You must know therefore, that "skrupellos" means exactly that in the german language.

Else, to keep the balance, of our discussion above, you could start to list sources, which put light on the other side. Then i'm alright with you

[SLN445]

I was going to change the topic to be more broad but ill be damned if i can come up with a heading for it.

[sumskilz]

Else, to keep the balance, of our discussion above, you could start to list sources, which put light on the other side. Then i'm alright with you

You know I could list some dreary academic papers, but for sheer entertainment value it’s hard to beat A Voyage Long and Strange by Tony Horwitz. He’s a journalist by profession but has a graduate degree in history. The book is hard to explain because he bounces back and forth between writing about the history, his research, and travelling around talking to experts and average people at the various historical sites. There is a lot from the Native American perspective both modern and historical and a lot of debunking of commonly held myths.

This is from a review of the book:

Ignoring the stories of Henry Hudson and Samuel de Champlain, who traversed New York and the Great Lakes, Horwitz focuses on the far more outrageous exploits of the conquistadors making their misguided way from the Caribbean to what is now Florida, Tennessee, Arkansas and North Carolina, across Mexico and Texas and the southwest, up into New Mexico, Arizona, the Oklahoma panhandle and even Kansas. How many knew that the Spanish penetrated so far north, so early? Or that the Indians they met were primarily not the wandering nomadic tribes we imagine, but highly developed warrior empires, like the one ruled by Powhatan, which stretched from North Carolina to Maryland? Horwitz usefully refutes the noble savage myth, showing that Indian societies were just as Hobbesian as any other. That said, they also did not, as a rule, initiate hostilities with the Europeans, and - albeit partly because of inferior firepower - they emerge as considerably less homicidal, and rather more sensible. They were constantly outsmarting and tricking the Spanish, who retaliated with grotesque, excessive brutality: Hernando de Soto, now remembered by most Americans, if at all, as a Chrysler model, slaughtered between 2,500 and 3,000 Indians hiding in the settlement of Mavila - rivalling even the legendarily bloody civil war battle at Antietam for the dubious honour of highest body count from a single day's combat in American history. The Europeans weren't just massacring Indians, naturally; they were butchering each other, too. Pedro Menéndez murdered more than 100 French Huguenots in what is now Jacksonville, Florida, by stabbing them, impaling them on pikes, and then beheading them - sparing only the musicians, to entertain him.

When Europeans weren't slaughtering each other, they were killing themselves off through ignorance and incompetence. The English died in droves at Jamestown in part because they built on swampland and drank fetid water until the Indians saved them (perhaps, Horwitz surmises, because they reasoned that "dying men who seemed utterly clueless" didn't pose much of a threat). Unsurprisingly, the Jamestown settlers soon arrived at the "Starving Time" in 1609 when they ate shoes, starch from their collars and excrement, and one man killed his pregnant wife and "salted her for his food". This diet might explain the necessity for a spatula mundani, found in an archaeological site, "a narrow spoon used to treat extreme constipation by extracting hard stools".

Historical ironies abound. After the Spanish destroyed all the Indian settlements in their path, they returned from their wanderings and died of the starvation they had caused - no more thriving villages to loot. The self-defeating nature of conquest begins to emerge, and the importance of a lesson we have yet to learn: enlightened self-interest. The vast majority of early European colonies in America died out, in large part, because the colonisers were aristocrats and high-ranking soldiers, accustomed to commanding and being served. They weren't workers, and had few survival skills. The Spanish worked up a sweat, but only at pillaging; they were after instant riches. This is also why Jamestown failed: "too many men 'of a nice bringing up' ", who were "accustomed to 'daintie food' and 'soft beds of downe'" couldn't survive the rigours of life in the wilderness. It was only when the English sent farmers, labourers and merchants to New England (according to Horwitz they were searching for a syphilis cure) that a sustainable colony was built.

The locals he interviews along the way help to bring Horwitz's prodigious reading to life. The story of his trip to Santo Domingo (whose unofficial motto, he tells us, is "estamos jodido": "we're ed") is worth the purchase price alone. In Arkansas he meets a 95-year-old woman, described to him as "real conversive", who hisses, "I still have a pistol and know how to use it" before inviting him in, feeding him rum cake and sharing "every memory of her ninety-five years", none of which had to do with the conquistador's casket he'd come to learn about. In Florida, he encounters a woman who was converted to evangelical protestantism by "a Spanish woman from a Jewish family who became a voodoo priestess in Mexico City and converted to Christianity while in a mental asylum".

Locals are not just targets of gentle satire, however: they are often highly insightful, and resist categorical thinking. He meets an Indian environmentalist neo-Confederate Southerner, who is entirely free of cognitive dissonance because "Indians are basically conservative people - they want to be left alone with their land and traditions, same as Southerners". The story of American history is, of course, one of racial division, but as the people Horwitz meets explain, and exemplify, it has also always involved racial intermingling. One man comments, "I'm probably two-fifths African, two-fifths Indian, and one-fifth European", before adding, "I'm everything . . . a melting-pot. Isn't that what it means to be American?" Similarly, a woman of Creek Indian descent tells Horwitz that when a form asks her to identify her race, she puts "human". In Santo Domingo, the Spanish ambassador informs him that there are now more Spanish speakers in the US than in Spain: "The future of all the Americas is Spain, and that story began in 1492."

Horwitz experiences first-hand as much as he can, baking in 50lbs of Spanish armour in the hot Florida sun, nearly exploding in a sweat lodge, careering around Santo Domingo. Vivid analogies between then and now abound: for Horwitz "conquistadors were, in essence, armed entrepreneurs, who assembled their own force and assumed the risk". De Soto is likened to a Colombian drug lord by one man he meets; another challenges our easy contempt: "Those evil Spaniards weren't aliens, they were us. Get rich quick - that's the American dream, isn't it?" It is a New England minister, however, who articulates what Horwitz has been thinking: in the end, we prefer myth to the facts.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2008/jun/07/history

[Col. Tartleton]

I don't see this as the main basis of modern states historically. Even now in USA, the electoral college is not at all based on everyone having an equal vote. For all Federal elections residents of small states have more power per vote than residents of large states. Going back further the Federal system was explicitly designed to not all the common man to vote because the 'founding fathers' didnt trust the common man.

That's because among other things back then a lot of people couldn't even read or write. I don't think it was an elitist idea. Seeing as half the people are going to be of below average intelligence and you probably only want above average people making important decisions. Plus some substantial wealth allows for better education and more spare time to actually spend on these sorts of affairs. Thomas Paine was a raw democrat which I respect him for among other things, but most of the other big names in America were a bit more conservative in that area. Aristocracy as a birth right was wrong in their opinion but aristocracy of merit was good. These were men who grew up reading Plato and Aristotle and the like, so the idea of the best men for the job getting the job was important to them. All men had equal rights and obligations, but not all men were truly equal in ability.

Ultimately Americans from the start had a northern school (IMO originating from the Puritans (which had a larger impact on the region than their religion which rapidly dried up) and then reinforced by immigrant Catholic populations) in centralized power to preserve civic virtue and the southern school of localized individualist virtue (originating from more mainstream Protestantism.) In this divide we now have the northern Democrats and southern Republicans. That's why the Federalists were notably New Englanders and New Yorkers while the Anti-Federalists (Democratic Republicans) were Virginians. George Washington as president being apolitical and having a taste for both. From this we later see the idea of Concurrent Majority as outlined by John C. Calhoun (who I think was brilliant) that up and down democratic majorities are dangerous. The idea you might also need a majority of states rather than just a majority of people was based on the compromise of the two styles of government which created our bicameral congress. The Small States maintain their dignity alongside the large states thanks to the Senate and the Big States get to throw their weight around in the House of Reps.

Ultimately it's a question of whether the States are understood to be Shires or Countries. Are they just geographic divisions or sovereign entities allied into a vast coalition? That's American politics beneath the skin of the zeitgeist agendas in a nutshell. The reality is somewhere in between because there is no consensus. It's not the Republic of America or the Union of American Republics. It's the United States of America. It's unabashedly ambiguous.

People "let it slide" because the Kamehameha schools were set up by the last Hawaiian Royal Family and even the 'haoles' living in Hawaii have to respect the fact that westerners really took advantage of the native Hawaiians. Kamehameha Schools are a way to provide an opportunity to the local Hawaiian (Hawaii has really poor public schools). Its not like non-native Hawaiians are screwed either, they can go to Punahou or Iolani.

Yeah. Hawaii was a disaster. Luckily it's a beautiful state. Totally worth raping their sovereignty for some pineapples and sandy beaches.

Now that is some revisionist history right there. "Good intentions"? Colonialism and Imperialism qualifies as "good intentions" to you? Native Americans were "totally insane murderous bastards" and the colonists never acted like totally insane murderous bastards?

Oh sure, there were totally insane murderous bastard colonists. But I think the majority of people would have been haunted by what they had done. I don't think French Fur Traders were particularly out to screw anybody. I don't think the Puritan Pilgrims were particularly up to mischief. At least not initially. I don't think the early settlers wanted to exploit anything except the enormous wealth of the country. But I think at the end of the day we have to draw a line between someone quaking in his boots shooting a charging Indian in his full regalia and a vicious looking club with a musket and the Indian trying to kill him for a trophy. But its not like we didn't cooperate with each other. The French and Indian War was a war between the Iroquois Confederation and New England Colonies against the Wabanaki Confederation and New France Colonies. It was America and the Indians vs Canada and the Indians. That were a perfectly legitimate conflict. Most of the early European-Indian disputes were reasonable. It wasn't until Manifest Destiny kicked in that we said "Hey boy, lets kill us dem Injuns and take that thurr land. By that point most people had grown up with a cultural fear and loathing towards the natives from almost a hundred years of warfare.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Tell this man who was scalped as a child he did something wrong and he deserved that. It's sort of like the anti Muslim feelings many Americans have. It started after 911 not before it.

If the Europeans didn't get lucky with the advantage in superior diseases then they would have gone to war to with the natives to cause that depopulation. Just look at things from the Trail of Tears to good ole Teddy Roosevelt's attitude towards natives. The early USA colonists perpetrated a great many intentional evils against the native Americans (I could really go on and on about what the English descendants perpetrated in just California let alone all the rest of the country).

We'd have struggled to establish ourselves.

Nope, my whole point is vice versa, to counter-argue to the one-dimensional views of the likes of Col. Tartleton, and yes, to critizise your apparent templates of an even so one-dimensional researchment of the gruesome Native American.
I never wanted to say, the Native American, and i haven't (show me otherwise the comment), is an angel-like creature who was only doing good things. And some of your extract-sources show also known things of practices, nothing new there for me, i learn history since my childhood, because i was interested in it (and one of my earliest books was about the Native Americans, not a comic, but a history-book for childs with text and pictures about every aspect of their cultures), but i was "raised" though parallel with the Hollywood-view of the Wild West with its dump and gruesome Indians, first later i learned about some "truth" with real researchment of the matter (as i did with so many other history periods).

I've never seen a movie where the Indians were as gruesome as they actually were or the colonists for that matter. Last of the Mohicans type stuff is pretty light on actual violence. Yes they're shooting guns at civilians and beating up soldiers with hatchets and tomahawks, but it's not particularly gruesome and half the main characters are "Good Indians" (which is fine because there were friendly and hostile tribes and nations.) Maybe Apocalypto? But no one takes Mel Gibson seriously, so anything he does is probably written off as bad history and obscene violence (which it is.) We have movies like Pocahontas and stories about Sacajawea. Most people have never even heard of the mound builders even if they live on their mounds...

My point is that as well: Your kind of researchment, but especially the extreme biased commenting-style of Col. Tartleton, which is no researchment at all, is annoying, blind on one eye. It's just not enough to say simply, yes, we did not very well on the Indians, and in the same breath make a picture of the primitive and brutal Native who was supposed to go under.

I have a vague idea of what I'm talking about. I can't just pull citations out of my head. I'm arguing against the idea the natives were any better than the Europeans. If we were talking about Medieval or Ancient Europe I'd grant moral equivalency, but we're talking about Post Renaissance and Enlightenment Europe which was a bit more civil if just as dirty.

It wouldn't be annoying, if you guys would show both sides, the gruels of the Colonists/English/French/Americans and of the Natives. But no, what you describe all the way is the satan-like Native American, who was urgently in need of some western christian culture aka America was a godless bastard's land which needed western civilisation ... that is what one can read out of your kind of argumentation of the picture of the american conquest. Maybe that's common accepted style in the US. But normally meets not the niveau of scientific researchment.

Is researchment even a word? I'm sorry, I know you are German? No, quite the opposite is the accepted style in the US. We were bastards who ed over the peaceful Indians, who have suffered under the yoke of western oppression. Though not so explicitly stated. If I'm biased its against the argument, not the people. The reality is the morality of the Indians was alien to us and the morality of the Europeans though at times lacking was to a fair extent the same as our values today. So if we're to evaluate things from our perspective we have to say that the Europeans failed to live up to their own ideals, but the ideals of the Indians were scary.

It's nothing else than the history of the victor, as i and others said, and everybody with a grip knows it, it's so obvious, but certain people like to be hypocrites no matter what. Your style of presentation here in the matter, even if you are professional underways in this field, shows no better. Maybe it's an extract only of your common proper work, and you doing it better in reality, but that is not obvious here ... because, as said, also your researchment-extracts show one side (which might be true to some degree, while everybody should know, that most sources by victims aren't 100 % true, and even if they are, still are the subjective view and experience of the matter ... we will never know what exactly happens and why and what prior to those events happened aka what led to those events ... valid for both sides of course). The trial of objective/neutral researchment and judement looks different to what i can see here, sorry.

If I was making a movie I'd show Indians torturing and eating their foes after they outfight them, and I'd show Europeans shooting women and children in frustration. It would be a gruesome and fair show of both sides. But I would probably have the main character be a European and be disgusted by both.


In closing: If we're talking Saxons or Gauls vs Haudenosee or Mexihca they're totally equal. Half naked pagan tribesmen covered in tattoos armed with knives and spears looking to capture prisoners and take heads who practice human sacrifice. But to say that we made no progress from ancient Germans to modern English and Americans is silly. I'm not arguing that White people are better than Red people. That's not my point. I'm arguing that the Europeans who reached the Americas were further along than the Indians and that the modern people are better off than they were under their native customs. Mexicans are glad that Cortez overthrew the Aztecs just like Germans are glad the Americans, British, and Russians (and others) overthrew the Nazis. Civility and enlightenment are different concepts. The Indians were quite civilized but unenlightened. Does anyone think that if the Native Americans had European level technology and better immunity to disease (perhaps from trade with ancient china) and their civilization perpetuated to the present we wouldn't view their religion as the most horrible thing in the world? The stuff we freak out at Muslims or Catholics or whomever pale in comparison to institutionalized mass slaughter human sacrifice. The Mesoamericans were a great power, but they were incompatible with the rest of the world. A change from within would have been just as bloody.

[James the Red]

"Mexicans are glad that Cortez overthrew the Aztecs" [Citation needed]

So instead of peaceful interactions like diplomacy and trade and the exchange of ideas, which would have improved both cultures, the Mexicans needed the Spanish to invade and plunder them for their own good?

I suppose when an empire kills a lot of people in arenas and lasts a long time, its the basis for western civilization. But when an empire kills a lot of people on temples and gets conquered, its vilified for all eternity.

[Veliky Kaiser Theos]

Mexicans are glad that Cortez overthrew the Aztecs

Erm.... Cortez didn't overthrow the Aztecs. The Spaniards killed the vast majority of them and replaced them with Spanish colonists.

[DaVinci]

@ sumskilz
Thanks for that extract of A Voyage Long and Strange by Tony Horwitz, noticed. Good reading, have to take deeper consideration of that author.


@ Col. Tartleton
You wrote (besides many other strange things again)

The reality is the morality of the Indians was alien to us and the morality of the Europeans though at times lacking was to a fair extent the same as our values today. So if we're to evaluate things from our perspective we have to say that the Europeans failed to live up to their own ideals, but the ideals of the Indians were scary.

... poor interpretation, again you identify yourself with the ancestors (and aynway, the indian would/could even so say, the morality of the colonists was alien to us, is therefore a null argument), and shows again lack of historical knowledge aka lack of knowledge about the mentality and behaviour of europeans of the centuries from 1500 to let's say ~ 1900 ( partly ~ 1950, and longer).
If it were so as you say, and you, for example, would representate the typical american mentality, which along your interpretation (assumptions) didn't change a lot until today, then "Amen and Poor World" and any hope for improvement in the world is lost.

But no, we speak of centuries, in which a life was far less worth than today, and even more so, if europeans thought about the life of natives who were considered majorily as subhuman. Centuries of scrupleless greed and violence, the lack of applied christian moralities and the lack of applied humanity was the reality -the imperialistic era. An epoche which stretches though into our 20th century a lot.

Your whole argumentation aka europeans (or americans) had any morality "advantage" or mirror towards our thinking today fails in practice - even if there were a lot of thinkers, philosophers and single persons who thought otherwise and tried to bring forwards the application of christian values and humanity/morality. The average mentality and applied practice is decisive, even if that euro/american culture phase is a precursor to ours today ... what is a whole own theme for analysises. Just what really happened, not what you or anybody else affirms (the average romantisation of the pioneer-times) about the said periods, is subject. And if we look at that in detail, we'll find, that there is no, absolutely none morality advantage, vice versa is the case.

Please update your knowledge and judgement paramenters, other than that, nobody can really take your post-contents serious.

[SLN445]

Changed the Topic heading, hope that's alright.

Another question: Is the Tradition and Culture of Native populations more important then their welfare?
God that makes me sound like some Colonial thinking his ways are better then the "Uncivilized natives"

For an example:

The intervention in the Northern Territory
> should we try and force things to be the standard of the rest of the country
> Try and find a middle ground
> Just throw up our arms and leave them be and hope things go well.

[Claudius Gothicus]

Erm.... Cortez didn't overthrow the Aztecs. The Spaniards killed the vast majority of them and replaced them with Spanish colonists.

Emm no, back in the XV century everyone and their moms in the Valley of Mexico hated the Mexicas(something to do with human sacrifice overkill) and that was why Cortez had such an easy time at bringing all the tribes together to kick the crap out of the Aztecs.

Of course that the ordeals that developed later included the creation of a parallel Peninsular Aristocracy that ruled over the Indigenous one.

[chilon]

I don't think it was an elitist idea. Seeing as half the people are going to be of below average intelligence and you probably only want above average people making important decisions.

I think that kind of is the definition of an elitist idea. To say only people with 'above average' intelligence should be making important decisions is a bit vague. If you are saying the President of the USA should probably be more intelligent than the average person then I agree. But to say only people above average should be allowed to vote seems quite elitist to me. Plus you would have to qualify it; how are you going to determine what is average intelligence, an IQ test?
Personally I see some of the challenges you mention as a motivator to raise the level of 'average' intelligence.

I don't think the Puritan Pilgrims were particularly up to mischief. At least not initially. I don't think the early settlers wanted to exploit anything except the enormous wealth of the country.

Well you are talking about a much early period of colonialism. You are talking about literally some of the very first settlers so of course the earliest puritans were not yet all about Manifest Destiny. But as you mention if they wanted to exploit the enormous natural wealth then that is going to logically lead to conflict with natives and exploiting/eliminating them. Personally I think its kind of silly to argue "good intentions" in any way when there are so many examples of sheer exploitation and in fact not even viewing the natives as equal to human beings.

I'm arguing that the Europeans who reached the Americas were further along than the Indians and that the modern people are better off than they were under their native customs.

First this is a subjective value judgement. I don't equate the word "enlightened" with "technological advance" as you seem to do.
Second, its a bit of a silly point when you consider what actually happened to the natives under European mercantilist policies. Native people were certainly NOT better off considering that those enlightened Europeans viewed the natives as virtually sub-human and treated them accordingly. Looking at where the few surviving natives are today and I don't think it is legitimate to argue they are "better off" due to English colonial policy.

Does anyone think that if the Native Americans had European level technology and better immunity to disease (perhaps from trade with ancient china) and their civilization perpetuated to the present we wouldn't view their religion as the most horrible thing in the world? The stuff we freak out at Muslims or Catholics or whomever pale in comparison to institutionalized mass slaughter human sacrifice.

This is a misleading view of native "religion". You seem to assume that every native tribe believed in human sacrifice the way the Aztecs did and that is just entirely incorrect. There were many, many tribes whose religions were not sacrificial at all, and in many ways were far more enlightened religions than colonial era Christianity or modern Islam. In fact, most of the western native tribes from the native Californians (who were all but completely wiped out by early 1900s) to Arizona tribes like the Navajo did not have "brutal" religions at all. To answer your question, no I think most native views on religion are more enlightened than western religions (Christianity, Islam and Judaism). In fact some native American religious views are more in common with Buddhism than western religion. Its just not accurate to take the Aztec culture and extrapolate their sacrifice ideas out to all tribes.

[Princess Cadance]

Right? Well it's been hundreds of years. We have systems that work now. We don't need to bring this back. In Canada and American the governments had there reservation and relocation programs. It wasn't good,it wasn't right,but it happened and it's over. The whole seprate status should die as well. No more "rez's" or restituiton or anyhting. It's in the past,it was wrong,but we can move on. The Spanish screwed over the people of Iberian America,yeah and the other European empires(British,French,Dutch,an American) did the same to the Carribean. Most people in the Carribean are descendants of European slaves from Africa,with some drops of European blood,Cuba being the only place with a remainder of Native blood(In there Mestizo population.) Iberian America is basically Mestizo (Native American/Portugese-Spanish) descendants and while they did lose there culture to Spain,they have a chance now to become there own states. Though they will pretty much,be forever tied to Iberia. We don't need anymore wars or conflicts. Only peace and growth. Dwelling in hte past,will not help that.

[Col. Tartleton]

Changed the Topic heading, hope that's alright.

Another question: Is the Tradition and Culture of Native populations more important then their welfare?
God that makes me sound like some Colonial thinking his ways are better then the "Uncivilized natives"

For an example:

The intervention in the Northern Territory
> should we try and force things to be the standard of the rest of the country
> Try and find a middle ground
> Just throw up our arms and leave them be and hope things go well.

Would you rather live among the Aztecs or Lakota or the Americans or Spanish? That's who is superior. You're capable of making those calls. There's no need to think a colonial thinker is a monster because he likes his way of life.

Emm no, back in the XV century everyone and their moms in the Valley of Mexico hated the Mexicas(something to do with human sacrifice overkill) and that was why Cortez had such an easy time at bringing all the tribes together to kick the crap out of the Aztecs.

Of course that the ordeals that developed later included the creation of a parallel Peninsular Aristocracy that ruled over the Indigenous one.

Exactly. And Cortes wasn't responsible for that.

I think that kind of is the definition of an elitist idea. To say only people with 'above average' intelligence should be making important decisions is a bit vague. If you are saying the President of the USA should probably be more intelligent than the average person then I agree. But to say only people above average should be allowed to vote seems quite elitist to me. Plus you would have to qualify it; how are you going to determine what is average intelligence, an IQ test?
Personally I see some of the challenges you mention as a motivator to raise the level of 'average' intelligence.

I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis. The great point is to bring them the real facts.
Abraham Lincoln

If the common people are misled or don't have the facts we can't rely on them to govern.

Well you are talking about a much early period of colonialism. You are talking about literally some of the very first settlers so of course the earliest puritans were not yet all about Manifest Destiny. But as you mention if they wanted to exploit the enormous natural wealth then that is going to logically lead to conflict with natives and exploiting/eliminating them. Personally I think its kind of silly to argue "good intentions" in any way when there are so many examples of sheer exploitation and in fact not even viewing the natives as equal to human beings.

Conflict is normal. If there was a concerted effort to kill all the natives then that was wrong. I don't think that prevalent. If it happened it was motivated by fear, not hate. They were strangers in a strange land.

First this is a subjective value judgement. I don't equate the word "enlightened" with "technological advance" as you seem to do.
Second, its a bit of a silly point when you consider what actually happened to the natives under European mercantilist policies. Native people were certainly NOT better off considering that those enlightened Europeans viewed the natives as virtually sub-human and treated them accordingly. Looking at where the few surviving natives are today and I don't think it is legitimate to argue they are "better off" due to English colonial policy.

All judgments are subjective. That doesn't make them valueless. I didn't say technology is equivalent to enlightenment. Enlightenment is about human rights and culture. I'm not saying the Indians weren't mistreated, but plenty of peoples have been put in that situation.

This is a misleading view of native "religion". You seem to assume that every native tribe believed in human sacrifice the way the Aztecs did and that is just entirely incorrect. There were many, many tribes whose religions were not sacrificial at all, and in many ways were far more enlightened religions than colonial era Christianity or modern Islam. In fact, most of the western native tribes from the native Californians (who were all but completely wiped out by early 1900s) to Arizona tribes like the Navajo did not have "brutal" religions at all. To answer your question, no I think most native views on religion are more enlightened than western religions (Christianity, Islam and Judaism). In fact some native American religious views are more in common with Buddhism than western religion. Its just not accurate to take the Aztec culture and extrapolate their sacrifice ideas out to all tribes.

I think Christianity, Judaism, and Islam are barbaric too, at least textually. They're probably better than some alternatives though. I think a lot of Indians were killed because of some Indians, I would imagine a minority, which were actually savage. Native American religions are like Japanese religions. You get Buddhism, you get Shinto, you get Zen, you get a variety of ideas. A Zen Buddhist might be a killing machine or a pacifist.

But it is important to explain that the Aztecs were not an isolated tribe, they were the heart of a wide spread culture.