"Proto-Nazis"?? Not even close.
By that standard, President George Washington was a "proto-Nazi" for sending troops to to defeat Indians in Ohio. H*ll, anyone who lived before 1933 could be called a "proto-Nazi," and that's just ridiculous.
From the beginning of the American Republic, Indian wars all had the same purpose: to get Indians moving onto treaty-enforced reservations allowing more room for white settlers. There was never an exterminationist ideology behind these wars, except in the sense of making life very difficult for Indians off their reservations.
So, I would argue that overall, American treatment of Indians was no worse than, and in many cases much better than, other European countries in similar circumstances treated other native populations.
Certainly no comparison with Hitler's treatment of Jews and Slavs who fell under his control.
As someone who collects old history books and lives in the part of the country founded first and foremost, I have read a LOT on the Indian wars
It wasn’t us who tried to do the extincting, it was the Indians, and they started doing it when the outnumbered us 1000 to one. Thank God for the Flintlock.
The Indians used to capture white settlers and sell them to the French as slaves during the 1600’s and 1700’s.
Is that why Confederates feel such sympathy for them and blame Yankees? Maybe so...
Not at all, mein freund. That's absolutely no comparison at all, and the fact that you can't or don't realise that, speaks volumes. My point was that the glorious union heroes went west after the Civil War not just to fight Native Americans and take their land, BUT to exterminate them. Big difference.
Certainly no comparison with Hitler's treatment of Jews and Slavs who fell under his control.
That's simply laughable. Oh wait, maybe it's not. Hitler was far more organized and technical in his campaign of racial extermination that Sherman et al, so I guess there is that difference. But, a campaign of racial extermination, not domination, is just that, genocide.