(In addition to these accounts from North America, Bernal Diaz mentions small pox among the Aztecs. As before, it was not deliberate policy. It arose from infected Indians and Spanish deserters coming into Aztec settlements and cities ahead of the Spanish and their Indian allies. Neither was it completely devastating; the Spanish still faced tremendous opposition from considerable numbers of Aztec warriors throughout his account, “The Conquest of New Spain.” The Aztecs Empire fell to the sword, not to disease.)
However, there was not a general policy among Europeans to eradicate the Native American population. An in-place population was far too valuable for that. What was needed was a pacified Native American population that would do European bidding. Generalizing somewhat, the approach ttaken by the Europeans was dictated by circumstances on the ground and the culture of the colonizing nations. In the early stages of settlement, where there were low numbers of Europeans, they sought to establish some sort of trading arrangement with them (e.g., Canadian and American colonies). However, when Europeans, and especially European military forces, were present in considerable numbers, they sought to directly exploit them for labor (e.g., Caribbean, Central, and South America).
The 17th century English and French colonizers arrived in North America with a mercantile and agrarian economic model that initially governed relations with the Native American population. A century earlier, the Spanish and Portuguese arrived in Central America with a military model for imperial conquest and resource exploitation to support it. In both regions, African slavery was introduced only when and only where Native American population numbers were low or when passive/aggressive resistance made further attempts to subdue them uneconomical.
It would be fairer to say that there WAS a European policy of derogating Native American culture. During the settlement period, European colonists (and later, citizens of European ancestory) considered Native American religion false, their culture, food, and language inferior, and their monuments (where they were easily accessible) as worthy only of serving as ready sources for the materials to build the rising cities of the European Americas.
However, in surveying other regions of the world touched by Europe, one can hardly say that these European policies and attitudes were unique to the Americas.
It would also be fair to say that the Indians felt the same way about European culture, it was just that they lacked the means to do anything about it on a large scale.
>> The Aztecs Empire fell to the sword, not to disease.) <<
An empire of millions fell to the sword of a few hundred men? If Cortez’s men had killed the numbers he was accused of by British black propaganda, they’d have spent their lives plunging their swords into new victims each second. The swords they fell to were largely their own, as they panicked that the plague which was consuming them was their own fear that Cortez was the return of Queztlcoatl, the god whose Toltec civilization they had destroyed.