Was Slavery the American Holocaust?

[Dead]

I have to write a paper answering this. Honestly I just feel like there are so many different ways that you can argue this that I don't know what to do...

What do you think?

[TheCancer]

Slavery was the American Holocaust and the aftermath of slavery is the American Holocaust part two and we're still living in it.

[brainiac3397]

Slavery wasn't only American, contrary to popular belief.

Africans had slaves, Europeans had slaves, Asians had slaves..

I just think that because American slavery was the "last" modern slavery, people all concentrate on it. It's also called the worst form of slavery, but I'm quite sure they were better treated than slaves of the past seeing that they were bought, not captured through warfare.

I think the American holocaust was the massacring of the Native Americans.

[TheCancer]

That's another one.

[brainiac3397]

People always forget the Native Americans.(Saying this in general). They had their homes burned, their women raped, their children slaughtered and their way of life trampled over for some gold, silver, oil or just aggression. They were practically pushed right off their long-time land and forced to move into "reservations", places where the government promised to not interfere then a year later broke it.

And it's also annoying when people say "Indian" instead of Native American. They're only known as Indian because Columbus screwed up and didn't realize he wasn't in India. Or better is if they refer to the right tribe.

[thewake]

Slavery is slavery and genocide is genocide, so no. On the other hand, one could characterize the treatment of native peoples in the Americas as a form of genocide (although more of them were killed off by disease than anything and the murder wasn't systematic in the same manner as the Holocaust, or even with the same goal in mind in most cases).

It is my own personal opinion that America hasn't had anything in its history really comparable to the Holocaust or other 20th century mass murders in type or in scope and we ought to be rather thankful for this this because it's not like we don't have the capacity to do it. We're human, after all.

[Ahab]

Just to be a fuckin' contrarian to the good answers provided (the decimation of native american populations is a more reasonable alternative, though we must remember the diseases of only a few hundred in Central/South America were what inadvertently led to 90% of the deaths of North American Indians, due to cracker genes being far more comfortable with shacking up with animals by that time [by comparison the Americas only had a few good animals for domestication, but nothing for major plowing,]) where it IS comparable to holocaust tendencies is the scientific racism and the strange order of compliance among both the owner class and the imprisoned class. If I were you I'd examine the sociology of oppression and the psychology of two oppressors (ie a Nazi SS officer vs a slave owner) to get a clearer idea. I won't go further for fear of equivocating.