It pales in comparison to the systematic reduction and genocide practiced on Native Americans by the US Army and government.
I don't buy the 'noble savage' trope that is trotted out all the time but to compare internecine and tribal warfare with wholesale one-sided slaughter and theft that was perpetrated on Native Americans is a bit disingenuous.
"Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee" is a good primer on what the Native Americans in the West faced. It made me both furious and sick to my stomach in turn.
My father gave it to me when I was a kid in the late 1970s and I didn't really pay attention to it. I reread it about two months ago and took it all in. It's fucking horrifying.
A million times yes! It is considered the seminal work on the destruction of the Native Americans, even after 50 years. It's written in a very approachable read but still highly academic. It's not a dry read by nature of the material, but it does have spells here and there of explaining what is occurring within the tribes themselves. Be warned, it gets much more graphic than this excerpt at times.
The description of Wounded Knee is only a small part of one chapter: each chapter details the relations between the American government and a single Native American tribe, so as to describe the different experiences of each tribe with the government. It covers the time span between 1860s-1890s.
It's free on Amazon Prime if you have that, and most libraries carry it. I won't link the PDF because I'm guessing there would be copyright issues, but you can easily find it with a Google search.
After you're done with that, Check out Bury my heart at Wounded Knee. It gives a really good "Before and after" affect in conjunction with the book you're reading to the real tragedy of the extermination and genocide of Native Americans/First Nations/etc and how many of them lost their lands, culture, and lives.
Stop being a pussy, step outside your echo chamber and learn something
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West by Dee Brown
I dare you
I mean, I wouldn't use the term "Fairly good argument". It is pretty spot on if you read all the accounts. Many of the troop commanders actually said "Fuck it" to what was said by the higher support and just went in guns blazing to unrelated indian tribes killing indiscriminately the women and children, because another tribe had done something. They didn't differentiate between the peaceful tribes and the troublemakers, didn't care to because they were all just Indians.
Many of these different bands had different ways of life, different life practices, different cultures, and we have quite a few that were wiped out. Just because some tribes were relatively "Unscathed" outside of illness doesn't mean we didn't have many bands wiped out by white settlers or troops, or that the intention wasn't to kill them all or obliterate their culture by stealing all their children and educating them to be "Like the white man" at far off indigenous schools like the Carlisle School, and refused to let them speak their native languages and forced them to take english names. It is very unlike the difference between being say, from Oakland or San Francisco today.
Many tribes were obliterated culturally. A good portion of the Northwestern Shoshone's latest generation doesn't even look native anymore, and many of them cannot speak their language(this is a pressing point because many elders rightfully point out that these kids will never be believed to be Shoshone by looks unless they learn their language). They are also mostly all members of the LDS church, and many of their members think it is wrong to keep up the memory of their native beliefs and customs while remaining devout Mormons. It is actually a challenge to try to retain some of their old knowledge of beliefs, etc.
https://www.aaanativearts.com/extinct-tribes/extinct-native-american-indian-tribes-a is a pretty somber read of all the Extinct indian tribes. Many bred out or died out as the white colonists expansed, forced either into slavery and comingled, some like the Taino are completely obliterated(but most Puerto Ricans are the only people with their blood heritage left, and we didn't even know that until Genetic testing became much more prevalent). Some tribes we just decided didn't actually exist because they had too few people for whatever reason and decided they had to be lumped with other tribes even though culturally and linguistically they were unique in many ways.
Here's also a good look at the 5 big tribes remaining in Utah, how they are now, and what happened to them: https://www.pbs.org/show/we-shall-remain-native-history-utah/
And if you need a great book to read on the topic of the end of the indian war, This is always the 100% go to: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B009KY5OGC/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1 It covers the end of the last Indian War, up until the massacre at Wounded Knee, Including chapters dedicated to the Navajo, Manuelito and Geronimo, and their experiences on Bosque Redondo, as well as Chief Joseph of the Nez Pierce, and the Modoc War of Northern California that took place in the Lava Beds, as well as the ever present account of the Sioux, Cheyenne and Shoshone of the northern plains areas.
We should use the term Genocide accurately for sure, but to then try to downplay the Native north american genocide as being something that needs a good argument when possibly about the same if not more were killed indiscriminantly as Jewish people during the holocaust is wrong. They were very much a target of both cultural genocide and the genocide of a people, and in many cases, Cultural knowledge was completely wiped out for many tribes, even if their genetics may remain. If we were to limit the definition of Genocide, this is something that 100% would fit the definition of Genocide.
You're welcome! I just ordered Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, and it's on my TBR list as well (as soon as I get done with some of the other books I'm reading now).