LARGEST GENOCIDE THE WORLD HAS EVER SEEN

European Colonization of the Americas

A view that is heavily disputed. Some historians consider the deaths caused by disease, displacement, and conquest of Native American populations during European settlement of North and South America as committing an act of genocide or series of genocide's. The alleged genocidal aspects of this event are entwined with loss of life caused by the lack of immunity of Native Americans to diseases carried by European settlers. Some estimates indicate that some 80–90% died in Native American populations during smallpox epidemics. It was well known that clothing and blankets known to be infected were given to the native peoples in a attempt to eliminate them. This shows that colonists knew of the weakness the peoples had to disease. It is uncertain to tell just how many Indigenous Americans died as a result of the European colonization of the Americas but some estimates claim it to be up to 100,000,000 people in the largest genocide the world has ever seen.