You misunderstood my point.
The Europeans did not "proceed with a controlled extermination of the population". Yet, what happened to that population?
You don't need to start with a deliberate decision to exterminate in order to end up with almost none of the original population. Sometimes you just need to not care much.
The Europeans did not "proceed with a controlled extermination of the population". Yet, what happened to that population?
They still exist... so they were not exterminated? They did not carry out purposeful extermination, and in fact the indigenous people were not exterminated. So what exactly are you arguing?
The only thing that was very truly devastating to indigenous populations was smallpox exposure, and that was an accident. Also lots of internal wars, famine, civilization collapse, etc. But most of that was triggered by the smallpox plague...
If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post, then it goes here.
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