During the Spanish conquest of the Americas that began in 1492, Indigenous peoples were dispossessed and massacred by the millions. Sometimes, the Indigenous people resisted and killed some of the Spanish colonists. When they did so, the Spanish retaliated with more massacres.
“They are attacking us, they have killed some of us, and we have the right to defend ourselves,” the colonists said.
Most white Europeans, at the time, agreed. They acted as if the difference between how many were killed by the Indigenous people and how many by the colonists was unimportant. They acted as if who invaded whose home was unimportant, and as if who was subjugating whom was not important either. To them, the only thing that mattered was: “They are attacking us, they have killed some of us, and we have the right to defend ourselves.”
