I see this stuff from time to time, and I always wonder why these guys think that indigenous people had some sort of exclusive monopoly on horrible violence. It’s just not true. 1/9 https://twitter.com/MattWalshBlog/status/1332666670234603522

Every 16th/17th-c. English town of any size had a constant stream of public executions of unremitting awfulness. Here’s an execution in 1586 at St. Giles’ Circus in London: 2/9

Walsh thinks it dreadful that the Aztec in this story (from super-biased Spanish observers who were justifying conquest, but never mind) publicly exhibited the victim’s heart. But here’s Samuel Pepys recounting an English execution where they did the exact same thing. 3/9

Moreover, unlike the Aztecs, who killed their sacrifices quickly, Europeans would publicly torture their victims for days. Here’s a 3-day Scottish torture-execution in 1486: (This and the first quote from Simon West’s 2011 history of execution.) 4/9

These executions were usually before huge crowds—something that appalled Dickens, who watched 30,000 lustily cheer a hanging in 1849. He thought the mob's "wickedness and levity … could be presented in no heathen land under the sun”. 5/9 https://fs.blog/2014/11/charles-dickens-to-the-times/

Sometimes ppl justify the European slaughter by saying they executed for committing crimes, whereas the Aztecs killed for religion. But Europeans were executed for crazy petty reasons. England’s “Bloody Code” had 200+ capital crimes, many absurd. 6/9 Src: https://www.nationaljusticemuseum.org.uk/what-was-the-bloody-code/

Meanwhile, many Aztec victims died willingly, because they believed they were giving their life force to help sustain the universe. It’s not obvious to me that a voluntary spiritual martyrdom is somehow worse than being killed by the state for painting your face black. 7/9

Finally, this argument is one of several used to justify conquest. A similar one is below. The idea is that indigenous people somehow deserved being conquered because they were wretched or benighted. 8/9

But even if that were true (it wasn’t), it would be like saying it’s OK to murder or enslave homeless people because they are poor and in bad shape.

That’s morally illiterate. It’s hard to believe that the people who say these things have thought about them for a moment. 9/9