One thing I took exception to is this statement:

There was no more evil intent than the intent of taking land/booty/slaves

which were/are pretty evil things to do from my perspective. I then inferred that being involved in those things justified taking lives if there was resistance.The other was the idea that moral posturing against wrongs done has the same base motives as the wrong doing. Reparations are a really tough issue. I think there should be some sort of statute of limitations, but I am admittedly quite biased.

Conquest has a long history.  Regardless of if we think it is an illegitimate reason to wage war today, it was quite legitimate until about 100 years ago.    I have argued this many times on this forum; moral posturing is for ethicists and philosophers.  The task of the historian is to describe, not to judge.  At least you admit you are biased; many do not and would have us believe they are presenting a considered opinion or worse, a statement of fact.Bushwick,  you did not just seriously quote Ward Churchill as an authority did you?Perhaps an even bigger question is WHY anybody should care about my, your, or anybody else?s opinion of what historical actions were wrong or not.  Condemnation does not change the facts and it certainly does nothing to right wrongs 100+ years old.  So what is the point of moral dudgeon?

The government purchaced "redskins" a term which was used to buy scalps of native americans.

Source?

Where's the proof that this was intentional?

Source?

Abarnhart,I am not making a judgment when I say that in the eyes of the Europeans their conquest of the Americas was legitimate, it undoubtedly was for them, both legally and morally.  Indeed, the first voyages to the Americas were government sponsored and ALL of the colonizing companies received Royal Charters.  But we can only speak of what they themselves thought, not what we think.  The judgment of the future as to the rightness or wrongness of their actions mattered not to the explorers.  They were in pursuit of what they thought were righteous goals.  Whether we think the colonizers ruthlessly exploited the natives does not affect the history and it is certainly not the duty of the historian to rail against it.  It is for the historian to describe events; anything else is intellectually dishonest and cannot really be called history in my opinion.  You are correct in that legitimate means legal; it does not however imply a moral value judgment.  Describing the activities of the colonizers does not "glorify" them, it merely describes them.Are you implying that any description of the colonization of the Americas or any other controversial historical era that does not conform to some consensus of right or wrong is in itself wrong or false history?  In other words, if I don?t condemn the colonizers then am I just as guilty of wrong as you seem to think they were?  If so, what then is the point of history?  Because if that is so then historians are not telling the story of events, rather they are propagandizing or indoctrinating their readers into a specific point of view.  The historians task is not to tell people how to think but to give them the facts and let them think for themselves.(pounding forehead on wall) Whether I think the conquest of the Americas was right or wrong is irrelevant, my task is to describe what happened.To speak to your last point, what society either historical or present can you name that does or did not engage in violence?  Surely not Western society, there is plenty of violence around, that is why we have laws.  I cannot think of any society throughout history that does not have a violent component.  I should tell you that I am very Hobbesian in my worldview, for some reason when I look around that view is confirmed.  It is wishful thinking to believe that violence does not exist in the world around us except for that of evil men.  Western society has just managed to largely keep the violence in check to the point where the average person has no direct experience of personal violence; yet it is still there I assure you.  Were it not for generally honest police and mostly just legal systems Western society would be just as full of violence as the Middle East, Mexico, or 3rd world hellhole of your choice.  In fact, the lack of violence in the West speaks to our collective success as a society.  Just because we share these values does not mean the rest of the world does, the evidence itself argues that they do not.

We are in danger of this debate descending into an argument of semantics. ;D

Well, of course we are - the whole topic is semantics. The thread is about whether or not to use a particular term to describe the native people who died at the hands of the conquering forces. The term "Holocaust" is used to describe what happened to Jews in WWII. That term absolutely implies a moral judgement. Sometimes innocent people are slaughtered. Avoiding saying that directly because it implies some moral judgement would make the reporting of history less accurate, not more so (IMO).I have trouble when my idealistic viewpoint meets the reality of the world we live in. As much as I hate war, I know if we were to dissolve our forces tomorrow then I would probably have to learn a new language if I survived more than a few months.I won't beat this to death (since that might be construed as morally wrong by some future generation  ;D ). I think we have both stated our contrary opinions and the likelihood of either of us changing is too low to spend much more energy on it.

Skiguy- Jack Weatherford: Indian Givers how the Indians of the America's transformed the world. Is a source of all your questions but all are common facts. Genocide was the question not if its moral and yes it was genocide

As to the Iroquois Confederacy input to the constitution you may want to look at this Ski: House Resolution from the 100th Congress H.Con.Res. 331 Now let me be on record as saying that I dont think that just because Congress says something is so does not necessarily mean it is so.  I have never read or heard anything from a credible historian that says our Constitution is based on the principles of the Iroquois Confederacy.  Quite the contrary everything I know says it is based on Enlightenment principles and not Indian tribal governance methods.  I could be wrong here, but highly doubt it.

Given that the resolution was passed in 1988 I am not too impressed.  Now, if it had been passed by say the first or second Congress when some of the framers were still in office, then I would attach a lot more credibility to it than I do.