Mesoamerica sure, but not up here. The only firmly documented example of child sacrifice in what would become the United States was the Pawnee morning star ceremony, which was only practiced by one particular Pawnee village and was ended by a tribal leader rather than by the US government. In terms of adult human sacrifice there’s some evidence that certain Mississippian groups might have occasionally performed it in times of extreme crisis/instability or after the death of particularly important paramount chiefs, but that’s still a far cry from widespread human sacrifice.
JDs point is that Christianity ended human sacrifice as a practice, not that Europeans never practiced human sacrifice. The Punic war was before Christianity existed
I don't know I call burning women alive because crops failed after the woman said to a creep "I hope your crops fail" to appease a god that would make Athena say "Take a chill pill and I turned a woman into a spider" would be considered human sacrifice
So the witch trials are weird at least in Europe. The guy who kickstarted it (the writer of the famous "Malleus Maleficarum" )was widely critiqued by the Bishop of Innsbruck and other Church notables for spreading ideas that were actively heretical, the guy had actually been kicked out of the city earlier for being a massive creep.
In Catholicism at least good Christians don't believe in witchcraft because it purports that people could get power from sources that aren't God wich according to doctrine isn't possible.
Unfortunately because the idea is mostly just fearmongering about women coming to get you the idea spread as a sort of grassroots movement. In this however, for once the Church isn't to blame, at least not beyond not doing more to stop movement.
The Catholic aversion to the very notion of witchcraft also tracks with where the majority of witch burnings actually took place in the early modern period - in Protestant Germany, Scandinavia and England
Also Slavic Peganism (at least some forms of it) were known to have human sacrifice. But thouse also were in Europe and ended before there was any Europeans coming over to America (aside from the vikings, but details)
All of what you said is true, however some Catholics do believe that witchcraft is possible, and this is a permissible view in the Church - that a person could petition demons to receive preternatural powers (and therefore damn themselves).
And the other crusades as well such as the Northern (Not really counting the first crusade because that was the Catholic world helping the Romans defend their territory)
Who are the infidels here? You are saying executions where they pray after are the same as human sacrifices? The Aztecs sacrificed the innocent, spouses, children, and nobles. It wasn’t criminal justice but a ritual to provide enough blood to feed the sun so it would keep rising.
And people murder infidels because they believe it will get them a place in heaven, or hasten their messianic age. Murdering for the afterlife or the after-life, isn't much different from murdering for life
Fortunately we have specific terms, murder, execution, and sacrifice, to distinguish the types of killing and death. Martyrdom is not the same thing as a human sacrifice, and a religion having a view about your manor of death mattering is not the same thing as human sacrifices. You can list all of the Christian sins you want, but the Spanish Catholics did end the Aztec practice of human sacrifice. It is a specific and technical point
The death penalty is used for religious crimes in Saudi Arabia and Iran, they aren’t performing human sacrifices. 9/11 was a religiously motivated murder, not a sacrifice. The saudis executed people for witchcraft in 2011
That’s a holy war though, not a human sacrifice. Like the distinction is that the killing of a heretic isn’t needed as a ritual to please the gods. Like before and after that crusade the French weren’t starting wars with their neighbors to find people to sacrifice or timing killings on feast days or holidays. No one is saying Christianity doesn’t have religious violence he is specifically saying they ended the mesoamerican practice of human sacrifice.
A woman could get executed for saying something like "I hope you die" followed by the person she was talking to having a heart attack. Or for owning a black cat
The witch trials in America was just so Rich puritans could grab all the land
A woman could get executed today in the US for a false accusation, so could she in the Aztec Empire. The difference is that the Aztecs will additionally kill innocents regularly and ritually to please their god and fuel the sun. Dressing up a twelve year old in the flayed skin of a dead woman and making her dance to then kill her as an offering for a god is a specific cultural practice that was ended by Catholic Spain in Mexico along with the ‘Flower wars’
The woman in the United States at least for the moment has access to a court where she can at least defend herself ( until the Yanks decided to go back to the religious extremism that led to the colonisation of what became the United States)
Remind me who played the bigger role in ending the aztecs? Oh right other natives not Herman ( who wasn't a German) and his rather small band of Spanish soldiers
Christianity also spent many a year killing people for being the wrong flavour of Christian ( 30 year war, the Dutch revolt, hussites, Albigensian Crusade, Jacobites, Williamite war)
It was Enlightenment and the separation of church and state that allowed Western civilisation to climb out of a ditch, nothing to do with the church that actively attempted to stop this
I checked and there were 35 people hung for witchcraft in the colonies, all of whom were tried. The 1487 Templo Mayor pyramid dedication killed 10,000 in a single day and that’s just one documented example. To please a God that we all now know isn’t real. Maybe it’s that European lives are considered more important than the indigenous
Compare how many people were burnt at the stake in Europe as well. Most wore women. All to please a god that didn’t exist. And at the end, Europeans turned to secularism because Christianity was such a failure in constructing a successful state and civilization.
Gendercide.org says the consensus is 40-50,000 witches of whom 75-80% were women. If the point you are trying to make is that secularism stopped witch trials I’d agree, but by the same token Christianity stopped Aztec human sacrifice which is the point JD is making
Here’s the BBC talking about it they cite 4k in four days but I had just read Conquest: Montezuma, Cortes, and the fall of old Mexico by Hugh Thomas and it used the 10k number. The Aztecs did practice widespread systemic human sacrifice as a routine part of their religious and cultural practices this one instance just had a lot of documentation and archeological evidence
It still is progress.
Christian God doesn’t want killing of good Christians, but previously pagan God wanted sacrifice of good or even the best innocent pagans.
But Christian god wants the killing of Christian woman at the stake? That’s not progress. It’s different ways of murder. If anything, murder by burning at the stake is much more cruel and barbaric than simply executing with a blade.
We are not discussing methods or adequacy of death penalty here. At different times there were different methods and I am not prepared to discuss whether Christianity as a whole improved mankind’s ways of killing criminals (crucification vs taking heart out of living body by knife vs hanging vs throwing to lions vs burning?) or mankind’s ways of marking who was a criminal. Witch hunt was a bad deed of Catholic Church, starting 1000+ years after Christ, may responsible for that burn in hell (if there is such a thing).
We are discussing Christianity’s positive role in stopping practice of human sacrifice. Objectively that is what happened.
Even in Mesoamerica it was pretty rare and there were a couple of heresies around that time where the Colonist Catholics 'went native' and reinterpreted the Isaac myth creatively.
I should clarify, I meant look specifically at Cahokia where we have large scale (likely) human sacrifice, while it may be the result of a relatively rare event, we have no reason to believe that - I'd find it more likely this was a tradition, rather than suddenly we decided to do something we don't really do and execute a fairly large number of people for some spiritual reason.
head and hands were removed; there is also evidence of sacrifice among some of the potlatching communities on the west coast, communities in the sw, and the "mississipian" communities go from illinois to the se, with various sites - so a huge terrritory. human sacrifice was a thing in north america, not just mesoamerica.
This is an almost 100 year old piece that strictly uses European accounts. Not saying it’s all wrong but not really the best source to make this assertion on.
Again, didn’t say that these accounts were wrong, but they invite scrutiny. Accepting the historical record at face value is poor form. Just look at how wildly different accounts of Inca history were between Poma, de Leon, and de La Vega.
Widespread child sacrifice? Didn't they mostly sacrifice captured warriors?
The POS in the image is talking out of his arse and implying that indigneous Americans everywhere, including in the US, were practising child sacrifice. This is just racist propaganda from a fascist.
He said "widespread." The Aztec empire covered approximately one half of one percent of the landmass of the new world, and likely had about 5% of the population of the new world. The word to describe a practice that occurred in such a limited area among such a small proportion of its people is "isolated," not "widespread."
And even then, most of the population of the Aztec empire was subject groups who were not the ones doing the child sacrifice. Presumably those groups hated it even more than the Spaniards, as it was their children being sacrificed.
Using the word "widespead" is a deliberate choice on Vance's to paint all native people of the new world in a derogatory light. If he was trying to make a specific historical point about the Aztecs, he would have spoken specifically about them. Instead he was using the ugly practices of the Aztecs to smear all indigenous people by saying it was "widespread" on the two continents.
I believe there is evidence suggesting human sacrifice maybe even ritualistic cannibalism among the nations of the Southwest United States.
I believe it can also be postulated that given the malovent entities of the various indigenous tribes such as Skinwalker, Wendigo, etc that were active entities suggest that cannibalism and human sacrifice may have been only rare or uncommon rather than unheard of.
Sure, but we have similair cases all over the world, like early modern europeans who were blamed for being werewolves after they had murdered and consumed a child or children.
The idea that those who eat people/children are evil monsters shows that the society has a great taboo against cannibalism.
Skinwalkers don't eat human flesh, or perform human sacrifice, they'll murder and desecrate Graves, but not for a sacrificial ritual.
Wendigos are cannibals, but they are also more of a demonic possession, modern skeptics generally agree that they represent people who were driven to cannibalism via desperation because of the harsh winter.
I think we all know (admitting it is a different story) that Vance himself probably doesn’t even know what he’s referring to. He just is a Christian nationalist that has a talking point about “Christian civilization” coming into to “tame” the savages. None of these people are particularly smart, well read, or have knowledge about anything they talk about. It’s all about hitting the talking points for certain groups
It wasn’t “widespread”, there were definitely civilizations that did perform human sacrifice though. Also idk if he knows this but Spanish and English colonists practiced sacrifice as well by burning “heretics” and “witches” at the stake, among other atrocities. The Spanish were particularly cruel in their interactions with Native Americans.
Central America had a long written tradition, but almost all of it was intentionally destroyed by the Spaniard very early on. Only a handful of texts out of tens of thousands survived
Fun fact: During the colonial period, Spanish missionaries actually created grammar books and dictionaries of Indigenous languages like Nahuatl, Quechua, and Mayan. They did this mainly to teach priests to communicate and convert local populations, but the side effect was that these texts preserved a lot of Indigenous linguistic knowledge that might have otherwise been lost. So while it was part of colonial control, it also left a valuable record of these languages.
Thank god the Spanish colonists were there to preserve the language, idk what would have happened if they hadn’t shown up. There must be some revanchist Catholic Spain cosplay or sub somewhere I don’t know about
They didn’t create these books to preserve Indigenous languages, but that’s what happened anyway. I’m not a fan of the Spanish approach to “preserving” languages (Basque here 😶), but they actually wrote them to teach Christianity (not a fan either)
No, it was mostly to aid in translation and daily function of administrating and managing the native population. Too bad we don’t have the original texts though, those would have been invaluable and fascinating
Specifically the Jesuit priesthood. There are a few examples of Spanish priests sympathizing with the natives, but many were just as cruel as the conquistadors in their treatment of the natives.
Maybe? Idk what is meant by “common”. Human sacrifice was not a widespread or common practice by native Americans. It definitely did happen, in different time periods and societies, but wasn’t a universal or regular occurrence. I’m not sure if we’re comparing the “badness” of the natives to the colonists, but I’d argue that imposing chattel slavery to mine silver and gold, suppressing indigenous culture, forced conversions, torture, and enforced poverty had a lasting negative effect on the countries in the Americas where the Spanish had colonies.
Wrong. Aside from a couple of serious panics in Navarra and the Basque Country, Spain never really had a major problem with witch hunting. But Vance is also wrong because what he says happened in the Yucatan peninsula with mayas none further north
Germany, Austria, Switzerland areas: ~25,000 executions — the highest concentration.
Poland: ~10,000 executions.
Switzerland: ~5,000 executions.
France & Sweden: ~4,000 executions each.
Scotland & Denmark: 2,000–2,500 executions.
England & Eastern Europe: <1,000 executions.
Spain: Relatively low, around 300.
The Spanish were particularly cruel in their interactions with Native Americans.
Yes, the Spanish committed terrible crimes, but the narrative of them being uniquely cruel isn't true. Columbus was literally sent back to Spain in chains after Queen Isabella sent a royal inspector to investigate his shenanigans
Spanish colonial systems (like the encomienda) sometimes involved forced labor –which was wrong, terribly so. Many Spanish clergy, most famously Bartolomé de las Casas, denounced it as cruel and exploitative. At the same time, these systems included legal protections for Indigenous people that English colonists largely ignored.
Also I'm ofc against colonialism but US interventionism has been the nail in the coffin regarding inequality and poverty if we look at the last two centuries. In many Latin American colonies, people of Spanish descent born in the Americas were often the leaders of independence movements in the early 19th century. Then the fr US came and ruined it for all (Cuba, Central America)
Columbus was arrested and sent to Hispaniola and then acquitted in Spain because of administrative mismanagement, not his treatment of the natives.
The encomienda system was terrible. After disease combined with horrible working conditions (especially in the mines, eg Cerro Rico) along with inadequate food decimated the indigenous population, Spain had to change the system to the repartimiento because the encomienda was inefficient (workers died a lot) and the population of remaining natives could not support it. In addition, the encomenderos were getting too powerful for Spains liking. Basically a two government system ended up emerging, with the remaining natives living in indigenous pueblos de indios, but were still expected to contribute to the mita and pay tribute. As the natives fled, died, or simply migrated away from their pueblos, this system also disappeared and was replaced with the hacienda system
~ The Spanish were particularly cruel in their interactions with Native Americans.
I just don’t see how the Spanish were “particularly” cruel compared to other colonial powers. The Spanish documented and debated, even if their motivations included secret and no so secret agendas like religious conversion or maintaining control. The crown issued laws and regulations aimed at limiting mistreatment, even if enforcement was inconsistent and the system undeniably explotative and again secret agendas.
Meanwhile, the English largely had no qualms at all.
The English never implemented a systematic exploitation of native people over 200 years like the Spanish did. They definitely didn’t care about them, no question there, they just never had a system like the encomienda to force natives into Pueblos, require forced labor, had massive die offs due to being worked so hard, etc etc. In addition the English colonies were smaller, the Spanish managed a vast colonial territory with an administrative system that specifically used forced native labor to extract resources like silver. The English did horrible things, but it was mostly dumbass English colonists fighting skirmishes with natives as they encroached on their tribal lands, with occasional incursions and raids by both sides. Sometimes wars flared up, such as during King Phillip’s War, and atrocities were committed for sure, but not on the scale that the Spanish did. Partially because the Spanish had a more concerted effort to colonize the Americas, and partially because New England was not as densely populated with natives as Central and South America was. It wasn’t until the US started westward expansion in the early 1800s that native persecution really gained steam
Native Americans still live on reservations in the States in 2025 because of centuries of displacement, wars, and systemic abuse that started with English colonists
Where did I say Native Americans didn’t live on reservations? The US did all sorts of horrible things to native Americans in the 19th century. But the post is talking about human sacrifice at the beginning of the colonial period, not 19th century Indian wars in the States and forced relocation.
If you’re really interested in Native American treatment after the US was born, start with the Seminole Wars in Florida. There’s a long, sad, and disturbing history of lopsided wars of aggression to clear the path for agricultural development, and forced migration to territories out west. The reservations are a remnant of the US horrible policies in regard to the natives, but slowly they have started to gain more self-determination since the 70s. Most of the Spanish colonies had fought and gained their independence from Spain by the mid 1800s. Unfortunately the stain left by Spanish colonialism of treating natives and mestizos as a underclass remained for many years afterwards, with the void left by Spanish administration filled by Spanish born immigrant peninsulars and criollos.
We are not forcing anyone to live on Indian Reservations in 2025 and certainly are not engaging in systematic abuse of Indian Tribes.
The primary purpose of the federal agency, The Department of Indian Affairs, is to protect tribal sovereignty to the fullest extent possible under the treaties signed with those tribes in the 19th century.
There are restrictions that prevent reservation lands from being purchased by non tribal entities and while technically they are subject to Federal Law they are not subject to any state laws but rather govern themselves as they see fit.
So while admittedly some of the most impoverished communities in America are on reservations particularly in the Dakotas, that’s largely because the Dakota Sioux vehemently oppose any form of land development which they believe is a desecration of their sacred land.
The Sioux even won a landmark SCOTUS case in the early 20th century that acknowledged that the Federal Government is liable to the tribe for land in the Black Hills that was taken in violation of the treaty they signed. But they refused to accept financial compensation as a form of relief so a fund now worth billions of dollars is just being held in bonds for them ostensibly in perpetuity because they want the land returned to its previous undeveloped state and given back to them which is not a form of relief Federal Courts are able to provide under US law.
Like, we can either pay for them to have modern infrastructure or respect their Indigenous understanding of the sacred land but they are mutually exclusive propositions.
People are however free to move off the Reservations at any time for any reason they wish.
I didn’t compare any numbers, I didn’t even say a number. I know Spain didn’t burn a bunch of witches, they were more concerned with heretics, spreading Catholicism, and obtaining gold for the crown.
If I remember correctly Eastern/Central Europe was rife with all sorts of intermittent burnings of witches/sorcerers, mob attacks on Jews, and other violent outbursts in the name of religious purity. England had a couple tough bouts of this, especially during the Civil War there, and famously in New England during the colonial period.
Spain was far more interested in converting the natives/using them for forced labor. Maybe a few hundred native men get their feet hacked off, the women and girls sold into slavery, their pueblos razed to the ground, but hey, it’s all for Gold, Glory, and God.
Slavery was illegal for indians, Spain basically just maintained the same system of serfdom the indian empires used, mita and encomienda, although it declined with the ages and was fringe already with the bourbonic reforms
Again, Spain had forbidden Indigenous slavery by 1512 with the Laws of Burgos, though abuses still occurred. In contrast, there were no consistent laws protecting Native populations from enslavement in most British colonies ever
Maybe in Mesoamerica this claim is true, because Aztecs especially and people around them practiced VERY bloody stuff, but that is Spanish and have literally nothing to do with North America
I am not familiar with indigenous tribes in North but I would look very suspicious on that claim. Different tribes different practices, but saying “widespread child sacrifices” is definitely wrong
First at all, JD Vance said ''NEW WORLD'' in general, not North America or the lands what is today the modern country of USA in particular (At least that's what the image shows), Also, like he said, the first European settlers (Spanish) to arrived in the New World encounter savages indigenous cannibals, So he's not lying or wrong at all. What you and some people interpret (that he refers to only natives from what in now U.S.) is another thing.
Secondly, Spaniards have a lot to do with N. America (USA), because they were the First White people to arrive, discover, colonize U.S. and establish the oldest continiously inhabited European settlement in what is now the contiguous United States, not to mention that 3/4 of present-day U.S. was a colony of Spain.
The only native culture in the continental US that I know practiced human sacrifice was the Mississippian culture focused around Cahokia. There is evidence they sacrificed retainers or slaves when a powerful warrior or chief died. That is the only one I know of, I don’t think there’s evidence for any other native culture that practiced that
Even taken at face value what does it matter? "Christian colonists ended human sacrifice" they also genocided populations and enslaved millions for generations.
Given that contact with Europeans directly led to the deaths of 56 million native Americans, stopping human sacrifices can hardly be called a victory. If we do the numbers - assuming 40 sacrifices per day - human sacrifice would need to continue for the next 3800 years for it to come close to the damage that colonization wrought on the natives
This really depends on if he was talking about the Spanish contact with the Aztecs or English settlers in New England. In the former case it's true, in the latter it wouldn't be. Given the lack of context with this image, and it just says "first settlers" I am inclined to believe he's talking about the Aztecs.
Asking someone for a source on the internet over readily available historical information that happened five hundred years ago is just a level of ignorant incompetence I hope I never fall to.
So firstly, the Aztecs were the most powerful culture in the area, they were actually 3 tribes together, the Aztecs being one of them, together they were the 'Mexica'.
They had a really intelligent way of keeping their dominance, it was called the flower wars.
The culture was that people fought in certain seasons because the men were needed for agriculture, pretty similar to Europe a few hundred years prior.
What the Mexica would do in the flower wars is arrange a time and a place for the battles and most importantly, both sides would bring an equal number of men.
This seems fair, but the Mexica encouraged this among all the other states, so if there were ever any border wars, the Mexica would send their men to oversee and it meant that fights were essentially always inconclusive and borders remained the same.
If the Mexica themselves were fighting, the equality was a benefit to them because they had a higher population so they could easily replace troops.
They essentially reduced warfare to bragging rights.
Another thing that's important to know is that the people's of middle and southern America generally never fought to kill, their weaponry etc was designed to injure and maim, because they all wanted above all things, to capture their enemies so they could sacrifice them to their gods.
The Mexica, as the rulers, requested a quota of people to be sacrificed to their gods. But it was very much a practice that everyone followed.
They did sacrice children, virgin girls etc.
They also ate the hearts of their enemies, cooked with peppers.
One practice was to get a young man, I can't remember the age, likely around 15, he would be the representation of their God Quetzacoatl, he would be treated as a God for a year then sacrificed and the following person would wear his skin for the year.
Just to play devil's advocate and do a bit of a reality check. I haven't heard his quote or this speech so I'm not sure how over exaggerated the claim is but there is plenty of evidence and first hand accounts of child "sacrifice" in the Americas.
I put sacrifice in parentheses because I personally would use ritualistic killing. For example Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca documented tribes in what is now Texas who had the tradition of taking "wives" as war trophies from other tribes. They didn't "marry" women from their own tribe. It was considered taboo. So during his stay/enslavement with one of those tribes they had taken up the practice of immediately killing any female infants as a tactic of combat. If you have no/less available woman you decrease the value in another tribe attacking and offensively you are now making it harder for the other tribes to procreate.
The inuit would take infants and leave them outside during harsh winters or times of famine believing the child would be brought back to them in times of abundance. It was a way to cut down on the use of precious resources when the tribe didn't need more mouths to feed.
Then of course there is plenty of evidence and first hand accounts of human sacrifice including children in central and south America. Arguably on a scale as large or larger than any other place or time in history.
Again, I have no idea of the context of this quote and while it seems to be an attempt to over sensationalize the topic. It is in fact true that ritualistic killing of children was definitely a practice of some of the tribes in North America at the time of western discovery and undoubtedly practiced on a large scale in other parts of the Americas.
Here's a little secret: Every civilization engage in some form of human sacrifice, they just didn't call them that. Human sacrifice is simply the act of killing someone because of the religious belief that it would benefit everyone else. The Aztec believed they were keeping the world from ending by doing their sacrifices, Christian believe that they were helping their community by killing those "witches" and "vampires" and "non-believers", Muslim were believing they were helping their people by killing "infidel". Everyone culture fetishize the idea that sacrifice for the greater good is a good thing.
And not like the Christians didn't replace the children sacrifice with something else like force labor (sacrifice the natives for their wealth), force assimilation (sacrifice the natives because of their "own good") or slavery.
Exactly. The natives are not “noble savages” that somehow were morally superior to the colonists, but neither were the colonists some enlightened Christian civilizing force.
If ChOina hanged everyone who prescribes rhino horn, we would be done with poaching within a gen.
The "traditional" medicines held a horrific grasp on the people. The inquisition wiped anyone who claimed to have "power" and all bullshitters. This allowed the all mighty western modern medicine to arise, since only the proven was worth talking about then.
Hippocrates and his rational was much more of a hipster than the common in his time. Most people would walk 1 month to talk to the oracle of Delphi that would advise to sacrifice your only cow in the next full moon to heal your wives kidney stone that’s how it went.
The astrology bs, the chaman bs, all the evil bs is still well alive in the countries that Europeans did not inhabit for long like Africa or ChOina.
It wasn’t at all a matter of sacrifice. It was wiping out the bs-ers and it did great. The urban legend is deformed and used by ignorant. You can read the minutes of the trial of Helena Schauberin for instance, where she was accused to be a witch by her angry cuck husband. She won easily.
If you admitted your claim of powers was bs, you could walk out untouched. All these "traditional" medicines held an evil grasp on mostly illiterate people at the time
The Aztecs weren't every indigenous group and weren't even in the country Vance is trying to talk up, he's taking one case and saying the genocide if everyone else was okay because of them, but there is no good reason for genocide.
There was certainly widespread human sacrifice in Central and South America. Nowadays, the woke would probably complain that we shouldn't shut that down since the people were brownish and so they could do no wrong.
Well, in principle, considering his stupidity, there is a grain of truth here, for the sake of justice, but here you need to understand which America he is talking about, the whole of America or the southern part.
Abandoning infants has always been a common practice among ancient peoples; even the Greeks of the classical period used to abandon sick and weak children (especially babies) in nature. I don't see how his statement could be a "historical fabrication." Furthermore, I'd like to know who these experts are, because they seem to me like a metaphysical construct used to validate the OP's opinion.
Did he actually read history or is he just hiding facts?
The Spanish made it very clear that crushing the Aztecs was so easy, besides the technological issue of weapons and also diseases; it's because most of the population of the Aztec empire hated the Aztecs, since they were usually the ones who had to give their people as sacrifices. If it would have been easy without most of the indigenous peoples, having most of the indigenous peoples on the side of the Spanish helping made it a walk in the park.
It would be the same as accusing and stating as fact that an entire country is made up of thieves and corrupt people, when you know that's not true. Yes, the country may have problems with corruption, but accusing an entire nation of that says a lot about the kind of person you are.
Imagine thinking the genocide caused by the bombing of civilians in Iraq and Gaza was not a form of human sacrifice to the god of statism. Pot calling the kettle black. But Vance is way worst because this happened with in our lifetime. Total fin hypocrite.
Is the US a Christian country? Does the US not abort a million kids a year? Had those fetuses come to term that's roughly a 1/5th of all potential children are aborted each year. Did the Aztecs, Olmecs or anyone in the pre-Christian Americas sacrifice 1/5th of their kids each year? Methinks not. I neither support nor oppose modern abortion as a means of birth control nor Aztec human sacrifices as a means of political terror to control vassals. I merely point out the hypocrisy.
He should produce his sources. Human life was cheap then, and we definitely made the natives into mythically better people than reality, idk what he means about child sacrifice. Clarification is important
It's literally factual. I dont even like Vance, but you can't deny the locals had built empires based on brutal oppression (Inca/Aztec), sacrifices (Aztec), slavery/serfdom (Azetc/Inca), and "sportified" executions (Maya).
The colonizers weren't exactly good to the locals, but lets not deny facts because of politics.
Nobody is denying that there was human sacrifice in the Aztec Empire, we're denying that that makes it okay that we whipped out over 90% of the indigenous population in the Americas and stole their land.
No, most indigenous people did not do human sacrifice and the few civilizations we have proof actually did human sacrifice wouldn't sacrifice children but usually slaves and captured enemies. It is a leftover myth from the Spanish justifying genocide and slavery.
At this exact time, Europeans were performing human sacrifices to appease god in the hopes that the suffering THEIR sacrifices endured would ensure that the offering wouldn’t go to hell.
And they were killing children for crimes like “worshipped same god, but wrong”, “claimed to be a witch”, “shoplifted due to desperation”, “fought back against rapist a little too hard”, amongst others.
JD Vance is a disingenuous turd but the practice of child sacrifice among Mesoamerican Natives has been established for countless generations and is amply attested by archaeology. If anyone was worse than the Spanish, it was the people they conquered.
I think he means the Aztecs. And yes. There are history books about this. I read about them in school.
There’s one written from the Aztecs point of view, which is trying to make the Conquistadors look bad, and it still mentions the child sacrifice.
It fashionable these days to pretend that child sacrifice didn’t happen, when we clearly have an analogous practice today, albeit in a much more sterile doctor’s surgery.
I'm not sure why they're saying it's a fabrication, when it's clearly true; there was child sacrifice in the New World before the colonists arrived.
I know it's tempting to say everything the colonists did was bad and everything the Native Americans of North and South America did was good, because in general we're more sympathetic with the Native Americans and in general we don't like the colonists. But "everything someone I don't like did was bad" is specious reasoning. Obviously child sacrifices were happening and obviously putting a stop to that was good.
Nothing new. This has been a framing of the Americas by European settlers for centuries. That they "tamed the land", "civilised the savages". Fascists don't invent anything. They revive the sentiments of the liberals of previous epochs.
It s also not the case that the Catholic Church and those in power in Europe were humanists at the time. So let s not look at history to justify some injustice being done today…
he's mostly committed to a bunch of whiggish fantasies to buffer and protect his lazy worldview so he'll say any lazy reductive shit. It's debatable if he even knows much about the first nations.
This isnt about the first nations, it's about avoiding introspection about being a nation of immigrants who committed atrocities and despises immigrants.
I mean we all know JD Vance is a supremacist who turned his back on the "Hillbilly Elegy" He came from. If you have ever been to southeast Ohio, it is mostly white and poor so they are right a lot of white people need help in this country and it's not just Ohio. However are the policies they are implementing like letting a middle eastern country have an air force base in Idaho really helping the average american, which statistically is a white woman, but in this case we will insert "man" here to validate the point.
“Widespread” is perhaps misleading, as human sacrifice was more common in some parts of the Americas than others, but I don’t think it’s all a stretch to say that European Christendom brought civilization to a part of the world that was centuries behind.
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Mesoamerica sure, but not up here. The only firmly documented example of child sacrifice in what would become the United States was the Pawnee morning star ceremony, which was only practiced by one particular Pawnee village and was ended by a tribal leader rather than by the US government. In terms of adult human sacrifice there’s some evidence that certain Mississippian groups might have occasionally performed it in times of extreme crisis/instability or after the death of particularly important paramount chiefs, but that’s still a far cry from widespread human sacrifice.
So like the Romans during the 2nd Punic War
JDs point is that Christianity ended human sacrifice as a practice, not that Europeans never practiced human sacrifice. The Punic war was before Christianity existed
I don't know I call burning women alive because crops failed after the woman said to a creep "I hope your crops fail" to appease a god that would make Athena say "Take a chill pill and I turned a woman into a spider" would be considered human sacrifice
So the witch trials are weird at least in Europe. The guy who kickstarted it (the writer of the famous "Malleus Maleficarum" )was widely critiqued by the Bishop of Innsbruck and other Church notables for spreading ideas that were actively heretical, the guy had actually been kicked out of the city earlier for being a massive creep.
In Catholicism at least good Christians don't believe in witchcraft because it purports that people could get power from sources that aren't God wich according to doctrine isn't possible.
Unfortunately because the idea is mostly just fearmongering about women coming to get you the idea spread as a sort of grassroots movement. In this however, for once the Church isn't to blame, at least not beyond not doing more to stop movement.
The Catholic aversion to the very notion of witchcraft also tracks with where the majority of witch burnings actually took place in the early modern period - in Protestant Germany, Scandinavia and England
We didn't burn people for witchcraft in England, it was a good hanging instead. Burning was for petty treason.
Also Slavic Peganism (at least some forms of it) were known to have human sacrifice. But thouse also were in Europe and ended before there was any Europeans coming over to America (aside from the vikings, but details)
All of what you said is true, however some Catholics do believe that witchcraft is possible, and this is a permissible view in the Church - that a person could petition demons to receive preternatural powers (and therefore damn themselves).
I also don't see a moral difference between human sacrifice and killing people for heresy, which was widespread in Christian Europe.
And the other crusades as well such as the Northern (Not really counting the first crusade because that was the Catholic world helping the Romans defend their territory)
Killing a witch is an execution for a religious crime not a human sacrifice
Killing infidels is 100% human sacrifice. "They don't worship like we do, this offends the almighty and therefore they must die".
The ritual element comes in the form of prayer before and after the murder
Who are the infidels here? You are saying executions where they pray after are the same as human sacrifices? The Aztecs sacrificed the innocent, spouses, children, and nobles. It wasn’t criminal justice but a ritual to provide enough blood to feed the sun so it would keep rising.
And people murder infidels because they believe it will get them a place in heaven, or hasten their messianic age. Murdering for the afterlife or the after-life, isn't much different from murdering for life
Fortunately we have specific terms, murder, execution, and sacrifice, to distinguish the types of killing and death. Martyrdom is not the same thing as a human sacrifice, and a religion having a view about your manor of death mattering is not the same thing as human sacrifices. You can list all of the Christian sins you want, but the Spanish Catholics did end the Aztec practice of human sacrifice. It is a specific and technical point
So its okay to religioualy murder people if you accuse them of a crime first?
The death penalty is used for religious crimes in Saudi Arabia and Iran, they aren’t performing human sacrifices. 9/11 was a religiously motivated murder, not a sacrifice. The saudis executed people for witchcraft in 2011
Great point
Well one example would be the Cathars mass "sacrifice" in the form of violent crusade and ultimately eradication.
That’s a holy war though, not a human sacrifice. Like the distinction is that the killing of a heretic isn’t needed as a ritual to please the gods. Like before and after that crusade the French weren’t starting wars with their neighbors to find people to sacrifice or timing killings on feast days or holidays. No one is saying Christianity doesn’t have religious violence he is specifically saying they ended the mesoamerican practice of human sacrifice.
If mass killings are under the explicit reason of stamping out heresy then that is mass religious sacrifice under a different guise imo.
You don't feel someone whose "crime" was having a different belief to be morally innocent? Interesting.
Hahaha.
A woman could get executed for saying something like "I hope you die" followed by the person she was talking to having a heart attack. Or for owning a black cat
The witch trials in America was just so Rich puritans could grab all the land
A woman could get executed today in the US for a false accusation, so could she in the Aztec Empire. The difference is that the Aztecs will additionally kill innocents regularly and ritually to please their god and fuel the sun. Dressing up a twelve year old in the flayed skin of a dead woman and making her dance to then kill her as an offering for a god is a specific cultural practice that was ended by Catholic Spain in Mexico along with the ‘Flower wars’
The woman in the United States at least for the moment has access to a court where she can at least defend herself ( until the Yanks decided to go back to the religious extremism that led to the colonisation of what became the United States)
Thankfully it’s not the religious extreme of the Aztecs where they capture and kill their neighbors as a blood offering to the sun
Remind me who played the bigger role in ending the aztecs? Oh right other natives not Herman ( who wasn't a German) and his rather small band of Spanish soldiers
Christianity also spent many a year killing people for being the wrong flavour of Christian ( 30 year war, the Dutch revolt, hussites, Albigensian Crusade, Jacobites, Williamite war)
It was Enlightenment and the separation of church and state that allowed Western civilisation to climb out of a ditch, nothing to do with the church that actively attempted to stop this
How is that any better?
I checked and there were 35 people hung for witchcraft in the colonies, all of whom were tried. The 1487 Templo Mayor pyramid dedication killed 10,000 in a single day and that’s just one documented example. To please a God that we all now know isn’t real. Maybe it’s that European lives are considered more important than the indigenous
Compare how many people were burnt at the stake in Europe as well. Most wore women. All to please a god that didn’t exist. And at the end, Europeans turned to secularism because Christianity was such a failure in constructing a successful state and civilization.
Gendercide.org says the consensus is 40-50,000 witches of whom 75-80% were women. If the point you are trying to make is that secularism stopped witch trials I’d agree, but by the same token Christianity stopped Aztec human sacrifice which is the point JD is making
That number seems impossible, that equal a killing every 8 seconds for a full 24 hours
Here’s the BBC talking about it they cite 4k in four days but I had just read Conquest: Montezuma, Cortes, and the fall of old Mexico by Hugh Thomas and it used the 10k number. The Aztecs did practice widespread systemic human sacrifice as a routine part of their religious and cultural practices this one instance just had a lot of documentation and archeological evidence
It still is progress.
Christian God doesn’t want killing of good Christians, but previously pagan God wanted sacrifice of good or even the best innocent pagans.
But Christian god wants the killing of Christian woman at the stake? That’s not progress. It’s different ways of murder. If anything, murder by burning at the stake is much more cruel and barbaric than simply executing with a blade.
We are not discussing methods or adequacy of death penalty here. At different times there were different methods and I am not prepared to discuss whether Christianity as a whole improved mankind’s ways of killing criminals (crucification vs taking heart out of living body by knife vs hanging vs throwing to lions vs burning?) or mankind’s ways of marking who was a criminal. Witch hunt was a bad deed of Catholic Church, starting 1000+ years after Christ, may responsible for that burn in hell (if there is such a thing).
We are discussing Christianity’s positive role in stopping practice of human sacrifice. Objectively that is what happened.
Eh. We just called it a different name.
Germans we're European Christians in the last century lmfao
[deleted]
Are you trying to say Christians don't have blood on their hands like someone who's never read a book
Even in Mesoamerica it was pretty rare and there were a couple of heresies around that time where the Colonist Catholics 'went native' and reinterpreted the Isaac myth creatively.
Aztecs enter the chat
Aztec sacrifices were predominantly prisoners of war
And innocent women and children. They did not discriminate on who they sacrificed so long as they were to make the sun rise again the next day
you might want to look at Cahokia, there are mass graves with strong evidence of human sacrifice - human sacrifice is an unfortunate truth globally
I should clarify, I meant look specifically at Cahokia where we have large scale (likely) human sacrifice, while it may be the result of a relatively rare event, we have no reason to believe that - I'd find it more likely this was a tradition, rather than suddenly we decided to do something we don't really do and execute a fairly large number of people for some spiritual reason.
If it's a one off mass grave, it could also be plague pit rather than a planned human sacrifice. We also find those all over the world.
head and hands were removed; there is also evidence of sacrifice among some of the potlatching communities on the west coast, communities in the sw, and the "mississipian" communities go from illinois to the se, with various sites - so a huge terrritory. human sacrifice was a thing in north america, not just mesoamerica.
Ah, yeah that would change interpretation somewhat.
So... not wide spread, but not incorrect.
Also contemporary racists like to characterize Algonquin Wendigo killings as ritualistic. But even then thouse aren't exactly regular things.
It was in North America too
https://www.persee.fr/doc/jsa_0037-9174_1931_num_23_1_1088
This is an almost 100 year old piece that strictly uses European accounts. Not saying it’s all wrong but not really the best source to make this assertion on.
European accounts as opposed to what?
Asserting that this took place in no way is disproven because of who communicated these facts to us
Any sort of archaeological confirmation.
Again, didn’t say that these accounts were wrong, but they invite scrutiny. Accepting the historical record at face value is poor form. Just look at how wildly different accounts of Inca history were between Poma, de Leon, and de La Vega.
All historical accounts require scrutiny and corroboration.
Why are a bunch of MAGAs on a sub like this, defending vance's dumbass takes?
They got the MAGA symbol to go defend one of their Dear Leaders.
Or bots.
I know, I feel like I haven’t seen comments like this on many posts in this sub before.
You mean the Aztecs? This is very common knowledge.
Widespread child sacrifice? Didn't they mostly sacrifice captured warriors?
The POS in the image is talking out of his arse and implying that indigneous Americans everywhere, including in the US, were practising child sacrifice. This is just racist propaganda from a fascist.
Happening in one particular place that isn't even in the current day United States is hardly "widespread."
He didnt say America, he said New World. Where the Aztecs lived.
He said "widespread." The Aztec empire covered approximately one half of one percent of the landmass of the new world, and likely had about 5% of the population of the new world. The word to describe a practice that occurred in such a limited area among such a small proportion of its people is "isolated," not "widespread."
And even then, most of the population of the Aztec empire was subject groups who were not the ones doing the child sacrifice. Presumably those groups hated it even more than the Spaniards, as it was their children being sacrificed.
Using the word "widespead" is a deliberate choice on Vance's to paint all native people of the new world in a derogatory light. If he was trying to make a specific historical point about the Aztecs, he would have spoken specifically about them. Instead he was using the ugly practices of the Aztecs to smear all indigenous people by saying it was "widespread" on the two continents.
Aztecs are only one, the incans also did it
I believe there is evidence suggesting human sacrifice maybe even ritualistic cannibalism among the nations of the Southwest United States.
I believe it can also be postulated that given the malovent entities of the various indigenous tribes such as Skinwalker, Wendigo, etc that were active entities suggest that cannibalism and human sacrifice may have been only rare or uncommon rather than unheard of.
Sure, but we have similair cases all over the world, like early modern europeans who were blamed for being werewolves after they had murdered and consumed a child or children.
The idea that those who eat people/children are evil monsters shows that the society has a great taboo against cannibalism.
Skinwalkers don't eat human flesh, or perform human sacrifice, they'll murder and desecrate Graves, but not for a sacrificial ritual.
Wendigos are cannibals, but they are also more of a demonic possession, modern skeptics generally agree that they represent people who were driven to cannibalism via desperation because of the harsh winter.
Do vampires and werewolves indicate cannibalism was common in Europe?
No, the vampire is associated with plague/epidemic outbreaks while werewolves are spree or serial killing.
I think we all know (admitting it is a different story) that Vance himself probably doesn’t even know what he’s referring to. He just is a Christian nationalist that has a talking point about “Christian civilization” coming into to “tame” the savages. None of these people are particularly smart, well read, or have knowledge about anything they talk about. It’s all about hitting the talking points for certain groups
The human sacrifices were stopped and thankfully never returned. Thank Western (christian) civilization for that.
the Incas did it too
those were the two main civilisations in the Americas
This is shifting goal posts.
It wasn’t “widespread”, there were definitely civilizations that did perform human sacrifice though. Also idk if he knows this but Spanish and English colonists practiced sacrifice as well by burning “heretics” and “witches” at the stake, among other atrocities. The Spanish were particularly cruel in their interactions with Native Americans.
The catholic church believed that believing in witches was heretical, the inquisition almost never burned witches
I mean dint the catholics ban witch burning because it is herital to believe that witches are real?
People forget that the Inquisition came to America as well. Its the main reason so few writings survived.
The natives didnt have written language. What are you even talking about
Quip, along with Mayan script, and Aztec codexes were used throughout central/south America.
Central America had a long written tradition, but almost all of it was intentionally destroyed by the Spaniard very early on. Only a handful of texts out of tens of thousands survived
Fun fact: During the colonial period, Spanish missionaries actually created grammar books and dictionaries of Indigenous languages like Nahuatl, Quechua, and Mayan. They did this mainly to teach priests to communicate and convert local populations, but the side effect was that these texts preserved a lot of Indigenous linguistic knowledge that might have otherwise been lost. So while it was part of colonial control, it also left a valuable record of these languages.
Thank god the Spanish colonists were there to preserve the language, idk what would have happened if they hadn’t shown up. There must be some revanchist Catholic Spain cosplay or sub somewhere I don’t know about
They didn’t create these books to preserve Indigenous languages, but that’s what happened anyway. I’m not a fan of the Spanish approach to “preserving” languages (Basque here 😶), but they actually wrote them to teach Christianity (not a fan either)
No, it was mostly to aid in translation and daily function of administrating and managing the native population. Too bad we don’t have the original texts though, those would have been invaluable and fascinating
Specifically the Jesuit priesthood. There are a few examples of Spanish priests sympathizing with the natives, but many were just as cruel as the conquistadors in their treatment of the natives.
The inquisition didnt had jurisdiction in america
https://www.freespeechhistory.com/timeline/1570-the-spanish-inquisition-is-imported-to-america/#:~:text=A%20third%20tribunal%20opened%20in%20Cartagena%20(Columbia),*%20Wear%20a%20gag%20in%20his%20mouth
It was still a lot less common than human sacrifice was, right
I am currently to believe in America they 'only' killed 20 people accused of witchcraft in total since they got there
Maybe? Idk what is meant by “common”. Human sacrifice was not a widespread or common practice by native Americans. It definitely did happen, in different time periods and societies, but wasn’t a universal or regular occurrence. I’m not sure if we’re comparing the “badness” of the natives to the colonists, but I’d argue that imposing chattel slavery to mine silver and gold, suppressing indigenous culture, forced conversions, torture, and enforced poverty had a lasting negative effect on the countries in the Americas where the Spanish had colonies.
Wrong. Aside from a couple of serious panics in Navarra and the Basque Country, Spain never really had a major problem with witch hunting. But Vance is also wrong because what he says happened in the Yucatan peninsula with mayas none further north
Germany, Austria, Switzerland areas: ~25,000 executions — the highest concentration.
Poland: ~10,000 executions.
Switzerland: ~5,000 executions.
France & Sweden: ~4,000 executions each.
Scotland & Denmark: 2,000–2,500 executions.
England & Eastern Europe: <1,000 executions.
Spain: Relatively low, around 300.
Yes, the Spanish committed terrible crimes, but the narrative of them being uniquely cruel isn't true. Columbus was literally sent back to Spain in chains after Queen Isabella sent a royal inspector to investigate his shenanigans
Spanish colonial systems (like the encomienda) sometimes involved forced labor –which was wrong, terribly so. Many Spanish clergy, most famously Bartolomé de las Casas, denounced it as cruel and exploitative. At the same time, these systems included legal protections for Indigenous people that English colonists largely ignored.
Also I'm ofc against colonialism but US interventionism has been the nail in the coffin regarding inequality and poverty if we look at the last two centuries. In many Latin American colonies, people of Spanish descent born in the Americas were often the leaders of independence movements in the early 19th century. Then the fr US came and ruined it for all (Cuba, Central America)
Columbus was arrested and sent to Hispaniola and then acquitted in Spain because of administrative mismanagement, not his treatment of the natives.
The encomienda system was terrible. After disease combined with horrible working conditions (especially in the mines, eg Cerro Rico) along with inadequate food decimated the indigenous population, Spain had to change the system to the repartimiento because the encomienda was inefficient (workers died a lot) and the population of remaining natives could not support it. In addition, the encomenderos were getting too powerful for Spains liking. Basically a two government system ended up emerging, with the remaining natives living in indigenous pueblos de indios, but were still expected to contribute to the mita and pay tribute. As the natives fled, died, or simply migrated away from their pueblos, this system also disappeared and was replaced with the hacienda system
~ The Spanish were particularly cruel in their interactions with Native Americans.
I just don’t see how the Spanish were “particularly” cruel compared to other colonial powers. The Spanish documented and debated, even if their motivations included secret and no so secret agendas like religious conversion or maintaining control. The crown issued laws and regulations aimed at limiting mistreatment, even if enforcement was inconsistent and the system undeniably explotative and again secret agendas.
Meanwhile, the English largely had no qualms at all.
The English never implemented a systematic exploitation of native people over 200 years like the Spanish did. They definitely didn’t care about them, no question there, they just never had a system like the encomienda to force natives into Pueblos, require forced labor, had massive die offs due to being worked so hard, etc etc. In addition the English colonies were smaller, the Spanish managed a vast colonial territory with an administrative system that specifically used forced native labor to extract resources like silver. The English did horrible things, but it was mostly dumbass English colonists fighting skirmishes with natives as they encroached on their tribal lands, with occasional incursions and raids by both sides. Sometimes wars flared up, such as during King Phillip’s War, and atrocities were committed for sure, but not on the scale that the Spanish did. Partially because the Spanish had a more concerted effort to colonize the Americas, and partially because New England was not as densely populated with natives as Central and South America was. It wasn’t until the US started westward expansion in the early 1800s that native persecution really gained steam
Native Americans still live on reservations in the States in 2025 because of centuries of displacement, wars, and systemic abuse that started with English colonists
Where did I say Native Americans didn’t live on reservations? The US did all sorts of horrible things to native Americans in the 19th century. But the post is talking about human sacrifice at the beginning of the colonial period, not 19th century Indian wars in the States and forced relocation.
If you’re really interested in Native American treatment after the US was born, start with the Seminole Wars in Florida. There’s a long, sad, and disturbing history of lopsided wars of aggression to clear the path for agricultural development, and forced migration to territories out west. The reservations are a remnant of the US horrible policies in regard to the natives, but slowly they have started to gain more self-determination since the 70s. Most of the Spanish colonies had fought and gained their independence from Spain by the mid 1800s. Unfortunately the stain left by Spanish colonialism of treating natives and mestizos as a underclass remained for many years afterwards, with the void left by Spanish administration filled by Spanish born immigrant peninsulars and criollos.
We are not forcing anyone to live on Indian Reservations in 2025 and certainly are not engaging in systematic abuse of Indian Tribes.
The primary purpose of the federal agency, The Department of Indian Affairs, is to protect tribal sovereignty to the fullest extent possible under the treaties signed with those tribes in the 19th century.
There are restrictions that prevent reservation lands from being purchased by non tribal entities and while technically they are subject to Federal Law they are not subject to any state laws but rather govern themselves as they see fit.
So while admittedly some of the most impoverished communities in America are on reservations particularly in the Dakotas, that’s largely because the Dakota Sioux vehemently oppose any form of land development which they believe is a desecration of their sacred land.
The Sioux even won a landmark SCOTUS case in the early 20th century that acknowledged that the Federal Government is liable to the tribe for land in the Black Hills that was taken in violation of the treaty they signed. But they refused to accept financial compensation as a form of relief so a fund now worth billions of dollars is just being held in bonds for them ostensibly in perpetuity because they want the land returned to its previous undeveloped state and given back to them which is not a form of relief Federal Courts are able to provide under US law.
Like, we can either pay for them to have modern infrastructure or respect their Indigenous understanding of the sacred land but they are mutually exclusive propositions.
People are however free to move off the Reservations at any time for any reason they wish.
No they werent, Colon was jailed becauae of it though
Ah I see Hernan Cortes himself has time traveled to explain why Spanish colonization was good actually
Man, you believe Catholic Spain was the one burning witches in thousands...
Oh yeah where did I say Spain was burning witches in their thousands?
~ Spanish and English colonists practiced sacrifice as well by burning “heretics” and “witches” at the stake, among other atrocities.
You can’t just compare the numbers in England with those in Spain.
I didn’t compare any numbers, I didn’t even say a number. I know Spain didn’t burn a bunch of witches, they were more concerned with heretics, spreading Catholicism, and obtaining gold for the crown.
If I remember correctly Eastern/Central Europe was rife with all sorts of intermittent burnings of witches/sorcerers, mob attacks on Jews, and other violent outbursts in the name of religious purity. England had a couple tough bouts of this, especially during the Civil War there, and famously in New England during the colonial period.
Spain was far more interested in converting the natives/using them for forced labor. Maybe a few hundred native men get their feet hacked off, the women and girls sold into slavery, their pueblos razed to the ground, but hey, it’s all for Gold, Glory, and God.
Slavery was illegal for indians, Spain basically just maintained the same system of serfdom the indian empires used, mita and encomienda, although it declined with the ages and was fringe already with the bourbonic reforms
Again, Spain had forbidden Indigenous slavery by 1512 with the Laws of Burgos, though abuses still occurred. In contrast, there were no consistent laws protecting Native populations from enslavement in most British colonies ever
Maybe in Mesoamerica this claim is true, because Aztecs especially and people around them practiced VERY bloody stuff, but that is Spanish and have literally nothing to do with North America
I am not familiar with indigenous tribes in North but I would look very suspicious on that claim. Different tribes different practices, but saying “widespread child sacrifices” is definitely wrong
The Aztec empire was in North America
Fair point, but still doesn’t change or disprove what I said
First at all, JD Vance said ''NEW WORLD'' in general, not North America or the lands what is today the modern country of USA in particular (At least that's what the image shows), Also, like he said, the first European settlers (Spanish) to arrived in the New World encounter savages indigenous cannibals, So he's not lying or wrong at all. What you and some people interpret (that he refers to only natives from what in now U.S.) is another thing.
Secondly, Spaniards have a lot to do with N. America (USA), because they were the First White people to arrive, discover, colonize U.S. and establish the oldest continiously inhabited European settlement in what is now the contiguous United States, not to mention that 3/4 of present-day U.S. was a colony of Spain.
The only native culture in the continental US that I know practiced human sacrifice was the Mississippian culture focused around Cahokia. There is evidence they sacrificed retainers or slaves when a powerful warrior or chief died. That is the only one I know of, I don’t think there’s evidence for any other native culture that practiced that
And that ended before contact with Europeans.
Yes correct, I assume Vance is talking about the Aztecs here, but saying it was “widespread” is simply untrue.
O excuse me, it's just adult sacrifice, my bad
Which was a hobby for the catholics during centuries
Even taken at face value what does it matter? "Christian colonists ended human sacrifice" they also genocided populations and enslaved millions for generations.
Do we still sacrifice people to make the sun rise the next day? No? Thank Christian colonists for that
Given that contact with Europeans directly led to the deaths of 56 million native Americans, stopping human sacrifices can hardly be called a victory. If we do the numbers - assuming 40 sacrifices per day - human sacrifice would need to continue for the next 3800 years for it to come close to the damage that colonization wrought on the natives
If JD Vance says “it’s raining,” you look out the fucking window. Man’s incompetent.
Projection, bud.
OP’s post history is insane
Same full time reddit user. Its a job to them
The man clearly has two well defined interests lol
This really depends on if he was talking about the Spanish contact with the Aztecs or English settlers in New England. In the former case it's true, in the latter it wouldn't be. Given the lack of context with this image, and it just says "first settlers" I am inclined to believe he's talking about the Aztecs.
It was true of the Aztecs etc, which is probably what he's getting confused with.
People forget that a shit ton of natives sided with Cortez because the Aztecs were literally carving people up in blood sacrifice rituals.
Source?
Literally any historical record about it.
Asking someone for a source on the internet over readily available historical information that happened five hundred years ago is just a level of ignorant incompetence I hope I never fall to.
There's mixed reasons for this.
So firstly, the Aztecs were the most powerful culture in the area, they were actually 3 tribes together, the Aztecs being one of them, together they were the 'Mexica'.
They had a really intelligent way of keeping their dominance, it was called the flower wars.
The culture was that people fought in certain seasons because the men were needed for agriculture, pretty similar to Europe a few hundred years prior.
What the Mexica would do in the flower wars is arrange a time and a place for the battles and most importantly, both sides would bring an equal number of men.
This seems fair, but the Mexica encouraged this among all the other states, so if there were ever any border wars, the Mexica would send their men to oversee and it meant that fights were essentially always inconclusive and borders remained the same.
If the Mexica themselves were fighting, the equality was a benefit to them because they had a higher population so they could easily replace troops.
They essentially reduced warfare to bragging rights.
Another thing that's important to know is that the people's of middle and southern America generally never fought to kill, their weaponry etc was designed to injure and maim, because they all wanted above all things, to capture their enemies so they could sacrifice them to their gods.
The Mexica, as the rulers, requested a quota of people to be sacrificed to their gods. But it was very much a practice that everyone followed.
They did sacrice children, virgin girls etc.
They also ate the hearts of their enemies, cooked with peppers.
One practice was to get a young man, I can't remember the age, likely around 15, he would be the representation of their God Quetzacoatl, he would be treated as a God for a year then sacrificed and the following person would wear his skin for the year.
Gruesome stuff, but not for them, it was normal.
This is the VP of America. Hes not confused, hes doing it on purpose.
Why is he speaking about (modern day) Mexican history though? He is not the vice president of Mexico.
The Aztec culture of cental america had very little to do with the cultures that were prevalent on the midern day territory of He's country.
Those comments might not be wrong, but claiming that the Aztecs represent the whole North- America is a bit disingenuous.
Just to play devil's advocate and do a bit of a reality check. I haven't heard his quote or this speech so I'm not sure how over exaggerated the claim is but there is plenty of evidence and first hand accounts of child "sacrifice" in the Americas. I put sacrifice in parentheses because I personally would use ritualistic killing. For example Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca documented tribes in what is now Texas who had the tradition of taking "wives" as war trophies from other tribes. They didn't "marry" women from their own tribe. It was considered taboo. So during his stay/enslavement with one of those tribes they had taken up the practice of immediately killing any female infants as a tactic of combat. If you have no/less available woman you decrease the value in another tribe attacking and offensively you are now making it harder for the other tribes to procreate. The inuit would take infants and leave them outside during harsh winters or times of famine believing the child would be brought back to them in times of abundance. It was a way to cut down on the use of precious resources when the tribe didn't need more mouths to feed. Then of course there is plenty of evidence and first hand accounts of human sacrifice including children in central and south America. Arguably on a scale as large or larger than any other place or time in history. Again, I have no idea of the context of this quote and while it seems to be an attempt to over sensationalize the topic. It is in fact true that ritualistic killing of children was definitely a practice of some of the tribes in North America at the time of western discovery and undoubtedly practiced on a large scale in other parts of the Americas.
Here's a little secret: Every civilization engage in some form of human sacrifice, they just didn't call them that. Human sacrifice is simply the act of killing someone because of the religious belief that it would benefit everyone else. The Aztec believed they were keeping the world from ending by doing their sacrifices, Christian believe that they were helping their community by killing those "witches" and "vampires" and "non-believers", Muslim were believing they were helping their people by killing "infidel". Everyone culture fetishize the idea that sacrifice for the greater good is a good thing.
And not like the Christians didn't replace the children sacrifice with something else like force labor (sacrifice the natives for their wealth), force assimilation (sacrifice the natives because of their "own good") or slavery.
Exactly. The natives are not “noble savages” that somehow were morally superior to the colonists, but neither were the colonists some enlightened Christian civilizing force.
Think you need to do some research
I’ve done plenty, have you?
Then why are you posting false information
You’re gonna have to expand little buddy idk what you’re talking about
Wow what a load of bs.
If ChOina hanged everyone who prescribes rhino horn, we would be done with poaching within a gen.
The "traditional" medicines held a horrific grasp on the people. The inquisition wiped anyone who claimed to have "power" and all bullshitters. This allowed the all mighty western modern medicine to arise, since only the proven was worth talking about then.
Hippocrates and his rational was much more of a hipster than the common in his time. Most people would walk 1 month to talk to the oracle of Delphi that would advise to sacrifice your only cow in the next full moon to heal your wives kidney stone that’s how it went.
The astrology bs, the chaman bs, all the evil bs is still well alive in the countries that Europeans did not inhabit for long like Africa or ChOina.
It wasn’t at all a matter of sacrifice. It was wiping out the bs-ers and it did great. The urban legend is deformed and used by ignorant. You can read the minutes of the trial of Helena Schauberin for instance, where she was accused to be a witch by her angry cuck husband. She won easily.
If you admitted your claim of powers was bs, you could walk out untouched. All these "traditional" medicines held an evil grasp on mostly illiterate people at the time
Yeah, Aztecs did human sacrifice, dude. Did you not learn that in school?
Why are they taking facts like that out of school curriculum...?
The Aztecs weren't every indigenous group and weren't even in the country Vance is trying to talk up, he's taking one case and saying the genocide if everyone else was okay because of them, but there is no good reason for genocide.
There was certainly widespread human sacrifice in Central and South America. Nowadays, the woke would probably complain that we shouldn't shut that down since the people were brownish and so they could do no wrong.
I think they complain about what the Europeans done was worse
Well, in principle, considering his stupidity, there is a grain of truth here, for the sake of justice, but here you need to understand which America he is talking about, the whole of America or the southern part.
He obviously means the very widely publicised practice in Mexico. Which is North America....
Abandoning infants has always been a common practice among ancient peoples; even the Greeks of the classical period used to abandon sick and weak children (especially babies) in nature. I don't see how his statement could be a "historical fabrication." Furthermore, I'd like to know who these experts are, because they seem to me like a metaphysical construct used to validate the OP's opinion.
Even if it was entirely true, it's a bit of a non-sequitur. They sacrificed children so all we did was a'ok. Doesn't really work like that.
Did he actually read history or is he just hiding facts?
The Spanish made it very clear that crushing the Aztecs was so easy, besides the technological issue of weapons and also diseases; it's because most of the population of the Aztec empire hated the Aztecs, since they were usually the ones who had to give their people as sacrifices. If it would have been easy without most of the indigenous peoples, having most of the indigenous peoples on the side of the Spanish helping made it a walk in the park.
It would be the same as accusing and stating as fact that an entire country is made up of thieves and corrupt people, when you know that's not true. Yes, the country may have problems with corruption, but accusing an entire nation of that says a lot about the kind of person you are.
Imagine thinking the genocide caused by the bombing of civilians in Iraq and Gaza was not a form of human sacrifice to the god of statism. Pot calling the kettle black. But Vance is way worst because this happened with in our lifetime. Total fin hypocrite.
Is the US a Christian country? Does the US not abort a million kids a year? Had those fetuses come to term that's roughly a 1/5th of all potential children are aborted each year. Did the Aztecs, Olmecs or anyone in the pre-Christian Americas sacrifice 1/5th of their kids each year? Methinks not. I neither support nor oppose modern abortion as a means of birth control nor Aztec human sacrifices as a means of political terror to control vassals. I merely point out the hypocrisy.
Did he say British colonists in North America? Because the Spanish definitely foundb widespread child sacrifice
He should produce his sources. Human life was cheap then, and we definitely made the natives into mythically better people than reality, idk what he means about child sacrifice. Clarification is important
Ummm... Christians literally worship a God who did a child sacrifice. His own child was sacrificed to himself. So..
That's such a stupid take tbh, jesus died then undied, i don't think the people that died in the altars of tecnotitlan resusited or though to do so
He’s not wrong, paganism was running rampant.
But there was scalping
It's literally factual. I dont even like Vance, but you can't deny the locals had built empires based on brutal oppression (Inca/Aztec), sacrifices (Aztec), slavery/serfdom (Azetc/Inca), and "sportified" executions (Maya).
The colonizers weren't exactly good to the locals, but lets not deny facts because of politics.
Nobody is denying that there was human sacrifice in the Aztec Empire, we're denying that that makes it okay that we whipped out over 90% of the indigenous population in the Americas and stole their land.
Ratings of universities should be affected by what their graduates speak.
Ok who the fuck keeps making these ugly af graphics 😂😂
So what's it called when children get offered up to the orange turd?
This post is spreading false information. Jfc you people are insane
No, most indigenous people did not do human sacrifice and the few civilizations we have proof actually did human sacrifice wouldn't sacrifice children but usually slaves and captured enemies. It is a leftover myth from the Spanish justifying genocide and slavery.
"Western Colonialism was good for the moral character and health of the Natives actually" "we civilized them" etc. etc. ad nauseum.
Aztec 'Tower Of Skulls' Reveals Women, Children Were Sacrificed : The Two-Way : NPR
Aztec 'Tower Of Skulls' Reveals Women, Children Were Sacrificed : The Two-Way : NPR
He’s such a hillbilly twat.
The "New World" includes Mesoamerica
At this exact time, Europeans were performing human sacrifices to appease god in the hopes that the suffering THEIR sacrifices endured would ensure that the offering wouldn’t go to hell.
And they were killing children for crimes like “worshipped same god, but wrong”, “claimed to be a witch”, “shoplifted due to desperation”, “fought back against rapist a little too hard”, amongst others.
They'll happily sacrifice they're children to the anti vax gods though.
The Aztecs deserved to get clapped by Spain
He is talking about Mesoamerica. Obviously.
Didnt the salem trials include sacrificing women because they thought were evil...
Like literally all of the church is built around sacrificing and killing people
JD Vance is a disingenuous turd but the practice of child sacrifice among Mesoamerican Natives has been established for countless generations and is amply attested by archaeology. If anyone was worse than the Spanish, it was the people they conquered.
Christians burned witches /or women as we know them today.
Rent free
J D Scum
What are school shootings if not child sacrafice?
STFU
I think he means the Aztecs. And yes. There are history books about this. I read about them in school.
There’s one written from the Aztecs point of view, which is trying to make the Conquistadors look bad, and it still mentions the child sacrifice.
It fashionable these days to pretend that child sacrifice didn’t happen, when we clearly have an analogous practice today, albeit in a much more sterile doctor’s surgery.
I wish I could remember the title.
I'm not sure why they're saying it's a fabrication, when it's clearly true; there was child sacrifice in the New World before the colonists arrived.
I know it's tempting to say everything the colonists did was bad and everything the Native Americans of North and South America did was good, because in general we're more sympathetic with the Native Americans and in general we don't like the colonists. But "everything someone I don't like did was bad" is specious reasoning. Obviously child sacrifices were happening and obviously putting a stop to that was good.
Nothing to see here. All nonsense to distract the populace from what matters in their actual lives.
How is this different than "Jesus was a muslim"?
Nothing new. This has been a framing of the Americas by European settlers for centuries. That they "tamed the land", "civilised the savages". Fascists don't invent anything. They revive the sentiments of the liberals of previous epochs.
It s also not the case that the Catholic Church and those in power in Europe were humanists at the time. So let s not look at history to justify some injustice being done today…
Hang on: isn’t Abraham (or some other biblical dude) asked by God to sacrifice a son in the Bible?
he's mostly committed to a bunch of whiggish fantasies to buffer and protect his lazy worldview so he'll say any lazy reductive shit. It's debatable if he even knows much about the first nations.
This isnt about the first nations, it's about avoiding introspection about being a nation of immigrants who committed atrocities and despises immigrants.
So many vance fanboy wanting to justify the native genocide
Christians ended human sacrifice in america, good to know Salem never happened I was getting worried.
Wow, it's almost like they weaponised a blood libel to wipe out an indigenous population
90% of Indians died from smallpox, not from some great master plan to eradicate them.
And what happened 9.9% of the remaining ones?
Other diseases, wars with both settlers and other Indian tribes, the occasional human sacrifice.
I mean we all know JD Vance is a supremacist who turned his back on the "Hillbilly Elegy" He came from. If you have ever been to southeast Ohio, it is mostly white and poor so they are right a lot of white people need help in this country and it's not just Ohio. However are the policies they are implementing like letting a middle eastern country have an air force base in Idaho really helping the average american, which statistically is a white woman, but in this case we will insert "man" here to validate the point.
“Widespread” is perhaps misleading, as human sacrifice was more common in some parts of the Americas than others, but I don’t think it’s all a stretch to say that European Christendom brought civilization to a part of the world that was centuries behind.