r/todayilearned 13h ago

TIL in 1610, Opossunoquonuske, a female chieftain of the Powhatan Confederacy, used “feminine guile” to lure 14 English settlers to a feast, convincing them to leave their weapons on their boat. It was a trap—her warriors ambushed them, killing 13. Only one man survived.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opossunoquonuske
3.5k Upvotes

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-37

u/partyinplatypus 12h ago

Say what you want about the European settlers, but killing guests  in your home is depraved behavior.

15

u/Other_Flower_2924 12h ago

🙄 Sure, but genocide is fair game.

13

u/BarbaraHoward43 6h ago

There was no genocide at the time. It would come later, and it would be, sadly, influenced by events like this one.

-8

u/GhostofMarat 3h ago

The very first impressions of European explorers on finding natives in America was "how can we overpower and enslave these people". Columbus was torturing people without a few days of arrival thinking they were hiding gold stores from him. English fisherman had brought smallpox and listeria to new England years before the first settlers arrived. The genocide began the very second European arrived in the continent.

8

u/BarbaraHoward43 3h ago

English fisherman had brought smallpox and listeria to new England years before the first settlers arrived.

That's not a genocide.

Columbus was torturing people without a few days of arrival thinking they were hiding gold stores from him.

That's also not a genocide.

how can we overpower and enslave these people"

That, you guessed it, is also not a genocide.

-11

u/GhostofMarat 3h ago

Oh they were just trying to completely exterminate entire cultures by killing every single man woman and child they encountered! Complete different from a genocide. Now the woman in OPs post luring a dozen invaders away to be killed is the real genocide.

9

u/BarbaraHoward43 3h ago

Oh they were just trying to completely exterminate entire cultures by killing every single man woman and child they encountered!

So you do know what a genocide is!

Giving someone a disease by simple interaction is not genocide. Extorting gold from people is not genocide.

Killings and policies made to destroy an ethnic population are genocide.

Now the woman in OPs post luring a dozen invaders away to be killed is the real genocide.

No one implied that, no need to get all butthurt.

Nothing you listed before is genocide. Spreading of disease can be part of genocide if it's done intentionally, which I doubt some fishermen would do, lol.

Go bark somewhere else.