The Dakota War came out of a strategic starvation campaign imposed by the Union Army over Sioux Territory. The original tribes had been forced off the productive soil around the Minnesota River and displaced into barren wasteland. Subsequent crop failure and long winter made trading for foodstuffs from their home territories the only means of survival. And the settlers took maximum advantage, deliberately scamming and price gouging the Sioux for the remains of their family wealth. This, after a series of treaties had been casually violated from administration to administration.

The war was quite literally a fight for survival by the Sioux. Lincoln’s largess in hanging only the young men directly involved in the raid did nothing to prevent the Sioux population from continuing its rapid decline, as the surviving elders were left to starve to death in the wilderness and the children were forced into Christian schools notorious for brutalizing and killing the kidnapped youths.

He didn’t kill ALL the innocent, whose land he stole and whose relatives he murdered. Only those that dated fight back.

Yeah, sounds like Trump.

He had dentures made of human teeth, human teeth dentures were almost always made from slave teeth during this time.

It’s [not] funny actually - Trump would absolutely come up with this idea for himself while alive, had it not been done before.
Since it has been done, now he’s going to want a bigger mountain face.

Yeah every political leader have little oopsies like being called “town destroyer” by the people which land they invaded and towns they destroyed. They also were proud of it, used it to invade even more land, and their grandpas were also called that because it’s their family and nation thing to do for generations.

Who here hasn’t made dentures from unwillingly donated teeth?

I dunno Barack Obama and Jimmy Carter, seem to have been personally good people. That’s two recent US presidents. Then I guess I would add some super low hanging fruit like Nelson Mandela, Frederick the Great, John II Komnenos, any of the Five Good Emperors, Cyrus the Great, Ashoka, and one could keep going.

EDIT: To all those pestering me about how US presidents presided over criminal imperialist policies, here is my answer from down below:

OP talked about “glaring character defects”.

These are policy failures and state crimes, arguably attributed to the American state as a whole, and the long term US imperialist policies, rather to the singular person of the president.

You might have noticed that I added Frederick the Great in the list, which tells you exactly what my understanding of the challenge was.

I’m not here to defend US imperialism, don’t @ me.

My wife and I found ourselves near Mt. Rushmore by happenstance durin a road trip several years back. We knew the history, but stopped in to see it for ourselves. We found it to be extremely shitty and underwhelming. The natural area behind the monument was incredible, and I absolutely understand why the indigenous people believed this place to be sacred, but the front was small, tacky, and depressing. I wish I could refund our admission and give it to some chill natives at a gas station instead.

Also not pictured: that the mountain is a spiritual site for the local tribes.

Washington owned slaves. He was not some moral high ground individual. The only reason why they even got independence from Britain was that Britain wanted to stop the expansion of the territory and the people in the colonies wanted to continue it and kill all the natives.

Edit:

In 1784, Washington paid unnamed “Negroes” for nine teeth. We don’t know the precise circumstances, says Van Horn: “The president’s decision to pay his slaves for their teeth may have been a recognition on his part that teeth were something sacrosanct and personal.” On the other hand, being enslaved meant that any economic exchange was inherently not fair.

He literally took advantage of enslaved people to get their teeth and you consider it as just “bought”. Top tier cracker mindset. I guess that to you it was also fair for him to own his slaves because he “bought” them.

https://daily.jstor.org/were-george-washingtons-teeth-taken-from-enslaved-people/

I was at the museum at his estate on the potomac; the dentures were there. The plaque underneath claimed it was slaves.

Washington’s teeth were made of diamonds and you can’t convince me otherwise.

Me sowing: Hell yeah this is great

Me reaping: This is not us. What a somber moment in world history 😔

As a European, I think it’s because of all the “land of the free”, “we’re #1”, “the american dream” and “the american melting pot” bullshit.

Whatever that means when looking at history. It was only as an adult that I found out america is the villain.

I mean, in so much as a single person representing a county goes. The first colonies were a mix of religious zealots, Virginian drug dealers (well, tobacco but that’s almost worse), and a little Dutch (who were quite active in slave trading at the time). Quickly got a few more from French and Spanish, too.

However, the US also includes annexed Mexican territory (which has its own mixed history of subjegation and torture) and slews of different immigrant populations (with their own mixed intentions). A section of my own family is here cause they tried for Scottish independence, although there’s a good chance they were sent here for being belligerent drunks.

That said, ain’t a single country on this earth without their fair share of bullshit. America is just a lovely mix of those assholes, honestly.

The US Empire is definitely one of the worst States to exist in history, though, consistently.