In my opinion, the Cherokee were more civilized than the europeans who victimized them. Stone age civilization or not, they had an elected government with a Woman at it's head who had veto power over anything affecting tribal security or defence, a written language (invented by "SEQUOIA") and the vision to see that there was much to be learned from the Europeans. Of course the Europeans were not as forward minded as these "Savages" and betrayed the trust given them. If the Cherokee had been a maritime civilization, they might have discovered Europe and the world would be a different place.,

I can accept no blame for what people did to people in the past. My ancestors were in Italy and Russia at the time. I AM A NATIVE AMERICAN. I was born in the U.S.A. of immigrant forebears, as were the American Indians. There are no Homo Sapiens indigenous to the Western Hemisphere.
The bottom line in the "blame or Forgiveness" department, as far as I'm concerned, is this: I wouldn't do those atrocious things to other people, nor would I knowingly stand idly by and allow others to.

You can yell at me if you want to, but what happened to the American Indian is what "Hard Core Sociologists" call, "The territorial imperative" coupled with "intra-specific agressiive instinct" two instincts shared by all animal life. Instincts can not be ignored by a healthy, normal animal, who doesn't even realize that it's reacting to instinct, but who's actions are triggered by intervening variables that precipitate their actions. Believe me, the middle aged European version of Territorial Imperative, perpetrated by people who were more cruel and bloodthirsty than most of you could possibly imagine, Mongols, Huns, Romans, Tartars, Celts, Gauls, Goths, Visigoths Semites, Egyptians, Etc Etc Etc, was far more terrible than anything that happened in the Western Hemisphere.

As for the wonderful "Protectors of the ecology and environment". Within recorded history, they hunted the North American Wolly Mamouth to extinction because they were so easy to hunt.