>What a sad commentary on human beings. We are solely motivated by greed,
>even to the exclusion of a survival instinct. Our entire population might
>be eradicated because greed is more important than environmental concerns.
At least one population was wiped out by greed: Newfoundland's settlers
hired Mic Mac Indians from Nova Scotia to come in and exterminate the local
Beothuk Indians. I doubt there was much contact or enmity between the
tribes before that, there is a *lot* of water between Newfoundland and Nova
Scotia. The Mic Macs just did it for the bounty.
>From the portraits I saw in a museum there, they were quite a handsome
people. The last one died of disease about 100 years ago. Aside, they
probably had some Viking ancestry -- there was a Viking village at L'ance
aux Meadows in Newfoundland almost 500 years before Columbus set sail.
Sean Morgan