Of all the stupid things the US has done, this is still the worse by any measure, even worse than African slavery (blacks could vote before Native American's could).
I think population stress is a definite factor. In any animal population, when there are too many for the environment to comfortably support, mechanisms come into play to reduce their numbers. Virulent diseases run amuck. Parents start killing their offspring, and adult individuals lash out violently against their neighbors for no apparent reason. Animals starve. Eventually the population of natural predators increases to bring things back into equilibrium. But Humans don't have any natural predators except for themselves.
b
Comment