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‘Claude Salomon, a medical researcher at France's Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, asked if the likely inevitability of native [american] deaths [due to European diseases] could "reduce the historical guilt of Europeans." In a sense it does, Salomon wrote. But it did not let the invaders off the hook— they caused huge numbers of deaths, and knew that they had done it.
"Those who carried the microbes across the Atlantic were responsible, but not guilty," Salomon concluded. Guilt is not readily passed down the generations, but responsibility can be. A first step toward satisfying that responsibility for Europeans and their descendants in North and South America would be to treat indigenous people today with respect - something that, alas, cannot yet be taken for granted.
Recognizing and obeying past treaties wouldn't be a bad idea, either.’ — Charles C. Mann, “1491”