[shaftoe]

Read other sources on the history of the sack of Benin. This article romanticizes a city with human sacrifices and slave trade.

From Wikipedia's article on the Benin Massacre:

But the way Benin treated its slaves and the public display of large quantities of human remains hardened British attitudes towards Benin's rulers. The trader James Pinnock wrote that he saw 'a large number of men all handcuffed and chained' there, with 'their ears cut off with a razor'. T.B Auchterlonie described the approach to the capital through an avenue of trees hung with decomposing human remains. After the 'lane of horrors' came a grass common 'thickly stewn with the skulls and bones of sacrificed human beings.'

[adwf]

Oh I know. There's always many sides to these stories. I don't feel bad about it other than in an abstract modern moral way, it's history.

But the number of times something from the 18th-20th centuries like this comes up and you find out it was our ancestors...

I sometimes wonder whether this'll be the same reaction Americans will have in 200 years time. Things always look better when justified in the moral context of their time.

[thechao]

No, no, don't worry; there's been more than one occasion when I silently repeated to myself: "please not Texas, please not Texas..."

[CPLX]

You're in luck, it's Florida again.

[bsder]

History is written by the victors justifying themselves.

Remember, this occurred in an era of "Social Darwinism" and "noble savages", etc.

That's not to say that these accounts aren't correct, but you can't just accept them at face value without some archaeological evidence to back them up.