I don't know if you're being sarcastic or not, so just to clarify ...
it is absolutely a different claim. The land was not empty at all, though it did have millions less people than it had had a century or two earlier. Ethnic cleansing by violence was absolutely a central part of the expansion of the US (and also New Spain before it). The only difference is the question of whether, in a violent struggle between the American peoples at their pre-smallpox population levels and arriving European settlers, the latter would have won (and with relative ease). My point/claim is that they probably would not.
it is absolutely a different claim. The land was not empty at all, though it did have millions less people than it had had a century or two earlier. Ethnic cleansing by violence was absolutely a central part of the expansion of the US (and also New Spain before it). The only difference is the question of whether, in a violent struggle between the American peoples at their pre-smallpox population levels and arriving European settlers, the latter would have won (and with relative ease). My point/claim is that they probably would not.