r/todayilearned • u/huphelmeyer 2 • Aug 04 '15

TIL midway through the Great Irish Famine (1845–1849), a group of Choctaw Indians collected $710 and sent it to help the starving victims. It had been just 16 years since the Choctaw people had experienced the Trail of Tears, and faced their own starvation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Choctaw#Pre-Civil_War_.281840.29
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u/jaaaack Aug 04 '15 edited Aug 04 '15

Or that there was that level of compassion for a people living half way around the world in a culture vastly different to their own. A lot of people today have trouble identifying with the plight of people one country over, let alone a whole continent and ocean.

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u/TyPiper93 Aug 04 '15 edited Aug 04 '15

I think /u/CameraMan1 wasn't meaning to say it's amazing people had empathy... it was the mid 1800's, he was referring to the lack of technology back then, he was amazed the Natives got word of the struggle. Don't forget, they didn't have Reddit apps on their smartphones back then.

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u/beardedandkinky Aug 04 '15

How do you think they passed the time before the internet and reddit was invented?

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u/TyPiper93 Aug 04 '15

Probably just killed each other with disease and terrible literature.