Colonial And Native American Genocide

then after Massasoit felt better, and was cured of the disease. If it wasn’t for the Europeans, Massasoit would have never gotten sick of the diseases the Europeans brought with them.

Two-hundred years ago, there was a scientific study on the brains of Native Americans called the craniology and phrenology. The Europeans examined only indigenous people’s heads and were forbidden to use any European’s brains. The Europeans did three experiments, such as decapitating the tops of the heads and filling them with sand to see if their brains were smaller than blacks. The Europeans also looked at the bones and said that if the bones were in a certain way (such as natives cheek bones being up higher) the person was thought to be stupid. The last experiment the Europeans did to American Indians was that they had a small devise that they would put on the head and it would slice the brain open. There would be an award for

Genocide is defined as a large killing of a specific group of people, usually ethnic. Although known as the “World’s Police Officer”, the United States is responsible for the longest genocide ever recorded and the most lives lost. According to Dr. Stanton there are eight stages of genocide, and the United States fulfilled most, if not all of those stages. Native Americans were classified as “indians” and “redskins”, both inaccurate and derogatory terms that were commonly used, even by government officials. They were also seen as poor, weak, and uneducated brutes in the public eye. The government and media made natives seemed as they were barbarians who attack innocent Americans so that it would seem justified to take their land and torture

In the book The Last Colonial Massacre: Latin America in the Cold War, author Greg Grandin traces Guatemala’s evolutionary period from the late 19th century to the early 1980s. What he dubs as ‘the last colonial massacre,’ the Panzós Massacre of 1978 was the mass murder by the Guatamalan army of 35 Q’echi-Mayan men, women and children who had gathered in the town square demanding democractic representation, land reform and higher wages. Outrage over this massacre led many Guatemalan peasants to join the communist Guerilla Army of the Poor (EGP) which prompted violence and repression by the US backed right-wing government. Grandin’s thesis is that Cold War terror unleashed or excused by the United States, weakened the advancement of democracy

Genocide has been present for thousands of years and has reappeared multiple times throughout global history. The Holocaust and the European removal of the Native Americans are both considered to be genocides. The Holocaust was a mass murdering of people due to discrimination. The victims were those who did not fit what the German leader of the Nazis thought to be the “an adequate human being.” The victims of Hitler’s brutality included anyone who was or looked Jewish, the Roma, people with disabilities, homosexuals, Jehovah’s Witnesses, trade unionists, and anyone opposed to him. (“Holocaust”). The Removal of the Native Americans resulted in numerous deaths and even complete extinction of many tribes. They were forced out of their homes and land by European settlers who sailed to America. Disobedience of the Europeans commands often led to fatal wars, and in most cases the Natives did not end up victorious. This mass murder was not led by one person in particular, but Christopher Columbus acted as a leader (“Guenter”). The Holocaust and the European removal of the Native Americans are alike in many aspects, but can also be contrasted. The goals behind their brutality was much different. They also had different methods of killing. In likeness, each of the perpetrators committed their crimes in attempt to honor their countries and they used their victims as slaves.

Thus, there are disagreements to what level the treatment of Europeans to the Native Americans was a genocide. Before 1492, the new world was a much healthier place in contrast to the old world. There was an unequal exchange in food and diseases that continued to spread and plagued vast areas, areas where people were not immune. Hence, killing over half of the entire population in the Americas.

Early European colonization of the Americas was initially marked by both exchange and conflict. When the English colonists arrived in the Americas most Indian tribes welcomed them. Many Indians believed the settling colonists would assist in protecting their tribe from other powerful tribes in the area, because the colonists had access to weapons. In exchange for this added protection, the Indians generously shared many of their belongings, supplies, food, and skills necessary for survival, since the colonists were not experienced with hunting or understanding the land. The Indians thought these newcomers were the best thing to happen

In the article titled “The State of Native America: Genocide, Colonization and Resistance”, by author M. Annette Jaimes there is a topic of the crimes committed against the indigenous people in North America. The article mentions the brutalities that happened against the Native American people of Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes. The article includes a part of the book Sand Creek that described an event that occurred on November of 1864 in which armed men massacred Native Americans (Ortiz, 2000). The heated battle between the indigenous people and the people that migrated from Europe lasted for decades. The article mentions quite a few times how history has been robbed of knowing the real truth about the settling of many new Europeans to North America. The people that were in charge of murdering the Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes were compared to historical figures that have been known to have a disturbing past in committing massacres certain cultural groups. One of the people that were used as comparison was the infamous Adolf Hitler. There was also a similarity between the SS and the Colorado Volunteers, who were the men who killed the many Cheyenne and Arapaho people. Both the SS and the Colorado Volunteers had similar goals and committed crimes towards the group who they believed stopped them from achieving those goals. A man by the name of David Nichols is said to being also involved in the events involving the Sand Creek massacre, and how he was not seen as a criminal but was

Manifest Destiny is a phrase used to express the belief that the United States had a mission to expand its borders, thereby spreading its form of democracy and freedom. Originally a political catchphrase of the nineteenth-century, Manifest Destiny eventually became a standard historical term, often used as a synonym for the territorial expansion of the United States across North America towards the Pacific Ocean. The United States government believed that the Native Americans were a problem that was hindering Manifest Destiny from being fulfilled (or at the very least, used the idea of Manifest Destiny to gain land and resources the Indians possessed), and would do

Long before Adolph Hitler committed the atrocity and the Jewish during the holocaust, the European settlers, British garrisons and later the United States Army had drastically reduced the numbers of Native American by committing the same actions. Was genocide committed against the Native Americans? Many may argue the decline of the Native American population was caused by new diseases being introduced by the Europeans to which the native tribes had no immunity. Others argue forcing the Native Americans from their homes was a necessity for the development of this new land. However, the thousands of Native Americans killed during the Indian Removal Act can be compared to the thousands of Jewish people killed during the holocaust.

The war against the native Americans in the west and southwest with the US was designed to destroy the Indians culture and can very well be considered an American holocaust. It wasn’t enough the Native American gave up some of their land but, the white settlers and the US army wanted it all. As natural resources were discovered on the land that the natives lived on, the whites and US army wanted that too. It was taken from the Native Americans at any cost, even annulation of the entire race. The white people looked down on the Indians as if they were less than human and they were willing to take from them anything they wanted. Even the elderly, women and children were murdered because of their race. The white people just wanted them gone.

Although for the most part they didn’t have to be a labor force to Americans like blacks did, they did experience genocide. According to one article, “the reduction of the North American Indian population from an estimated 12 million in 1500 to barely 237,000 in 1900 represents a vast genocide..., the most sustained on record.” This genocide is mostly from disease. One article says, “The most hideous enemy of native Americans was not the white man and his weaponry, concludes Alfred Crosby, ‘but the invisible killers which those men brought in their blood and breath.’ It is thought that between 75 to 90 percent of all Indian deaths resulted from these killers.” Even though most of the Indians were killed due to disease, a lot of them were killed because of other reasons. Unlike the blacks who were killed in slavery because they made a mistake, many Indians were killed for no reason, sometimes just because the colonists wanted a war of some kind. An article states, “had urged war without mercy, even against children. ‘Nits make lice,’ he was fond of saying. The ensuing orgy of violence in the course of a surprise attack on a large Indian encampment left between 70 and 250 Indians dead, the majority women and children.” Along with this, many Indians did indeed get forced into the tragedy of slavery, just like blacks. During King Philip’s War, one article says, “Casualties among the Indians were even higher, with many

This idea started with Christopher Columbus who, contrary to popular belief, never set foot in North America (Gilio-Whitaker, "Why the Legend of Christopher Columbus Is a Lie"). He set the tone for the beginning of European-Native American relations. As described by Davey and Yellow Thunder Woman in The Canary Effect, from the beginning of meeting the natives in South America, where his ships actually did land, he began exploiting the natives for their goods and he and his men slaughtered them for fun, even feeding them to the dogs they brought with them. This horrible abuse carried on to the settling of what is now the United States. There were slaughters of Native Americans, resulting in bloody history. In the 1800’s, bounties were paid for the scalps of Native Americans by the federal government, as an attempt to eradicate the group. These killings demonstrate the first and second elements of genocide. As for the third genocidal element, Native Americans were forced off their lands, in violation of treaties, and onto the Trail of Tears taking them away from their ancestral lands in the southeast. During this event, each nation lost around a quarter of their population, with 25,000 deaths. Andrew Jackson, who was the President at the time, operated under the façade that it was to help the Native Americans. The fourth element of genocide occurred very recently. In 1970, U.S. House of Representatives committee spokesman George H.W. Bush proposed the

The process of assimilation, as it regards to the Native Americans, into European American society took a dreaded and long nearly 300 years. Initially, when the European’s came to the hopeful and promising land of the “New World”, they had no desire or reason anything but minimal contact with the Indians. However, starting in the 1700s the European colonists population skyrocketed. The need for more resources became evident and the colonists knew they could attain these necessities by creating a relationship of mutual benefit with the Native tribes. The Indians, at first skeptical, however became growingly open to the colonists and the relationship they were looking to attain. Indian furs were traded for colonial goods and military

The thinking of a dominant white society and the savageness of Native culture is the background of the on-going struggle against cultural genocide of First Nations people all across Canada. The first European settlers in Canada viewed the inhabiting First Nations people as uncivilized, and they felt that they needed to be educated in their “civilized” ways. This thinking started the cultural genocide of the Native culture. This paper will focus on the ways in which Native people have been pushed towards the dominating Euro-Canadian ways through the 60s scoop, residential schools, reproduction rights for Native women, and the Indian Act.