The Native American Holocaust The Jewish Holocaust is remembered and learned about every year in school. During this holocaust, six million people were killed. However, the Native American Genocide resulted in over one hundred-twenty million deaths. This tragedy is only briefly summarized. When Christopher Columbus, “the discoverer of the Americas,” claimed the land in 1492 on his quest for gold and silver, the fact that millions of people already lived in the area was not considered. It is estimated that fifteen million people, which Columbus had rudely referred to as “Indians,” lived north of current day Mexico at the time of his arrival. Three hundred-fifty years later, this number was reduced to less than one million (Mercier). The Native …show more content…
The death of six million Jewish people during World War II is seen as more significant than the loss of one hundred-twenty million from 1500 to 1800. Before the arrival of European settlers, Mexico City had a larger population than any city in Europe. The Native American cities and towns were flourishing as they continued their unique way of life. These people were soon killed off systematically through deliberate murder, disease spread through blankets that had been distributed and were contaminated with the small pox virus, and relocation through death marches that led people to die from lack of food, dehydration and exhaustion. Hitler’s “final …show more content…
For example, Katherine Schulten wrote in her article “A Native American Student Responds to a Times Article About His Home, “A rambling stretch of scrub in central Wyoming the size of Rhode Island and Delaware combined, Wind River has a crime rate five to seven times the national average and a long history of ghastly suicides.” After their ancestors have been slaughtered, cruelly and carelessly, the generations that live today still suffer. Native American children on reservations attend “residential schools.” Eye witnesses have many times referred to these schools as “death camps” because of the deaths of the deaths of the children and their disappearance as if they never existed (Horn). Schulten also states, “…killed in a car accident at 19 while intoxicated; murdered in his 20s; struck in the head with an ax not long after graduation,” about the many deaths and dangers of living on the
Columbus may have brought the Europeans that colonized the Americas over, but Columbus really brought over death to millions of men, women, and children. Bartolome de Las Casas, a settler of the New World, participated in killing natives. Only there is something different about him, his western views changed and he tried to advocate for the natives(FACT FILE: 8 Facts About Las Casas). Columbus and Las Casas’s views and descriptions of the natives have great distances, one believes that the natives are people to be used, while another believes the natives should be treated with their own rights as if they are Europeans.
Do you remember being taught about the Holocaust when you were in school? 11 million people were annihilated in the Holocaust. Now, do you remember being taught about the genocide of the American Indians? Over 100 million Native Americans were decimated in that conflict.("How Does Native American Genocide Compare to the Holocaust? - Quora") While both acts of genocide are terrible, the Jewish people received a country, and still have power in the world today.
The term genocide brings awful things to mind. For most, it probably directs their attention towards the Holocaust; this was definitely a gruesome and obvious example of genocide, but there are many others with great similarities that are not very well known. One of these is the decimation of the Native American population by the European settlers and the atrocious things that were done to them such as the trail of tears following the Indian Removal Act of 1830 during the settling of North America. The Holocaust might be the most well known but there have been many other incidents in history just as abhorrent. The Holocaust and Native American Genocide are different in weapons used and the motives for killing but similar in intent,
Prior to this class, I was not aware of the Native American boarding school and it was never discussed in any of my previous history classes. I think so few people have heard of the American Indian Holocaust because the U.S government still does not value the existence of Native Americans. It seems that what we are taught in secondary school are what they want us to know rather than what is needed to be known. It saddened my heart to know that this group of people had to undergo this horrible time period simply because of their race. I find it very upsetting that although the Native Americans ceded the land first, the Europeans came with force, claiming the land as their own. And felt they had the right to determine how the whole population
In both Americas combined, in the course of four years an estimated 70 million natives had died by the end of the 19th century (Trask 8). In addition she emphasizes the lack of knowledge that America has on the oppression of the Natives and the severity of this topic by referring to this event as a “holocaust”.
I'm writing to plead with you to stand against the Muslim ban. Over and over again it has been proven that ISIS's number one recruitment tool is America's discrimination and disdain for Islam. If President Trump leaves this executive order as is, I fear that the ripple effect of hatred toward America will be felt for generations to come.I believe signing this order on Holocaust Remembrance Day is tacky at the least, and a divisive tool that is a slap in the face to all refugees and documented immigrants that come to our great country to seek safety. We look back now in shame at the Holocaust refugees we turned our backs on and our internment camps during WWII, yet we are making the same mistakes today. I personally believe that this action
For more than 300 years, since the days of Christopher Columbus and the Spanish Government, an attempt of genocide of the Native American Indian has existed. From mass brutal murders and destruction by Spanish and American armies, to self-annihilation through suicide, homicide, and alcohol induced deaths brought about because of failed internal colonialism and white racial framing. Early Explores used Indigenous inhabitants upon first arriving to the America’s to survive the New World and once they adapted, internal colonialism began with attempts to convert the Indians to Christianity, repressing their values and way of life, forcing them into slavery, and nearly exterminating an entire culture from existence.
Historians estimate that as much as 95 percent of the Native American population died within a year of Columbus’s initial contact with the New World, and while there were certainly European acts of genocide against the Native Americans that added to
However, they fail to mention that Columbus, Cortes and all European conquerors enslaved the Indians and killed them with no remorse. Indians were captured, enslaved and forced to hunt for gold day and night. Those who brought back gold were given copper tokens to wear. Indians that were found not wearing copper tokens had their hands cut off and left to bleed to death. They were over worked and died by the thousands. By the year 1515 there were 50,000 Indians left. By 1550, there were 500 left and by 1650 there were no Indians left on their own land. Passing grade school and high school is when students come across specific hints. For instance, Zinn points out a quote that was written by Samuel Eliot Morison who is known to be a distinguished writer. It reads “ The cruel policy initiated by Columbus and pursued by his successors resulted in complete genocide”(qtd in Zinn 7). Zinn observes the fact that Morison does state the truth, but he emphasizes on the bravery of Columbus as a great pioneer. Morison does not lie about Columbus nor ignore the part of mass murder; in fact he describes it with one of the the harshest words “genocide”. Zinn argues, “To emphasize the heroism of Columbus and his successors as navigators and discoverers, and to deemphasize their genocide, is not a technical necessity but an ideological choice. It serves- unwittingly- to justify what was done”(9). Zinn prefers to tell the story from the viewpoint of the Indians, not to grieve for them or to blame the executioners, but rather to make a clear point. The oppressor is also a victim and the victims also turn on other victims. History should not deny the past, rather it should search for new possibilities disclosing
“Indeed, so bombarded are most Americans with the unexamined ideology of “worthy” and “unworthy” victims . . .” (26) Genocides, such as that of the Amerindians, show this grotesque train of thought in human beings. The dehumanization and murder of the Native Americans was nothing more than an action made by the Europeans to show their superiority they believed they possessed. Throughout history, this behavior can be seen in many tyrannical communities, such as those that ruled over the “Armenians, Jews, Gypsies, Tbos, Bengalis, Timorese, Cambodians, Ugandans, and others.” (4) Although many people argue that a variety of diseases killed the unexposed Indians, it is proven that mass murders killed off a majority of native people. David E. Stannard defends this argument by giving samples of evidence that suggest that the carnage of the Indians reflects very similarly with the holocaust of the Jewish people in Nazi Germany.
The Holocaust was one of the twentieth century's greatest tragedies that were made possible by anti-Semitism, the indifference of other nations, isolationism politics, and outright fear.
Concentration camps had very little survivors, due to how hard the day to day life was on the concentration camps, and how the other countries such as the soviet union had concentration camps. Concentration camps were designed to kill people so I think it is very interesting to learn about how some people survived. The day to day life in concentration camps was extremely hard so I wondered what they actually did is very interesting. During my research I learned that other countries had concentration camps and that it's not a new idea.
The long history between Native American and Europeans are a strained and bloody one. For the time of Columbus’s subsequent visits to the new world, native culture has
Anti-Semitism in Europe did not begin with Adolf Hitler. Though use of the term itself
My overall opinion on what we have read in class and seen in movies is that the holocaust was a dreadful thing for anyone to go through. I don't think it was okay to get rid of a whole race just because someone wants a superior race. I have learned in Hana's suitcase that kids can make a difference. A young woman was determined to find out about a young girl named Hana and her whole life. I hope the Nazi party realized that what they were doing was wrong then again, they contributed on what Adolf Hitler was telling them to do. Something that bothers me is that nobody stood up for the Jews. Others were bystanders and just watched what the Germans were doing but never said