What Is Genocide?
Genocide: the systematic killing of a whole national or ethnic group. Example: the attempted extermination of Jewish people by the German Nazis during World War II. Genocide means the attempt to eliminate completely an entire race of people.
The peoples of Europe who crossed the great Atlantic Ocean to settle in the New World committed unspeakable acts of genocide against the Native Indian populations. To use any word other than “genocide” is too weak and could never do historical justice to the brutal treatment Native Americans suffered at the hands of the newcomers.
Look for any full-blooded tribal members in any area of the United States and you will very few. All tribes were killed or reduced to fragment populations; survivors were relocated onto prison-like reservations far away from the tribe’s homeland. Occasionally a reservation was created on or near an ancestral homelands and there a few individuals from the original tribe in that area may yet be found. Many others were scattered to the wind.
In and around Yosemite Valley (Ah-wah-nee-chee) in the Sierra Nevadas, there are Southern Miwok and Mono Lake Paiute. Yet for the most part, one will not find very many Native Americans, of whatever tribe, still living where they once lived–and certainly not in the same way.
The choice of following their customs was not allowed by the powers that be: the national government, the state governments, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Department of the Interior (which took over the job of overseeing the BIA from the Department of the Treasury long ago), the Supreme Court, and other decision-making arms of the government . . . “The Indian must die” was their guiding philosophy.
If not killed outright, then he must be made over in the image of the white man. Many in power were guilty of these crimes . . . AS WELL AS THE AMERICAN PEOPLE, WHO APPROVE OR REMAIN SILENT
The number of Indians killed by the incoming groups from Europe has never been figured out exactly—and it’s only been relatively recently that a few brave souls have even dared give an estimate. The highs and lows vary greatly within the world of estimates. In referring to the depopulation of both North and South America, there are scholars who use “millions” in their estimates—while others talk of only a few tens of thousands, no more.
GENOCIDE THROUGH DISEASE AND WAR
The latter group will further rationalize their low estimates of Indians killed by Europeans by reminding their readers that most Indians died from diseases brought by the white man—as though that made matters all right! The new emphasis on fatal diseases seems to suggest that no further moral consideration need be given to those Native Americans killed in battle while defending their homelands–or those who were murdered outright.
Since the conquest of America is often portrayed as a clash between “civilized Europeans” and “uncivilized Indians”, it is instructive to note how often the details of the armed conquest (whether by germs or guns) have little to do with a civilized way of existence and everything to do with the excesses of a bloody genocidal rage.
The notion that the Holocaust of Diseases introduced by Europeans is somehow less culpable–less bothersome to conscience, less reprehensible–than the Holocaust of Murder, is itself a curious way to validate the accompanying and merciless brutality of the invaders.
Apparently the logic goes something like this: never mind the genocidal effects that the invasion of these diseases had on the indigenous peoples for this means European-Americans killed only a relatively small number in battle—you see, many Native Americans died from disease before the European-Americans had a chance to meet them in battle or perchance murder them unawares!
You might as well expect Hitler to produce records of Jews who died from disease before the death camps had a chance to beat, hang, shoot, gas, or torture them to death—and have him say: “See? We did not murder all the Jews who died! Some of them died of diseases before we had a chance to kill them!”
If this be accepted as moral reasoning, then morality itself becomes a murdered casualty of war.
SMALLPOX EPIDEMICS
Smallpox epidemics did indeed wipe out whole villages, including some tribes whose names are now lost to history. If a white trader with smallpox visited an Indian village, everyone in the village might contract the disease and die. The Indians had no natural immunity for such diseases as smallpox was previously unknown among Native Americans.
In modern parlance, one might argue that the European invaders brought an early version of an AIDS-like epidemic to many Indian tribes: fatal diseases with no cure. Just as the first generation of AIDS patients had no way to fight off the disease once their immune system was compromised, the Native Americans had no biological immunity with which to ward off such diseases as smallpox.
What was a “childhood disease” to most European-Americans, was usually a death warrant for thousands of Native Americans. The Europeans brought the infection but denied or ignored responsibility for their actions. They closed their eyes to the deadly consequences, if they did not celebrate the results as a god-given blessing.
We find scant evidence in the literature for them ever recognizing the need to take action that might have lessened the severity of the epidemic or avoided the rapid spread of the deadly disease. That the invaders from Europe never seemed to have entertained such thoughts—were not interested in even trying–speaks volumes to the lack of importance they attached to Indian lives.
Apt students of history may vaguely recall that a vaccination for this disease was discovered by a Dr. Jenner at the time of the American Revolution, but that early vaccine hardly ever found its way to Indian peoples.
Jefferson and his family were inoculated around 1800; is there any mention of inoculations for Native Americans?Any mention of establishing quarantines, protecting “off limits” areas, building hospitals, distributing medicines, working with Native American healers and elders, or doing anything else of a pro-active nature to save lives?
A scientific-minded man like Thomas Jefferson could afford to try vaccination for himself and his family–successfully, one might add; the vaccination did not sicken anyone nor did they contract the disease later.
As though the total lack of medical efforts wasn’t thoughtless enough, the U.S. Army sometimes recovered blankets from the beds where patients died of smallpox and donated them as “gifts” to Indian tribes, thereby killing countless more. (The U.S. Army disputes this contention but in the oral traditions of some tribes, the accusation is strongly maintained).
The apologists for the low estimates of the number of Indians killed outright by the Europeans would never say these smallpox-deceased Indians were killed by the U.S. Army. Yet to suggest the death was somehow “natural”–rather than part of a campaign of conquest and tribal extinction–is of course a grotesque distortion of the actual historical record. Today, a person with AIDS or another deadly disease, who carelessly or deliberately infected another person, would be charged with a crime. Back then, it was business as usual.
When the U.S. Army gave away infected blankets knowing they would spread smallpox and death, they committed new acts of murder. While the world of science was advancing in medical knowledge and practice concerning the efficacy of preventive vaccinations, the U.S. Army was adding to its death total–without firing a shot. These deaths should not be subtracted, but added, to the total number of Indians killed by European-Americans–but the total is so large, in any event, that it disheartens one to try and guess a realistic number.
Who knows how many Native Americans were killed during the Conquest by war, by disease, by assassination? Not only Indian warriors in battle–old men, women, and children were murdered too. Then there were the many who died of cold and hunger on forced marches. Many died after being removed to reservations where they sickened or starved; some killed themselves out of desperation and despair.
The total number, which at the very least must involve many tens of thousands, if not millions, is one of the bloodiest chapters in all of American History. It is genocide.
It is an example of the American nation at its most unjust; it is a picture of the first European-Americans giving full rein to a bloodthirsty desire for land and wealth even if it meant the brutal death of tribes and nations.
We cannot redeem the past and seek justice if we refuse to talk truthfully about this history: as it really happened. The blood-stains haunt us yet.
