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| “ | It is also apparent that the shared history of the hemisphere is one framed by the dual tragedies of genocide and slavery, both of which are part of the legacy of the European invasions of the past 500 years. Indigenous people north and south were displaced, died of disease, and were killed by Europeans through slavery, rape, and war. | „ |
| ~ Excerpt from American Philosophy: From Wounded Knee to the Present. |
The Amerindian Genocide, AKA the Native American Genocide, the American Indian Genocide or the American Indian Holocaust, is a blanket term for the various atrocities carried out against indigenous peoples of North and South America from their discovery right up to the 20th Century. It is considered the foremost example of genocide of indigenous peoples and the largest genocide in history, surpassing even The Holocaust in scale. It began in 1494, when the Americas were discovered by the Spanish Empire, and continued well into the 20th century in various different forms and nations.
History
Genocide by Spain
When Christopher Columbus first landed in Mesoamerica in 1494, he took several members of the Arawak tribe captive in the hope that they could lead him to gold. Upon writing to King Ferdinand of Spain of his discovery, Columbus was granted permission to enslave the native population and use them to find gold. Columbus's troops immediately set about raping, killing and torturing in an attempt to force the natives to tell them where the gold was. Columbus organized several groups of armed men to search for the non-existent gold, leading to the deaths of thousands of sick and unarmed natives. Captives were used for sword practice, with Columbus's soldiers attempting to decapitate them or cut them in half with one blow. The situation was so bad that about 50,000 Taíno natives chose to commit suicide rather than live under Spanish rule.
Columbus enslaved the population of Hispaniola and set up a system wherein all natives over 14 were responsible for gathering a certain amount of gold each month, awarding them with a copper token to hang around their neck if they succeeded. If a native was caught without a token they would have their hands cut off and be allowed to bleed to death. Natives who attempted to flee slavery were torn apart with attack dogs. Sexual slavery was also widespread, with Columbus forcibly marrying native women to his men. During this period the native population of Hispaniola plummeted rapidly until it was practically wiped out, partly due to being killed and partly due to smallpox introduced by the Spanish which the natives had no immunity to. Columbus was eventually arrested by agents of the Spanish Crown for his atrocities, but the charges against him were dropped.
After approximately three million natives were killed, the Spanish colonial authorities reformed their approach, adopting the encomienda system; a system of slavery wherein certain grant holders were awarded a monopoly on the labour of certain groups. Natives were allocated to certain encomiendero and put to work mining for gold. This ended up being deadlier than traditional slavery because there was no incentive to keep the native slaves alive as they could be replaced for free, resulting in the Spanish abusing and killing the native slaves regularly. The encomienda system has been described by modern historians as explicitly genocidal because it resulted in the intentional deaths of millions and the eradication of potentially thousands of native cultures.
Genocide by Portugal
Inspired by the Spanish colonization of Mesoamerica, Pedro Álvares Cabral colonized Brazil for the Portuguese Empire in 1500. Over the following century the native tribes suffered massive depopulation due to ethnic violence and smallpox introduced by the Portuguese, who enslaved them in a system similar to encomienda and forced them to cut down the forest for tropical hardwoods. When slaves began to die at a higher rate due to poor treatment, the Portuguese disguised themselves as Jesuits (who were welcomed by the natives due to being less likely to mistreat them) in order to gain access to native villages, where they would abduct and enslave as many natives as they could, killing any who resisted. It is estimated that abuses by the Portuguese led the Brazilian population to drop by over 90%.
Kalinago Genocide
The Caribbean island of Saint Kitts was colonized by British, French and Irish settlers in 1623, upsetting the native Kalinago tribe. The Kalinago chief Tegremond began plotting to kill the settlers in 1626 out of fear they would massacre the Kalinago. However, the settlers were informed and decided to take pre-emptive action against the natives.
Tegremond and other Kalinago were invited to a feast, where the settlers got them drunk before allowing them to return to their village. The settlers then attacked the village and killed 120 Kalinago, including Tegremond, while they were in a drunken stupor. The following day, 4,000 Kalinago were rounded up and forced up to what is now known as Bloody Point. The Kalinago fought back, leading to the killings of 2,000 of the captives. The other 2,000 managed to escape into the mountains, where they were hunted down and either enslaved or forcibly removed to Dominica.
Genocide by Mexico
Campaign against Apaches
The Mexican government hired bands of scalp-hunters to hunt down and kill Apaches in the 1830s and 40s, offering a cash reward for every Apache scalp brought back. The most infamous of these groups was lead by John Joel Glanton. Many of these groups killed Mexican civilians in addition to Apaches since there was no way to distinguish between the scalps of Apaches and non-Apaches. The Mexican authorities eventually ended this practice in 1849 and declared all scalp-hunters outlaws when they realized how many non-Apaches were being targeted.
Yaqui Wars
The Yaqui Wars were a series of conflicts fought between the Yaqui tribes and the Mexican government. Although fighting was reported as far back as 1533, the wars did not become genocidal until the 1860s, when 600 Yaqui rebels surrendered to the Mexican army only to be herded into a church which was then destroyed with artillery, killing 120 Yaqui prisoners. Afterwards a number of Yaqui were deported or enslaved in an attempt to prevent further violence. Another uprising in the 1870s lead to outright ethnic persecution of the Yaqui, with Mexican troops destroying their ranches and killing many Yaqui not involved in the uprising simply for being present.
The 1890 Yaqui Uprising against President Porfirio Díaz was crushed by the Mexican and United States armies. A peace treaty was signed in 1897, but this was later broken and another war was started, continuing into the 20th Century. By 1903, President Díaz had decided to resolve the Yaqui Wars once and for all by deporting all the Yaqui. Organized manhunts were carried out by the government to capture all Yaqui. 15, 000 Yaqui were enslaved, and 60, 000 died during deportation. The genocide came to an end when President Díaz was overthrown in 1911, although minor skirmishes continued until 1929.
Genocide in USA and Canada
Beothuk extinction
The Canadian Beothuk people became extinct in 1829. Initially co-existing with English settlers, the Beothuk had been forced off their fisheries and hunting grounds in the 17th Century, leading to starvation. The Beothuk’s attempts to reclaim these lands resulted in an all-out war during which the Beothuk were hunted down and killed. The colonial government attempted to mitigate this by putting out a reward for capturing Beothuk alive, but this just lead to more killing as settlers slaughtered any Beothuk who resisted capture. The last few Beothuk died of tuberculosis introduced by the settlers in captivity.
American Indian Wars
Many wars were fought against Native American tribes in the United States of America, first by colonial powers and then by the United States government. These wars left thousands, if not millions, of Natives dead and are generally viewed as xenophobic and genocidal, often leading to colonists adopting policies of outright extermination against the natives if they started winning (notable examples of this tactic being seen in the Pequot War, King Philip’s War the French and Indian War and the First Seminole War among others).
Conestoga Massacre
The Paxton Boys, a vigilante group, raided Conestoga Indian Town, Pennsylvania, on 14 December 1763 with the intention of wiping out the Conestoga tribe, who they had accused of providing intelligence and aid to hostile tribes during Pontiac’s War. They shot and scalped six Conestoga during the attack and burned down the village, leading to Governor John Penn posting a reward for the capture of the Paxton Boys and placing the remaining sixteen Conestoga in protective custody in Lancaster Gaol.
On 27 December the Paxton Boys attacked Lancaster Gaol. They shot six Conestoga adults and eight children purposefully non-fatally before mutilating and scalping them, executing those who survived with shots to the head. Governor Penn increased the reward for their capture to $600 ($21, 000 in today’s money) but they were never brought to justice because many locals sympathised with them. Only two Conestoga survived, leading to the extinction of the tribe when they died.
Gnadenhutten Massacre
At the time of the American War of Independence many Native Americans had been converted to Moravian Christianity and so remained neutral due to Christian pacifism. This alienated them from the American militias, who saw them as traitors for not helping to resist the British.
On 4 March 1782, Lieutenant Colonel David Williamson lead the Pennsylvania Militia in a raid on Gnadenhutten, a Moravian Indian village inhabited mostly by Lenape and Mohican tribesmen. They first came across the half-Lenape Joseph Schebosh and hacked him to death before proceeding on to the village, where they acted friendly and falsely promised the Moravians that they would take them to Fort Pitt to keep them safe from potential enemies. Several militiamen also persuaded Moravian Indians from the nearby town of Salem to come to Gnadenhutten for safety.
Once all the Moravian Indians had gathered, the militia confiscated their guns and axes (which they used for hunting), tied them up and announced that they had been found guilty of false charges of murder and espionage. The militia voted in favour of killing them (with the exception of eighteen who refused to take part in the massacre) before taking them to “killing houses” where they were beaten, scalped and hacked to death while singing hymns and praying. Many native women were gang-raped by the militia before being killed. Overall, 96 Moravian Indian men, women and children were killed. The militia planned to commit another massacre at a nearby Moravian Indian settlement but the inhabitants were alerted to the events at Gnadenhutten and fled before the militia arrived.
The Trail of Tears
On 28 May 1830, President Andrew Jackson signed into law the Indian Removal Act, which authorized the US government to confiscate Native American land. The Act was strongly enforced under Jackson’s Presidency and that of his successor Martin Van Buren.
Under the Indian Removal Act, the government had a mandate to remove 50, 000 Cherokee, Choctaw, Creek, Seminole and Chickasaw people from their homeland and seize it for themselves. No means of transportation were provided after the Natives were removed, meaning they were forced to walk 2, 200 miles to Indian reservations. 4,000 deaths were reported on one march alone, and estimates of the total death toll range from 5,000 to 25, 000. Others Natives were herded into concentration camps until new land was found for then to settle on, but this was generally used as a last resort.
California Genocide
Following the American conquest of California, the American government decided to remove the native population of approximately 150, 000 in order to make room for white settlers. This started with the first meeting of the California State Legislature in 1846, when it was decided that white settlers had the right to forcibly adopt native children against their will and instituted enslavement as the punishment for any crimes committed by natives, up to and including minor crimes such as loitering and drunkenness.
When it became apparent that the natives were prepared to resist these abuses, Governor Peter Hardeman Burnett formed several state militias tasked with hunting down and killing natives, declaring that “[A] war of extermination will continue to be waged between the races until the Indian race is extinct”. The militias raided tribal outposts and shot and scalped natives, and local people soon began to form their own militias to do the same. Entire tribal populations were wiped out during the massacres, and rape of Native women by white settlers was common. Some have tried to claim that the use of rape against Native women during the California Genocide qualifies as genocidal rape; this claim, however, remains disputed.
Even when the massacres ended in 1873, violence was still rife and thousands continued to die from starvation and illnesses introduced by the settlers.
Wounded Knee Massacre
Based on the 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie, the U.S. government was able to convince the Lakota tribe to move to the Great Sioux Reservation in return for less inhumane treatment. At around this time the Sioux took up the "Ghost Dance" religion, which taught that loving each other, working hard and not stealing for fighting would lead to the reunion of the living and the dead and the sweeping away of evil. White authorities, alarmed by this new religion, began arresting Lakota leaders, leading to many Lakota attempting to flee the reservation.
On 29 December 1890, the Seventh Cavalry Unit, lead by James W. Forsyth, intercepted a group fleeing the reservation. Forsyth announced that they were to surrender all their weapons, but one deaf-mute man, Black Coyote, did not understand what was going on and failed to put down his rifle. The soldiers attempted to take the rifle from him, causing it to go off. This panicked the soldiers, who opened fire on the unarmed Lakota. Women and children fled and took cover in a nearby ravine but were killed when Forsyth ordered light artillery positioned on the hill to fire on their position. It is estimated that around 300 Lakota were killed in the massacre.
Assimilation policies
The Bureau of Indian Affairs pursued a policy of cultural assimilation of Native Americans under the Dawes Act of 1887. Based on Richard Pratt's ideology of "kill the Indian and save the man", the BIA forcibly enrolled Native American children in "Indian boarding schools" (most infamously Carlisle Indian Industrial School) where they were banned from speaking their native language and practicing their religion. Children were harshly disciplined if they refused to assimilate into white culture and many died. Parents who refused to give up their children were incarcerated. This policy of cultural genocide finally ended in 1934 when the failures of the policy became clear and the schools were all closed.
The Canadian government pursued the same policy with the Canadian Indian residential school system which was designed to forcibly assimilate native children into white culture. These schools were even more brutal than the American ones, with many acts of physical, mental and sexual abuse being committed against the children. Thousands of children died due to poor treatment until the system was closed down in 1996, and mass graves are still being uncovered today.
Forced sterilization
During the 1960s and 1970s, the Indian Health Service performed thousands of sterilizations on Native American women between the ages of 15 and 44, with 3,406 women being sterilized between 1973 and 1976. Most of these sterilizations were performed without informed consent, with the women being either tricked into thinking the process was reversible, blackmailed into consenting with threats of losing welfare or simply forced to undergo the procedure with no prior knowledge. This was part of a wider policy of eugenics which also included African-Americans and the poor. It was halted in 1976 when the General Accountability Office found the sterilizations to be noncompliant with IHS ethics and policy and declared a moratorium on all sterilization procedures.