Was there a genocide committed against Native Americans?

[MaryP]

Genocide is defined by motive. There was no motive or effort to eliminate NAs from existence by the US. What happened was the same bloody land-grabbing that was happening everywhere in the world at that time. The objective was not to wipe out NAs. The objective was to murder them and steal all their stuff. That's a war crime but it's not genocide, which is defined by motive.

When we conflate bloody land-grabbing with genocide, we make excuse for genocide.

It didn't end with the settlement of the West. The govt through its policies tried to eradicate their language (a big part of a culture) by forcing the children into schools where they were forbidden to speak anything but English. Reservation subsistence welfare was designed to encourage NA's off the reservation and to ASSIMILATE. The government's buzz word was assimilate. As in, become part of the majority culture.

It was intentional genocide. It didn't quite work, but it was sure close.

That all being said, the two cultures couldn't live together, their lifestyles and perspectives were too different. Migrating hunter cultures need undisturbed land for the animals they hunt. Tradition and spiritual beliefs continued within the NA communities despite our insistence they become farmers. So one of us had to go. And I agree with you we wanted to grab their land. We wanted them gone. That's genocide.

 

[bomberfox]

Not policy.

How is that not policy?…

 

[Rexedgar]

Not policy.

Not isolated and yes, policy.

Forced sterilization policies in the US targeted minorities and those with disabilities – and lasted into the 21st century

The US has a long history of forced sterilization campaigns that were driven by the bogus 'science' of eugenics, racism and sexism.

ihpi.umich.edu

 

[ecofarm]

Actually it is defined by both.

No.

The UN is clear about the definition and the acts that sometimes accompany it. The acts accompany, they do not define.

 

[Slartibartfast]

I want to see DP's opinion. Note that I am talking about the entirety of the Americas, not just the United States.

Some resources:

An essay on the issue:

Genocide and American Indian History

"Genocide and American Indian History" published on by Oxford University Press.

oxfordre.com

UN Definition of genocide:
In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

1. Killing members of the group;
2. Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
3. Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
4. Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
5. Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

UN genocide convention: https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/documents/atrocity-crimes/Doc.1_Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.pdf

Some acts committed against the Native American peoples:

The Sand Creek Massacre – Legends of America

The Sand Creek Massacre on Nov 29, 1864, one of the most infamous incidents of the Indian Wars, resulted in military and Congressional investigations.

www.legendsofamerica.com

Trail of Tears: Definition, Date & Cherokee Nation - HISTORY

The Trail of Tears was the deadly route used by Native Americans when forced off their ancestral lands and into Oklahoma by the Indian Removal Act of 1830.

www.history.com

California genocide - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Canadian Indian residential school system - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Cultural genocide in the United States - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Fall of Tenochtitlan - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Genocide of Indigenous peoples in Brazil - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

A video about the issue:

I am not sure the question can be answered as genocide was not a word until 1944.

 

[Rexedgar]

No, because the question is writ-large, though there are examples of tribes that were wiped out in armed conflict/repression. Plenty of white folks (and mixed folks) committed horrific tragedies against Native Americans, but, what wiped them out en masse was the natural spread of disease from first contact. European governments could have somehow immediately jumped into 21st Century Ethics When Dealing With Other Cultures, and the vast majority of the deaths would still have happened.

What is forced sterilization?

 

[cpwill]

This doesn’t strike me as “isolated.”

The U.S. Indian Health Service (IHS) later applied forced sterilization to American Indian women in the 1960s and 1970s, sterilizing 3,406 Native American women between 1973 and 1976. In 1976, the U.S. General Accounting Office admitted that this took place in at least four of the 12 Indian Health Service regions.

It wasn't particular to Native Americans - we forcibly sterilized a bunch of folks back during the Progressive Eugenics heyday.

 

[Nomad4Ever]

Genocide is when people sit down and decide, "what can we do to wipe them out". Then they try to wipe the other out.

That's different than common bloody land-grabbing. The two things should not be conflated. Doing so apologizes for genocide.

Ok, two things. Firstly, we very much sat down and deliberately tried to wipe out the Native Americans.

But secondly...forced ethnic displacement...is genocide by itself. When we fought Mexico for Texas that was bloody land grabbing. But when we took an area from Native Americans we didn't occupy it, we purposefully and forcefully removed them from that area. As others have mentioned we made deliberate efforts to erase their culture. We had camps, we massacred them (many times), we deported them...

Like, this isn't some gray area between genocide and brutal war. We did the whole genocide checklist.

 

[bomberfox]

No, because the question is writ-large, though there are examples of tribes that were wiped out in armed conflict/repression. Plenty of white folks (and mixed folks) committed horrific tragedies against Native Americans, but, what wiped them out en masse was the natural spread of disease from first contact. European governments could have somehow immediately jumped into 21st Century Ethics When Dealing With Other Cultures, and the vast majority of the deaths would still have happened.

Ehhhh then again european governments knew Columbus’ crimes were too horrific so im not sure that angle applies.

 

[cpwill]

What is forced sterilization?

Are you referring to the American regime of sterilizing those deemed eugenically unfit (usually the poor) typified in the Buck v Bell decision?

 

[Unbeknownst]

I am not sure the question can be answered as genocide was not a word until 1944.

Evaluate their actions using the modern term "genocide." Does it or does it not fit the description?

 

[cpwill]

Ehhhh then again european governments knew Columbus’ crimes were too horrific so im not sure that angle applies.

You had some Spanish Priests who did a fairly good job of railing against it, however, that doesn't really change the casualty rates of disease v warfare.

 

[Rexedgar]

It wasn't particular to Native Americans - we forcibly sterilized a bunch of folks back during the Progressive Eugenics heyday.

I’ll tell you it wasn’t ”particular to,” white people with Western European roots.

 

[ecofarm]

Ehhhh then again european governments knew Columbus’ crimes were too horrific so im not sure that angle applies.

Let's review the UN definition one more time before we call it a thread:

intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group

That was never US policy.

 

[bomberfox]

Yes im not sure what crazy logic doesnt define the genocide of native Americans as anything but genocide. Christ on a cracker peeps.

 

[Slartibartfast]

Evaluate their actions using the modern term "genocide." Does it or does it not fit the description?

In modern terms, yes. The actions of Andrew Jackson alone would have landed him in the ICC.

 

[bomberfox]

Let's review the UN definition one more time before we call it a thread:



That was never US policy.

Yes it actually was. We have provided you with actual quotes demonstrating intent.

 

[Unbeknownst]

No, because the question is writ-large, though there are examples of tribes that were wiped out in armed conflict/repression. Plenty of white folks (and mixed folks) committed horrific tragedies against Native Americans, but, what wiped them out en masse was the natural spread of disease from first contact. European governments could have somehow immediately jumped into 21st Century Ethics When Dealing With Other Cultures, and the vast majority of the deaths would still have happened.

Disease that was in some situations intentionally spread?

 

[Indydave]

nah......they just killed them and stole their land

 

[ecofarm]

Yes it actually was. We have provided you with actual quotes demonstrating intent.

A sterilization that took place in 4 of 12 places and under questionable circumstances and means does not establish US policy to wipe out a people.

 

[Nomad4Ever]

An isolated incident does not reflect national policy.

An "isolated incident" that was a law that was in effect for 6 years and led to thousands of women being sterilized?

Over the six-year period that had followed the passage of the Family Planning Services and Population Research Act of 1970, physicians sterilized perhaps 25% of Native American women of childbearing age, and there is evidence suggesting that the numbers were actually even higher. Some of these procedures were performed under pressure or duress, or without the women’s knowledge or understanding. The law subsidized sterilizations for patients who received their health care through the Indian Health Service and for Medicaid patients, and black and Latina women were also targets of coercive sterilization in these years.

A 1970 Law Led to the Mass Sterilization of Native American Women. That History Still Matters

Over a six-year period in the 1970s, physicians sterilized perhaps 25% of Native American women of childbearing age

time.com

 

[bomberfox]

No.

The UN is clear about the definition and the acts that sometimes accompany it. The acts accompany, they do not define.

Both define it and yes it was national policy. The whole disease angle reeeks of the holocaust denier’s typhus excuse.

 

[bomberfox]

A sterilization that took place in 4 of 12 places and under questionable circumstances and means does not establish US policy to wipe out a people.

Questionable….?

 

[ecofarm]

Both define it and yes it was national policy. The whole disease angle reeeks of the holocaust denier’s typhus excuse.

You need to show national policy with intent to wipe out a people. There is no such thing. It's not like Nazis.

 

[Rexedgar]

Are you referring to the American regime of sterilizing those deemed eugenically unfit (usually the poor) typified in the Buck v Bell decision?

Two years earlier, in 1974, a study by Dr. Connie Pinkerton-Uri, a Chocktaw/Cherokee physician, found that at least one in four American Indian women had been sterilized without consent. Dr. Pinkerton-Uri concluded that the Indian Health Service appeared to have “singled out full-blooded Indian women for sterilization procedures.” Some experts estimate that the percent of American Indian women who were sterilized might even approach 50 percent. The targeted women were between ages 15 and 44.

On Indigenous Peoples Day, recalling forced sterilizations of Native American women | MinnPost

The second-class status of Native Americans reaches beyond the history of forced sterilizations. For decades, Native women have been sex-trafficked, abused, and disappeared at rates far higher than women of any other group in the United States.

www.minnpost.com