Genocide:    “the deliberate extermination of a large group of people, especially those of a particular ethnic, racial, political, national or cultural group.”

In the minds of many the word genocide may only be applied in cases where the genocidal intent is successfully completed, but this isn’t actually the proper case. The acts of deliberately murdering six million European Jews by the Nazi regime of Germany during the nineteen thirties and forties is a case of genocide.

     So too are the prolonged policies of the United States’ government in North America and multiple governments in the countries of South and Central American designed to exterminate the Native American populations throughout the Americas.

     The exact number of Native American people either pre-Christopher Columbus or today is difficult to say, though the numbers for today are systematically tracked. However, having said that it appears that the indigenous population was as follows:

 That means that the Native American population decreased by approximately 89 million individuals from 1492 when Columbus landed in the Americas until today.    

     Just as it is impossible to accurately number the total Native American population prior to 1492, likewise it is impossible to accurately say how native populations died. What we can say with confidence is that there were three major causes for the reduction of Native populations – slave labor, European diseases and genocidal war.

     In South and Central America, Spanish Conquistadors sent millions to their deaths working silver and gold mines.

In the Southern Colonies, English colonists enslaved local Native tribes to work their rice, tobacco and indigo fields. Later, the indigo and rice fields of South Carolina were marginalized in favor of cotton. So many Natives died in the process that the Plantation owners were ran out of slave laborers and had to look elsewhere. Thus began the importation of Africans from the West Coast nations of Africa.

     Sailors from the exploratory ships of Spain and Portugal landing in the Caribbean, Central and South America brought with them influenza, small pox, measles and typhus fever, as did the English, Dutch and French ships landing in North America. The indigenous Native Americans had no immune defense against these diseases and more millions died.

     Finally, were the genocidal wars waged against the indigenous peoples of North, Central and South America as well as the island populations of the Caribbean. The attitude of nearly all European explorers and colonists can be summed up by the Spanish. From their point of view they were there to claim the territory in the name of Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand of Spain. In their minds they were able to do this because the territory wasn’t organized like a European country would be. Since the territory was dis-ordered they had a right to claim it and bring it into conformity with European standards of organization. Secondly, they were there to bring the message of Jesus Christ to the heathens. Their attitude was that if they could convert the indigenous population to Christianity this would redound to their fame and the fame of their King and Queen. However, if they weren’t able to convert these people, it would be better if they were dead since their souls wouldn’t be ‘saved’ anyway.

The concept of converting the Indians in North America was less of a focus, though the West had its share of itinerate preachers from the forts and towns between St. Louis, the gateway to the West, and the Western shore of California on the Pacific.  

The indigenous Natives didn’t hold the same view of their relationship with the land, as did the Europeans. Europeans held the concept of land ‘ownership.’ Land ownership in Europe was the primary way to build wealth and influence and so the initial drive to get to the new world was to be able to claim land and enter the realm of landownership.

     The Native Americans like all, or at least most, indigenous people weren’t concerned with ownership of the land. Their interest was on how to work in harmony with the land. Tribal life was much less individual oriented. People thought of the betterment of the tribe, and less about what was good for them. Additionally, many tribes were nomadic or at least had seasonal campgrounds. When the seasons changed it was time to move North or South.

     Western settlers came to “stake claim” to a piece of land that they could farm or raise livestock on. They came and put their markers in the ground and rode to town to the “Land Office” to stake their claim. To them viewing the land spread out in a valley before them they saw an emptiness that they could claim. The Native Americans saw tribal land, the home of their ancestors. It didn’t matter that they hadn’t built a village, they took their village with them. At least this was true of the Northern Plains tribes like the Blackfoot, the Sioux and the Cheyenne. When White settlers started building the railroad, towns and farms the Native Americans saw this, for what it was, an invasion. The great Bison herds that covered the West stopped and wouldn’t cross the rail lines. This changed the pattern of migrations.

     The U.S. government, catering to its constituent’s desire for new land and business’ desire for timber, coal, silver and gold, made treaties with the tribes, asking for, and expecting, concessions from the Natives. The U.S. Cavalry was the enforcer of the treaties. Every time a treaty was negotiated the Native Americans lost territory and rights. Every time the government swore that settlers would honor the treaty and stay out of tribal land, the settlers would press onward looking for new opportunities. When the Natives killed invading settlers the Cavalry would be called out and another Indian massacre would occur.

• Battle of Washita River (Oklahoma) Col. Custer leads his 7^th Cavalry to kill 140 sleeping Cheyenne.
• Battle of the Big Hole (Montana) the 7^th kills between 70 & 90 Nez Perce.
• Wounded Knee (S. Dakota) the 7^th kills between 130 – 250.

Every time the Natives would lose ground, the government would re-negotiate a treaty and Native peoples would lose more land and more rights.

     In the late 1890’s thru the 1930’s the government instituted additional programs meant to destroy the tribes. Native children were sent off to boarding schools where their hair was cut off, they were forced to wear European clothing and they were forbidden to speak their own languages.

About this same time, Native women were forcibly sterilized so they couldn’t bear more children. The Ghost dance, a central cultural celebration of many tribes, was forbidden, etc. In the 1950’s and 60’s uranium was discovered in the mountains of some Native reservations and the government invoked national security to authorize mining over the protest of Native tribal governments.