NATIVE AMERICAN GENOCIDE

(I THINK WE SHOULD PROBABLY GET A BETTER PICTURE)

DISCLAIMER: In this article we talk about connections between religious genocide in the Old World, and what happened in the New World when Europeans arrived. Now in talking about these connections, we are most definitely not saying that all Christians support genocide. Obviously most Christians alive today do not. But it is still important to discuss such historical realities nevertheless, so such things do not reoccur.

Genocide came in three forms: eco-death, cultural destruction and disease. 125 million indigenous Americans shrank below 25 million within 400 years ¹. It started with Columbus and continues on today. There's an uncomfortable but clear connection between Native Americans dying, and religious settler-colonialism that cut their ties to the land. The 500-Year-War is one of the most devastating losses of natural life in history. (I re-structured this)

GENOCIDE BY THE NUMBERS

The era of time between 1492 to our present era is known as the "500-Year War." It is time period in which millions of indigenous American people were slaughtered by the incoming Europeans (whether intentionally or unintentionally due to disease). While it's difficult to know an exact number of killed Native Americans, many sources estimate 100,000,000 or more were killed. Approximately 80-90% of the Native population perished when invading European forces arrived ².

"The destruction of the Indians of the Americas was, far and away, the most massive act of genocide in the history of the world," says D. Stannard, author of American Holocaust (This link doesn't work, fix it). The 100 million figure has been documented by Stannard and Ward Churchill. [Christopher] Columbus personally murdered half a million Natives. ³ According to Stannard, the mass deaths of the Native Americans were attributed to both deliberate murder and the unintentional deaths caused by the transmission of European diseases.

By as early as the 16th century, the Native American death toll was already at 60 million. ⁴ To give an example of how so many natives were killed in so short a time, in 1561, Bartolomé de las Casas, wrote that Spanish colonists had slain 12 million men, women and children in 40 short years. (A Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies, Bartolomé de las Casas 1552).

If true that 12 million people were killed in that sport span of time, it's fathomable 100 million could have been killed in 500 years. American Colonies Volume 1 of The Penguin history of the United States, History of the United States Series. p. 40., by Alan Taylor, also discusses the different theories about how many Natives populated the Americas before European colonization.

RELIGIOUS GENOCIDE IN THE OLD WORLD

SETS THE PRECEDENT FOR MASS MURDER IN THE NEW WORLD

The genocide of the natives in America wasn't the first instance of Christian genocide. Not by a long shot. Northern European and Iberian provinces fought for centuries over Christendom ⁵. Christian militaries stormed Europe and West Asia throughout the Reconquista and Crusades to conquer land. They were known to massacre Muslims (and Jews) throughout their journey ⁶. We believe that the history of religious violence in the Old World helped set the precedent for what would later come to the New World. And one of the most bloody religious wars in Old World Europe was the crusades.

THE CRUSADES

Pope Urban's 1095 speech initiated the First Crusade to unify a sectarian Christian Europe, but also for geopolitical gain. When Pope Urban called for the extermination of the non-Christian 'Infidel,'60,000 to 100,000 European soldiers of Christ answered the call ⁷.

Urban said the following, "This is His cause, we shall conquer for Christ, He will triumph in us, He will give the glory, the honor and the blessing not unto us, but unto name. The foul Mohammed had been worshiped with abominable sacrifices, loud shouts and the noise of trumpets. A few infidels were converted..."

Source: Dana C. Munro, "Letters of the Crusaders", Translations and Reprints from the Original Sources of European History, Vol 1-4

THE CATHOLIC EMPIRES IN THE 15TH CENTURY

A later episode of mass murder in Europe came at the hands of Spanish Monarchs Ferdinand I of Aragon and Isabella of Castile (History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, the Catholic: Vol. 3). They married in 1469 to strengthen a territorial alliance under Christianity. This partnership would set the stage for non-Christian persecution and exile within all of Europe.

Portugal and Spain led military campaigns in North Africa, the Americas and South Asia in a brutal imperialist fashion. When the Muslim state Granada fell, all Jews were forcibly converted or exiled ⁸. At one decisive battle in Rio Salado, 400,000 Moors were killed by Christian armies. ⁹. Women and children were not spared.

"Hardened by decades of holy war in North Africa, their default strategies were suspicion, aggressive hostage taking, the half-drawn sword, and a simple binary choice between Christian and Muslim..." ¹⁰. Ten years after the Treaty of Granada permitting religious freedom, Moorish Muslims (moriscos) faced enslavement, imprisonment or death without conversion ¹¹. This intolerance would follow colonizing nations to the 'New World'.

So this happened at nearly the same time that Christopher Columbus began exploring America, when he began what many call "The 500 Year War."

1492, THE BEGINNING OF THE 500 YEAR WAR IN THE NEW WORLD

[This seemed like it should be a new section]

This is 1492—quite a year for Spanish expeditions. Christopher Columbus did not discover America peacefully. When he visited Hispaniola again, Columbus brought a fleet of 17 ships and over 1,000 colonists ¹².

Columbus describes his experience in America below:

“As soon as I arrived in the Indies, on the first Island which I found, I took some of the natives by force in order that they might learn and might give me information of whatever there is in these parts," Columbus penned in his journal (Journal of the First Voyage (Diario del Primer Viaje) ¹³.

"They ought to make good slaves for they are of quick intelligence, since I notice that they are quick to repeat what is said to them, and I believe that they could very easily become Christians, for it seemed to me that they had no religion of their own. God willing, when I come to leave I will bring six of them to Your Highnesses so that they may learn to speak…"

Columbus additionally raided nearby villages and used their residents for the gold mines, sexual slavery or the montería infernal. The montería infernal was a horrific practice allowing war-dogs to chase and maul Native people. Traffickers from Europe actively searched the islands for young girls too, some no older than nine ¹⁴.

Dominican friar and historian Las Casas noted that Jamaica, Cuba, Hispaniola, Puerto Rico and 30 neighboring islands had been depopulated by 1542. The former slave owner could not believe the sheer barbarism he witnessed: slave labor, infanticide and forced relocation ¹⁵.

Las Casas grimly mentioned "my eyes have seen these acts so foreign to human nature that now I tremble as I write. As for the vast mainland [Mexico]… We can estimate very surely and truthfully that in the forty years that have passed, with the infernal actions of the Christians, there have been unjustly slain more than 12 million men, women, and children. In truth, I believe without trying to deceive myself that the number of the slain is more like 15 million.…"

Disease did not spread among Native tribes intentionally except for some cases, but the indigenous death toll can be linked to epidemics. Influenza, measles, whooping cough, smallpox, cholera and the Black Death travelled with the settlers (Native American Genocide). (While this is true, I kind of like this section just being the first hand words of Columbus and Las Casas to describe the brutality they saw).

SEXUAL DISCRIMINATION IN THE NEW WORLD

Throughout New England, Native people fell victim to English slave raids and European sicknesses. John Smith claimed the Patuxet village in 1614, renaming Plymouth for said English trading company. ¹⁶

A year later the pox epidemic devastated both the Wampanoag and Massachusetts tribes. Pilgrims arrived after this in celebration. They were thankful that the native threat had already been dealt with, their lands cleared for living. ¹⁷ (None of this really seems to be about sexual discrimination).

When the European Christians came to the New World, they were appalled by sexual practices of the indigenous people, seeing the natives as sexual heathens: deviants in their five-gender and matriarchal societies. Homophobic and misogynistic violence happened often as colonization expanded throughout the Americas.

Punishment for same-sex relations could entail anything from flogging, fines or spiritual penance to execution ¹⁸. This followed in the spirit of Spanish Inquisition. From 1656 to 1663 in San Lazaro, hundreds of gay Mexicans were put to death ¹⁸. Balboa also participated in montería infernal against non-heterosexual Native Americans (A Timeline of Gay World History).

Many of the European explorers were also disturbed by the power that women held in some of these societies. As Barbara Alice Mann said in Unlearning the Language of Conquest, 'Worse, from the European perspective, was the level of political clout wielded by woodlands women" ¹⁹. The European explorers were not too pleased about the different hierarchy (or genders) they encountered.

Colonial and religious enterprise set its sights on America. And their vision was anything but godly.

THE USE OF RELIGION TO JUSTIFY CONQUEST

[YOU COULD PROBABLY DELETE THIS SECTION. THIS IS CLAIMING DIRECT CONNECTIONS BETWEEN RELIGION AND CONQUEST THAT ARE A BIT TENUOUS IN MY OPINION]

Biblical verses and passages, royal decree and papal approval all made American conquest possible.

Remember the colonial charters (don't link to )? The Treaty of Tordesillas also divided up newly discovered land between Portugal and Spain. Both countries ratified in 1494. Any territory 370 miles west to Cape Verde belonged to Spain.

In 1509, Spanish juror Encisco even cited papal support for colonization in West Indies. "The king has every right to send his men to the Indies to demand their territory...because he had received it from the pope. If the Indians refuse, he may quite legally fight them, kill them, and enslave them, just as Joshua enslaved the inhabitants of the country of Canaan ²⁰."

From Connecticut to California, Native scalping earned you $12 or more ($174 in 2016) ²¹. Christian states allowed and goaded this.

MANIFEST DESTINY

[I WOULD DELETE THIS SECTION, SINCE IT IS DIFFICULT AND CONTROVERSIAL TO MAKE A CLAIM ABOUT CONNECTIONS BETWEEN CHRISTIANITY AND AMERICAN, SECULAR LAW DEMANDING GENOCIDE. ]

Now above we talked about how religious ideas of killing in the name of Christ motivated mass murder both in the old world and the new. At the hands of the Spanish explorers in the Americas, massive numbers of Americans were enslaved and slaughtered. This would also continue in North America under U.S. leadership as European settlers expanded westwards across the continent. Although, while there was certainly religious support for such an idea in some circles, it was also an idea motivated by secular ideals of U.S. patriotism.

During the 19th century, the idea of "Manifest Destiny" became popular. The idea of setting up a U.S. nation the existed from "sea to shining sea." It was a concept that people saw as justifiable and inevitable. It was believed that there was a special virtue of the citizens of the U.S., and because of this special virtue, these citizens had the right to do whatever was "necessary" to take native lands for themselves. These ideas became enshrined in law.

After the Revolutionary War, soldiers received bounty land warrants for their military services. This reward lasted until the Mexican War Congress issued 'free land', defined the territorial boundaries and gave more than 10,000 acres away ²².

They officially ceased in 1858, but tribal sovereignty had been drastically altered by this time. As the Christian Doctrine of Discovery merged into American law, further exiles and massacres were taking place nationwide (The Legacy of 15th-century Religious Prejudice). (These are kind of random facts that don't really fit in well stylistically to the flow of this section.)

Constitutional law placed Native power under federal control. Clause 3, section 8, article I of the U.S. Constitution still states “The Congress shall have Power to regulate Commerce with Indian tribes and, through this and other constitutional authority; Congress has plenary power over Indian affairs" ²³. Plenary power's an alternative phrase for absolute dominance. Federal government played a pivotal role in American conquest-development.

In 1838, Andrew Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act into law to trade lands east of the Mississippi for the western territories ²⁴. Five Indian Nations traveled a nightmarish 400 miles west to Indian Country (now Oklahoma), their ancestral homes overtaken.

The blueprint for Hitler's Final Solution is was even inspired by America's depopulation of natives from the continent ²⁵ . General Peter Carlton had murderous plans as commander of New Mexico. The Navajo's Long Walk of 1864 meant to ethnically cleanse AND relocate Native Americans from "white man's land". 10,000 Mescalaro and Navajo Indians were interned at concentration camps ²⁶ .

A third could not survive the terrible conditions in Bosque Redondo, and the U.S. Army refused to let the tribes leave. Memorials have been built to commemorate both tragedies. But they only address part of the genocidal aftermath.

THOUGHTS FROM U.S. LEADERS

“Is one of the fairest portions of the globe to remain in a state of nature, the haunt of a few wretched savages, when it seems destined by the Creator to give support to a large population and to be the seat of civilization?" ²⁷
— Governor Henry Harrison of Indiana (1800-1812)

"A war of extermination will continue to be waged between the two races until the Indian race becomes extinct, must be expected. While we cannot anticipate the result with but painful regret, the inevitable destiny of the race is beyond the power and wisdom of man to avert. Situated as California is, we must expect a long continued and harassing irregular warfare with the Indians upon our borders and along the immigrant routes leading to the States." ²⁸
— California Gov. Peter Burnett, "State of the State Address" (1851)

SAND CREEK MASSACRE

 "Ordered that of the Indians and Half-breeds sentenced to be hanged by the military commission, composed of Colonel Crooks, Lt. Colonel Marshall, Captain Grant, Captain Bailey, and Lieutenant Olin, and lately sitting in Minnesota, you cause to be executed on Friday the nineteenth day of December, instant, the following names, to wit [39 names listed by case number of record...]" ³²
- Abraham Lincoln's Order of December 6, 1862, Authorizing the Execution of Thirty-Eight Dakota

"Such conquests are sure to come when a masterful people, still in its raw barbarian prime which finds itself face to face with the weaker and wholly alien race which holds a coveted prize in its feeble grasp". ³⁰
— Theodore Roosevelt

Some hero. Theodore Roosevelt also went on to say white repropriation of Native land was a good and natural thing, "ultimate beneficial as much as inevitable." ³⁰

And this nugget of wisdom during an 1886 speech: "I don’t go so far as to think that the only good Indians are dead Indians, but I believe nine out of ten are, and I shouldn’t like to inquire too closely into the case of the tenth." ³³

"The only good Indian[s] I ever saw were dead." ³⁴
— General Philip Sheridan (1869)

"The expedition you are appointed to command is to be directed against the hostile tribes of the six nations of Indians with their associates and adherents. The immediate objects are the total destruction and devastation of their settlements, and the capture of as many prisoners of every age and sex as possible. It will be essential to ruin their crops now in the ground and prevent their planting more." ³⁵
— George Washington, Orders to Major General John Sullivan (May 1779)

CALIFORNIA GENOCIDE

California's Native population experienced colossal devastation as white workmen (spelling) and their families entered the Pacific Northwest. Gentrification is not new. The Golden State had several problems. Natives and Spanish-Mexican settlers still lived there! (while this line is humorous, I don't think it works because of the severe nature of the subject matter.) But this was changing with drastic speed. 300,000 indigenous Americans lived in California mid-16th century ³⁶ .

Spanish cleric Junipero Serra established a harsh system of Christian missions along the Californian coast in 1769, using them as a front for exploitation ³⁷. Carey McWilliams wrote in Southern California: An Island on the Land, "the Franciscan padres eliminated Indians with the effectiveness of Nazis operating concentration camps".

At the Gold Rush's height in 1850, that number dropped approximately half. California's Native peoples counted 85,000 total in 1852. Within thirty years, only 18,000 were left ³⁷.

As they moved in...

These people had to go. By peaceful means, or not.

DESTRUCTION OF OTHER NATURAL LIFE

BISON

These disappeared and became... 

 
A pile of approximately 180,000 bison skulls waiting to be ground for fertilizer (c. mid-1870s). From the Burton Historical Collection, Detroit Public Library.

These are late 19th century American venture capitalists—hunters paid by federal government. This caused a thriving 60 million pre-European bison population  to reach 1,000 when that photograph was taken ²⁵. Methods were inhumane and very labor-intensive.

"Hide-hunters" chased bison along five rivers in the Great Plains ²⁶. 50,000 buffalo could be killed in four days . This cleaned out an enormous region for further economic and land gain. When the North Pacific Railroad laid tracks toward the West, hunting and ecocide accelerated.

MOVING FORWARD

"It's going to be very difficult for this country to live up to its democratic ideas of respect for diversity, justice and equality, and taking responsibility unless its people have a really clear and full view of the interactions between indigenous people, Native American people, and the American settler government and settler population." - Michael Yellow Bird, Arikara & Hidatsa Nation

What future does America have if it cannot look at its own foundation? American Indians still pay the price of corporate and federal racism.

"Corporations are predators to everyone now," activist Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz said. It's an ominous description, but paints the picture perfectly. Winona LaDuke and Ward Churchill delve into the need for government reparations and acknowledgement. See: Reparations for Native Americans.

Richard Grounds also doesn't shy away from church and state's role in planned cultural genocide. The Yuchi Language Project's an indigenous initiative that centers economic warfare on indigenous languages. Missionaries and boarding schools did play an enormous part in killing Native heritage, so they should be fiscally responsible .

And there is a housing crisis that's doubled in the Native population. 28% live below the poverty line, and 90,000 families are experiencing homelessness. Without adequate resources on reservations (education, clean water, health services) they are left to fend for themselves. (Living Conditions).

RELATED READING

Christianity and Slavery

The Bible and Genocide

Christian Persecution of Pagans in Ancient Rome

Medieval Christian Totalitarianism and Anti-Semitism

Destruction of Africa's Culture

Racist Roots of Religious Right

Racist Aspects of US Christianity

Sources:

¹ A Little Matter of Genocide (W. Churchill)

² "La catastrophe démographique" (The Demographical Catastrophe") (L'Histoire n°322, July–August 2007, p. 17.)

³ Native American Genocide (Espresso Stalinist)

⁴ Death Tolls for Wars, Massacres and Atrocities Before the 20th Century (Necrometrics)

⁵ The Crusades, Christianity and Islam (J. Riley-Smith)

¹³ Journal of the First Voyage (Diario del Primer Viaje (B.W. Ife)

¹⁴ 8 Myths and Atrocities about Christopher Columbus (Indian Country Media Network)

¹⁵ Brief Account of the Devastation of the Indies (Gutenberg Press)

¹⁶ Religion in Colonial America: Trends, Regulations and Beliefs (Facing History)

²¹ Inflation Calculator (Bureau of Labor Statistics)

²² Wars, Indigenous Peoples, and Bounty Land Warrants (C. Sleeter)

²³ Congress’ Plenary Power, Tribal Sovereignty and Constitutional Rights (Citizens Equal Rights Alliance)