Did the US commit genocide against the American Indians??

The groundwork for strife between Europeans and Amerindians was laid long before English-speaking colonists began to arrive in large numbers. In the first volume of his seven volume history of the French in North America, Francis Parkman describes how the French at Fort Caroline (Cape Canavarel, in what is now Florida) took sides with a certain tribe against others. William Prescott, in his monumental description of the Spanish in the new world tells again and again of Spanish explorers who chose sides to exploit situations in which they would otherwise have been dangerously outnumbered. By the time English-speaking settlers landed in what became Virginia, the Spanish had already come and gone, leaving behind a residue of resentment, fear and mistrust.

Jacques Cartier found tribes living in the valley of the St. Laurent in the 1530s, who, from the linguistic evidence, were speakers of a Iroquois-Huron dialect, and were most likely the tribes who would within a century form the Iroquois confederation. (Cartier took two of the Amerindians back to France with him--the linguistic evidence is solid.) When Chaplain arrived in 1608, all traces of those tribes were gone from the Laurentian drainage, having been replaced (and likely driven out) by the Algoquian tribes. Champlain made league with the Ottawas, and attacked an Iroquois war party. Thereafter, the Iroquois were the implacable enemies of the French, and went to incredible extremes to attempt to exterminate them--and made fast allies of the English. When the French and Indian War came along, the English agent, William Johnson, had no trouble securing their alliance.

The Amerindians of what became New England, however, had a relatively benign relationship with the French, and had already come to resent early English-speaking colonists for bringing disease among them. They also became alarmed at the rapid growth of English colonists after 1620 (at a time when the numbers of French colonists grew but slowly, and did not represent a significant threat to the food supply). When, after 1640, the colonists in New England were isolated by the civil wars in England, it was a simple matter for the French to stir up the Micmac and other tribes to raid the colonists, and local tribes were inspired to do the same by example. The Puritan Fathers' notion of christian love did not extend to a tolerance of those whom they considered ruthless savages, and their response was equally brutal.

In the American Revolution, the Iroquois remained loyal to William Johnson and the English King, although they were loathe to attack their old friends and trading partners in Albany (from whom they had long secured the wherewithal to fight the French). The English were obliged to go farther afield to find allies for the invasion of New York which aimed at the valley of the Hudson and Albany, bringing in tribesmen from the Great Lakes.

Washington considered the Iroquois confederation (by then loosely known as "the Mohawks") to be treacherous and a serious threat to the by then secure New York-New England portion of the rebelling colonies. Having acquired his first military experience at the head of the Virginia militia fighting Indians in the employ of the French in the Ohio valley, he had ever mistrusted them. He sent Sullivan with significant forces to clear out the Mohawk valley--to him as to so many other Americans whose parents and grandparents had fought the Amerindian allies of the French, the distinction between those Indians and the Iroquois Confederation simply did not signify. The Mohawks were driven out, and found refuge in Canada (where they survive to this day).

Although the English were obliged to deal with Pontiac's uprising after the French and Indian War, they largely retained good relations with the Indians of the Great Lakes basin. In the East, they used their Mohawk clients against the Americans in the War of 1812, and stirred up the tribes of the Ohio Valley with the assistance of the Shawnee demagogue Tecumseh (still a hero in southwestern Ontario)--Tecumseh aimed too high, though, and his failure to create an Amerindian alliance to oppose the Americans stirred up strife for generations without securing the means to stop the new settlers. The English used rum and firearms to stire up more trouble in the Southeast, and the Creek War of 1813 made a military and political career for Andy Jackson, and can be seen as directly leading to "the Trail of Tears" when Jackson reached the White House.

There is no doubt that early relations between Amerindians and Europeans were as between one tribe and another. The technological differences between them were not as important as has been popularly believed, and there were many examples of close and friendly relations between the two. But the numbers of European colonists grew rapidly as tribal numbers dwindled from the impact of new diseases. Europeans died of new world diseases and starvation as well, but boatloads more came thronging ashore, while the Amerindian tribes slowly contracted. Local politics between Amerindian tribes often consumed their attention more than the Europeans, such as the starving time and wars for resources in the Chesapeake at the time of the foundation of Jamestown. That colony barely survived, but did survive as much because the Amerindians were starving and fighting among themselves as for any other reason.

Long before any part of American society became "genocidal" by policy, both sides of that long, sporadic war had hardened their attitudes into unrelenting hatred. That it took so long to end is not as surprising as that any Amerindians survived at all.

Here's an article on the conquest of New England and Thanksgiving.

http://irelandsown.net/nativeblood.html

Well, it's no secret that I'm not too fond of you Setanta(I'm sure the feeling is mutual), but I will give you this, you know you're history.

Surely against the TOS?

LOL!!! A murder threat.

true



this I'm not so sure of. Isn't it the Europeans who thought it was honorable to simply line up in front of each other and shoot without trying to avoid the bullets? I'm sure there are exceptions, but the Europeans were overly anal about being "honorable" in battle.

this is arguable, especially the term occupied. They did not inhabit the every nook and cranny, so to speak, of the continent. As far as I know, there were no major towns or cities(for lack of a better word). They were nomadic if I'm not mistaken.

No, i am not history. Your attitude toward me is a matter of indiffernce to me.

Phil Sheridan was quoted in a newspaper in the Oregon Territory before the American civil war as saying that the only good Indian he'd ever seen was dead. He didn't deny it at the time, although he later made feeble protests to the contrary (about twenty years later). One of Sheridan's fellow officers in Oregon, George Crook, was later considered to be one of the army's most effective Indian fighters. He was the one who brought in Geronimo and ended the Apache wars, largely through the use of other Apaches to do what little actual fighting was done. He wrote of his time in Oregon and California: "When they were pushed beyond endurance and would go on the warpath, we had to fight when our sympathies were with the Indians." That was a description of the result of the Senate rejecting eighteen treaties which the local tribes had made in good faith.

After the American civil war, Crook was put in charge of the military district which included the great plains. He was unable to fulfill his treaty obligations to provide food, blankets and farming equipment, livestock and seeds to the tribes who had signed and complied with treaties, so he took positive action on their behalf. He hired legal counsel for them out of his own pocket, and helped them to bring suit against himself in Federal Court to secure redress for his failure to comply (he could not give them what the BIA--Bureau of Indian Affairs--and the Army would not supply to him).

He was uniformly successful because he avoided violence and protracted campaigns, and because he used loyal tribesmen to go after the rebelling tribesmen, and used negotiation rather than warfare. His methods were unpopular, though, and he was replaced on the great plains by Phil "the only good Indian i ever saw was dead" Sheridan, after Custer claimed to have found gold in the Black Hills. (There was gold in the Black Hills, just about enough for one famous drunk for a few thousand low life cowboys.)

Crook was sent on to deal with the tribes of the Southwest. He did so effectively, and did it, as always, with tribesmen rather than soldiers, and negotiation rather than warfare (he did fight, but only if he could not avoid it). History had forgotten George Crook--Phil Sheridan is still a hero to those with more love of military "history" than knowledge of actual history.

The United States was full of people who would have loved to have perpetrated genocide on the Amerindians. The tribes were full of hotheads who would have loved to have practiced genocide against the "pale faces." It should surprise no one that things turned out as they did.

By this definition, the Irish were victims of genocide. I want reparations.

Diane,

I hadn't seen that contention that there were more people living in the Americas in 1491 than there were living in Europe. I cannot being to express the sense of absurd idiocy which that conjures for me. That statement alone is sufficient to me to discredit anything else form the source which make such a brainless contention.

Shades of Howard Zinn . . .

Sorry, you are well-informed about the subject of history.

Don't sweat it . . . it's not the first murder threat i've gotten here . . .

Re: Did the US commit genocide against the American Indians?

By your definition (and Webster's) the US government did not commit genocide on Native Americans. Of course, there is a lot of room between something not being genocide, and something being okay, or even not-horrible. But you do not deny it was horrible, do you?

Re: Did the US commit genocide against the American Indians?

you're a pisser....

How so? I know that the England treated the Irish rather roughly, but I am not aware of any attempt to destroy them in whole or in part. This may well be my fault -- my Irish history is extremely thin -- but you assert a fact here that I am not going to believe on your say-so alone.

Well, the Irish in Ireland is another story. They were massacred and removed from their land countless times by the English. Does Oliver Cromwell sound familiar??

I was talking about the Irish in America in the 19th century. They were strongly persecuted by the "natives", i.e. WASPs.



I think at minimum, their treatment would fall into this category.

I don't see how it would, because it is constrained by the clause that introduces the definition:


Nobody in America ever tried to destroy the Irish in America, in whole or in part.