America's historical genocide list:

[dust1n]

Just to clear any misconceptions out there, let us claim a genocide upon America, any America throughout history that has claimed its country's name after the entirety of the continent, and then source said claim. I'll start, naturally, with the earliest, though, it's not entirely accurate to call it an American genocide, but it will be an eery forecast for the coming discussion:

Whoever thought up this ghastly system, Columbus was responsible for it, as the only means of producing gold for export…Those who fled to the mountains were hunted with hounds, and of those who escaped, starvation and disease took toll, while thousands of the poor creatures in desperation took cassava poison to end their miseries.

So the policy and acts of Columbus for which he alone was responsible began the depopulation of the terrestrial paradise that was Hispaniola in 1492. Of the original natives, estimated by a modern ethnologist at 300,000 in number, one-third were killed off between 1494 and 1496. By 1508, an enumeration showed only 60,000 alive…in 1548 Oviedo [Morison is referring to Fernandez de Oviedo, the official Spanish historian of the conquest] doubted whether 500 Indians remained.

- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Eliot_Morison

Have at it.

 

[dust1n]

Hmm..

Marriage laws are non-existent men and women alike choose their mates and leave them as they please, without offense, jealousy or anger. They multiply in great abundance; pregnant women work to the last minute and give birth almost painlessly; up the next day, they bathe in the river and are as clean and healthy as before giving birth. If they tire of their men, they give themselves abortions with herbs that force stillbirths, covering their shameful parts with leaves or cotton cloth; although on the whole, Indian men and women look upon total nakedness with as much casualness as we look upon a man's head or at his hands...

[They live in] large communal bell-shaped buildings, housing up to 600 people at one time ... made of very strong wood and roofed with palm leaves.... They prize bird feathers of various colors, beads made of fishbones, and green and white stones with which they adorn their ears and lips, but they put no value on gold and other precious things. They lack all manner of commerce, neither buying nor selling, and rely exclusively on their natural environment for maintenance. They are extremely generous with their possessions and by the same token covet the possessions of their friends and expect the same degree of liberality...

- Bartolomé de las Casas - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Columbus, The Indians, and Human Progress

 

[dust1n]

Here we go:

"Contact with Europeans was not uncommon during the 16th century because the fur trade was lucrative and the Penobscots were willing to trade pelts for European goods like metal axes, guns, and copper or iron cookware. However, the abundance that had existed in Penobscot territory quickly disappeared as demand for the resources in the Penobscot homelands rose. This trade also brought alcohol to Penobscot communities for the first time. The presence of alcohol brought alcoholism, which Europeans frequently tried to exploit in dealings and trade. The Europeans also brought foreign diseases to which the Penobscots had no defenses. The population was also depleted during this time because of ongoing battles between the Wabanaki Federation and the Mohawk Indians. This catastrophic population depletion may have also led to Christian conversion (amongst other factors) because the European priests who had not suffered from the pandemics explained that the Indians had died because they did not believe in Jesus Christ.[7]

The beginning of the 17th century saw the first Europeans who lived year-round in Wabanaki territory.[7] At this time, there were probably about 10,000 Penobscots (a number which fell to below 500 in the early 19th century).[8] As contact became more permanent, after about 1675, conflicts arose. There were both French and English settlers in the Penobscots' homelands.
The Penobscots sided with the French during the French and Indian War in the mid-18th century after the English refusal to respect the Penobscots' intended neutrality. This refusal is evidenced by the Spencer Phipps Proclamation of 1755, which put a bounty on the scalps of all Penobscots. Also, the French posed a lesser threat to the Penobscots' land and way of life in that their population was significantly smaller and intermarriages were accepted.[7]

After the Battle of Quebec in 1759, the Penobscots were without their European ally and were left in a weakened position. During the American Revolution, the Penobscots sided with the Patriots and played an important role in defending British offensives from Canada. However, the American government did not reciprocate, and the power dynamics that had existed before and during the war persisted.[7]

In the following centuries, the Penobscots attempted to make treaties in order to hold on to some form of land, but, because they had no way to enforce the treaties with Massachusetts and then with Maine, Americans kept encroaching on their lands. From about 1800 onward, the Penobscots lived on reservations, specifically Indian Island. The Maine state government appointed an Indian Agent to oversee the tribe. The government believed that they were helping the Penobscots, as stated in 1824 by the highest court in Maine that "…imbecility on their parts, and the dictates of humanity on ours, have necessarily prescribed to them their subjection to our paternal control." This sentiment of "imbecility" set up a power dynamic in which the government treated the Penobscots as wards of the state and decided how their affairs would be taken care of. This perceived charity from the government was actually the Penobscots' money from land treaties and trusts, which the state had control over and used as it saw fit.[7]"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penobscot_people


The Penobscot Indian Nation is a federally recognized Indian tribe in Maine (population 2,278). Their traditional homeland is the 8,500 square mile Penobscot River basin.Today,the Penobscot Nation's land holdings consist of more than 123,000 acres in numerous parcels throughout the state that include Reservation, Trust, and Fee Lands.

Total enrolled population: 2, 278
On Reservation: 410

Penobscot Indian Nation | Tribal Program | New England | US EPA


Real contact of more definite and historical clarity did not occur until the first decade of the seventeenth century. Englishmen and Frenchmen who were on the Maine coast included: Bar tholomew Gosnold (1602), Martin Pring (1603 and 1606), George Waymouth and James Rosier (1605), Samuel de Champlain (1604 and 1606), Popham and Gilbert (1607), Pierre Biard (1611), Edward Harlow (1608), and John Smith (1614). These Europeans found that the Penobscots numbered between 3,000 and 6,000 people, and were headed by a powerful chieftain called Bessabez (John Smith’s spelling; called Bessabez by Champlain, and Bessabez by Biard).

http://www.penobscotculture.com/images/Penobscot-Tribal-Brochure-2010.pdf

 

[dust1n]

"Comr. General Lincoln addressed them with the kind intentions of the Government, in their appointment to settle their landed claims to mutual satisfaction; and congratulated them upon the happy close of the War in which they had been our faithful friends and brethren.


"INDIANS. We desire to bless God that you are come; and are glad that our hearts are linked with the American. We will now answer you to what you demand.

"COMR. We wish to know your claims [Commissioners retired]

"INDIANS. The Indians signify they are ready to answer.

"COMR. [The Commissioners returned.]

"INDIANS. We claim down to a small stream below Oldtown, one mile above Colburn's. If the English come nearer, our dogs will do them damage and make a quarrel. [Then the Indians handed the Comm. a bundle of papers, upon which the Comm. retired. –Comm. returned and replied]

"COMR. We are glad you express so much satisfaction in seeing us here. We wish you to remember you relinquished your right to this part of the country to Governor Pownall; and that what you now hold is, by the doings of the Provincial Congress, in the year 1775, which is six miles on each side of the river, from the head of the tide. On this you all now rest your claims. If you hold only six miles next the river, when we settle our land back of that, it will destroy your hunting-ground, which we shall be unwilling to do. We propose to give you a larger tract up the river, better for hunting, and two islands in the Bay. [Comrs. give them time for a deliberate consideration.}

"IND. ANSWER. We don't think it right to remove further up the river – we wish to do nothing but what is right. [The Comrs. retired for deliberation.]

"COMR. REPLY. We are willing you should hold all the Islands in the river, you now improve, from Sunkhole to Passadunk, which is three miles above Oldtown, together with Oldtown Islands and the lands on all the branches of the river above Passcataguess, on the West side, and Montawanskeag, on the East side, of the river, together with White-island and Black-island in the Bay, if you will quit your right to the six miles wide from the river below.

[Comm. leave their proposal sometime for deliberation.]

"INDIANS. We desire to cross line at Passadunkec for our bounds.

"COMR. You have our proposals from which we shall not depart. [Comm. leave the proposals and retire.]

"INDIANS. After some deliberation, the Indians signify that the six miles was their land; and if they moved the bound further up, they expected to be paid for it.

"COMR. We do give you more land and better for hunting. What further consideration do you desire?

"INDIANS. We all want Blankets, Powder, and Shot, and Flints.

"COMR. How many blankets will give each of your tribe one?

"ANS. 350.

http://cprr.org/Museum/BMLRR/Penobscot.html

 

[dust1n]

Moving right along:

Zinn: A People’s History of the United States:

“In November 1901, the Manila correspondent of The Philadelphia Ledger reported:

“The present war is no bloodless, opera bouffe engagement; our men have been relentless, have killed to exterminate men, women, children, prisoners and captives, active insurgents and suspected people from lads of ten up, the idea prevailing that the Filipino as such was little better than a dog…

“Our soldiers have pumped salt water into men to make them talk, and have taken prisoners people who held up their hands and peacefully surrendered, and an hour later, without an atom of evidence to show that they were even insurrectos, stood them on a bridge and shot them down one by one, to drop into the water below and float down, as examples to those who found their bullet-loaded corpses.”
​

In Manila, a U.S. Marine named Littletown Waller, a major, was accused of shooting eleven defenseless Filipinos, without trial, on the island of Samar. Other marine officers described his testimony:

“The major said that General Smith instructed him to kill and burn, and said that the more he killed and burned the better pleased he would be; that it was no time to take prisoners, and that he was to make Samar a howling wilderness. Major Waller asked General Smith to define the age limit for killing, and he replied “everything over ten.”
​

In the province of Batangas, the secretary of the province estimated that of the population of 300,000, one third had been killed by combat, famine, or disease.

American firepower was overwhelmingly superior to anything the Filipino rebels could put together. In the very first battle, Admiral Dewey steamed up the Pasig River and fired 500-pound shells into the Filipino trenches. Dead Filipinos were piled so high that the Americans used their bodies for breastworks.

Mark Twain, NY Post, 1908:

“We have pacified some thousands of the islanders and buried them; destroyed their fields; burned their villages, and turned their widows and orphans out-of-doors; furnished heartbreak by exile to some dozens of disagreeable patriots; subjugated the remaining ten millions by Benevolent Assimilation, which is the pious new name of the musket; we have acquired property in the three hundred concubines and other slaves of our business partner, the Sultan of Sulu, and hoisted our protecting flag over that swag. And so, by these providences of god — and the phrase is the government’s, not mine — we are a World Power...

"I have seen that we do not intend to free, but to subjugate the people of the Philippines. We have gone to conquer, not to redeem… And so I am an anti-imperialist. I am opposed to having the [American] eagle put its talons on any other land.”

Manuel Arellano Remondo: General Geography of the Philippine Islands:

“The population decreased due to the wars, in the five-year period from 1895 to 1900, since, at the start of the first insurrection, the population was estimated at 9,000,000, and at present (1908), the inhabitants of the Archipelago do not exceed 8,000,000 in number.”
More here, better compilation of sources:

Philippine-American War | The Espresso Stalinist

The Jones Act, passed by the U.S. Congress in 1916 to serve as the new organic law in the Philippines, promised eventual independence and instituted an elected Philippine senate. The Tydings–McDuffie Act (officially the Philippine Independence Act; Public Law 73-127) approved on March 24, 1934 provided for self-government of the Philippines and for Filipino independence (from the United States) after a period of ten years. World War II intervened, bringing the Japanese occupation between 1941 and 1945. In 1946, the Treaty of Manila (1946) between the governments of the U.S. and the Republic of the Philippines provided for the recognition of the independence of the Republic of the Philippines and the relinquishment of American sovereignty over the Philippine Islands.

Philippine

 

[dust1n]

 

[Rainbow Mage]

Oh I'm aware Dustin

Its quite the long history of disgraceful nastiness. I hope people start learning from history soon. For my part I've learned

 

[Riverwolf]

I've often thought that if I could give this land back to its true inhabitants, I would.

 

[dust1n]

[FONT=book antiqua, century schoolbook, times new roman, times]Resistance among the Cherokees and the slaves was high, many had to be bound before being brought out. [74] A Georgia volunteer was later to remark on the cruelty imposed upon the Indians, “I fought through the civil war and have seen men shot to pieces and slaughtered by thousands, but the Cherokee removal was the cruelest work I ever knew.” [75]

The Indians, slaves, and white members of the Cherokee nation were rounded up into “concentration camps” [76] where they were kept as “pigs in a sty.” [77] Starvation and disease was so rampant among those forcibly marched to the West that missionary Daniel Buttrick said “we are almost becoming familiar with death.“ [78] A month later he was to say that the government might more mercifully have put to death everyone under a year or over sixty; rather it had chosen “a most expensive and painful way of exterminating these poor people.“ [79]

Without a doubt, the Trail of Tears fell hardest upon those 1000 African Americans were forced to march, many without shoes, through the dead of winter into Oklahoma. [80] The route to Oklahoma was blazed by African-Americans, “My grandparents were helped and protected by very faithful Negro slaves who... went ahead of the wagons and killed any wild beast who came along.” [81] In spite of the fact that they were given the responsibility to guard (with “axes and guns&#8221 the caravans at night, few of the slaves made their escape. The newspaper reports of the time detailed a “peaceful and deathless trek of the Cherokees,” [82] but missionary Elizur Butler estimated conservatively that over 4600 Indians and African-Americans died on that nine-month march. More recent estimates put the number of deaths at nearly 8,000 people who died as a direct result of the Cherokee Trail of Tears. [83] An estimate of the number of African-Americans who died on the Cherokee Trail of Tears could be as much as 1/4 to 1/3 of those who made the trek west. If we can assume similar numbers of deaths among the Choctaw slaves as the Cherokee, perhaps 100 of the Choctaw slaves died in route. Many Choctaws stayed in Alabama and formed a community of resistance with African slaves similar to Fort Negro which proved to be a thorn in the side for later governments. [84][/FONT]


Beneath the Underdog: Race, Religion and the Trail of Tears. Cherokee, Native American. U.S. Data Repository, USGenNet Inc.

 

[esmith]

I've often thought that if I could give this land back to its true inhabitants, I would.

And who would that be? New evidence indicates that there were basically three different waves of immigration to North America beginning over 15,000 years ago.(source is: New dating of artifacts from Paisley Caves in Oregon show that the Clovis people were not the first humans in North America. - Los Angeles Times)
This does not include European immigrants. So again I ask you who do you want to give it back to? History shows that the more powerful and technology advanced push aside the weaker less technology groups. Technology includes from basic spears and arrows to firearms. Nature always favors the stronger over the weaker in both animal and human societies.

 

[dust1n]

And who would that be? New evidence indicates that there were basically three different waves of immigration to North America beginning over 15,000 years ago.(source is: New dating of artifacts from Paisley Caves in Oregon show that the Clovis people were not the first humans in North America. - Los Angeles Times)
This does not include European immigrants. So again I ask you who do you want to give it back to? History shows that the more powerful and technology advanced push aside the weaker less technology groups. Technology includes from basic spears and arrows to firearms. Nature always favors the stronger over the weaker in both animal and human societies.

Once of those waves came in and propagated the genocide of millions of people? Or does that just apply to the European immigrants, American colonists, American nationalists?

And uh.. "nature" doesn't "favor" anything.

Not that this has anything to do with my thread...

 

[Riverwolf]

And who would that be? New evidence indicates that there were basically three different waves of immigration to North America beginning over 15,000 years ago.(source is: New dating of artifacts from Paisley Caves in Oregon show that the Clovis people were not the first humans in North America. - Los Angeles Times)
This does not include European immigrants. So again I ask you who do you want to give it back to? History shows that the more powerful and technology advanced push aside the weaker less technology groups. Technology includes from basic spears and arrows to firearms. Nature always favors the stronger over the weaker in both animal and human societies.

It would be the people who were living here before Eirkson's voyages. I don't care about the whole "survival of the fittest" thing; I'd still give it back if I could.

 

[esmith]

It would be the people who were living here before Eirkson's voyages. I don't care about the whole "survival of the fittest" thing; I'd still give it back if I could.

Why the fixed date of 1000CE and why just North America? How about going back to say 1500BCE or even earlier for North American, Central America, South America, Europe, Asia, heck why not the entire world. You do realize don't you that over thousand of centuries that one band, tribe, however you want to identify them pushed the weaker ones away from the agriculture or hunting lands. Could it be that it would turn out that what you wanted was to give the land to the strongest not the original occupants? Have you ever heard of the Anasazsi people? To this day no one knows what really happened to them.

 

[Riverwolf]

Why the fixed date of 1000CE and why just North America? How about going back to say 1500BCE or even earlier for North American, Central America, South America, Europe, Asia, heck why not the entire world. You do realize don't you that over thousand of centuries that one band, tribe, however you want to identify them pushed the weaker ones away from the agriculture or hunting lands. Could it be that it would turn out that what you wanted was to give the land to the strongest not the original occupants? Have you ever heard of the Anasazsi people? To this day no one knows what really happened to them.

I'm not talking about tribes. Tribes get formed, disbanded, and formed over and over. Besides, I seriously doubt the various waves came in and committed mass genocide. Several tribes would likely have been completely unaware of the new visitors.

I don't care about "survival of the fittest." I believe in right and wrong, and what happened to the natives here at the hands of the European invaders was wrong.

 

[dust1n]

Why the fixed date of 1000CE and why just North America?

Hey... I know it's important to ya to disagree with RW about whether one should give land back or not... but that isn't what this thread is about.

 

[Quagmire]

Why the fixed date of 1000CE and why just North America? How about going back to say 1500BCE or even earlier for North American, Central America, South America, Europe, Asia, heck why not the entire world. You do realize don't you that over thousand of centuries that one band, tribe, however you want to identify them pushed the weaker ones away from the agriculture or hunting lands. Could it be that it would turn out that what you wanted was to give the land to the strongest not the original occupants? Have you ever heard of the Anasazsi people? To this day no one knows what really happened to them.

Problem is: the European "conquest" of the Americas is more an example of Dominance by the Sneakiest and Most Ruthless than it is of Survival of the Fittest.

At least the changing of hands that took place between the Native tribes prior to all that was something more akin to a straight-up fight.

I really don't see it as the same thing. The displacement of one Native American people by another didn't usually include out-and-out genocide, or mass torture, or the intentional instigation of epidemics, or complete cultural annihilation.

 

[esmith]

Hey... I know it's important to ya to disagree with RW about whether one should give land back or not... but that isn't what this thread is about.

Unfortunately after reading your initial post for the 3rd or 4th time I still do not understand what point you are trying to make. If you would give an example of what you are attempting to put forth might be helpful.

 

[MysticSang'ha]

[sarcasm]

Well, stop trying to make white anglo-saxon protestants of european descent look bad. We don't call it genocide. We call it progress. Think about how horrible those damned savages were and think bad about them before thinking bad about us.

So stop saying it was genocide. And if it was, it's okay because we did it for the progression of civilization.

On second thought, stop saying it's genocide. We don't like it. We're good people.

Can you stop saying it's genocide already?

[/sarcasm]

 

[dust1n]

Unfortunately after reading your initial post for the 3rd or 4th time I still do not understand what point you are trying to make. If you would give an example of what you are attempting to put forth might be helpful.

I'm attempting to make a list of America's historical genocides... I thought that rather clear in the OP. Of course, I'm slowly adding to it when I have the time.

 

[dust1n]

Moving right along...

"On Dec. 4, 1982, President Ronald Reagan met Guatemalan President Efrain Rios Montt in Honduras. It was a useful meeting for both. Reagan declared Montt to be “a man of great personal integrity and commitment.” Reagan said, “I know he wants to improve the quality of life for all Guatemalans and to promote social justice.” (North American Congress on Latin America, Spring 2012)

The next day, one of Rios Montt’s elite platoons entered the village of Dos Erres and killed more than 200 of its inhabitants, 67 of them children. Soldiers grabbed babies and toddlers by their legs, swung them in the air and smashed their heads against walls. They forced older children and adults to kneel at the edge of a well, and then with a single sledgehammer blow sent them plummeting below. The platoon raped many women and girls, and then threw the women into a well and filled it with dirt, burying some alive. (This American Life, Radio WBEZ, May 25, 2012)

On May 10, after decades of delay, obstruction and coverups, mass-murderer Rios Montt was finally convicted of genocide and crimes against humanity in a Guatemalan court. “We are completely convinced of the intent to destroy the Ixil ethnic group,” said Judge Yasmin Barrios, as she read the hour-long summary of a three-judge panel’s ruling. For five weeks, the tribunal heard more than 100 witnesses, including psychologists, military experts and Ixil Mayan survivors who told how Rios Montt’s soldiers had killed their families and wiped out their villages. (New York Times, May 10)...

Many other criminals who participated in the genocide and assisted Rios Montt were not convicted — and were not even present in the courtroom. Chief among these were U.S. CIA officials and several past U.S. presidents.

The campaign of genocide against Mayan peoples killed more than 200,000 and was roundly condemned at the time. Two investigations, one by the Guatemalan Council of Catholic Bishops and another by the United Nations Human Rights Commission, excoriated the Rios Montt regime in Guatemala. Secret detailed CIA cables have come to light, which show that the U.S. government was fully aware of the atrocities and purposely suppressed this information for decades.

Rios Montt had a long and bloody career as a U.S puppet. In 1951, at age 25, he attended the infamous School of the Americas then located in Panama. In 1954, he played a key role in the successful CIA-organized coup against the democratically elected president of Guatemala, Jacobo Arbenz Guzman. In 1970, under President General Carlof Manuel Arana Osorio’s military regime, Rios Montt became a brigadier general and chief of staff for the Guatemalan army.

In 1978, Rios Montt left the Roman Catholic Church and became a minister in the California-based Evangelical Church of the Word. Since then, Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, two notorious leaders of the religious right in the United States, have been his friends. (Dissident Voice, July 17, 2003)

In March 1982, Rios Montt seized power in a bloody coup d’etat that was quietly backed by the CIA and the Reagan White House. He and his generals unleashed a scorched-earth attack on the nation’s Mayan population that, according to a U.N. commission, resulted in the annihilation of nearly 600 villages.

As many as 1 million more Guatemalans, many of them Mayan peasants, were uprooted from their homes. Many of them were forced to live in concentration camps enclosed with barbed wire and patrolled by armed guards. Many were later forced to work in the fields of wealthy land barons."

Former U.S. puppet convicted of genocide in Guatemala - Workers World » Around the world » Workers World