Genocide of Indigenous Peoples

A Critical Bibliographic Review

Robert Hitchcock

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781351517744
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

An estimated 350 to 600 million indigenous people reside across the globe. Numerous governments fail to recognize its indigenous peoples living within their borders. It was not until the latter part of the twentieth century that the genocide of indigenous peoples became a major focus of human rights activists, non-governmental organizations, international development and finance institutions such as the United Nations and the World Bank, and indigenous and other community-based organizations. Scholars and activists began paying greater attention to the struggles between Fourth World peoples and First, Second, and Third World states because of illegal actions of nation-states against indigenous peoples, indigenous groups' passive and active resistance to top-down development, and concerns about the impacts of transnational forces including what is now known as globalization. This volume offers a clear message for genocide scholars and others concerned with crimes against humanity and genocide: much greater attention must be paid to the plight of all peoples, indigenous and otherwise, no matter how small in scale, how little-known, how "invisible" or hidden from view.

1

Genocide of Native Americans: Historical Facts and Historiographic Debates

Brenden Rensink

Introduction

One of the most sobering themes that underlie North American history is the demographic collapse that Euro-American contact initiated among many of the continent’s indigenous peoples. As twentieth-century scholars consider the post-contact unfolding of Euro-American and Native American histories and the ways in which they have become inextricably intertwined, their oft-divergent trajectories raise immediate questions of causality. There is no doubt that contact with Euro-Americans served as the catalyst for sea changes in Native America, but the demographic decline apparent in historical retrospect was not an inevitable outcome to be imposed upon historical actors or events. To presume that the tragic fate of many indigenous peoples was unavoidable precludes carrying out any inquiry into the causal relationships between cultures, empires, and individuals.

This chapter explores some prominent issues in the field of Native American studies germane to the field of genocide studies. The primary foci are upon philosophical debates, historiographic trends, and the relative virtues and challenges presented by the current body of scholarship. The accompanying set of annotated entries considers both sides of this spectrum: the praiseworthy and the problematic. Doing so should provide a clearer picture of the state of Native American genocide studies.

Troublesome Trends

While many historical events could be investigated within the framework of comparative genocide studies, recent trends in Native American genocide research have often been deterred from such prolificacy. Worthwhile scholarship has not been altogether arrested, but rather, impeded. Foremost, debates and arguments over the very definition of “genocide,” and whether it should be applied to Native American history have overwhelmed the scholastic vigor of aspects of the field of genocide studies. On one hand, historians dedicate energy extolling their reasons for terming events as genocide and on the other critics lambaste such efforts. Israel Charny (1996) feared that “such intense concern with establishing the boundaries of a definition” might ultimately downplay the historical realities of human tragedy or infamy (p. ix). While using genocidal terminology too liberally can prove equally damaging to useful scholarship, excessive definitionalism must not come at the cost of moving scholarship forward. Some Native American scholarship focusing on genocide oscillates between two opposing camps: those that devote energy simply to proving that genocide did occur in Native American history and those that more liberally apply the concept of genocide without sufficient analytical support.

Political Activist Foundations

An emotive a subject as any, the ongoing and intense debate and contrasting opinions in genocide scholarship should be no surprise, but the polemical tone which some of this dialog has incorporated is troubling. The genesis of this trend lies in the political activist foundations that underpin much of the contemporary Native American studies field. In the late 1960s, a new brand of Native American political activity, identity and call for Native self-determination gave birth to a prolific body of literature. Much of this literature pointed to historical narratives for support of their political causes.

Prominent and influential figures such as the late Vine Deloria, Jr., who wrote various treatises critiquing the contemporary state of affairs in the United States and Native America by placing them within a historical context, was joined by others who sought to expose past injustices in order to foment change. As the body of literature and Native American studies as a field have become more established, the political undertones of those early works have persisted. While political bias or agendas do not inherently create poor scholarship, their predominance does complicate matters of von Rankean objectivity in the context of broader comparative history.

Genocide in Native America

It is within the aforementioned context that scholars in the field debate over how to define genocide and ascertain its applicability in Native American history. Two issues claim prominence in this dialogue: numbers and intent. These are not new concepts to the broader field of genocide studies, but the unique impacts they have had in Native American historiography merit comment. First, if genocide is defined by the number of victims killed, Native American history mourns some of the highest. Although the consensus on such estimates has been tenuous, much of the related demographic debate over pre-contact and post-contact population statistics asserts per capita loss percentages unparalleled in human history (Dobyns, 1983, and Stannard, 1992). If taken at face value and as the only criteria for assessing genocide, one might conclude that Native American history should stand as the archetype. However, the accepted legal definition of genocide entails a second important factor: the intent to destroy a targeted group in whole or in part. This consideration greatly complicates the issue.

The demographic collapse which Euro-American contact precipitated and perpetuated in Native America spans centuries and involves no less than eight colonial or federal governments, and thousands of distinct indigenous empires, cultures, and confederacies. How does one parse out the overall demographic decline of Native America as a whole into the appropriately specific geographic and chronologic terms? Furthermore, in ascertaining the commission of genocide, taking into consideration the issue of intent, how can such monumental numbers be properly assigned to the intent of innumerable separate and distinct Euro-American – Native American relationships? To label North America’s indigenous populations in such monolithic terms is more than problematic. To generalize about the actions and reactions of all officials at the federal, regional and local levels vis-à-vis their treatment of all Native American groups is equally problematic. To attempt to extrapolate from one case where there was clear genocidal intent to all other cases – across centuries and historical contexts – is to rely on inherently faulty methodological processes.

One way to avoid unfairly extrapolating hemispheric or continental conclusions from regional histories is to refocus the scope of such research. While it is possible that a large composite of isolated events may speak to the existence of broader general trends, those more narrowly focused regional histories must be better understood before such conclusions can be fully supported. The concept of genocide in Native American history must first be analyzed in the micro, rather than macro scale. Once the sundry remote histories of possible genocide in Native North America are better documented and interpreted, and boast a more exhaustive historiography, broader generalized study of genocide in North America as a whole will be more productive, balanced, and substantive.

Examples of Genocide in Native America

Genocide or Not Genocide?

A key concept in this proposed approach of more particularized study lies within the bounds of scale, both temporal and geographic. While painting Native American and North American history in broad strokes vis-à-vis the issue of genocide is not possible at this juncture in time as a result of the current state of the field’s historiography, careful scholarship has been—and can be—undertaken on a variety of what might be considered, for lack of better terminology, genocidal events.

Throughout the centuries of interaction between Euro-Americans and the continent’s numerous indigenous peoples, various events appear as if they may constitute cases of genocide. Upon closer examination, though, some lie in the context of campaigns, relationships, and cultural negotiations which do not stand up to the criteria of being termed genocide. The task of careful scholarship is to delineate where broader non-genocidal narratives digress into specific genocidal events. Some argue that such delineation is irrelevant. Rather than viewing them as aberrations in larger histories, they perceive these isolated events as the “normative expression” of broader Euro-American civilization. Regardless of where one falls on this debate, the specific events in question must be better understood individually before collective guilt can be drawn (Jaimes, 1992, pp. 3, 5).

An example of a genocidal event that has featured prominently in the field’s historiography is the Sand Creek Massacre of 1864. On the morning of November 29, 1864, the Colorado Third Cavalry, under the command of Colonel John M. Chivington, attacked the sleeping encampment of Chief Black Kettle’s Cheyenne and Arapaho at Sand Creek. The resulting scene left a large number of unarmed Native American men, women, and children dead, their bodies mutilated by Chivington’s men. This horrific event has received considerable attention from scholars due to certain statements made previous to the attack. In authorizing Chivington’s Third Cavalry in their 100-day tour of duty, Colorado Governor John Evans gave instructions to “kill and destroy, as enemies of the country, wherever they may be found, all such hostile Indians” (U.S. Congress, House of Representatives, 1865, p. 47). It was later reported that Chivington echoed this policy by pronouncing his goal to “kill and scalp all, little and big; that nits made lice” (U.S. Congress, Senate, 1865, p. 71).

Taken together, a specific group was singled out for utter destruction, and the actions of the Colorado Third Cavalry on the cold morning of November 29, 1864, indicate that such intent was actualized in the massacre of members of that defined group.

The massacre at Sand Creek is perhaps the most prominent event which has been examined as a genocidal event in North American history, but most certainly does not stand alone. The field’s historiography features similar events for which some have suggested the need for consideration. First, in 1851, California Governor Peter Burnett called for a “war of extermination” to continue “until the Indian race becomes extinct” (Madley, 2008, p. 309). Governor Burnett’s declaration was aimed broadly at the various Native groups in northern California whose presence was deemed deleterious to the development of the region and its newfound mineral wealth. Governor John McDougal, who followed Burnett as governor, echoed similar sentiments, stating that if negotiations with Natives were unproductive, the Natives would wage war, which would, by necessity, result in the “extermination [of] many of the tribes” (Madley, 2008, p. 310). For years to follow, the Yuki Indians of Northern California’s Round Valley (present Humboldt and Mendocino Counties) were severely decimated by this policy, losing tens of thousands of their population (Baumgardner, 2005, p. 34). In this case, the intent to utterly extirpate groups of California Natives was declared, and in the case of the Yuki, actualized. These are the facts that have attracted the interest of certain genocide scholars.

There are also events which have been presented in genocidal terms due to their shocking brutality, but lack the specific declarations of intent that were clearly evident in the cases of the Sand Creek Massacre and Round Valley Wars. One year before the Sand Creek Massacre, a less publicized event in Cache County, Idaho (then southwestern Washington territory), took place that ended up bearing striking similarities to Chivington’s attack on Black Kettle’s sleeping encampment. As settlers came into increased contact with Shoshoni populations in the region, tensions ran high and U.S. Army detachments were eventually dispatched. The protracted conflict which followed reached a climax on January 29, 1863, on the banks of the Bear River, when Colonel Patrick E. Connor’s command attacked Shoshoni Chief Bear Hunter’s encampment. The attack left up to 400 Shoshoni dead, some of whom were unarmed, and was followed by the raping of Shoshoni women and killing of Shoshoni children. Unlike the precursory inflammatory language in the Sand Creek case, no such pronouncements of genocidal intent were made in the case of the Bear River Massacre.

Likewise, attention has focused on the Battle of Washita River on November 27, 1868, and the infamous Wounded Knee Massacre of December 28, 1890. Unarmed Cheyenne women and children were counted among the fallen at the Washita River, as were arguably noncombatant Miniconjou and Hunkpapa Lakota women and children at Wounded Knee Creek. With such cases, the horror of the events was unquestionable but the underlying historical context of each was not explicitly genocidal.

In understanding the continental contexts of intercultural conflict, both the events, which may eventually be classified as genocidal and those which may more appropriately be deemed tragedies that fall outside the genocide paradigm, offer historical understanding and insight. It is in these micro-histories, be they of genocide or of other forms of violent altercation, that the groundwork for broad conclusions may be based. All such events, regardless of whether genocidal intent was declared or not, share a role in the overarching narrative of, Euro-American expansion, Native American resistance and cultural misunderstanding.

Other Conceptualizations of Genocide

The production of ongoing scholarship of intertribal conflict is expanding historical understanding of genocide outside the traditional dichotomy of white-Native conflict. For example, the recently published collection of essays, Indian Conquistadors: Indigenous Allies in the Conquest of Mesoamerica, points towards such intertribal complexities (Matthew and Oudijk [2007]). The pioneering work of Richard White (1978), which asked scholars to reorient their view of the Western Sioux to that of an expanding empire, and now followed by Pekka Hamalainen (2008) in his study of the Comanche as empire, suggest a more complicated historical reality of violence in North America. These studies make no claims of intertribal genocide, however the theoretical shift that such studies provide suggest that further investigation of such possibilities is needed. Effectively, they expand our traditional view outside the binary paradigm of white-Native violence to consider more complex relationships.

On a different note, considerable scholarship has been conducted on the various other “-cides” (e.g., linguicide, culturicide, enthnocide), and no doubt some of those “cides” have contributed to the denigration of Native populations (Adams, 1995). Linguistic genocide (linguicide) and cultural genocide (culturicide) have both received significant scholarly attention. The nineteenth- and twentieth-century efforts of the United States government to forcibly assimilate Native peoples into “American” society by discouraging or criminalizing Native culture, language, and religion, a...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Introduction The Genocide of Indigenous Peoples
• 1. Genocide of Native Americans: Historical Facts and Historiographic Debates
• 2. Genocide in Colonial South-West Africa: The German War against the Herero and Nama, 1904–1907
• 3. Genocide of Canadian First Nations
• 4. The Destruction of Aboriginal Society in Australia
• 5. Genocide in the Chittagong Hill Tracts, Bangladesh
• 6. Genocide of Khoekhoe and San Peoples of Southern Africa
• 7. The Ache of Paraguay and Other “Isolated” Latin American Indigenous Peoples: Genocide or Ethnocide?
• 8.x Genocide of the Nuba
• 9. The Darfur Genocide
• 10. Genocide in Guatemala
• Index