Intro: Genocides in Human History (TR 1/10)

Genocide
● It refers to the intentional destruction of a particular race, ethnicity, religious group, or
nationality.
● Genocides have occurred (& continue to occur) in every corner of the globe, in societies
ancient & modern, for reasons as diverse as:
○ The acquisition of land & resources
○ To the demented hatred of a the “other”
There are different forms of totalitarianism
Different government styles → determine ways nations classify their people
The 8 Stages of Genocide
● Understanding the genocidal process is one of the most important steps in preventing
future genocides
● The 8 stages of Genocide were 1st outlined by Dr. Greg Stanton, Dept. of State: 1996.
1948 UN Convention of Genocide was signed, defining what genocide is -- problem with
defining genocide is repraisal (who is going to be accused & can they afford the reparations)
If you marginalize political groups → genocide (why Russia did not want to sign)
A GENOCIDE CANNOT OCCUR W/O A GOVERNEMENT SCHOOL ADMIT
● The 1st 6 stages are early warnings***
○ Classification
○ Symbolization
○ Dehumanization
○ Organization
○ Polarization
○ Preparation
● Final 2 stages of genocide**
○ The perpetrators conduct the mass killings & then, when discovered, attempt to
hide their actions
■ Extermination
■ denial
~Documented instances of genocide
● These are only the tip of the iceberg -- many are undocumented or lost in the past
○ Indigenous people of the Amazon Basin exterminated by land “developers”
○ Reduction of the population of Hottentots and Bushmen in Southern Africa by the
Bantu migration & European colonization
~10 of the most heinous incidents in human history:
● Al-Anfal Genocide
○ Kurds in the upper middle east (Iraq!!)
○ Not semitic -- they are European (many blonde/blue eyes)
● Moriori Genocide
○ The Maori are the indigenous Polynesian people of New Zealand
○ Focused on peaceful living
 The Conquistadors: Caribbean Destruction (T 1/14)
Articles to consider when determining Genocide in Colonial America
● In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with
intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as
such:
○ Killing members of a group
○ Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group
○ Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its
physical destruction in whole or in part
○ Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group
○ Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group
The following acts shall be punishable:
● Genocide
● Conspiracy to commit genocide
● Direct & public incitement to commit genocide
● Attempt to commit genocide
● Complicity in genocide
Genocidal Acts include:
● Genocidal massacres
● Biological warfare, using pathogens (especially smallpox & plague) to which the
indigenous peoples had no resistance
● Spreading of disease via the concentration of Indians into densely crowded & unhygienic
settlements
● Slavery & forced/indentured labor
● Mass population removals to barren “reservations,” sometimes involving death marches,
en route, & generally leading to widespread mortality & population (North America)
● Collapse upon arrival
● Deliberate starvation & famine, exacerbated by destruction & occupation of the native
land base & food resources
● Forced education of idengenous children in white-run schools, where mortality rates
could reach genocide levels (North America)
Conquistadors & Latin America’s destruction
● The Spanish invasion, occupation, & exploitation of most of “Latin” America began in the
late 15th c., & resulted, according to David Stannard, in “the worst series of human
disease disasters, combined with the most extensive & most violent program of human
eradication, that this world has ever seen.
Taino Destruction = Spanish Invasion of Caribbean (15th c.)
Taino Expanse in the Caribbean
● Taino, who at the time of Christopher Columbus’s exploration, inhabited what are now:
○ Cuba
○ Jamaica
 ○ Hispaniola (Haiti & Dominican Republic)
○ Puerto Rico
○ Virgin Islands
[Video - The Lost History of the Taino People]
The Tribute System - 1495
● Instituted by the Governor in 1495, was a simple & brutal way of fulfilling the Spanish lust
for gold while acknowledging the Spanish distaste for labor
● Every Taino over the age of 14 had to supply the rulers with a hawk’s bell of gold every 3
months (or in gold-deficient areas, 25 pounds of spun cotton)
● Those who did were given a token to wear around their necks as proof that they had
made their payment; those who did not were, as [Columbus’s brother, Fernando] says
discreetly “punished” by having their hands cut off & left to bleed to death
● Those men not killed at the outset were worked to death in goldmines
● Women survivors were consigned to harsh agricultural labor & sexual servitude
● massacred, sickened, & enslaved, Hispaniola’s native population collapsed, “as would
any nation subjected to such appalling treatment.”
● Declining from as many as 8 mil people at the time of the invasion to a scant 20,000 in
less than 3 decades
Genocide by a different form - why? (different looking before the industrial revolution)
● The Spainiards made bets as to who would slit a man into 2 or cut off his head at one
blow or they opened up his bowels
● They tore the babes from their mother’s breast by their feet & dashed their heads
against the rocks (infanticide)
● They spitted the bodies of other babies together with their mothers & all who were before
them, on their swords
Spanish Killers (Spanish Mastiffs)
Spanish Mastiffs & Terror
● These attack dogs, often wearing their own armor, were the common European chock &
awe tactic of the period
● The Spanish war dogs inspired great fear towards the Native pop, playing a significant
role in psychological warfare
● The 1st documented usage of these dogs in the New World came in the 1500s
● These dogs were trained in groups to pursue, disembowel & dismember humans & to
this purpose, enjoyed a human diet in the Americas
● The Spanish did not mind cutting up captured Native American men, women, & kids to
pieces to feed their pets
● Native American Sport Hunting
○ The Spanish reveled in holding human hunts called “la Monteria infernal” where
much sport was made of chasing & killing the local men, women & kids
Road to Extinction
● The Taino were easily conquered by the Spaniards beginning in 1493
● Estimates of the pop range from several 100 1000 to over a mil
 ● Enslavement, starvation, & disease, reduced them to a few 1000 by 1520 & to near
extinction by 1550
● Soon after Columbus’ return, more Spanish settlers arrived; & by 1504 the last major
Taino chief was deposed
● Over the subsequent 10 years, living conditions for the Taino declined steadily
● The Spaniards exploited the island’s gold mines & reduced the Taino to slavery
● Within 25 years of Columbus’ arrival in Haiti, most of the Taino had died from
enslavement, massacre, or disease
● By 1514, only 32K Taino survived in Hispaniola
● In 1542, only 200 were recorded
○ They were considered extinct, as were Indians throughout the Caribbean Basin,
an aggregate population which totaled more than 15 mil. at the point of 1st
contact (https://www.mit.edu/~thistle/v9/9.11/1columbus.html)
[Video -- The Tainos Part III]
Bartolomé de Las Casas
● 30 years later, the Catholic priest, Bartolomé de Las Casas, wrote Brief History of the
Destruction of the Indies-- described the depredations of Spanish fortune seekers
○ The Spaniards hurled themselves on the Indians ‘like wolves after days of
starvation’
○ ‘For 40 years they have done nothing but torture, murder, harass, afflict torment
& destroy them with extraordinarily, incredible, innovative & previously unheard-of
cruelty …
○ Some natives they hung on a gibbet, & it was their reverential custom to gather at
a time sufficient victims to hang 13 in a row, & thus piously to commemorate
Christ and the 12 Apostles.’ (LINK IN BOOKMARKS**)
Aztecs, Mayans, Incas (TR 1/16)
Sailing Toward the Mainland
● The genocidal model for conquest & colonization est. by Columbus was to a large extent
replicated by others such as Cortez (in Mexico) & Pizarro (in Peru) during the following
½-century.
● Rumors of great civilizations, limitless wealth, & populations to convert to Christianity in
the Aztec, Mayan, & Inca empires lured the Spanish on to Mexico, Central America &
then to South America.
Collapse of Indigenous Communities [[Meso-America]]
● In Mexico, the population may have been as high as 20 mil in 1519, but it collapsed to a
little over 2 mil in 1605
● While the #s are only estimates, it is clear that there was striking demographic collapse
of the native population in the 1st century after the Spanish conquest of Mexico
 ✪ Cocoliztli (Nahuatl word): pestilence
○ Appeared in native language only after the arrival of the Spaniards
○ Probably describes a form of hemorrhagic fever that was new to Central Mexico
after the conquest, though the exact dx remains unknown
Timeline of Collapse: Meso-America
● 13 Aug 1521 CE - The Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan falls into the hands of Spanish
forces led by Cortes
● 1524 CE - The Battle of Utatlan in which the last Maya resistance is crushed by the
conquistador Alvarado
○ Traditional date of the end of the Maya Civilization
**Civilizations fell faster b/c they were very spread apart
[Video - The Spanish Conquest of the Incan Empire]
➔ Smallpox got there before Cortez
Voyages to South America (SA)

✪ More gold in the Andes than Mexico

Extent of the Inca Empire

South American Destruction

● Diseases, esp. Smallpox, spread ahead of the Spanish (airborne from Columbia) to
cause a civil war (b/c they lost their leadership) among the Inca, & also weaken their
armies to give an advantage to Pizarro & his men when they arrived in 1532
● Soon, thereafter, assaults were launched against the Inca empire in present-day Peru,
Bolivia, & Ecuador
Population of Western Coast
● Estimates are b/w 9-14 mil inhabitants prior to Spanish arrival
○ In the early 1520s, prior to Pizarro’s 1st expedition (1524), smallpox swept down
the coast of SA
○ By the end of the 1500s, barely 1 mil inhabitants remained
○ The effects of smallpox on the Inca empire -- even MORE devastating than
Meso-America
○ The spread was probably aided by the efficient Inca road system. Within months,
the disease had killed most of the other leaders
■ High in the mtns → cannot escape
Pedro de Cieza de Leon (Chronicler of Peru)
● At the time, the Incas constituted the largest empire anywhere in the world, but with their
leader, Atahuallpa, captured & killed, the empire was decapitated, & quickly fell
 ○ Leon-- ‘wherever Christians have passed, conquering & discovering, it seems as
though a fire has gone, consuming everything’ (difficult to grasp beliefs & motives
of the Conquistadors)
Peru & the Demise of the Incas
● For the Indians enslaved on the plantations & in the silver-mines of the former Inca
empire, where the Spanish instituted another genocidal regime of forced labor
● Conditions in the mines -- notably those in Mexico & at Potosi & Huancavelica in Upper
Peru (Bolivia) -- resulted in death rates matching or exceeding those of Hispaniola
Ultimate Destruction of the Inca Indians -- Silver Mines
● Indians were dropped down a shaft bored as far as 750 ft down
● Forced to remain underground for a week at a time
● Forced to breath in toxins (arsenic & mercury)
● On avg.: 20 healthy Indians entered the mine & only ½ would reemerge (& those would
be severely crippled b/c tight spaces)
● “Indians in the Bolivian mines had a life expectancy of 3-4 months” -David Stannard
CASE STUDY -- Bolivia’s Cerro Rico (rich mtn): The Mtn that Eats Men
PODCAST -- Cerro Rico (NPR)
➔ Mining at an altitude of 14K ft
Last of the Incas
● Within a century following their 1st encounter with the Spanish, 94-96% of the once
enormous population had been exterminated along the 2K mile coastline where once
6.5K people had lived
Conclusion

http://amauta.info/southamerica.htm
Native American Nightmare (T 1/21)
Overview
● 10 million+: Estimated # of Native American living in land that is now the US when
European explorers 1st arrived in the 15th century
● Less than 300K: Estimated # around 1900
● In the latter sphere, the Spanish example was followed & in certain ways intensified by
the British, beginning at Roanoke in 1607 & Plymouth in 1620
● Overall, the process of English colonization along the Atlantic Coast was marked by a
series of massacres of natives as relentless & devastating as any perpetrated by the
Spaniards
 ● One of the best known illustrations drawn from among 100s was the slaughter of some
800 Pequots at present-day Mystic, Connecticut (CT) (night of May 26, 1637)
Pequot Tribal History
● By the early 17th century, just prior to European contact, the Pequots had approx. 8k
members & inhabited 250 sq mi
● The Pequot Indians lived in the region that became CT
● The early 17th century war b/w the English & the Pequot tribe led to the destruction of
the Pequots
● By 1774, a Colonial census indicated that there were 151 tribal members in residence
● As for the remaining land in CT, by 1856 illegal land sales had reduced the 989-acre
reservation to 213 acres

Pequot Wars (1636 & 1638)

● The Massacre at Fort Mystic in particular calls genocide to question
● The English considered this woodcut an accurate depiction of the attack which left over
400 Pequot men, women & children dead in less than an hour, many of them burned to
death
**image depicts the attack on the Pequot fortified village at Mystic on June, 5, 1637
**fortress made of easily burnable material
Massacre at Fort Mystic (ambush at 3-4 am)
● Objective: “destroy them by the sword & save the plunder (valuables)” -Mason
● w/in 20 min, once the English were inside, the fort suffered 50% casualties
● It was then that Mason said: “we should never kill them after that manner (sword/gun).
WE MUST BURN THEM”
Phips Bounty Proclamation (Massachusetts 1755)
● King George II of Britain called for “subjects to embrace all opportunities of pursuing,
captivating, killing & destroying all & every of the aforesaid Indians”
● Throughout the Northeast, proclamations to create ‘redskins’, or scalps of Native
Americans, were common during war & peace times
● Colonists were paid for each Penobscot Native they killed
○ 50 lbs for adult male scalp
○ 25 for adult female
○ 20 for boys & girls under age 12
● These proclamations explicitly display the settlers’ “intent to kill”, a major indicator of
genocidal acts
Ex. of creating “false boundaries” (us vs them mentality) -- when genocide is discussed
(in general) this thinking was involved
“French & Indian Wars” (1754-1763)
● Late 17th c.-mid 18th c. → Great Britain (GB) battled France for colonial primacy in
North America (NA)
● Formal possession of the area now known as Michigan came with the Treaty of Paris in
1763, by which France (losers in the war) ceded to GB the St. Lawrence Valley & all
lands east of the MS river
● The resulting sequence of 4 “French & Indian Wars” greatly accelerated the liquidation of
Indigenous people as far west as the Ohio River Valley
 *1763 (significant year) = end of French & Indian wars, treaty line (territory), & biological
warfare
*different type of economy around the Great Lakes -- “trapping”

Biological Warfare (1763-present)

● Spreading disease was not always intentional on the part of the colonists. But there were
a few instances that confirm Europeans’ attempt to exterminate natives
● During the last of the FOUR French & Indian wars (before GB got the territory) was
history’s 1st documented case of biological warfare
● It was to occur against Pontiac’s Algonkian Confederacy which had been a powerful
military ally of the French
● Consequently, settlers spread smallpox to the Native Americans by distributing blankets
previously owned by contagious patients
Excerpts from the Amherst Letters
● Sir Jeffrey Amherst, commander-in-chief of the British forces wrote in a postscript of a
letter to Bouquet [a subordinate] that smallpox be sent among the disaffected tribes
● Bouquet replied: “I will try to [contaminate] them… with some blankets that may fall into
their hands & take care not to get the disease myself”
● Amherst: “you will do well to [infect] the Indians by means of blankets as well as to try
every other method that can serve to extirpate this execrable race”
● On June 24, Captain Ecuyer of the Royal Americans, noted in his journal: “we gave them
2 blankets & a handkerchief out of the smallpox hospital. I hope it will have the desired
effect.”
*not one group after another … it is government issued
Royal Proclamation of 1763
● Oct 7, 1763 -- Issued by King George III
● This followed GB’s acquisition of French territory in NA after the end of the Seven Years
War
● Conditions:
○ It forbade all settlement west of a line drawn along the Appalachian Mtns, which
was delineated as an Indian Reserve
○ The proclamation & access to western lands was one of the 1st significant areas
of dispute b/w GB & the colonies

1775 -- Leading up to the American Revolution

 Trail of Tears (1/23)
The Cherry Valley Massacre(CVM) (1778)
● Carried out in Central NY on Nov 11, 1778
● 100s-strong force of loyalist militia-men, Iroquois Confederation (Seneca Tribe) Indians
& British soldiers involved
● By the time the attackers withdrew, more than 30 civilians - mostly women & children - &
nearly 16 soldiers were dead & nearly 200 people left homeless
*pay attn to the #s → not all 1-sided

The Sullivan Expedition (1779)

● The CVM convinced General George Washington to launch a massive, no-holds-barred
retaliatory expedition
● Washington instructed Major General John Sullivan to attack the Iroquois Confederation,
&:
○ “Lay waste all the settlements around that the country may not be merely overrun
but destroyed,” urging the general not to “listen to any overture of peace before
the total ruin of their settlements is effected.”
Scorched Earth Policy & Destruction
● Washington allocated nearly 5k men (mostly Continental units from New Hampshire,
MA, NJ, NY, & PA) for the expedition
● For the next 3 months, Sullivan’s troops marched across western NY in a scorched-earth
campaign
● After destroying 128 houses & extensive quantities of provisions, Sullivan decided not to
advance any further & began going back east, again burning any villages or crops they
had missed earlier
 ● By the end of Sept, the American forces had demolished “roughly 50 towns, 1 mil
bushels of corn, 50K bushels of veggies, & 10K fruit trees
● Sullivan considered the expedition to have been a great success, with the loss of only 40
men, his force had burned more than 40 large Indian towns or villages & destroyed 160K
bushels of corn as well as other provisions
● By Oct, more than 5K Indian refugees had fled to Fort Niagara, where the British were
hard pressed to feed them over the winter
*long, strong, complicated wood cabins
*they are in the North so they freeze without shelter; also food sources wiped out →
starve
Total Loss of Lives Caused by the Sullivan Expedition

The Muscogee Creek War of 1813-1814

● The Creek War/Red Stick War
● In the South, the War of 1812 bled into the Red Stick War
○ Red Stick Creek faction which involved multiple villages tribes throughout
Alabama
○ A village of at least 200 houses, the town’s name literally meant “War Club”, was
home to some of the most vocal Red Stick Leaders
○ Name of town: ATASI
● An inter-tribal conflict among Creek Indian factions, the war also engaged US militias,
along with the British & Spanish, who backed the Indians to help keep Americans from
encroaching on their interests
The Creek Wars
● Early Creek victories inspired General Andrew Jackson to retaliate w/2.5K men (mostly
TN militia) in early Nov 1814
 ● To avenge the Creek-led massacre at Fort Mims, Jackson & his men slaughtered 186
Creeks at Tallushatchee
● “We shot them like dogs!” -Davy Crockett
● The Creeks cede more than 20 mil acres of land after their loss

Indian Removal Act (1830)

● Called for the final removal of the ‘Five Civilized Tribes’
○ The Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, & Seminole
● B/w 1830 & 1838, federal officials working on behalf of white cotton growers forced
nearly 100K Indians out of their homeland
● As the Us expanded westward, violent conflicts over territory multiplied
Trail of Tears
● 1831: Choctaw Removal
○ Nearly 15K removed & approx 2.5K died along the way
● 1832: Seminole removal
○ 3k removed & the #s are unknown who died
● 1834: Creek removal
○ Of the 17K who set out for Oklahoma, approx 4k died along the way
● 1837: Chickasaw removal
○ 3k removed & 500 die along the way
● 1838: Cherokee removal
○ 16K led on a forced march & 4-5K perish
 Plains Indians
American Indian Wars
● The Indian wars under the government of the US included more than 40 wars
● The wars cost the lives of ~19K white men, women & children, including those killed in
individual combats
● The # of killed & wounded Indians was very much higher: ~45K
Army on the Frontier
● Changing government policy (Indian Removal Act) towards the Indians directly affected
the deployment of military troops in the West, starting w/the relocation of the Five Tribes
to Oklahoma
● Major or sudden shifts in politics profoundly altered the task of the army & led to
unforeseen & sometimes shattering results
Functions Performed by the US Army
● Guarding the frontier settlements in forts from hostile indigenous peoples
● Aiding the settlement of the West by developing & protecting the communication b/w the
older settlements & the frontier:
○ By exploring the West
○ Constructing roads & defending the overland trails, water routes & later telegraph
& railroad lines
● Policing the frontier until the civil governments could maintain order
The Frontier Army & the Destruction of the Buffalo (1865-1883)
● “Various military commanders encouraged the slaughter of bison by white hunters in
order to cut the heart from the Plains Indians’ economy” -Historian Richard White
● Scholars implicate the army’s high command more directly in the annihilation
 ○ Retired Brigadier General S. L. A. Marshall claimed that Generals William T.
Sherman & Philip Sheridan viewed the eradication of the buffalo as “the critical
line of attack” in the struggle with the Plains tribes
● Paul Andrew Hutton, Sheridan’s biographer, maintains that the scrappy little Irishman did
his utmost to further “his policy of exterminating the buffalo”
“Every buffalo dead is an Indian gone”
● One of the most detrimental efforts to Native Americans in the Plains region was the
intentional destruction of the buffalo population
○ Buffalo = food, shelter, clothing, weapons & fuel & were spiritually significant to
many tribes
○ At the beginning of the 19th century, buffalo # over 30 mil
○ By the end of the 19th c., only a few 100 left in the wild
● The plains tribes faced wide-scale starvation & social & cultural disintegration
Manifest Destiny
● For most Americans, the end of bison was assumed to be a natural & necessary
by-product of manifest destiny
● There was a general belief in the 1870s that the bison were wild animals who were likely
to eventually go extinct anyway
● The eradication of bison from the Great Plains & their replacement with cattle would be
an improvement that turned a wilderness into a productive landscape
Indian Territory During the Initial Removal of the Five Tribes as per the Indian Removal Act of
1830

Frontier Soldiers
● The Army on the Frontier disagreed with the Bureau of Indian Affairs & the frontier civil
authorities over the Indian policy
● The frontiersmen in general demanded the destruction or removal of the Indians
● The Indian Bureau attempted to protect the Indians, & the Army to coerce them
● When the Indians revolted, the US Army made war upon the entire Indian tribe,
punishing the innocent w/the guilty, even to the extent of killing women & children in
raids on villages or camps
 CA Indian Genocide
CA Indian Genocide
● Historians believe that CA was once the most densely & diversely populated area for
Native Americans in the US territory
● When Anglo-Americans arrived in CA, they initially attempted to maintain the social
hierarchy & system that the Spaniards & Mexicans created in CA
Tribal Groups & Linguistic Groups

*proximity of gold mine location & where genocide was carried out
ONLY 4 !! = excuse to kill Yuki
Typically not a war … state pays a bounty hunter, US pays the state = EVIDENCE OF
GENOCIDE
Reservation = collection points - makes them very vulnerable
THEME: escalation from East coast to West Coast
#2 !!!!
ABORIGINES