Genocide On Indigenous People

Genocide on Indigenous People

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Genocide on Indigenous People

Native American Genocide

The time period between the early 1500s and twentieth century was one of the most brutal time periods for the indigenous people found in America. People suffered torture, fear, massacre, sexual abuse, and whatnot. The Native Americans have suffered a great deal in that time frame. The killing and genocide of Native Americans was so ferocious and evil that many scientists and observers of University College London have linked them to climate changes. A famous story started revolving around in May 1758, when a young girl of 10 years of age was captured by Indians, more specifically, Delaware Indians. She was held captive for 6 years and after her kidnapping by the Indians, more than two hundred cases rose to the scene. It became evident that she was living a happy healthy life with the Delaware tribe. No matter how the story ended, it resulted in an all-out slaughter of Native Americans. Hate for Indian tribes was evident from the time Europeans started their process of settlement (Dunbar-Ortiz & Gilio-Whitaker, 2016). More than 1500 attacks were made on Native Americans, which is the most by any government against its indigenous people. This evil man-slaughtering left close to 240,000 Native Americans. This was a huge deterioration in the number of indigenous people from 5 to 20 million.

The new settlers of America were very different from the indigenous people. Their religion, beliefs, norms, and activities did not resemble. The Mary Campbell story made new settlers hate natives and it led to racial hatred towards them. This sense of hatred made new settlers kill and slaughter America’s indigenous people in the name of religion and civilization. There were more than 10 million Native Americans before new settlers came in and at the start of the 20th century, around 300,000 natives were left.

The Gnadenhutten Massacre is one of the most brutal massacres of natives where Delaware Indians were first converted to Christianity by force. After that, they were brutally beaten by militiamen of David Williamson. During the rise of Shawnee tribe, 2 brothers named Tecumseh and Prophet took it to themselves to join hands with all other tribes. They fought with valor and courage for their survival against the brutalities and slaughtering (LaDuke, 2017). This partnership and revival of tribes was however short-lived. The governor of Indiana, William Henry who later became the president, decided to raid the tribes and burn them. This led to the famous war known as the battle of Thames where Tecumseh died.

The Indian removal bill that was presented by President Jackson in 1830 was another controversial issue that was faced by the natives under Jackson's presidency. Jackson had the view that Indian tribes were not allowing new settlers to live a normal life and built homes. He wanted to clear the great wilderness of America and turn it into an agricultural land. Jackson said in his speech of 1833 that Indians are not intelligent enough to improve their lives and change their lifestyle. He had so much hatred for indigenous people that he wanted them extinct. Many Indians were removed from their hometowns and tribes. The U.S army removed more than 60,000 Indians from the east and made them move towards the west of Mississippi. This resulted in the deaths of many of them which is now known as Trail of Tears. This treaty never remained in its original shape as new settlers were moving in and they started taking territories in the west as well. The same slaughtering continued and the hardships for natives grew even stronger.

The Sioux tribe of Dakota was not given their due share of land and food as promised in a treaty signed between Sioux and U.S government. This led to a raid on the lands of white settlers which slowly turned into a bloody war known as the Little Crow War. Around 490 new settlers were killed and in retaliation, on special orders by President Lincoln, the whole tribe of Sioux was massacred. More than 300 men were given the death penalty (Spring, 2017). At Mankato, 40 men of Dakota were publicly hung which was witnessed by thousands of people.

In all the history of the Native Americas and Amerindians, the Comanche tribe has been described and termed as the most powerful and resilient tribe that ever existed on the plains of great America. At the start before the 1600s, they were not well known among new settlers and were a simple tribe with lesser-known facts. However, slowly they underwent a huge change during the period of 1650-1750. Their diplomacy with Spanish people proved so fruitful that the horses that were given to them were used as power tools. They learned the art of riding a horse very easily and made more use of these power tools against the other tribes first. They gradually became powerful among all other tribes and took over their possessions by challenging them.

The people of the Comanche tribe stopped the French and Spanish to possess the lands of North America and parts of Louisiana. They did this along with their diplomacy skills had overwhelming relations with many strong native tribes of that time. They took over the lands which are now known as Colorado, Oklahoma, eastern parts of New Mexico, Texas and western parts of Kansas. The southern part of America was now a stronghold for natives, and it became hard for new settlers to move towards the southern plains. The Comanche tribe held their grounds for more than 40 years. They at times tried to push westwards to gain control of western territories. When the Comanche people were somehow successful in gaining control of certain parts of western territory, it became evident that only a battle will help new settlers gain control of the southern plains. President Ulysses enabled 3 men to take matters in their own hand in the cold month of October 1871. These three men named Grant, William and Philip allowed Ulysses' favorite officer named Ranald Mackenzie to take around 600 men and 20 people of Tonkawa tribe to completely defeat the Comanche tribe (Kingston, 2015). However, it was not an easy task to defeat and annihilate Comanche in their own plains. These three men started targeting bison which was the landmark of success for the Comanche tribe.

The market for Comanche started falling after the bison were being exterminated by the government. Then the next target was horses as it was the most powerful tool for the Comanche Indians. The numbers of Comanche people started deteriorating as, by the end of 1870, about 8000 people of Comanche were left under the stress of warfare and starvation. This made the Comanche tribe move towards reservation lands and depend on the agricultural lands for their survival. By the end of 1920, about 1500 people of Comanche were left as their lands and food were continuously being confiscated by new settlers. However, as of now, their numbers have increased just like all other Native American tribes. There have been various new mindsets with liberal thoughts. America has a very rich and deep history in becoming a great power state. Having said that, the Native Americans have always been at the pivot of bringing the United States of America to its greatness.

References

Dunbar-Ortiz, R., & Gilio-Whitaker, D. (2016). " All the Real Indians Died Off": And 20 Other Myths about Native Americans. Beacon Press.

LaDuke, W. (2017). All our relations: Native struggles for land and life. Haymarket Books.

Spring, J. (2017). The intersection of cultures: Multicultural education in the United States and the global economy. Routledge.

Kingston, L. (2015). The destruction of identity: Cultural genocide and indigenous peoples. Journal of Human Rights, 14(1), 63-83.