A question about Indians

[727Goon]

I would post this in the learning forum BUT I'M STILL FUCKING RESTRICTED FOR SOME REASON Basically a lot of people say the policies and wars against the Native Americans were genocidal. How were they different from other land wars and how was it genocide rather than a war for land? Obviously they justified a lot of atrocities through white supremacy but it seems to me like it was mostly about the land, but I don't really know shit about this issue.

[Sasha]

if you keep calling native americans indians i think you shouldnt hold your breath on an un-restriction

[727Goon]

Why?

e: Native American is an archaic political correct term that American Indians themselves have rejected and is only used by white guilt liberals trying to make themselves feel better about their racism.

[JustMovement]

yeah from what i know indian is the correct term

[727Goon]

Well now that that's resolved could anyone tell me why the oppression of Native Americans was the result of a genocide rather than a land conquest?

[JustMovement]

I think its genocide if you not only take their land, but also kill all of them, move them in massm coop them up, destroy their way of life so they all become alcoholics. Like the U.S. is occupying afghanistan at the moment, if it started to kill them on a large scale, move them into camps, and then settle the country with americans i think it would be legit to call it genocide.

Also theres the whole thing that if you go to the states, you wont see many indians/native americans, because, you know... theyre all dead.

[jake williams]

Well now that that's resolved could anyone tell me why the oppression of Native Americans was the result of a genocide rather than a land conquest?
"Land conquest" is genocidal. It's not acceptable to acquire territory through force. It's happened through much of human history, but much of human history is genocidal.

We can't really do anything about the fact that hundreds of millions of people in the Americas are the descendants of European settler cultures which conquered land, ethnically cleansing the inhabitants, expelling or killing them. We can't just all go back to Europe. I can't show up in Ireland or Finland or Scotland and demand land. We have to try to construct some sort of a democratic, international reconception of state structures in the Americas (and everywhere else, but that's a long-term project), something exceptionally difficult to do not only because most of the Americas' original inhabitants have been murdered, but because their remaining descendants have been systematically excluded from educational, economic, and political life, their cultures and their peoples systematically marginalized, and so on.

But the fact that we have to deal with hundreds of millions of settler descendants (including mostly chattel slaves, convicts, bonded labourers and so on) only really having a home in the Americas does not whatsoever justify the historic theft of a hemisphere from its inhabitants and the murder of most of them.

[Sir Comradical]

Why?

e: Native American is an archaic political correct term that American Indians themselves have rejected and is only used by white guilt liberals trying to make themselves feel better about their racism.

Columbus thought he had arrived in India, so the Native Americans were called Indian. In any case calling them Indian is like calling Japanese people Arabs.

[HEAD ICE]

maybe saying just Indian, but American Indian is considered ok (most american indians check american indian on the census)

[Blake's Baby]

Yeah, fuckit, come back to Europe, we'd love to have y'all, I'll put the kettle on.

But shortly after that we're all moving to East Africa because that's where humanity came from.

Anyway... it was genocide because the taking of the land meant the destruction of the civilisations that previously inhabited it and massive loss of life as a result (through war, but also through destruction of food supples - eg the bison on the Plains - and the encroachment on native land - which was to all intents an purposes the whole continent).

Some other empires have managed to conquer places and found the natives useful so conquered and ruled them; eg the Roman Empire in much of Europe took over but didn't really go in for genocide. Ditto the British in India for instance, much easier to buy off the rulers, get them to send their children to private schools in England, and draw them into the Imperial administration. That was pretty emphatically not what happened in North America (or for that matter Australia).

[Viet Minh]

Why does any leftist give a flying fuck about land? NOBODY owns land (or everybody owns all of it depending on how you look at it) so debating that aspect is pointless from the start.

The issue is murder, for any reason except genuine extreme self-defence or defense of an innocent party, is wrong. And there was more to it than 'just warfare', things like giving blankets infected with smallpox (?) is a very different matter than fighting in a battle. There was also a huge imbalance of power, at least initially, where the europeans had horses and guns fighting against tribes with spears and bows.

Also


I think its genocide if you not only take their land, but also kill all of them, move them in massm coop them up, destroy their way of life so they all become alcoholics. Like the U.S. is occupying afghanistan at the moment, if it started to kill them on a large scale, move them into camps, and then settle the country with americans i think it would be legit to call it genocide.

Also theres the whole thing that if you go to the states, you wont see many indians/native americans, because, you know... theyre all dead.

How can they move them into camps if they're all dead? ..

http://img580.imageshack.us/img580/2113/77keeptrollin.jpg

[JustMovement]

Why does any leftist give a flying fuck about land? NOBODY owns land (or everybody owns all of it depending on how you look at it) so debating that aspect is pointless from the start.

The issue is murder, for any reason except genuine extreme self-defence or defense of an innocent party, is wrong. And there was more to it than 'just warfare', things like giving blankets infected with smallpox (?) is a very different matter than fighting in a battle. There was also a huge imbalance of power, at least initially, where the europeans had horses and guns fighting against tribes with spears and bows.

Also



How can they move them into camps if they're all dead? ..

http://img580.imageshack.us/img580/2113/77keeptrollin.jpg

What are you on about? OK, you are right, what I meant to say is that after the American Indian population went through a demographic collapse due to disease, warfare, and systemic extermination by part of European settlers, the few remaining survivors (happy now?) were rounded up and placed in reservations.

Dont be pedantic and then try and be cute. Its not pretty.

[Viet Minh]

What are you on about? OK, you are right, what I meant to say is that after the American Indian population went through a demographic collapse due to disease, warfare, and systemic extermination by part of European settlers, the few remaining survivors (happy now?) were rounded up and placed in reservations.

Dont be pedantic and then try and be cute. Its not pretty.

Sorry I didn't mean to be, I just read the post as sarcasm for some reason, my bad.. Actually I'll blame Miller genuine draft! http://static.wireclub.com/Images/Emoticons/drunk.gif

[JustMovement]

Fair enough. Im probably cranky because I dont have any...

[Tim Finnegan]

I'm going to advise you read Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee, partly on the basis that everyone should read it, but also because it would not merely answer your question, but illustrate in heart-wrenching detail. By the time you hit the index, you will be in no doubt whatsoever that the treatment of the indigenous population of the United States was genocidal.

[Franz Fanonipants]

As a resident of the American West that still has sizable indian populations, indian is interchangeable w/native or Native American.

Anyways, that said, the US' genocide of indian people is actually one of the first major ethnic cleansing campaigns of full-bore Capitalism. Force in the form of massacres being the initial spearhead of the genocide, US indian policy then followed by forcibly relocating and diminishing the ability of native peoples to sustain themselves either through destruction of access to traditional lands or programs of forced cultural assimilation.

To my understanding of it. My thesis focuses on similar issues of land and culture dislocation among Chicanos in the broader SW, but the indian experience is a contemporary process to that.

[Franz Fanonipants]

"Land conquest" is genocidal. It's not acceptable to acquire territory through force. It's happened through much of human history, but much of human history is genocidal.

lookit dis fuckin nub

e. marxist analysis of history - "much of human history is genocidal"

gtfo

[#FF0000]

Basically a lot of people say the policies and wars against the Native Americans were genocidal. How were they different from other land wars and how was it genocide rather than a war for land? Obviously they justified a lot of atrocities through white supremacy but it seems to me like it was mostly about the land, but I don't really know shit about this issue.

It can be both. It was both.

[727Goon]

As a resident of the American West that still has sizable indian populations, indian is interchangeable w/native or Native American.

Anyways, that said, the US' genocide of indian people is actually one of the first major ethnic cleansing campaigns of full-bore Capitalism. Force in the form of massacres being the initial spearhead of the genocide, US indian policy then followed by forcibly relocating and diminishing the ability of native peoples to sustain themselves either through destruction of access to traditional lands or programs of forced cultural assimilation.

To my understanding of it. My thesis focuses on similar issues of land and culture dislocation among Chicanos in the broader SW, but the indian experience is a contemporary process to that.

How were the massacres different from a traditional land war? I mean there are always massacres in war, hell there were probably massacres during the slave trade and shit but that's not genocide. Wouldn't forced cultural assimilation be evidence that it wasn't genocide though, that's just white supremacy pretty much every minority group had that to a certain extent.

[#FF0000]

Wouldn't forced cultural assimilation be evidence that it wasn't genocide though, that's just white supremacy pretty much every minority group had that to a certain extent.

Forced cultural assimilation is an aspect of genocide

[Franz Fanonipants]

How were the massacres different from a traditional land war? I mean there are always massacres in war, hell there were probably massacres during the slave trade and shit but that's not genocide. Wouldn't forced cultural assimilation be evidence that it wasn't genocide though, that's just white supremacy pretty much every minority group had that to a certain extent.

what is a "traditional land war" pls give historical citation comrade

[727Goon]

Idk much history before 1600 but like the shit they did in the middle ages in Europe basically.

[Franz Fanonipants]

No, but seriously, the massacres had the intended goal of killing off an entire racial/cultural entity. Pretty much the textbook definition of genocide.

Of course, it gets tricky in some places, there's a book about a massacre of Apaches in Southern AZ by Chicano, Yaqui, and I think Tohono O'odham. But the major characteristic of American "land war" against indians was the purposeful extermination of indians based on their indianess.

That said, obvs. the conditions were a "land war" as you've described, but that doesn't make it NOT genocide.

[727Goon]

Forced cultural assimilation is an aspect of genocide

I mean idk about that. In germany they didnt have the jews assimilate and I dont see the tribes in darfur trying to assimilate, they're basically killing the fuck out of each other. I would argue that forced cultural assimilation is an aspect of white supremacy, and pretty much every not white group has to do.

[Franz Fanonipants]

Idk much history before 1600 but like the shit they did in the middle ages in Europe basically.

i'm not a medievalist (because fuck that) but i'd say you'd be pretty hard pressed to find medieval european wars that necessarily were about wiping out a specific nation or ethnicity (other than the bulgars or lithuanian pagans or w/e).

you need to see the historical context of nationhood, capitalism, and etc. to really see the stage set for genocide as we conceive of it.

[Franz Fanonipants]

I mean idk about that. In germany they didnt have the jews assimilate and I dont see the tribes in darfur trying to assimilate, they're basically killing the fuck out of each other. I would argue that forced cultural assimilation is an aspect of white supremacy, and pretty much every not white group has to do.

you're missing the point comrade.

the boarding schools weren't there to make indians assimilate nicely. they literally had the slogan "save the man, kill the indian" as a core of their mission.

[#FF0000]

I mean idk about that. In germany they didnt have the jews assimilate and I dont see the tribes in darfur trying to assimilate, they're basically killing the fuck out of each other. I would argue that forced cultural assimilation is an aspect of white supremacy, and pretty much every not white group has to do.

Genocides can include forced cultural assimilation but don't have to. More specifically, taking kids from one group and giving them to another, which happened during the whole Manifest Destiny thing with boarding schools for Native Americans.

Anyway, yeah it was a "land war" like you're talking about, but the aim was to get the land by getting rid of as many Natives as possible.

[Jimmie Higgins]

In the US it would be considered genocide because the conquest of land was achieved through eliminating the people living there - not always through direct means or through murder, but not accidental like through diseases (which also killed a large number of Americans before colonization really got under way.

Generally there are two ways that colonial powers run their seized territories - through installing a new colonial government on top of the existing population like what the Spanish tried for the most part or what Europeans did in India or in many places in Africa - or via a settler-state where a whole new population and workforce (slave or free) is brought in and the native population is disenfranchised, killed, or just pushed aside through force. The second example would be like Colonial North America/ Caribbean or early US or Israel.

[727Goon]

No, but seriously, the massacres had the intended goal of killing off an entire racial/cultural entity. Pretty much the textbook definition of genocide.

Of course, it gets tricky in some places, there's a book about a massacre of Apaches in Southern AZ by Chicano, Yaqui, and I think Tohono O'odham. But the major characteristic of American "land war" against indians was the purposeful extermination of indians based on their indianess.

That said, obvs. the conditions were a "land war" as you've described, but that doesn't make it NOT genocide.

Idk I mean it seems like the point is to basically get the land for white people and whatever happened to the Indians was an afterthought. Maybe it was a genocide but it seems to me like the genocide part was like an afterthought. I guess it had it's genocidal tendencies but it wasnt as mechanized or as efficient as the holocaust or genocides you see today in Africa or wherever.

[Franz Fanonipants]

All conflict and violence is about material acquisition, it's true.

But I think you're stretching pretty hard to not understand what the systematic and methodological impact of American Westward expansion was. Even if indian genocide was an afterthought, it was still genocide.

basically I think you're trying real hard to say that indians aren't victims of genocide when...welp...sorry...

[727Goon]

Genocides can include forced cultural assimilation but don't have to. More specifically, taking kids from one group and giving them to another, which happened during the whole Manifest Destiny thing with boarding schools for Native Americans.

Anyway, yeah it was a "land war" like you're talking about, but the aim was to get the land by getting rid of as many Natives as possible.

Whats a genocide in the 20th century that included cultural assimilation? But if the goal was simply to get rid of as many Natives as possible why were there instances of Natives and white people living peacefully and trading and shit? I think the aim was to get as much land for white people as possible.

[727Goon]

All conflict and violence is about material acquisition, it's true.

But I think you're stretching pretty hard to not understand what the systematic and methodological impact of American Westward expansion was. Even if indian genocide was an afterthought, it was still genocide.

Yeah thats true. I'm not sure though it seems pretty different from the genocides of today though, maybe it wasnt as systematic or something.

[#FF0000]

Idk I mean it seems like the point is to basically get the land for white people and whatever happened to the Indians was an afterthought. Maybe it was a genocide but it seems to me like the genocide part was like an afterthought.

Well this is where the point of contention between historians usually is when it comes to calling what happened to the Native Americans a genocide. It comes down to "was it the goal".

I think that at this point, there's more evidence to say it was intentional. Buffalo were eventually hunted specifically to deny Native Americans a food source, diseases were intentionally spread among populations (smallpox blankets), etc. etc. etc. We even had prison camps set up out in the Midwest were Native Americans were starved to death.

[bcbm]

seems like definition is a little unclear here, so:


Genocide is defined as "the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_group), racial (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_%28classification_of_humans%29), religious (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_denomination), or national (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nationality) group" . . . a legal (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal) definition is found in the 1948 United Nations (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations) Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convention_on_the_Prevention_and_Punishment_of_the _Crime_of_Genocide) (CPPCG). Article 2 of this convention defines genocide as "any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nation), ethnical (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnicity), racial (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_%28classification_of_human_beings%29) or religious (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion) group, as such: killing members of the 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; [and] forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

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

given this i think its pretty clear how what happened in the us qualifies...

[Franz Fanonipants]

Taking a bunch of people from an arid climate (the Apaches) and shipping them to a malarial, humid, remote hell hole (Florida) where a lot of them die as "punishment" for resistance is pretty close to genocide.

[727Goon]

Well this is where the point of contention between historians usually is when it comes to calling what happened to the Native Americans a genocide. It comes down to "was it the goal".

I think that at this point, there's more evidence to say it was intentional. Buffalo were eventually hunted specifically to deny Native Americans a food source, diseases were intentionally spread among populations (smallpox blankets), etc. etc. etc. We even had prison camps set up out in the Midwest were Native Americans were starved to death.

Yeah I think thats the thing, it's like white people have been using white supremacy as an excuse to do bad shit that benefits them since the beginning of capitalism, but if they actually went out of their way to fuck with indians for their indianess then yeah it's genocide.

[Franz Fanonipants]

Yeah I think thats the thing, it's like white people have been using white supremacy as an excuse to do bad shit that benefits them since the beginning of capitalism, but if they actually went out of their way to fuck with indians for their indianess then yeah it's genocide.

it's genocide.

[727Goon]

Yeah it pretty much is. I dont have any skin in this game im just playing the devils advocate here.

[Franz Fanonipants]

the interesting corollary to indian genocide is actually the various shades of disenfranchisement of chicanos throughout the American SW. the dismemberment of communal ejidos and land grants (not that the land grant system was an awesome communal dream or anything) and the violent enforcement of a color line in places like Southern California and Texas is a big part of American history that's ignored because there's huge grey areas.

it was easy for anglos to point to the otherness of indians to excuse outright genocide, but "greasers" were ostensibly similar to anglos in terms of their post-colonial heritage and etc.

[727Goon]

dude arent greasers italians or something. yeah i realize how ignorant i sound throughout this whole thread but fuck yall

[Franz Fanonipants]

dude arent greasers italians or something. yeah i realize how ignorant i sound throughout this whole thread but fuck yall

could be. i basically ignore everything east of the mississippi and broadly in the Western US greaser is a derogatory term for Chicanos. or was. w/e.

[RGacky3]

Yeah I think thats the thing, it's like white people have been using white supremacy as an excuse to do bad shit that benefits them since the beginning of capitalism, but if they actually went out of their way to fuck with indians for their indianess then yeah it's genocide.


Genocide is when your trying to wipe out a group of people, which they were, they took their land, and KICKED THEM OUT, thats not just a war over land, over which you just want control of the land.

The goal of the genocide has nothing to do with it.

[ComradeMan]

Idk much history before 1600 but like the shit they did in the middle ages in Europe basically.

Why don't you study stuff before openly admitting that you actually don't have a fucking clue what you are talking about?

[#FF0000]

Why don't you study stuff before openly admitting that you actually don't have a fucking clue what you are talking about?

Yeah I mean it's not like he started this thread to learn something or anything.

Shut the fuck up please.

[ComradeMan]

Yeah I mean it's not like he started this thread to learn something or anything.

Shut the fuck up please.

Derp... the comment wasn't in relation to the OP....

Touché

[#FF0000]

Derp... the comment wasn't in relation to the OP....

Touché

Well no shit but your response was totally unnecessary. Why on earth would you jump on someone who said something that was incorrect or untrue or something when they said "I might be wrong/I don't know much about this topic".

[ComradeMan]

Well no shit but your response was totally unnecessary. Why on earth would you jump on someone who said something that was incorrect or untrue or something when they said "I might be wrong/I don't know much about this topic".

"Idk much history before 1600 but like the shit they did in the middle ages in Europe basically. "

So one does not know much history before 1600, worrying in itself, but still proceeds to make a highly "intellectual" statement about the "shit" they did in the middle ages.... of course not knowing what this shit might be because it was de facto before 1600.

[#FF0000]

"Idk much history before 1600 but like the shit they did in the middle ages in Europe basically. "

So one does not know much history before 1600, worrying in itself, but still proceeds to make a highly "intellectual" statement about the "shit" they did in the middle ages.... of course not knowing what this shit might be because it was de facto before 1600.

Okay guy, you win. You know more about early modern history than someone. Everyone gather 'round and look at the big smart guy and bask in the radiance of his supreme intellect.

Happy now?

God forbid anyone be upfront about their ignorance of a subject.

[Tim Finnegan]

Idk much history before 1600 but like the shit they did in the middle ages in Europe basically.
A lot of that had genocidal aspects too it as well, like the Anglo-Scottish colonisation of Ireland, or the German conquests of Baltic tribes. What the European empires inflicted on the indigenous peoples of Asia, Africa and America, many practised on the Celts, Slavs and Balts.

[Agnapostate]

Taking a bunch of people from an arid climate (the Apaches) and shipping them to a malarial, humid, remote hell hole (Florida) where a lot of them die as "punishment" for resistance is pretty close to genocide.

In that case specifically, which marked the end of the so-called "Indian Wars" in the U.S., it wasn't only rogue Chiricahuas that were imprisoned, but also the scouts that aided the Army in capturing them. It's a remarkable look into how the purpose of the "Apache Wars" were ethnic cleansing rather than simply punishment for resistance, since providing essential services to the government hardly constitutes resistance.

This is actually depicted in the film that was made about Geronimo a few years back, at 3:30 in this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URUbK2nMb_o

[BIG BROTHER]

In the stolen land of so-called United States alone, we had an approximate 12 million people, by the beginning of the 20th century we had only around 200,000 people left.

How is that not a genocide?

[ComradeMan]

In the stolen land of so-called United States alone, we had an approximate 12 million people, by the beginning of the 20th century we had only around 200,000 people left.

How is that not a genocide?

I read as much as 20 million.... but yeah.... I agree.

Time for the Ghost Dance.

[Ocean Seal]

Basically a lot of people say the policies and wars against the Native Americans were genocidal. How were they different from other land wars and how was it genocide rather than a war for land? Obviously they justified a lot of atrocities through white supremacy but it seems to me like it was mostly about the land, but I don't really know shit about this issue.
A lot of wars are mostly about the land but it doesn't stop them from being genocidal. Whether or not it was a 'chore' for the white settlers to kill the Amerindians doesn't matter. If you'd truly like to know why it was a genocide, ask yourself this. How many American Indian friends do you have? How many American Indians have you met?

[BIG BROTHER]

I read as much as 20 million.... but yeah.... I agree.

Time for the Ghost Dance.

It could have been very well 20 million too. Its hard to know the real numbers. And that its just the area that covers the U.S.

[Viet Minh]

Arguably genocide is still happening to an extent, huge areas of South American rainforest are being cut down and the native people displaced.

[ComradeMan]

Arguably genocide is still happening to an extent, huge areas of South American rainforest are being cut down and the native people displaced.

"Displaced"...

Indirect "biological warfare"- the illegal loggers in Amazonia "know" that their very presence can lead to the destruction of peoples due to disease. Check this article:-
"Time and time again, contact has resulted in disaster for Brazil’s uncontacted tribes." http://www.survivalinternational.org/tribes/uncontacted-brazil/threats#main

This site has a lot of information...

http://pib.socioambiental.org/en/povo/akuntsu

See:
http://www.enotes.com/genocide-encyclopedia/amazon-region

See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ya%CC%A7nomam%C3%B6#Violence

See:
http://www.survivalinternational.org/news/7464

See:
http://www.survivalinternational.org/tribes/uncontacted-brazil

Fortunately is seems that the general public feeling in Brazil has been changing and there is more sympathy towards the indigenous peoples.