The less hyped genocide in history

Tracing the cultural holocaust of native Americans

Thousands of years before Christopher Columbus' ships landed in the Bahamas, a different group of

people discovered America: the nomadic ancestors of modern Native Americans who hiked over a “land

bridge” from Asia to what is now Alaska more than 12,000 years ago. These people would come to be

called Native Americans, numbering over 50 million, and settling from the top of North America to the

bottom of South America.

The Native Americans’ history began thousands of years ago but their European encounter started with

one man. Determined to find a direct route from Europe to Asia, Christopher Columbus stumbled on the

Americas in 1492. Columbus called the first people he met ‘Indians’ because he assumed he had been

sailing in the Indian Ocean. But in actuality, this land had already been discovered– millions of Natives

had occupied the Western Hemisphere for hundreds of years.

By the time Christopher Columbus reached the Caribbean in 1492, historians estimate that there were

10 million indigenous peoples living in US territory. But by 1900, the number had reduced to less than

300,000.

Genocide is as old as history. It has been a part of the human condition from the very beginning. There

are two main forms of genocide. One is direct genocide, a deliberate campaign to kill all members of an

ethnic group. The second form of genocide is indirect genocide, which achieves the same result by

seizing or destroying the land, the crops, the livestock and other essential items needed for survival.

In the European conquest of North and South America both forms of genocide were used. There was no

one back in the time of Columbus compiling a census or doing a mass survey. A death toll of 100 million

figures has been documented by D E Stannard, author of American Holocaust. He wrote, "The

destruction of the Indians of the Americas was, far and away, the most massive act of genocide in the

history of the world." Apparently it didn't take long for the Europeans to get this genocide started.

Today there are only around 5 million Native Americans left in the United States (Navajo Times). It is

unlikely that the area encompassing the U.S. only had 5 million people when the Europeans arrived.

After all, as a point of comparison, the population of Africa had approximately 86 million people in the

year 1500 (Demography: Analysis and Synthesis, Four Volume Set: A Treatise in Population, p 42).

European expansion into North America – whether to find gold, escape religious persecution or start a

new life – led to the destruction of Native American livelihoods. Disease was a major killer, followed by

malnutrition. Colonists in search of gold staged violent ambushes on tribal villages, fuelling animosity

with natives. Several wars broke out between tribes and American settlers which led to large death tolls,

land dispossession, oppression and blatant racism.

According to Necrometrics, by as early as the 16th century, the Native American death toll had already

reached an estimated 60 million.

In 1561, the Spanish historian Bartolomé de las Casas, wrote that Spanish colonists had slain 12 million

men, women and children in 40 short years. (A Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies, Bartolomé

de las Casas 1552). American Colonies, Volume 1 of The Penguin history of the United States, History

of the United States Series by Alan Taylor, also discusses the different theories about how many Natives

populated the Americas before European colonization.