An American Holocaust Essay

Native Americans have been miss understood and ill-treated by their conquerors for over 300 years (Healey, 1997). Believing that he had reached the West Indies Christopher Columbus called the indigenous population the “people of India” (Schaefer, 1996). Many of the people in the United States today view Thanksgiving and the discovery of the “New World” by Columbus as a milestone to the development of this Nation. In reality the arrival of the Europeans throughout North America produced a demographic breakdown of the American Indian people.This paper will investigate the effect of institutional racism perpetuated historically by the U. S. Government on Native Americans. It will outline how the arrival of the Anglo-European fore fathers of America have unintentionally, intentionally, and systematically destroyed the American Indian way of life.

American Indian Demise to Disease Many people believe that the Europeans defeated American Indian tribes because they were inferior on the battlefield.Although, many have been destroyed through warfare, the vast majority of them have been conquered because they had no resistance to the multitude of diseases brought to this continent by the Europeans (Mihesuah, 1996). The American Indians had no immunity to these illnesses. The first century after contact was the most disastrous, between 1520 and 1600 31 major epidemics swept across the land.

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The Indians died quickly after exposure to these epidemics. The Indian population of North America fell from about five million at contact to three million individuals within 100 years (Mihesuah, 1996).One reason that such epidemics were so destructive was that without any immunity whatsoever the American Indian population was nearly all afflicted or infected by a disease at the same time. Another reason was the inferior medical practices employed by the Indians, such as sweat houses, herbs, and spiritual prayer were grossly inadequate for these Eastern spawned illnesses (Thornton, 1942).

Of the diseases introduced from these Eastern Hemisphere, the greatest early killers of American Indians were smallpox, typhus, and measles with smallpox probably being the most devastating of the three (Thornton, 1942).Europeans quickly learned of Indians susceptibility to diseases, and in 1763 British officers led by Lord Jeffrey Amherst sent blankets infected with smallpox to Ottawa’s and other tribes in deployment of early biological warfare tactics (Mihesuah, 1996). Tuberculosis and alcoholism have more likely headed the list of more recent killers of American Indians. The destructiveness of alcoholism is linked to the current high mortality rates of American Indians from suicide, accidents, diabetes, and liver disease.

Without doubt, the biggest factor in the demise of the American Indian is due to diseases introduced from the Eastern Hemisphere (Thornton, 1942). But when these diseases were intentionally employed on the Indian people by representatives of the U. S. Government clearly displays an overt act of racism and an outright attempt at racial formation. Which is a socio-historical process by which racial categories are created and inhibited by the perpetuation of one race and the transformation or destruction of others (Schaefer, 1996). Military action: U.

S. Government vs. Native AmericansIndians who survived the biological invasion soon faced armed foes. While warfare was not very significant compared to disease in the overall decline in American Indian population, many tribes were brought to the brink of extinction by war.

To be more accurate would be to say genocide by the Anglo-Americans in the name of war (Thornton, 1942). Genocide in the name of war is a common mask in so called civilized societies. For example the battle at Wounded Knee in South Dakota, were several hundred men, women, and children are massacred was not a battle as the government would like us to believe, it was genocide (Brown, 1970).Tribes with small populations and little weaponry were the first destroyed. The larger Anglo-American forces combined with horses, muskets, cannons, and other arms, over powered Indian warriors armed with tomahawks, spears, bows and arrows, or clubs.

After the Indians acquired horses and European guns, they still could not match the number of Anglican invaders (Mihesuah, 1996). It must not be misconstrued that American Indians were helpless victims of the American Government expansion. Many groups offered strong resistance to federal policy that proved difficult to defeat.For example, in 1861, 24 Chiricahua Apaches led by Geronimo eluded 5,000 U. S. troops for 25 years.

They eventually surrendered in 1886 because the U. S. Government had imprisoned their families and held them as ransom (Brown, 1970). The U.

S. bureau of census 1894 estimates that over 45,000 Indians lost their lives in wars against the U. S. The actual number of Indians killed is greater than that because it is Indian tradition to carry their casualties to secret burial places. The Indian casualties reported by the Census Bureau are only those Indians that were found by U. S.

soldiers.Scholars on Indian affairs suggest that the number could actually be double this figure. American Indian suffered substantial population loss due to warfare stemming from European arrival and colonization (Thornton, 1942). The U. S. Government committed wide spread genocide on Native Americans in the name of progress and the good of the people. If the needs of tribes interfered with the needs, or even the whims of the white majority, then the U.

S. Government was to be victorious (Schaefer, 1996). This is another outright example of racial formation by the American Government. Governmental Policy Toward Native AmericansThe imposed removal and destruction of the Indian culture and way of life became rampant following the passage of the Indian Removal Act of 1830. The Indian removal act called for the relocation of all eastern tribes, across the Mississippi River. The infamous, Trail of Tears, was the largest forced migration of the time. Military action, disease, starvation, and extreme harsh conditions marked the movement.

Thus leading to increased mortality of the Indian population (Josephy, 1994). Scholars estimate that the Cherokee removal in the late 1830s, resulted in the loss of nearly a third of their people during transit.In the name of progress, the Removal act became very popular among the white majority because it opened more land to settlement (Thornton, 1942). Further loss of Indian culture, land, and way of life came through the unscrupulously handling of the General Allotment Act (also known as the Dawes Act). The Governments intention to merge the various tribes into white society was to turn them into American style farmers and ranchers, which was contrary to the Indian way of life (Thornton, 1942). The Indians did not believe or understand land ownership as well.The government divided the tribe’s land into small individual tracts of 160 acres for each family.

The surplus land (millions of acres) was then auctioned to Anglo-Americans (Mihesuah, 1996). The discrimination practices by the U. S. Government over the years have taken many forms and many names as relevant in the numerous acts that have been passed and subsequently failed over the years. But the denial of opportunities and equal rights to the Indian people or any people for that matter based strictly on race is racism at its worst regardless of what the government might call it. Governmental Intervention in Indian EducationThe most outrageous act of cultural genocide by the U.

S. government is evident in the intervention of the American Indian educational process. In an attempt to assimilate or “whitemanize” American Indians the U.

S. Government adopted the practice of sending Indian children, at times without parental consent, to off-reservation boarding schools. In September 1879 with the permission of the Secretary of Interior and the War department, Richard Henry Pratt opened the first of many such schools; it was located in central Pennsylvania, and called the Carlisle Industrial School for Indians (American Experience).Children attending the schools were often administered cultural “shock treatments” (Lakota Woman, 1990). Pratt himself wrote “I believe in immersing the Indians in our civilization and when we get them under, holding them there until they are thoroughly soaked”.

And in a speech he said “convert him in all ways but color into a white man, in fact the Indian would-be exterminated…. as beneficiary of the greatest gift at the command and of the white man — his own civilization” (American Experience).

Indian Children arrived at the schools to begin a process of Americanization. The first step of assimilation was to cut the children’s long hair. For the Lakota Indians, the cutting of ones hair was symbolic of mourning. Many young braves agonized because of their hair lose (Lakota Woman, 1990). The boarding schools were modeled after military life, the boys were issued uniforms, and the girls dressed in Victorian-style dresses. The students were required to wear shoes, as moccasins were not allowed and discipline was strictly enforced (American Experience).The Indian children were given English names, and were severely punished for speaking their native languages or practicing their traditional religions.

Many children, not surprisingly, had an extremely difficult time adjusting to their new surroundings, and runaways were a common problem facing administrators (Lakota Woman, 1990). Many of the children attending these schools, as on the reservation suffered from health problems from European diseases. Most of the children who became ill were sent back home to their families, but some did pass away at the schools and were buried there.Of the 12,000 Indian children that attended the Carlisle school over its 39-year life span, most return to the reservation. (American Experience). Many of the young people that returned were unable to participate effectively in tribal life after their exposure to the boarding school experience and turned to destructive mechanisms of coping with their life such as alcohol and drug abuse (Lakota Woman, 1990). In the early 1900’s for humanitarian and economic reasons the government endorsed policies that encouraged reservation day schools so that youngsters were not separated from their families for long periods of time.

However to foster assimilation by increasing the contact between the races, the commissioner opened reservation schools to white children and encouraged Indian children to attend local public schools (Schaefer, 1996). The attempts by the U. S. government to assimilate the American Indians to the white way are not only overt prejudice but also blatant racism of the worst kind. Conclusion There is continued stereotyping of Indians in American culture to this day. Urban Indians face the barriers of discrimination, prejudice and racism that confront other minority groups of color.Historically the Americanization of Native Americans has caused a catastrophic collapse of their culture and way of life.

Contact with Anglo-Europeans and subsequent relations with the American Government have resulted in, unintentional destruction of millions of American Indians through contact with Eastern diseases; intentional annihilation of tens of thousands of Indians through warfare and genocide; and systematic attempts to Americanize Indians through schools and government policies.All though the initial assault was very devastating to Native Americans, Indian population has made a remarkable recovery and their traditions and heritage show few signs of disappearing. However, today’s Native Americans are the most under nourished, most short lived, least educated, and least healthy of any cultural group in America (Thornton, 1942). For many Native Americans our celebrated Thanksgiving and Columbus Day are no milestone, nor a promise of good things to come, but perhaps a mere reminder of their fallen brothers.