Estimating the Loss of Life in America's Indigenous Holocaust, 1492 to Present

reedak

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1. During the past century, researchers have learned a great deal about the nature and scope of what Russell Thornton has called the demographic collapse of the Indigenous population in the Western Hemisphere after 1492. As David Stannard has explained, the almost inconceivable number of deaths caused by the invasion and conquest of these lands by Europeans and their descendants constitute “the worst human holocaust the world had ever witnessed.” Scholars have long had reliable information on the size of the Indigenous population in this hemisphere and this country at its nadir around the turn of the twentieth century. And in recent decades, investigators have developed a range of estimates of the Native population in the Western Hemisphere before 1492. Researchers have also amassed considerable knowledge about the role of diseases, wars, genocidal violence, enslavement, forced relocations, the destruction of food sources, the devastation of ways of life, declining birth rates, and other factors in the Indigenous Holocaust. This paper draws on the work of Russell Thornton, David Stannard, and other scholars in attempting to count the dead—that is, in developing informed and reasonable, if very rough, estimates of the total loss of Indigenous lives caused by colonialism in the Western Hemisphere and in what is today the United States of America. Although this analysis is inevitably grim and saddening, there is much to be gained by understanding the most sustained loss of life in human history—both for people living today and for future generations.

At the turn of the twentieth century, the total number of Native inhabitants living in the entire Western Hemisphere had declined to 4-4.5 million. In 1800, only about 600,000 Indigenous people remained in the coterminous United States. By 1900, the Indigenous population in this country reached its lowest point of about 237,000 people. The size of the Indigenous population in the hemisphere and this country then began to grow again and has increased appreciably during the past century. Today about 70 million Indigenous people live in the Western Hemisphere. There are now approximately 7.25 million American Indians, Alaska Natives, and Native Hawaiians in the U.S. In view of the historically unprecedented and unspeakably tragic depopulation that unfolded after 1492, the survival of Indigenous people is truly extraordinary. However, even today the legacy of invasion, conquest, and colonialism continues to exact a terrible human toll.....

In sum, for the entire present-day United States from 1492 to the present, the total number of Indigenous deaths includes the 12 million estimated by Thornton; the additional approximately 790,000 deaths that occurred in Hawaii, Alaska, in Puerto Rico; and about 200,000 excess deaths since 1900. Thus, the Indigenous Holocaust in this country appears to have taken around 13 million lives. Signally, this horrific number of deaths was only a very small portion of the mind-numbing Holocaust throughout the Western Hemisphere. When Thornton’s estimated hemispheric population decline of 70 million is multiplied by 2.5, the total number of Indigenous deaths throughout the Western Hemisphere between 1492 and 1900 appears to be about 175 million.67 And the number of Indigenous people who have died in the hemisphere because of war, repression, racism, and harsh conditions of life since 1900 surely runs into the millions.....

Source: https://www.se.edu/native-american/...s/49/2019/09/A-NAS-2017-Proceedings-Smith.pdf

2. Instead of blinking, or worse, closing his eyes to reality, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken should look squarely at the truth of America's genocide of Red Indians and urge his master and ruling party to address the issue immediately. Then there may a blink of light for the American natives who are now as rare as bald eagles driven to the brink of extinction.

Uncle Sam seems to have a strong aversion to taking a long hard look at the mirror because he sees a devil staring back menacingly at him. It is laughable for the US to propagate human rights to other countries -- just like a mafia boss preaching with a bible in one hand and a sword in the other. :)
 
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Really it’s just natural selection.

It isn’t anyone’s fault that they weren’t immune to disease.

As for the other issues that has been no worse then anywhere else in the world.

That population was going to be wiped out at some point eventually, it was unpreventable.
 
Really it’s just natural selection.

It isn’t anyone’s fault that they weren’t immune to disease.

As for the other issues that has been no worse then anywhere else in the world.

That population was going to be wiped out at some point eventually, it was unpreventable.

Is the current epidemic in the US just natural selection?
 
Is the current epidemic in the US just natural selection?
Obviously that’s why it’s only killing the elderly or those with a sickness already. If you are young and healthy then COVID is no threat.

Nature does this with every other species on the planet so why you believe it wouldn’t do it with us also is just weird.

In fact there are probably some variations of humans that should have gone extinct already but we’ve kept them around.

The homosapian had no issue wiping out the Neanderthal because they were the weaker of the species. Maybe all those indigenous people were supposed to go with smallpox but we screwed up nature and evolution by curing it.
 
Really it’s just natural selection.

It isn’t anyone’s fault that they weren’t immune to disease.

As for the other issues that has been no worse then anywhere else in the world.

That population was going to be wiped out at some point eventually, it was unpreventable.
Nonsense!
 
Obviously that’s why it’s only killing the elderly or those with a sickness already. If you are young and healthy then COVID is no threat.

Nature does this with every other species on the planet so why you believe it wouldn’t do it with us also is just weird.

In fact there are probably some variations of humans that should have gone extinct already but we’ve kept them around.

The homosapian had no issue wiping out the Neanderthal because they were the weaker of the species. Maybe all those indigenous people were supposed to go with smallpox but we screwed up nature and evolution by curing it.
What a mind!
 
The native Indians seem to have a propensity for alcohol. AA is very active on reservations.
And native Americans had no immunity to diseases such as measles and polio and influenza. So many tribes were decimated.
And some tribes were peaceful and others were warlike. The Apaches made war on everyone except other Apaches. That included other Indian tribes and Whites.
I read an interesting story a while back that said war killed more Whites than Indians.
 
and.....should there also be a discussion on the actions of Alexander III of Macendon and Scipio Africanus and Titus Labienus and Genghis Khan and Josef Stalin and and and .... I mean so what! People died because other people came and those people died and so on and so on....the whole essay is a statement of the friggin obvious. The key take away being that...well...people died....holy crap!!!

Whats the point of the OP?
 
@jbander - Hiya muffin you got censored - post your comment again I don't give a toss about your insults its all part of the fun.
Oh and FYI....right wingers....nah I'm a Scot - you don't get right wing Scots its simply not part of our DNA....(y)
Right wing bigoted hate Nazi I think is the terms we are looking for for you ace and you got one thing right the fun is in burying you lying haters and that has been achieved .
 
Right wing bigoted hate Nazi I think is the terms we are looking for for you ace and you got one thing right the fun is in burying you lying haters and that has been achieved .
Wow...Nazi....biggot... all in one sentence and yet you haven't said why? Whilst launching into a deliriously obscure diatribe about fukc knows what is probably rather exciting for you, what you haven't actually explained is your reasoning and methodology. What has the article to do with the historical context within that which it purports not to exist? And why has the context of the document so irked you regarding the other examples of conquest based mass murder I mentioned?
I guess for you its 'all very exciting bumbling around websites posting your confused hamfisted meanderings but prior to waffling on about nazism and bigotry please have the courtesy to explain yourself....toodles muffin....:)
 
Right wing bigoted hate Nazi I think is the terms we are looking for for you ace and you got one thing right the fun is in burying you lying haters and that has been achieved .All anyone has to do is read what you are offering and my words will be realized as valid, so it is quite easy for me. your word are your answer ti your question to me. Not to complicated at all.
 
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Right wing bigoted hate Nazi I think is the terms we are looking for for you ace and you got one thing right the fun is in burying you lying haters and that has been achieved .All anyone has to do is read what you are offering and my words will be realized as valid, so it is quite easy for me. your word are your answer ti your question to me. Not to complicated at all.

yadda....yadda......indeed muffin.......however you're repeating yourself. Now try something novel and attempt to answer the question....it could be so much fun!!
Think of the hours of amusement we could have...me with my twitchy arm, jackbooted and a mild leather fetish trying to fathom the sheer absurdity of your intellectual meanderings. So Muffing start at the beginning and explain....there's no body else here....apart from Wally....and he's a good lad.

toodles for now....(y)
 
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