reedak
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- May 1, 2014
- Messages
- 726
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.
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.