When will the United States and other European Nations,
Recognize the Genocide Against Native Americans (the largest
in history)?
By Dr. Frank Javier Garcia Berumen
A mass killing during the Armenian genocide.
On Saturday, August 24, 2021, President Joe Biden formally recognized the Armenian Genocide, carried out by Turkey. It was a welcomed and long overdue acknowledgement by the United States. But when will the United States and other European powers recognize and acknowledge the genocide against Native
Americans (which is the largest in human history)?
After Biden’s announcement, there was a flurry of news reports on the historic decision. Commentators talked about how overdue was the recognition of such a horrible event, and some, talked about the spike of killings of African Americans by law enforcement. Unbelievably, not one of these commentators referenced the genocide against Native Americans, on whose land they stand and live.
The Armenian Genocide took place between 1914 and 1918, and was carried out by the Ottoman Empire (which at that time included what would become the country of Turkey). During this terrible campaign, between 300,000 to 2 million people were systematically murdered.
After World War I, the Ottoman Empire was occupied and partitioned, by England and France. Soon, thereafter, the Turkish War of Independence gave birth to the Republic of Turkey on October 29, 1923. Since then, Turkey has continued to deny the existence of the Armenian Genocide.
Before Europeans invaded America in 1492, it was a land populated by tens of millions of people living in North, Central, and South America.
Before Europeans invaded America (which is a continent and not one country) in 1492, it was a land populated by tens of millions of people living in North, Central, and South America. Native American historian Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz noted, “The total population of the hemisphere was about one hundred million at the end of the fifteenth century, with about two-fifths in north America, including Mexico. Central Mexico {Meso America} alone supported some thirty million people. “1
It is estimated Mexico was home to some 80% of the native population in the Americas (or 80 million) at the time that the Europeans arrived. 2
Thousands of roads, crisscrossed the Americas, bristling with trade and commerce. Dunbar-Ortiz wrote, “Influences from the south powerfully shaped the indigenous peoples in the north (in what is now the Untied States) and Mexicans continue to migrate as they did for millennia but now cross the arbitrary border that was established in the US war against Mexico in 1846-48).”3
Mexico was the center of pre-Columbian Native American world, due to this massive population of the Toltecs, Aztecs, Mayans, and other native societies. Joseph noted, “In many ways, Mexico was the hearth of the vital ways of the continent, radiating out from the center the traits and influenced of its native civilizations…The area was a dynamic one with millions of people representing diverse tribal backgrounds and languages.” 4
The genesis of European exploration and conquest, as well as genocide, was the Doctrine of Discovery, created by the Treaty of Tordesillas of 1494. This document stated that European powers had the right to seize lands and its inhabitants, who were non-Christian. The victims of these European ambitions would be Africa, Asia, and the Americas. Indigenous peoples have never recognized such a treaty or rights.
Thomas Jefferson argued that the Doctrine of Discovery was part of international law.
That notwithstanding, in 1792, U.S. Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson argued that the Doctrine of Discovery was part of international law; and that it was also applicable to the United States. This doctrine became the foundation of United States imperialism; and the genocide against indigenous peoples. As late as 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court has cited the case City of Sherrill v. Oneida Indian Nation of New York. In writing for the majority opinion, Ruth Bader Ginsburg stated, “Under the ‘doctrine of discovery…’ fee title {ownership of the lands occupied by Indians} when the colonists arrived became vested in the sovereign-first the discovering European nation and later the original states of the United States.”
The Doctrine of Discovery has been challenged by different international entities and groups. On April 10, 2010, the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII) determined that the Doctrine of Discovery “as the foundation of the violation of their (indigenous) human rights.” 5 However, European nations, the United States, and other nations, complicit in the genocide against indigenous peoples continue to perpetuate a grave historical amnesia.
A short overview of the historical facts cannot be refuted. In 1492, Christopher Columbus (under the sponsorship of Spain) landed in the Caribbean islands. Almost immediately, they systematically murdered, tortured, enslaved, kidnapped, raped, looted, and destroyed, the Taino, Arawak, Caribs, and other native people in the area. These indigenous people became extinct within twenty years.
The next focus of the Spanish conquistadores was Mexico in 1519. They were led by the infamous Hernando Cortez. The Spanish were aided by the invisible weapons of European diseases, which were non-existent in the Americas, as well as muskets, gunpowder, horses, and dogs. They were able to subdue the Aztecs in 1521. From there, they traveled north to the present-day U.S. Southwest; and then to Central and South America, leaving a trail of destruction, murder, rape, and looting.
Conquistador hernan Cortez subdued the Aztecs by 1521.
Next came the French and British, which eventually lead to fighting the French and Indian War (1754-1763) for the destiny and control of North America. Not to be outdone, Portugal seized Brazil in 1500, citing the Doctrine of Discovery.
In 1781, the newly formed Untied States of American won its independence from England. It quickly discarded the British Proclamation of 1763, which prohibited European migration east of the Appalachian Mountains. Manifest Destiny (a malignant variant of the Doctrine of Discovery), the concept that God had ordained that the new nation would extend its dominion “from sea to shining sea” and every done along the way was morally justified.
In the next 150 years, the United States carried out ruthless and brutal “Indian Wars” against “hostile tribes.” The federal, state, and local government were complicit in these campaigns. The genocide against indigenous people included massacres; the destruction of livestock and animals like the buffalo; forced removals and imprisonment; rape and plunder; scalping and slavery; pitched battles and smallpox-laden food and clothing; and boarding schools, beginning in the 1630s (to which native children were forcefully taken to “kill the Indian” in them). Indigenous historian Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz wrote in her book An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States, “Nearly all the population areas of the Americas were reduced by 90 percent following the onset of colonizing projects…from one hundred million to ten million.” 6
The governmental violence directed at indigenous people or the so-called “Indian Wars” came to an end with the Wounded Knee Massacre, at the Pine Ridge Reservation, South Dakota, in 1890. However, the other means of oppression and marginalization have continued to this day.
Treaties and laws were enacted to eradicate the Indian way of life.
The governmental violence directed at indigenous people during the so-called “Indian Wars” culminated with the Wounded Knee Massacre.
Between 1781 and 1881, the U.S. Congress approved exactly 371 treaties with Native American nations, as required by the U.S. Constitution. However, there were many other treaties that were signed by the President of the United States, but not ratified by the U.S. Congress. As a result, there are some 600 treaties that indigenous tribes consider bona fide and legal. During this period of treaty making with the United States, some two million acres were taken from native tribes though coercion, fraud, and outright breach.7 At the end, not one single treaty was respected by the government.
The Dawes Act (or the General Allotment Act and/or the Dawes Severalty Act of 1887) was an effort to eradicate the tribal council and the land held in common by the entire tribe. It stipulated that each head of an indigenous household would receive 160 acres; and those under 18 years of age or orphans, 80 acres. The law was ripe with loopholes. Many whites adopted native children or orphans, and thereby appropriated the land. Surplus land was sold to non-natives. As a result, between 1887 and 1934, native tribes were dispossessed of some 100 million acres of land or two-thirds of what they held in 1887. 8
U.S. Senator Arthur Watkins was the chief proponent the Indian termination policy.
Between the mid-1940s and mid-1950s, the federal government began a new policy called the “Indian Termination Policy.” The policy has as its intention to end the federal government’s recognition of tribal sovereignty, the exclusion of state laws that was applicable to native peoples, and the termination of trust ship over reservations. During 1953-1964, the federal government ceased the recognition of one hundred tribes and bands. As a consequence, more than 2,500,000 acres of trust land lost their protected status, and most of it was sold to non-native persons. The Termination Policy also included moving thousands of native people to urban centers with the promise of jobs and housing. The effort was a dismal and heart-breaking failure, as they found it impossible to find decent jobs and housing due to blatant racism and limited education.
Today, they are some 574 federally recognized tribes, nations, bands, rancherias, villages, and pueblos. Many tribes have never been recognized by the federal government and thereby are even more vulnerable to being appropriated by government and/or states. Native tribes continue to be “wards of the federal government,” who at their whim impose laws that limit their sovereignty, way of life, education, health, economic life, and their natural resources.
Indigenous People continue to be marginalized in several of ways
In spite of their contributions to America, Native Americans remain the most impoverished of all ethnic communities.
Native Americans are the most impoverished of all ethnic communities. One out of three Native Americans live in poverty; with a median income per year of $23,000 (American Community Survey, Northwestern Institute for Poverty Research, February 24, 2020). Only 50% of native students graduate from high school in the seven states with the largest indigenous population (The Civil Rights Project, 2010); and only 17% continue their education after high school compared with 60% of the U.S. population (Post Secondary National Policy Institute, 2019). 8
Indigenous people are imprisoned at 38% higher than the national average (Quartz, April 27, 2015). They are also, despite the ethnocentric media to the contrary, have the highest levels of killings with police encounters than any other ethnic group according to a Centers of Disease Control review for the years 1999 to 2013.The annual rate for Native Americans was 2.9%. This compares with African Americans with 2.6%; Latinos, 1.7%; Whites, 0.9%; and Asian or Pacific Islanders, 0.6% (CNN, November 13, 2017).
According to a study by Trauma, Violence & Abuse (June 16, 2016), Native Americans have the highest suicide rate than any other ethnic or racial group in the United States. Some 11.2% of all indigenous deaths are related to alcoholism (MSNBC, August 28, 2008).
Some have argued that one reason that the media and government often ignore Native Americans is that they constitute an insignificant percentage of the nation’s population. However, the demographic data is misleading. According to the 2010 U.S. Census, the total U.S. population totaled 308,745,538. The census results listed by race and/or ethnicity were as follows: White, 196,817,552 (63.7 %); Black or African American, 37,685,848 (12.2 %); American Indian and Alaska Native, 2,247,098 (0.7 %); Asian, 14,465,124 ((4.7 %); Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islanders, 481,576 (0.15 %); two or more races, 5,966,481(1.9 %); some other race, 604,265 (0.2 %). Latinos remained the nation’s ethnic minority with 50,477,594 (16.3 %) of the total population.
The breakdown of the different Latino communities were as follows; Mexicans, 29.3 million; Puerto Ricans, 4.1 million; Cubans, 1.5 million; Salvadorians, 1.5 million; and Dominicans, 1.2 million. The total Central American
population totaled 3.6 million; and those from South America, 2.5 million. The fact remains that Mexicans are an indigenous people, as are most of the people from Central America (most of descents of the Mayans). If the Mexican, Central American, and the “official Native American population” is added it totals 35,147,098 million! This is not an insignificant percentage of the nation’s population.
When the indigenous writer Sherman Alexie was asked to comment on Mexican immigration, he responded, “Let’s get one thing out of the way: Mexican immigration is an oxymoron. Mexicans are indigenous.” 9
The racial divide in the United States has only been framed as only Black and White in the media ignoring Native Americans.
The racial divide in the United States has only been framed as only Black and White in the media. Seldom does the media focus on native people in any way. The composition of national news staffs, movies, television, policy, and government concerns reflect this day after day, year after year. Native people are invisible, except for passing reference in school textbooks (most often distortions, such as in one high history textbook, that for example, that lists the Massacre at Wounded Knee in 1890, as a battle!); and the proverbial stereotypes as sports mascots.
This writer surmises that the myopic media is due to several undeniable and irreversible, historical events and truths. Both indigenous peoples (and Mexicans) and African Americans have felt the hard sting of racism and marginalization for centuries. However, the experience of Native Americans is unique in U.S. History. For one, they are the original inhabitants of America (which is a continent and not one country). The twin evils of genocide and the robbery of the entire continent is irreversible. Euro-Americans will never tell indigenous people that they are going back to Europe or return the millions of indigenous people annihilated in the
Native American genocide. In addition, indigenous people will continue to be considered “wards of the federal government.” The federal government continues to covet the natural resources and reservation lands. Indigenous people also have more than six-hundred treaties that were signed with the United States federal government. These treaties determine their marginalized realities.
The United Nations Genocide Convention, which was established in 1948, defines genocide as “acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national ethnic, racial or religious group, as such” which includes the murder of its members, causing serious bodily or mental harm, creating conditions that “bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.” 10
The experience of indigenous peoples in the United States and throughout the Americas, since 1492, clearly meets the standard and criteria of the United Nations Genocide Convention definition of “genocide.”
When will the United States and other nations acknowledge the existence of more than 500 years of genocide against indigenous peoples? Only when this terrible crime is acknowledged, will there be a beginning of healing.
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Copyright 20221 by Dr. Frank Javier Garcia Berumen. Dr. Berumen is an educator and writer. His books include: Latino Image Makers of Hollywood (MacFarland & Co., Inc.); Edward R. Roybal: The Mexican American Struggle for Political Empowerment (Bilingual Services); and American Indian Image Makers of Hollywood (McFarland and Co., Inc.).
This article is copyrighted 2021 by Frank Javier Garcia Berumen. All rights reserved. All duplication of this article is prohibited without the expressed permission of the author. All photos are in the public domain.
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1 Dunbar-Ortiz, Roxanne (2014). An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the Untied States. Boston: Beacon Press, p. 115.
2 Josephy, Alvin M. (1994). 500 Nations: An Illustrated History of North American Indians. New York: Alfred A.
Knopf, p. 64.
3 Dunbar-Ortiz, p. 18
4 Josephy, p. 64.
5 Fricker, Tonya Gonnella (2010). “Preliminary Study of the Impact on Indigenous Peoples of the international Legal
Construct Known as the Doctrine of Discovery.” Presented at the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, Ninth
Session, Untied Nations Economic and Social Council, New York, April 27, 2010.
6 Dunbar-Ortiz, Roxanne (2014). An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States. Boston, MA: Beacon Press, p.
142.
7 See: Deliria, Vine, Jr. and Raymond Damalie (1999). Documents of Indian Diplomacy: Treaties, Agreements, and
Conventions, 1775-1979. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.
8 Dunbar-Ortiz, p. 14.
9 Daily Kos, February 1, 2012,
10 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide art. 2, 78 U.N.T.S. 277, 9 December
1948.