OT: Remembering a Holocaust
MAB
Hemisphere; within 150 years, there were maybe 6 million Indians left. By
1900 in the USA, there were just 250,000"
By Maria Puente, USA TODAY
WASHINGTON, D.C. - Over the past 500 years, the indigenous peoples of the
Americas have been invaded, conquered, converted, enslaved, diseased,
robbed, removed, confined, massacred and/or assimilated to the brink of
extinction. Now, at last, they're about to be officially celebrated here on
the National Mall, with a museum they had to fight for and a story they get
to tell. (Photo gallery: National Museum of the American Indian, inside and
out)
Museum director Richard West says the building's location on the National
Mall "comes as close to pure historical poetry as I could ever imagine."
By Robert C. Lautman
There will be some mixed feelings when the Smithsonian's National Museum of
the American Indian opens Sept. 21 with six days of festivities. As many as
20,000 Indians in traditional regalia from all over the Americas, from the
Arctic Circle to Patagonia, are expected to march in procession - the
largest multitribal, multinational gathering of Indian people ever in
history. There will be speeches and storytelling, religious ceremonies and
cultural exhibits, food, music and dance, and floods of tears.
Joyful tears to be sure, but tears of mourning, too, for all who died in the
centuries-long Indian holocaust. And tears of regret that it took so long to
get to this point: The United States is the last major country in the
hemisphere to build a national museum focused on the art, history and
culture of the peoples who were here before the European conquest.
"It's going to be pretty emotional," says Suzan Shown Harjo (Cheyenne), a
longtime Indian rights activist and one of the "mothers" of the new museum
who helped conceive it nearly 40 years ago. "We'll be there to celebrate our
survival and to commemorate our tremendous losses. ... All of us will be
surrounded by all sorts of relatives in spirit."
The museum opens 15 years after it was authorized by Congress in a long
fight over Indian rights legislation. It comes decades after other groups
already have secured a place on or near the Mall: There's already a museum
for African art and culture, two for European art, two for Asian art, one on
American history and one on the Jewish Holocaust.
Richard West (Southern Cheyenne), director of the new museum, acknowledges
that a Native presence should have been first on the Mall, not last. So why
wasn't it?
"There was a tremendous cultural invisibility about Indians," West says. On
the other hand, he says, the museum occupies a symbolically important
"keystone" spot, at the foot of the Capitol across from the "apotheosis of
Western civilization" - the East Wing of the National Gallery.
"It's a placement between equals in the political and cultural heart of
America," West says. Now that the country has moved toward respect of
Indians, he says, the museum can help "create the groundwork for
reconciliation" between Native and non-Native peoples. "It comes as close to
pure historical poetry as I could ever imagine."
10,000 years on display
It's accompanied by architectural poetry, too: The museum's $219 million
five-story building - with 7,500 objects covering 10,000 years on display
and at least 4 million visitors a year expected - is a splendid departure
from the neoclassical grandeur and modernist sensibility of other buildings
on the Mall. Thanks to the principle Canadian architect, Douglas Cardinal
(Blackfoot), there are few straight lines. It's all sinuous curves and
circles, clad in textured Kasota limestone of a striking golden hue,
mimicking the appearance of a timeworn Western cliff at sunset. "A
post-modern cliff dwelling," Indian Country Today, the national Indian
newsweekly, called it.
Innumerable consultations with Indians led to such unique features as a main
entrance that faces east, as Indian dwellings do; an outdoor offerings space
for religious ceremonies; and a 120-foot-high dome that echoes the classical
dome of the National Gallery across the Mall - and that will allow the
mapping of the solstices and equinoxes on the circular floor below.
"As a national icon, the building should appear like a natural element,"
says Duane Blue Spruce (Laguna, San Juan Pueblo), an architect and the
facilities planning coordinator for the museum. "It speaks to the long
history of Native peoples on the land."
But it's the content that counts, and on this point the Smithsonian promises
a different kind of museum, one in which the "content" gets to speak. This
is a departure for the museum world in general, and the Smithsonian in
particular: Many Indians in the USA have long believed the Smithsonian
hoards their ancestors' bones and artifacts while treating living people as
government property or anthropological curiosities. There are lingering
tensions over Indian demands to return more remains and sacred objects still
in the Smithsonian's natural history collections.
"The promise of this museum is that it's not going to be just about Native
people in the past tense, but in the present and future tenses," Harjo says.
Artifacts with tales to tell
For the three opening exhibits, 24 Native communities selected their own
objects to be displayed. They interpreted the ideas and philosophies behind
the objects' creation and use. And they tell the stories of what has
happened to them as individuals and communities. Other Indian communities
will be tapped on a rotating basis to do the same in future exhibits.
"We were very much impressed," says Vivian Juan-Saunders, chairwoman of the
Tohono O'odham Nation of southern Arizona and northern Mexico, one of the
first 24 tribes to be spotlighted in the museum. "They came out four or five
times to get the people's perspectives on our history rather than what
others have written about us. It was a different approach."
Sad numbers
The Indian holocaust will not be ignored in the museum, but it will not
dominate, either. In 1490, there were an estimated 75 million people in the
Western Hemisphere; within 150 years, there were maybe 6 million Indians
left. By 1900 in the USA, there were just 250,000; today, the Census reports
4.1 million Americans claim Indian heritage. Still, the 500 years since
Columbus are just a fraction of the time Indians have lived in this
hemisphere, so the museum can't be just about death and destruction, West
says.
For many non-Indians, much of what they will find inside the museum will
come as a revelation - and will take their breath away. The museum's
collection of 800,000 objects is one of the world's largest and best
assemblages of indigenous art and artifacts. The core was acquired in the
early 20th century by a wealthy New Yorker, George Gustav Heye, who traveled
the hemisphere buying everything he could find, including carved masks from
the Northwest coast, painted hides and feather bonnets from the Plains, and
pottery and basketry from the Southwest. About 30% of the collection is from
outside the USA, representing the major indigenous cultures of Canada,
Mexico and Central and South America.
"What I want (visitors) to understand is the complexity, layering and
richness of the Native presence," West says.
Admiration and dissent
This richness will help Americans better understand their own land, says Tim
Johnson (Mohawk), executive editor of Indian Country Today.
"It's going to serve as a great educational resource that hopefully will
lead to more people engaging American Indians in their own parts of
America," he says.
There have been few dissenting voices. Bob Haozous (Chiricahua Apache), an
acclaimed artist, fears the museum will emphasize "pretty pictures" at the
expense of less attractive aspects of Indian life, such as racism, poverty,
health problems, unemployment and lack of education. He believes the museum
continues an "assimilationist" approach to Indians.
"It's removing the philosophical element of our culture and focusing only on
the decorative elements," Haozous says from his home in Santa Fe. "It's
glorifying mankind to be dominant over nature, which is totally contrary to
everything in my tribe. It's assimilation based on the notion that Native
culture is a thing of the past."
But this view is not widespread in Indian country, say those who live there.
Instead, there is a sense of optimism and hope.
After all, "it wasn't that long ago that I would visit the East Coast and
people would say to me, 'You look like an Indian; I thought you were all
dead,' " says John Echo-Hawk (Pawnee), director of the Colorado-based Native
American Rights Fund.
Few people are likely to make that mistake from now on.
http://www.usatoday.com/travel/destinations/2004-09-09-indian-museum_x.htm
Dale
news:2rpls3F...@uni-berlin.de...
> "In 1490, there were an estimated 75 million people in the Western
> Hemisphere; within 150 years, there were maybe 6 million Indians left. By
> 1900 in the USA, there were just 250,000"
No doubt there were millions of indigenes killed by Europeans in the
Americas, but 75 million is a pretty generous estimate for the population
of the Americas in 1490. Maybe it was more like 40 million as the author of
this web page suggests
http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstat0.htm#America.
Many if not most of the indigenous people who died in the 150 years
following 1490 were killed by diseases brought by the Europeans, and not at
their murderous hands.
Finally, and still recognizing the deplorable, shameful, and dishonorable
way in which the US government treated the indigenes in the US, mentioning
the number 250,000 in with the other numbers is some kind of dishonest
statistical sleight of hand. Since the first and second numbers referred to
the entire Western Hemisphere, while the last number refers only to the US,
which had fewer people than the rest of the Western Hemisphere in the first
place.
Still, even with all these caveats it's sure that the total number of
indigenous individuals directly killed by Europeans is quite large,
certainly in the millions or low tens of millions. And this was done
primarily by devoutly religious people, believing in Jesus Christ and the
Bible. When you figure it relative to the available population, the killing
of indigenous Americans by Christians probably compares closely to the
killings done by the Nazis and the Communists.
Tim Mellor
> "MAB" <bad-...@nowhere.com> wrote in message
> news:2rpls3F...@uni-berlin.de...
> > "In 1490, there were an estimated 75 million people in the Western
> > Hemisphere; within 150 years, there were maybe 6 million Indians left. By
> > 1900 in the USA, there were just 250,000"
>
> No doubt there were millions of indigenes killed by Europeans in the
> Americas, but 75 million is a pretty generous estimate for the population
> of the Americas in 1490. Maybe it was more like 40 million as the author of
> this web page suggests
> http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstat0.htm#America.
>
> Many if not most of the indigenous people who died in the 150 years
> following 1490 were killed by diseases brought by the Europeans, and not at
> their murderous hands.
...and often both simultaneously. For example, giving the indigeonous
poplulation blankets previously used by those infected with smallpox.
Hank
>
> "Dale" <dmg...@nspm.airmail.net> wrote in message news:<buO5d.1526$zc1....@newssvr12.news.prodigy.com>...
> > "MAB" <bad-...@nowhere.com> wrote in message
> > news:2rpls3F...@uni-berlin.de...
> > > "In 1490, there were an estimated 75 million people in the Western
> > > Hemisphere; within 150 years, there were maybe 6 million Indians left. By
> > > 1900 in the USA, there were just 250,000"
> >
> > No doubt there were millions of indigenes killed by Europeans in the
> > Americas, but 75 million is a pretty generous estimate for the population
> > of the Americas in 1490. Maybe it was more like 40 million as the author of
> > this web page suggests
> > http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstat0.htm#America.
> >
> > Many if not most of the indigenous people who died in the 150 years
> > following 1490 were killed by diseases brought by the Europeans, and not at
> > their murderous hands.
>
> ...and often both simultaneously. For example, giving the indigeonous
> poplulation blankets previously used by those infected with smallpox.
IIRC, there was only one example of intentional infection like this, and
it was a minor case. However, I also remember reading that the first
explorer (DeSoto?) to travel the Mississippi area left smallpox and
measles in their wake, which wiped out an estimated 90% of the
population in the central/lower Mississippi river areas.
<snip>
--
Assimilate a pitiful little species like you? I think not! - Q of Borg
A. Carlson
<dmg...@nspm.airmail.net> wrote:
>"MAB" <bad-...@nowhere.com> wrote in message
>news:2rpls3F...@uni-berlin.de...
>> "In 1490, there were an estimated 75 million people in the Western
>> Hemisphere; within 150 years, there were maybe 6 million Indians left. By
>> 1900 in the USA, there were just 250,000"
>
>No doubt there were millions of indigenes killed by Europeans in the
>Americas, but 75 million is a pretty generous estimate for the population
>of the Americas in 1490. Maybe it was more like 40 million as the author of
>this web page suggests
>http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstat0.htm#America.
>
>Many if not most of the indigenous people who died in the 150 years
>following 1490 were killed by diseases brought by the Europeans, and not at
>their murderous hands.
One should not forget the policy of deliberately delivering disease
ridden blankets to the indians to help this process along.
Hank
>
> On Mon, 27 Sep 2004 06:29:05 +0000 (UTC), "Dale"
> <dmg...@nspm.airmail.net> wrote:
>
> >"MAB" <bad-...@nowhere.com> wrote in message
> >news:2rpls3F...@uni-berlin.de...
> >> "In 1490, there were an estimated 75 million people in the Western
> >> Hemisphere; within 150 years, there were maybe 6 million Indians left. By
> >> 1900 in the USA, there were just 250,000"
> >
> >No doubt there were millions of indigenes killed by Europeans in the
> >Americas, but 75 million is a pretty generous estimate for the population
> >of the Americas in 1490. Maybe it was more like 40 million as the author of
> >this web page suggests
> >http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstat0.htm#America.
> >
> >Many if not most of the indigenous people who died in the 150 years
> >following 1490 were killed by diseases brought by the Europeans, and not at
> >their murderous hands.
>
> One should not forget the policy of deliberately delivering disease
> ridden blankets to the indians to help this process along.
Cite please?
Jeffrey Turner
> "A. Carlson" wrote:
>>On Mon, 27 Sep 2004 06:29:05 +0000 (UTC), "Dale"
>><dmg...@nspm.airmail.net> wrote:
>>>
>>>>"In 1490, there were an estimated 75 million people in the Western
>>>>Hemisphere; within 150 years, there were maybe 6 million Indians left. By
>>>>1900 in the USA, there were just 250,000"
>>>
>>>No doubt there were millions of indigenes killed by Europeans in the
>>>Americas, but 75 million is a pretty generous estimate for the population
>>>of the Americas in 1490. Maybe it was more like 40 million as the author of
>>>this web page suggests
>>>http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstat0.htm#America.
>>>
>>>Many if not most of the indigenous people who died in the 150 years
>>>following 1490 were killed by diseases brought by the Europeans, and not at
>>>their murderous hands.
>>
>>One should not forget the policy of deliberately delivering disease
>>ridden blankets to the indians to help this process along.
>
> Cite please?
http://www.nativeweb.org/pages/legal/amherst/lord_jeff.html
Jeffrey1 Amherst and Smallpox Blankets
Lord Jeffrey1 Amherst's letters discussing germ warfare against
American Indians
"... every Tree is become an Indian...." Colonel Henry Bouquet
to General Amherst, dated 29 June 1763. [63k]
Lord Jeff
Lord Jeffrey1 Amherst was commanding general of British forces
in North America during the final battles of the so-called
French & Indian war (1754-1763). He won victories against the
French to acquire Canada for England and helped make England the
world's chief colonizer at the conclusion of the Seven Years War
among the colonial powers (1756-1763).
The town of Amherst, Massachusetts, was named for Lord Jeff even
before he became a Lord. Amherst Collegewas later named after
the town. It is said the local inhabitants who formed the town
preferred another name, Norwottuck, after the Indians whose land
it had been; the colonial governor substituted his choice for
theirs. Frank Prentice Rand, in his book, The Village of
Amherst: A Landmark of Light [Amherst, MA: Amherst Historical
Society, 1958], says that at the time of the naming, Amherst was
"the most glamorous military hero in the New World. ... ...the
name was so obvious in 1759 as to be almost inevitable." [p. 15]
Amherst College china plates depicting mounted Englishman with
sword chasing Indians on foot were in use until the 1970's.
The history of the naming of the town of Amherst, New York,
shows a similar idolizing of the general:
On April 10, 1818, the Town of Amherst was officially
created by an Act of the Senate of the State of New York. This
new town was named for Sir Jeffrey Amherst, an English lord who
was Commander-in-Chief of the British troops in America in
1758-1763, before the American Revolution. King George III
rewarded Lord Amherst by giving him 20,000 acres in New York,
but Lord Amherst never visited his new lands. [From: A Brief
History of the Town of Amherst, (Amherst Museum, 1997)
Smallpox blankets
Despite his fame, Jeffrey Amherst's name became tarnished by
stories of smallpox-infected blankets used as germ warfare
against American Indians. These stories are reported, for
example, in Carl Waldman's Atlas of the North American Indian
[NY: Facts on File, 1985]. Waldman writes, in reference to a
siege of Fort Pitt (Pittsburgh) by Chief Pontiac's forces during
the summer of 1763:
... Captain Simeon Ecuyer had bought time by sending
smallpox-infected blankets and handkerchiefs to the Indians
surrounding the fort -- an early example of biological warfare
-- which started an epidemic among them. Amherst himself had
encouraged this tactic in a letter to Ecuyer. [p. 108]
Some people have doubted these stories; other people, believing
the stories, nevertheless assert that the infected blankets were
not intentionally distributed to the Indians, or that Lord Jeff
himself is not to blame for the germ warfare tactic.
Lord Jeff's letters during Pontiac's Rebellion
The documents provided here are made available to set the record
straight. These are images of microfilmed original letters
written between General Amherst and his officers and others in
his command during the summer of 1763, when the British were
fighting what became known as Pontiac's Rebellion.
Pontiac, an Ottawa chief who had sided with the French, led an
uprising against the British after the French surrender in
Canada. Indians were angered by Amherst's refusal to continue
the French practice of providing supplies in exchange for Indian
friendship and assistance, and by a generally imperious British
attitude toward Indians and Indian land. As Waldman puts it:
... Lord Jeffrey Amherst, the British commander-in-chief for
America, believed ... that the best way to control Indians was
through a system of strict regulations and punishment when
necessary, not "bribery," as he called the granting of
provisions. [p. 106]
The British Manuscript Project
The documents provided here are among Amherst's letters and
other papers microfilmed as part of the British Manuscript
Project, 1941-1945, undertaken by the United States Library of
Congress during World War II. The project was designed to
preserve British historical documents from possible war damage.
There are almost three hundred reels of microfilm on Amherst
alone.
The microfilm is difficult to read, and paper copies even
harder. Nonetheless, the images obtained by scanning the copies
are sufficiently clear for online viewing. The images are of key
excerpts from the letters. An index is provided to show by
microfilm document number the location of the imaged documents
in the microfilm set. Text files of the excerpts are also
provided.
The documents
These are the pivotal letters:
* Colonel Henry Bouquet to General Amherst, dated 13 July
1763, [262k] suggests in a postscript the distribution of
blankets to "inocculate the Indians";
* Amherst to Bouquet, dated 16 July 1763, [128k] approves
this plan in a postscript and suggests as well as "to try Every
other method that can serve to Extirpate this Execrable Race."
(This postcript spans two pages.)
These letters also discuss the use of dogs to hunt the Indians,
the so-called "Spaniard's Method," which Amherst approves in
principle, but says he cannot implement because there are not
enough dogs. In a letter dated 26 July 1763, Bouquet
acknowledges Amherst's approval [125k] and writes, "all your
Directions will be observed."
Historian Francis Parkman, in his book The Conspiracy of Pontiac
and the Indian War after the Conquest of Canada [Boston: Little,
Brown, 1886] refers to a postscript in an earlier letter from
Amherst to Bouquet wondering whether smallpox could not be
spread among the Indians:
Could it not be contrived to send the Small Pox among those
disaffected tribes of Indians? We must on this occasion use
every stratagem in our power to reduce them. [Vol. II, p. 39
(6th edition)]
I have not found this letter, but there is a letter from Bouquet
to Amherst, dated 23 June 1763, [189k] three weeks before the
discussion of blankets to the Indians, stating that Captain
Ecuyer at Fort Pitt (to which Bouquet would be heading with
reinforcements) has reported smallpox in the Fort. This
indicates at least that the writers knew the plan could be
carried out.
It is curious that the specific plans to spread smallpox were
relegated to postscripts. I leave it to the reader to ponder the
significance of this.
Several other letters from the summer of 1763 show the smallpox
idea was not an anomaly. The letters are filled with comments
that indicate a genocidal intent, with phrases such as:
* "...that Vermine ... have forfeited all claim to the
rights of humanity" (Bouquet to Amherst, 25 June) [149k]
* "I would rather chuse the liberty to kill any Savage...."
(Bouquet to Amherst, 25 June) [121k]
* "...Measures to be taken as would Bring about the Total
Extirpation of those Indian Nations" (Amherst to Sir William
Johnson, Superintendent of the Northern Indian Department, 9
July) [229k]
* "...their Total Extirpation is scarce sufficient
Attonement...." (Amherst to George Croghan, Deputy Agent for
Indian Affairs, 7 August) [145k]
* "...put a most Effectual Stop to their very Being"
(Amherst to Johnson, 27 August [292k]; emphasis in original).
Amherst's correspondence during this time includes many letters
on routine matters, such as officers who are sick or want to be
relieved of duty; accounts of provisions on hand, costs for
supplies, number of people garrisoned; negotiations with
provincial governors (the army is upset with the Pennsylvania
assembly, for example, for refusing to draft men for service);
and so on. None of these other letters show a deranged mind or
an obsession with cruelty. Amherst's venom was strictly reserved
for Indians.
The French and the Indians
The sharpest contrast with letters about Indians is provided by
letters regarding the other enemy, the French. Amherst has been
at war with the French as much as with the Indians; but he
showed no obsessive desire to extirpate them from the earth.
They were apparently his "worthy" enemy. It was the Indians who
drove him mad. It was they against whom he was looking for "an
occasion, to extirpate them root and branch." [J. C. Long, Lord
Jeffrey Amherst: A Soldier of the King (NY: Macmillan, 1933), p.
187]
Long describes Amherst's "kindliness to the French" and refers
to Amherst's "intensity of feeling on these issues":
Amherst's kindliness to the French civilians was more than a
military gesture. He had a warm sympathy for the countryside, an
interest in people and the way they lived. "The Inhabitants live
comfortably," he observed in his journal, "most have stone
houses.... ....
This humane attitude was reflected in his rules for the
governing of Canada. As its de facto military Governor-General
he established a temporary code ... a program of tolerance and
regard for colonial sensibilities....
***
Perhaps most statesmanlike of all was Amherst's recognition
of the French law, ... a recognition which permitted change of
national loyalty without social upheaval. [p. 137]
In contrast to these kindly feelings, Long says that Pontiac's
attacks on British forts at Detroit and Presqu'Isle "aroused
Amherst to a frenzy, a frenzy almost hysterical in its
impotence." Long then quotes from Amherst's letter to Sir
William Johnson:
... it would be happy for the Provinces there was not an
Indian settlement within a thousand Miles of them, and when they
are properly punished, I care not how soon they move their
Habitations, for the Inhabitants of the Woods are the fittest
Companions for them, they being more nearly allied to the Brute
than to the Human Creation. [p.186]
Colonel Bouquet's poetic line, "... every Tree is become an
Indian," [63k] quoted above, was his description of a contagion
of fear among "the terrified Inhabitants," for whom the Indians
were a part of the wildness they perceived around themselves.
Indian warriors would not stand in ordered ranks; they fell back
into the forests only to emerge again in renewed attack; their
leaders defied British logic and proved effective against a
string of British forts; these were the enemy that nearly
succeeded in driving the British out, and became the target for
British genocide.2
Conclusion
All in all, the letters provided here remove all doubt about the
validity of the stories about Lord Jeff and germ warfare. The
General's own letters sustain the stories.
As to whether the plans actually were carried out, Parkman has
this to say:
... in the following spring, Gershom Hicks, who had been
among the Indians, reported at Fort Pitt that the small-pox had
been raging for some time among them....
An additional source of information on the matter is the Journal
of William Trent, commander of the local militia of the
townspeople of Pittsburgh during Pontiac's seige of the fort.
This Journal has been described as "... the most detailed
contemporary account of the anxious days and nights in the
beleaguered stronghold." [Pen Pictures of Early Western
Pennsylvania, John W. Harpster, ed. (University of Pittsburgh
Press, 1938).]
Trent's entry for May 24, 1763, includes the following
statement:
... we gave them two Blankets and an Handkerchief out of the
Small Pox Hospital. I hope it will have the desired effect.
Trent's Journal confirms that smallpox had broken out in Fort
Pitt prior to the correspondence between Bouquet and Amherst,
thus making their plans feasible. It also indicates that
intentional infection of the Indians with smallpox had been
already approved by at least Captain Ecuyer at the fort, who
some commentators have suggested was in direct correspondence
with General Amherst on this tactic (though I have not yet found
such letters).
Notes
1. There is some dispute about the spelling of Amherst's first
name. As Lion G. Miles points out, 'Amherst always signed as
"Jeff:" so there has been a long-standing controversy as to the
correct spelling of his first name. I am reasonably certain that
it should be "Jeffery." Those officers closest to him, his aides
etc., always spelled the name that way and transcribed his
orders as from "Jeffery." Official letters addressed to him from
England and the British Army List have it as "Sir Jeffery
Amherst" (never mind that Bouquet solved the problem by
addressing him as "Jeffry"). Even the biography by Long … has
the title of "Lord Jeffery Amherst," not "Jeffrey."' [Lion G.
Miles, member of the board, Native American Institute at Hudson,
NY, in a personal email communication, 15 November 1998]
2. The depiction of Indians as wild beasts was quite common
among early American leaders, including George Washington and
Thomas Jefferson. David E. Stannard writes: 'As is so often the
case, it was New England's religious elite who made the point
more graphically than anyone. Referring to some Indians who had
given offense to the colonists, the Reverend Cotton Mather
wrote: "Once you have but got the Track of those Ravenous
howling Wolves, then pursue them vigourously; Turn not back till
they are consumed… Beat them small as the Dust before the Wind."
Lest this be regarded as mere rhetoric, empty of literal intent,
consider that another of New England's most esteemed religious
leaders, the Reverend Solomon Stoddard, as late as 1703 formally
proposed to the Massachusetts Governor that the colonists be
given the financial wherewithal to purchase and train large
packs of dogs "to hunt Indians as they do bears."' [American
Holocaust: Columbus and the Conquest of the New World (New York
& Oxford: Oxford University Press (1992)), p. 241]
* Go to index of microfilm images and text files of excerpts
* Go to discussion of smallpox and Indians archived from the
discussion list on early American history, IEAHCNET
* Go to Journal of William Trent, 1763
Additional Sources of Information
1. Medical information
A mild form of smallpox virus, Variola minor (also called
alastrim), is transmitted by inhalation and is communicable for
3-7 days. The more serious smallpox virus, Variola major, is
transmitted both by inhalation and by contamination; it is
communicable by inhalation for 9-14 days and by contamination
for several years in a dried state. For further medical
information, see Donald A. Henderson, et al., "Smallpox as a
Biological Weapon: Medical and Public Health Management,"
Journal of the American Medical Association Vol. 281 No. 22
(June 9, 1999).
Ann F. Ramenofsky, Vectors of Death: The Archaeology of European
Contact (Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press, 1987),
also discusses the question of communicability:
Among Class I agents, Variola major holds a unique position.
Although the virus is most frequently transmitted through
droplet infection, it can survive for a number of years outside
human hosts in a dried state (Downie 1967; Upham 1986). As a
consequence, Variola major can be transmitted through
contaminated articles such as clothing or blankets (Dixon 1962).
In the nineteenth century, the U.S. Army sent contaminated
blankets to Native Americans, especially Plains groups, to
control the Indian problem (Stearn and Stearn 1945). [p. 148]
Abraham B. Bergman, et al., "A Political History of the Indian
Health Service" (undated draft manuscript at
http://www.sihb.org/ihs27.html (visited 4 DEC 02)), comments on
the birth of the Indian Health Service:
Federal health services for Indians began under War
Department auspices in the early 1800's. At that time the
Federal Indian policy was primarily one of military containment.
As early as 1802 Army physicians took emergency measures to curb
contagious diseases among Indian tribes in the vicinity of
military posts. The first large scale smallpox vaccination of
Indians was authorized by Congress in 1832, probably launched
more to protect US soldiers than to benefit Indians.
[unpaginated; quoted with permission from the author and the
Seattle Indian Health Board]
2. Social and Political Effects of Disease
E. Wagner Stearn & Allen E. Stearn, The Effect of Smallpox on
the Destiny of the Amerindian (Boston: Bruce Humphries (1945)),
point out the social-political effects of smallpox:
Smallpox, which was introduced into the mainland of the
Americas in the early part of the sixteenth century, not only
decimated the native population for four centuries, but so
demoralized the tribes through the terror it spread among them
that it has been considered by many authorities to have been an
important factor in their comparatively easy subjugation by the
whites. Before the advent of the white man tribal warfare and,
at times, famine made the chief inroads on the native
population, but during the period of exploration and settlement
the diseases of the white man, new to the native, caused
terrific havoc. It is claimed that Haiti (Espanola) alone lost
two-thirds of its population in the three years of Columbus's
conquest, during the years 1492-1495. The two to three hundred
inhabitants had quickly fallen prey not only to ruthless
conquest but to a variety of infectious diseases. [p. 13]
Harold Napoleon, Yuuyaraq: the Way of the Human Being, with
commentary, edited by Eric Madsen (Fairbanks, Alaska: University
of Alaska, College of Rural Alaska, Center for Cross-Cultural
Studies (1991)), states that epidemics caused a form of
post-traumatic stress disorder and social collapse:
Compared to the span of life of a culture, the Great Death
was instantaneous. The Yup'ik world was turned upside down,
literally overnight. Out of the suffering, confusion,
desperation, heartbreak, and trauma was born a new generation of
Yup'ik people. They were born into shock. They woke to a world
in shambles, many of their people and their beliefs strewn
around them, dead. In their minds they had been overcome by
evil. Their medicines and their medicine men and women had
proven useless. Everything they had believed in had failed.
Their ancient world had collapsed.
From their innocence and from their inability to understand
and dispel the disease, guilt was born into them. They had
witnessed mass death—evil—in unimaginable and unacceptable
terms. These were the men and women orphaned by the sudden and
traumatic death of the culture that had given them birth. They
would become the first generation of modern-day Yup'ik. [p. 11]
…
The survivors taught almost nothing about the old culture to
their children. It was as if they were ashamed of it, and this
shame they passed on to their children by their silence and by
allowing cultural atrocities to be committed against their
children. The survivors also gave up all governing power of the
villages to the missionaries and school teachers, whoever was
most aggressive. There was no one to contest them. In some
villages the priest had displaced the angalkuq. In some villages
there was theocracy under the benevolent dictatorship of a
missionary. The old guardians of Yuuyaraq on the other hand, the
angalkuq, if they were still alive, had fallen into disgrace.
They had become a source of shame to the village, not only
because their medicine and Yuuyaraq had failed, but also because
the missionaries now openly accused them of being agents of the
devil himself and of having led their people into disaster. [pp.
13-14]
3. Other writers on Amherst and smallpox
A.1. Elizabeth A. Fenn, "Biological Warfare in
Eighteenth-Century North America: Beyond Jeffrey Amherst,"
Journal of American History vol. 86, no. 4 (March, 2000), pp.
1552-1580:
Our preoccupation with Amherst has kept us from recognizing
that accusations of what we now call biological warfare—the
military use of smallpox in particular—arose frequently in
eighteenth-century America. Native Americans, moreover, were not
the only accusers. By the second half of the century, many of
the combatants in America's wars of empire had the knowledge and
technology to attempt biological warfare with the smallpox
virus. Many also adhered to a code of ethics that did not
constrain them from doing so. Seen in this light, the Amherst
affair becomes not so much an aberration as part of a larger
continuum in which accusations and discussions of biological
warfare were common, and actual incidents may have occurred more
frequently than scholars have previously acknowledged. [p. 1553]
A.2. Elizabeth A. Fenn expands on this theme in her book, Pox
Americana: The Great Smallpox Epidemic of 1775-82 (NY: Hill and
Wang, 2001), discussing widespread accusations and examples of
biological warfare on the American continent during this period.
Selected excerpts from the book are presented on a separate
page.
B. Helen Jaskoski, "'A Terrible Sickness Among Them': Smallpox
Stories of the Frontier," in Helen Jaskoski, ed., Early Native
American Writing: New Critical Essays (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1996), 136-157:
Three nineteenth-century historians who wrote about the
colonial Great Lakes area recorded accounts of smallpox
epidemics and their origins. The most widely known smallpox
story comes from Francis Parkman's The Conspiracy of Pontiac
(1870). Ottawa political leader Andrew J. Blackbird relates a
similar story from the same period of the French and Indian War
in his History of the Ottawa and Chippewa Indians of Michigan
(1887). William Whipple Warren, a Minnesota Ojibwa historian and
legislator, offers two very different accounts of an epidemic
that took place in Minnesota in the 1780s in his History of the
Ojibway People (1885). Comparison of these historians' smallpox
stories enlarges our understanding of the history and
epidemiology of the disease in the particular period. The
smallpox stories also offer insight into alternative
conceptualizations of the experience that historians a century
later envisioned as the "frontier." One other Ojibwa historian,
George Copway, who does not tell a smallpox story, offers in his
Indian Life and Indian History (1860) such a paradigm for
understanding events of the time - including smallpox epidemics
- as they were experienced by the native communities. [pp.
137-138]
An excerpt from Blackbird's History, with Jaskoski's
introduction and commentary, are presented on a separate page.
C. Adrienne Mayor, "The Nessus Shirt in the New World: Smallpox
Blankets in History and Legend," Journal of American Folklore
108(427):54-77 (1995):
One name is repeatedly linked to the story of the smallpox
blanket: Jeffrey Amherst. In 1851, Francis Parkman was the first
historian to document Lord Amherst's "shameful plan" to
exterminate Indians by giving them smallpox-infected blankets
taken from the corpses of British soldiers at Fort Pitt in 1763
(Parkman 1991:646-651). The feasibility of the documented plan,
whether or not it was successfully carried out, has given
credibility and moral impact to the fears expressed in all
poison-garment tales. The Amherst incident itself has taken on
legendary overtones as believers and nonbelievers continue to
argue over the facts and their interpretation. [p. 57]
D. Robert L. O'Connell, Of Arms and Men: A History of War,
Weapons, and Aggression (NY and Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1989):
Marking a milestone of sorts, certain colonists during the
French and Indian Wars resorted to trading smallpox-contaminated
blankets to local tribes with immediate and devastating results.
While infected carcasses had long been catapulted into besieged
cities, this seems to be the first time a known weakness in the
immunity structure of an adversary population was deliberately
exploited with a weapons response. [p. 171]
E. R. G. Robertson, Rotting Face: Smallpox and the American
Indian (Caldwell, Idaho: Caxton Press, 2001):
With the surrender of New France to Great Britain, command
of the English North American military forces fell to Lord
Jeffrey Amherst. An arrogant aristocrat who despised all
Indians, Amherst withheld gunpowder and lead from France's
former native allies, stating that England's enemies ought to be
punished, not rewarded. When informed that the tribes depended
on their muskets for taking game and would starve without
ammunition, he remained unswayed, callously informing his aides
that they should seed the complaining bands with smallpox so as
to lend starvation a speedy hand. [p. 119; with footnote to
Herman J. Viola, After Columbus (Washington: Smithsonian Books,
1990), 98]
…
In the spring of 1763, during the Indian uprising led by
Ottawa Chief Pontiac, a party of Delawares ringed British owned
Fort Pitt (now Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania), calling for its
surrender. Captain Simeon Ecuyer, a Swiss mercenary and the
fort's senior officer, saved the garrison by giving the
Delawares a gift—two blankets and a handkerchief. The Indians
readily accepted the offering, but still demanded that Ecuyer
vacate the stockade. They had no inkling that the blankets and
kerchief were more deadly than a platoon of English
sharpshooters. Ecuyer had ordered the presents deliberately
infected with smallpox spores at the post hospital. By mid July,
the Delawares were dying as though they had been raked by a
grape cannonade. Fort Pitt remained firmly in English hands.
[with footnote to Robert M. Utley and Wilcomb E. Washburn,
Indian Wars (New York: American Heritage, 1977; Boston: Houghton
Mifflin, 1987)]
The same year, British General Sir Jeffrey Amherst urged
Colonel Henry Bouquet to figure some way of infecting France's
Indian allies with smallpox. On July 13, the colonel wrote that
he would attempt seeding some blankets with Variola, then send
them to the warring tribes. Recognizing the risk of such a
tactic, Bouquet expressed the hope that he would not catch the
sickness himself. Whether the plan was ever carried out is
unknown. [p. 124; with footnote to John Duffy, "Smallpox and the
Indians in the American Colonies," Bulletin of the History of
Medicine 25 (1951): 324-341]
F. Mark Wheelis, "Biological warfare before 1914," in E.
Geissler and J. Moon, Biological and Toxin Weapons: Research,
Development and Use from the Middle Ages to 1945 (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1999), pp. 8-34:
[Historical events and records] suggest that the use of
smallpox as a weapon may have been widely entertained by British
military commanders, and may have been employed without scruple
when opportunity offered, possibly on a number of occasions. [p.
29]
--
Often war is waged only in order to
show valor; thus an inner dignity is
ascribed to war itself, and even some
philosophers have praised it as an
ennoblement of humanity, forgetting the
pronouncement of the Greek who said,
"War is an evil in as much as it produces
more wicked men than it takes away."
--Immanuel Kant
Americans will always do the right thing
- after they have exhausted every other
possibility. --Winston Churchill
Loyalty to the country always, loyalty
to the government when it deserves it.
--Mark Twain
I was against gay marriage until I found
out I didn't have to have one.
--James Carville
Eros
All that pales into insignificance compared to the Divinely-sanctioned
genocide in the Old Testament.
EROS.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"What has theology ever said that is of the smallest use to anybody?
The achievements of theologians don't do anything, don't achieve
anything, don't even mean anything. What makes you think that theology
is a subject at all? "
– Prof. Richard Dawkins, Letter to Independant, Mar 22, 1993
Matt Silberstein
eros_tal...@hotmail.com (Eros) wrote:
>"Dale" <dmg...@nspm.airmail.net> wrote in message news:<buO5d.1526$zc1....@newssvr12.news.prodigy.com>...
[snip]
>> Still, even with all these caveats it's sure that the total number of
>> indigenous individuals directly killed by Europeans is quite large,
>> certainly in the millions or low tens of millions. And this was done
>> primarily by devoutly religious people, believing in Jesus Christ and the
>> Bible. When you figure it relative to the available population, the killing
>> of indigenous Americans by Christians probably compares closely to the
>> killings done by the Nazis and the Communists.
>
>All that pales into insignificance compared to the Divinely-sanctioned
>genocide in the Old Testament.
>
Killings which took place are more significant than those that did not
take place.
--
Matt Silberstein
Stones taught me to fly
Love taught me to lie
Life taught me to die
So it's not hard to fall
When you float like a cannonball
Damien Rice
Mark K. Bilbo
<buO5d.1526$zc1....@newssvr12.news.prodigy.com> we saw our hero "Dale"
<dmg...@nspm.airmail.net>:
> "MAB" <bad-...@nowhere.com> wrote in message
> news:2rpls3F...@uni-berlin.de...
>> "In 1490, there were an estimated 75 million people in the Western
>> Hemisphere; within 150 years, there were maybe 6 million Indians left.
>> By 1900 in the USA, there were just 250,000"
>
> No doubt there were millions of indigenes killed by Europeans in the
> Americas, but 75 million is a pretty generous estimate for the population
> of the Americas in 1490. Maybe it was more like 40 million as the author
> of this web page suggests
> http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstat0.htm#America.
That depends a great deal on the assumptions. And even the author of the
website you mention makes some questionable assumptions of his own. Such
as:
"I find the estimates for Virginia even more awkward because I live here.
Stannard estimates the population of Powhatan's Confederation at 100,000,
yet there's not a single site in the Virginia Tidewater that remotely
hints at the complex infrastructure necessary to support even half this
number. There's not one ruin of any permanent building."
Not to mention:
"...the fact is that seven times the population of England should have
left behind a lot more stuff than that."
The fact? Based on what? Because he says so?
He's expecting a non-European civilization to have left behind what you'd
expect to see from a European civilization. That, frankly, makes no sense.
Here, he indulges in blatant "presentism:"
"I also find it difficult to believe that the Europeans obliterated all
traces of the earlier inhabitants. After all, I've been to Germany too.
I've seen that bombed-out cities still have a substantial presence of the
past, and I doubt that the conquistadores could be more destructive than a
flock of B-17s."
Uh... what?
He also shows some serious blinders as regards history:
"Artifacts of any kind are rare -- barely even a single burial mound worth
pilfering. And it's not like there's some forgotten ghost town deep in the
desert or jungle waiting to be discovered. This is Virginia. It's been
settled, plowed and excavated for 400 years."
Sorry but for centuries, nobody bothered with "excavating" nor "pilfering"
nor any such thing trying to preserve the past of this continent. It was
plowed under, built over, and eventually paved. It has been actually only
in fairly recent times that anybody has cared. And even now, massive
resistance can be met. I can match the guy's anecdotal "evidence" by
pointing out how many times Wal-Mart, *alone*, has been stalled in
building because they dug up yet another site of archaeological interest.
For people who "left little behind," it seems you can't dig anywhere
without uncovering what they left behind.
And I'm reminded of one guy online, years ago, with whom I got into a spat
over the Cahokia civilization (whoever the hell they were). He babbled the
same kind of thing at me about the imagined "lack" of remains of
civilization. I suggested that if he wanted to find the remains, he move
St. Louis out of the way.
Anyway...
The early cite of:
"As The New York Public Library American History Desk Reference puts it,
'Estimates of the Native American population of the Americas, all
completely unscientific, range from 15 to 60 million.'"
Is without any real merit (nor does he do much to support the
quote). Some estimates are very questionable. Others had a great deal of
work put into them. The quote sounds like someone who is, well, just
prejudicial.
(For almost inexplicable reasons, people in the US are hell bent on
stomping out the idea of a large population here as if killing only a
million is somehow "better" than killing ten million or some such rot.)
Further, if they are *all unscientific, what's he doing picking a median
from them?
All in all, I have to point out that the Americas is a *BIG* place. Why
there is so much resistance to the idea that an entire hemisphere could
have supported 75+ (per Thorton IIRC) or even 112+ (mostly Dobyns &
Stannard), I can't tell you. Even at a population density *far below
Europe, the sheer size of the land masses here and the carrying capacity
of the environment could add up to a *lot of folks.
I suspect Thorton (who I tend to stick with) is being conservative.
> Many if not most of the indigenous people who died in the 150 years
> following 1490 were killed by diseases brought by the Europeans, and not
> at their murderous hands.
Definitely. I've seen estimates of a 70 to 90% epidemic related population
crash. Even people in the interior would not have escaped the early
contact plagues as neighbors passed diseases along. I suspect the "New
World" seen by the "settlers" was already a radically changed place.
> Finally, and still recognizing the deplorable, shameful, and
> dishonorable way in which the US government treated the indigenes in the
> US, mentioning the number 250,000 in with the other numbers is some kind
> of dishonest statistical sleight of hand. Since the first and second
> numbers referred to the entire Western Hemisphere, while the last number
> refers only to the US, which had fewer people than the rest of the
> Western Hemisphere in the first place.
Point.
The 250K figure is the nadir in the conterminous US. It's a definite
"apples and oranges" issue.
> Still, even with all these caveats it's sure that the total number of
> indigenous individuals directly killed by Europeans is quite large,
> certainly in the millions or low tens of millions. And this was done
> primarily by devoutly religious people, believing in Jesus Christ and
> the Bible. When you figure it relative to the available population, the
> killing of indigenous Americans by Christians probably compares closely
> to the killings done by the Nazis and the Communists.
I tend to agree with you here. Though I tend to count the "indirect"
effects of dislocation, social destruction, relocation, and forced
containment (particularly in areas where not much of anybody could manage
a decent living) as just as "direct" as shooting people and handing out
blankets with smallpox.
What happened here could actually--relative to population--swamp what the
Nazis did...
--
Mark K. Bilbo - a.a. #1423
EAC Department of Linguistic Subversion
Alt-atheism website at: http://www.alt-atheism.org
-----------------------------------------------------------
"Being surprised at the fact that the universe
is fine tuned for life is akin to a puddle being
surprised at how well it fits its hole"
-- Douglas Adams
Crusader
"Eros" <eros_tal...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:ab0de77f.04092...@posting.google.com...
did it before the others but all did it at one time or other.
Hank
>
> On Mon, 27 Sep 2004 06:29:05 +0000 in episode
> <buO5d.1526$zc1....@newssvr12.news.prodigy.com> we saw our hero "Dale"
> <dmg...@nspm.airmail.net>:
>
> > "MAB" <bad-...@nowhere.com> wrote in message
> > news:2rpls3F...@uni-berlin.de...
> >> "In 1490, there were an estimated 75 million people in the Western
> >> Hemisphere; within 150 years, there were maybe 6 million Indians left.
> >> By 1900 in the USA, there were just 250,000"
> >
> > No doubt there were millions of indigenes killed by Europeans in the
> > Americas, but 75 million is a pretty generous estimate for the population
> > of the Americas in 1490. Maybe it was more like 40 million as the author
> > of this web page suggests
> > http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstat0.htm#America.
>
> That depends a great deal on the assumptions. And even the author of the
> website you mention makes some questionable assumptions of his own. Such
> as:
>
> "I find the estimates for Virginia even more awkward because I live here.
> Stannard estimates the population of Powhatan's Confederation at 100,000,
> yet there's not a single site in the Virginia Tidewater that remotely
> hints at the complex infrastructure necessary to support even half this
> number. There's not one ruin of any permanent building."
I live in Virginia as well, and I find some of these statements, um,
unsound (to be tactful).
AFAIK, the Indians in Virginia built their "permanent" structures almost
exclusively out of wood. In the hot and humid environment of Virginia,
wood rots away rather quickly. Add a couple hundred years of
deforestation and farming on top of it, and it's amazing anything can be
found any more.
Additionally, is he aware that the original site of the "technologically
advanced European" settlement of Jamestown was discovered only a few
years ago? People had been living and working on top of it for over 300
years and didn't realize it was there! Someone about that time frame
stated that the original site had been washed away or sunken under the
James River. Amazingly (in retrospect) nobody actually thought to
check. It was discovered by accident.
> Not to mention:
>
> "...the fact is that seven times the population of England should have
> left behind a lot more stuff than that."
>
> The fact? Based on what? Because he says so?
Based on faulty assumptions, obviously.
> He's expecting a non-European civilization to have left behind what you'd
> expect to see from a European civilization. That, frankly, makes no sense.
> Here, he indulges in blatant "presentism:"
>
> "I also find it difficult to believe that the Europeans obliterated all
> traces of the earlier inhabitants. After all, I've been to Germany too.
> I've seen that bombed-out cities still have a substantial presence of the
> past, and I doubt that the conquistadores could be more destructive than a
> flock of B-17s."
I too have been to Germany (lived there for a couple years) and I lived
in one of those formerly bombed-out cities. A few observations:
- 20th century German cities made extensive use of stone, concrete and
steel. Virginia Indians primarily used wood.
- My latest available information suggests the conquistadors lacked
heavy bombers.
- At any rate, the conquistadors didn't operate in Virginia.
> Uh... what?
>
> He also shows some serious blinders as regards history:
>
> "Artifacts of any kind are rare -- barely even a single burial mound worth
> pilfering. And it's not like there's some forgotten ghost town deep in the
> desert or jungle waiting to be discovered. This is Virginia. It's been
> settled, plowed and excavated for 400 years."
Note the word "plowed" above.
I wonder what he expected to find? Not every civilization felt the need
to construct ostentatious structures. AFAIK, most North American
Indians would be even less likely, given that many tribes scoffed at the
idea of "owning" land.
Is he equally incredulous that the Cro Magnons didn't leave permanent
structures?
> Sorry but for centuries, nobody bothered with "excavating" nor "pilfering"
> nor any such thing trying to preserve the past of this continent. It was
> plowed under, built over, and eventually paved. It has been actually only
> in fairly recent times that anybody has cared. And even now, massive
> resistance can be met. I can match the guy's anecdotal "evidence" by
> pointing out how many times Wal-Mart, *alone*, has been stalled in
> building because they dug up yet another site of archaeological interest.
> For people who "left little behind," it seems you can't dig anywhere
> without uncovering what they left behind.
>
> And I'm reminded of one guy online, years ago, with whom I got into a spat
> over the Cahokia civilization (whoever the hell they were). He babbled the
> same kind of thing at me about the imagined "lack" of remains of
> civilization. I suggested that if he wanted to find the remains, he move
> St. Louis out of the way.
He was equally clueless. I've been to the Cahokia Mounds site too.
(See http://medinfo.wustl.edu/~mckinney/cahokia/Introduction.html for an
example.) The site was extensive compared to other Eastern tribes.
They built 100-foot-tall mounds that look like primitive pyramids. This
site was the center of the culture. On the other hand, most outlying
villages would have been very small, and unlikely to have substantial
remains. Even with all the farming, there are still uncounted burial
mounds in the region.
> Anyway...
<snip>
> (For almost inexplicable reasons, people in the US are hell bent on
> stomping out the idea of a large population here as if killing only a
> million is somehow "better" than killing ten million or some such rot.)
Hey! :P Not *all* of us have that attitude. Humpf!
> All in all, I have to point out that the Americas is a *BIG* place. Why
> there is so much resistance to the idea that an entire hemisphere could
> have supported 75+ (per Thorton IIRC) or even 112+ (mostly Dobyns &
> Stannard), I can't tell you. Even at a population density *far below
> Europe, the sheer size of the land masses here and the carrying capacity
> of the environment could add up to a *lot of folks.
Dunno myself. I've never read any of the population studies, but I
don't see any problem with those figures off the top of my head.
> I suspect Thorton (who I tend to stick with) is being conservative.
>
> > Many if not most of the indigenous people who died in the 150 years
> > following 1490 were killed by diseases brought by the Europeans, and not
> > at their murderous hands.
>
> Definitely. I've seen estimates of a 70 to 90% epidemic related population
> crash. Even people in the interior would not have escaped the early
> contact plagues as neighbors passed diseases along. I suspect the "New
> World" seen by the "settlers" was already a radically changed place.
I'm not sure how universal the epidemics were, but they *were*
extensive. One study I read concerning the Mississippi-area tribes in
(1500s? 1600s?) time frame was 90% death rate from smallpox and
measles. For all intents and purposes, civilization collapsed.
<snip>
> > Still, even with all these caveats it's sure that the total number of
> > indigenous individuals directly killed by Europeans is quite large,
> > certainly in the millions or low tens of millions. And this was done
> > primarily by devoutly religious people, believing in Jesus Christ and
> > the Bible. When you figure it relative to the available population, the
> > killing of indigenous Americans by Christians probably compares closely
> > to the killings done by the Nazis and the Communists.
>
> I tend to agree with you here. Though I tend to count the "indirect"
> effects of dislocation, social destruction, relocation, and forced
> containment (particularly in areas where not much of anybody could manage
> a decent living) as just as "direct" as shooting people and handing out
> blankets with smallpox.
>
> What happened here could actually--relative to population--swamp what the
> Nazis did...
I think it's true that the vast majority of deaths were caused
accidentally (or negligently) by disease. But the direct and indirect
atrocities were definitely the most shameful period in our history.
Also see these links on the infamous Trail of Tears - the forced
Cherokee resettlement from Eastern US to the Oklahoma Territory, 1838,
on which thousands died. If it was to happen today, they'd call it a
death march. :-(
http://www.powersource.com/cherokee/history.html
http://www.rosecity.net/tears/
http://www.cviog.uga.edu/Projects/gainfo/trailtea.htm
Eros
> On Tue, 28 Sep 2004 01:55:16 +0000 (UTC),
> eros_tal...@hotmail.com (Eros) wrote:
>
> >"Dale" <dmg...@nspm.airmail.net> wrote in message news:<buO5d.1526$zc1....@newssvr12.news.prodigy.com>...
> [snip]
>
> >> Still, even with all these caveats it's sure that the total number of
> >> indigenous individuals directly killed by Europeans is quite large,
> >> certainly in the millions or low tens of millions. And this was done
> >> primarily by devoutly religious people, believing in Jesus Christ and the
> >> Bible. When you figure it relative to the available population, the killing
> >> of indigenous Americans by Christians probably compares closely to the
> >> killings done by the Nazis and the Communists.
> >
> >All that pales into insignificance compared to the Divinely-sanctioned
> >genocide in the Old Testament.
> >
> Killings which took place are more significant than those that did not
> take place.
I agree, but your comment completely misses my point. The
fundamentalist Christians who invariably make damning moral judgements
with respect to those who accept evolution, take the Bible
literally... yet seem quite happy to conveniently ignore the more
depraved and violent parts of their Biblical "history" when it suits
them.
EROS.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"To illustrate the vain conceit that the universe must be somehow
pre-ordained for us, because we are so well-suited to live in it, he [
Douglas Adams] mimed a wonderfully funny imitation of a puddle of
water, fitting itself snugly into a depression in the ground, the
depression uncannily being exactly the same shape as the puddle." --
Richard Dawkins, in "Lament for Douglas" (14 May 2001)
Matt Silberstein
eros_tal...@hotmail.com (Eros) wrote:
>Matt Silberstein <RemoveThisPref...@ix.netcom.com> wrote in message news:<kfmhl01j4g0760qjv...@4ax.com>...
>> On Tue, 28 Sep 2004 01:55:16 +0000 (UTC),
>> eros_tal...@hotmail.com (Eros) wrote:
>>
>> >"Dale" <dmg...@nspm.airmail.net> wrote in message news:<buO5d.1526$zc1....@newssvr12.news.prodigy.com>...
>> [snip]
>>
>> >> Still, even with all these caveats it's sure that the total number of
>> >> indigenous individuals directly killed by Europeans is quite large,
>> >> certainly in the millions or low tens of millions. And this was done
>> >> primarily by devoutly religious people, believing in Jesus Christ and the
>> >> Bible. When you figure it relative to the available population, the killing
>> >> of indigenous Americans by Christians probably compares closely to the
>> >> killings done by the Nazis and the Communists.
>> >
>> >All that pales into insignificance compared to the Divinely-sanctioned
>> >genocide in the Old Testament.
>> >
>> Killings which took place are more significant than those that did not
>> take place.
>
>I agree, but your comment completely misses my point. The
>fundamentalist Christians who invariably make damning moral judgements
>with respect to those who accept evolution, take the Bible
>literally... yet seem quite happy to conveniently ignore the more
>depraved and violent parts of their Biblical "history" when it suits
>them.
It was not at all clear that was your point since this thread has
nothing to with those topics.
Eros
Really. So, this thread has nothing to do with religion, murder,
morals and the Bible? Ya coulda fooled me!
Even if you were right... threads evolve too you know.
EROS.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"We're going to have the best-educated American people in the world."
-- US Vice President Dan Quayle, 9/21/88
Mark K. Bilbo
<4159CABD...@Company.com> we saw our hero Hank <Ha...@Company.com>:
> I live in Virginia as well, and I find some of these statements, um,
> unsound (to be tactful).
<snip>
By the way, I'm under a great deal of stress now and much as I'd like to
continue along these lines (we are talking a subject very much of interest
to me), I'm dealing with a crisis over here in the off line world and not
up to being all that serious on Usenet right now...
J McCoy
There you go, trying to blame "devoutly religious people." How do
you know?
Reading through the Louis and Clark journals I've noticed something
interesting. Credit was extended to Indians in question who did'nt
pay their due. And they weren't ignorant, they were sharp bargain
hunters who cheated and scammed. They've angered a lot of people.
There's more to this story then what you're letting on. People are
people. Not everyone was a Christian back in those days. Criminals
were actually sent to the Americas as a way to get rid of them. There
were brothels everywhere. Don't give me this blame the Christians
mentality. You're wrong. IF you want to talk about blood shed, talk
about the anti-religious blood thirsty French Revolution, or the
Communist purges. Those are the fruits of atheism.
JM
dandelion
"J McCoy" <mc...@sunset.net> wrote in message
news:3f355ee.04100...@posting.google.com...
<snip>
> There's more to this story then what you're letting on. People are
> people. Not everyone was a Christian back in those days. Criminals
> were actually sent to the Americas as a way to get rid of them. There
> were brothels everywhere. Don't give me this blame the Christians
> mentality. You're wrong. IF you want to talk about blood shed, talk
> about the anti-religious blood thirsty French Revolution, or the
> Communist purges. Those are the fruits of atheism.
<snip>
The interesting thing in both is of course that fervent supporters were
likely victims (especially during Stalins Terror, see 'Treacherous Sun" to
get an idea). Unlike, for instance the Spanish inquisiton, the Salem Witch
Trial, the Crusades (in which *christian* Byzantium was sacked and pillaged,
too, btw), the Conquista (of south america), the 100, 80 and 30 year wars...
etc.
I assume you are familiar with those?
Mark K. Bilbo
<3f355ee.04100...@posting.google.com> we saw our hero
mc...@sunset.net (J McCoy):
Because they said so.
> Reading through the Louis and Clark journals I've noticed something
> interesting. Credit was extended to Indians in question who did'nt pay
> their due. And they weren't ignorant, they were sharp bargain hunters who
> cheated and scammed. They've angered a lot of people.
Credit? Pay their due? What the hell are you on about? You trying to claim
the conquest was a repo?
> There's more to this story then what you're letting on.
Yes. The involvement of the churches, the pastors, the devoutly religious
has been glossed over in the "history" written about the times. Enough to
write several devastating books that would make the author the new Rushdie
who'd probably have to flee the country.
> People are
> people. Not everyone was a Christian back in those days. Criminals were
> actually sent to the Americas as a way to get rid of them. There were
> brothels everywhere. Don't give me this blame the Christians mentality.
> You're wrong. IF you want to talk about blood shed, talk about the
> anti-religious blood thirsty French Revolution, or the Communist purges.
> Those are the fruits of atheism.
Figures. Atheism is always responsible if there's a single atheist
anywhere within a 12,000 mile radius but if every single person involved
in an event is a church going, bible believing, professing Christian,
Christianity had nothing to do with what happened.
SNORT.
But not *one* of you people can show any way for a lack of belief in
something to motivate people to do *anything.
Richard Forrest
<snipped> There's more to this story then what you're letting on.
And you seem to have a rather limited and blinkered view of history
> People are people.
What an extraordinary revelation! I never knew that.
> Not everyone was a Christian back in those days.
Well of course there were millions of Hindus, Buddhists, Confucians,
Shintoist, etc. Somehow I don't think these are the people you're
referring to...
>Criminals were actually sent to the Americas as a way to get rid of
them.
These criminals were the 'founding fathers' of the USA were they? They
were no doubt treated as crimials because they argued that their brand
of Christianity was better than the brand of Christianity practiced in
their countries of origin. Of course, once they had established their
colonies, they imported criminals (who almost certainly considered
themselves Christians) to work as slaves on their plantations. But of
course when they found a good source of non-Christian slaves in
Africa, they could not only get their labour more cheaply, but carry
out their Christian duty of converting them to Christianity at the
same time. Whips were no doubt a particularly eloquent form of
persuasion. I bet God looked down at their work and saw that it was
good.
Of course, you may be referring to the criminals we shipped out to to
Botany Bay, where they learned to chase kangaroos and beat us at
cricket. I understand that those criminals (who were of course
criminals because they commited the unforgivable sin of stealing
cabbages from the true Christians who formed the ruling classes in
England at the time to feed their starving children) have even managed
to educate themselves to the degree that they have universities which
award PhD's in philosophy now. I think that most of those criminals
considered themselves to be Christian, by the way.
> There were brothels everywhere.
Of course, this marks them down immediately as non-Christian. No
country calling itself Christian has ever allowed a brothel to
operate. And nobody professing to be a Christian has ever visited a
brothel. Quite unthinkable!
> Don't give me this blame the Christians mentality.
A curious phrase whose meaning eludes me. Could you elucidate?
> You're wrong. IF you want to talk about blood shed, talk
> about the anti-religious blood thirsty French Revolution, or the
> Communist purges. Those are the fruits of atheism.
>
If those are the fruits of atheisms (which presumably that People are
no longer people) then I presume that you claim for Christianity the
Crusades, the Spanish inquisition, the burning of witches, the killing
of refugees in the Lebanese camps, the St Bartholemew's day massacre
in France, and so on. All carried out by professed Christians, some of
them in the name of Christ.
>
> JM
RF
AC
No, those were the fruits of terrible regimes. But the old rule about
revolutions stood, that too often the revolutionaries become as bad as those
they overthrow. Surely you're not calling the Czarist regime a good
government, or the pathetic, overindulgent Bourbon court a good government.
If these governments hadn't been as bad as they were, the revolutions would
have fizzled, as the revolutions of the mid-19th century did.
Read about the good Christian soldiers who marched into Peru, Mr. McCoy.
Read about the US Army being put to work killing Indians after the Civil
War. Surely there were plenty of people who admired the Indians, that is
until they decided they wanted the land the Indians sat on (and in many
cases had been driven on to by prior folks).
Here in Canada, there were places where there was systematic abuse of
Indians, removing children from their families, placing them in infamous
"residential" schools, many of which were run by churches. British Columbia
has had a number of trials in the last few years over this. The abuses ran
the whole gamut; physical, emotional and sexual. The whole underlying ethos
was to turn what were considered ignorant savages into good God-fearing
Christians. Use of the old languages was frowned upon, the potluck was
outlawed on the West Coast, old beliefs were mocked until they almost died
in some areas.
It is this implicit fear and hatred of other world views that was behind
these attrocities, and allowed demagogues to manipulate the average person.
You show these hatreds and fears yourself, just look at the lengths you will
go to to try to discount evolution, and the constant attempts at equating
atheism and evolution. You show the same symptoms of wanton ignorance and
fear that so many in the past have done.
--
Aaron Clausen
mightym...@hotmail.com
"My illness is due to my doctor's insistence that I drink milk, a
whitish fluid they force down helpless babies." - WC Fields
A. Carlson
wrote:
There you go again, proving yet again that you are severely challenged
when it comes to reading comprehension. No mention whatsoever was
made up to this point concerning the religious beliefs of the
perpetrators.
Show me where I even referred to something even remotely similar to,
as you put it, "devoutly religious people". You're a liar, pure and
simple.
>Reading through the Louis and Clark journals I've noticed something
>interesting. Credit was extended to Indians in question who did'nt
>pay their due. And they weren't ignorant, they were sharp bargain
>hunters who cheated and scammed. They've angered a lot of people.
>
>There's more to this story then what you're letting on. People are
>people. Not everyone was a Christian back in those days. Criminals
>were actually sent to the Americas as a way to get rid of them.
Are you sure you're not thinking of Australia here?
>There were brothels everywhere.
Even in puritan Boston? You're contradicting yourself anyway. First
you get pissed off because you apparently interpreted what I said as
blaming "devoutly religious people" and now you're referring to them
yourself as a bunch of whoremongers. Make up your mind.
>Don't give me this blame the Christians mentality. You're wrong.
How can I be wrong about something that I did not convey to begin
with? Perhaps you're using some sort of warped rationalization to
deny that disease ridden blankets were deliberately given to indians
in the first place.
> IF you want to talk about blood shed, talk
>about the anti-religious blood thirsty French Revolution, or the
>Communist purges. Those are the fruits of atheism.
I heard that the crusades weren't much of a tea party either. Or were
those also run by blood thirsty atheists as well?
>JM
Alex
Eros
You can't blame them, they're just following the example of hostility,
violence and intolerance to those different from themselves shown by
their god in the Bible. It's the same old story... the "chosen"
against the Philistines.
EROS.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"The Church angrily denounced the introduction of medicines,
antibiotics, anesthesia, surgery, blood transfusions, birth control,
transplants, in vitro fertilization, and most forms of pain killers.
Supposedly, these scientific tools interfered with nature and were
therefore against God's will. Today, the Church is fighting cloning
technology and genetic engineering. But when cloning laboratories
provide an unlimited supply of transplant tissue for dying children,
and when genetic engineering cures all forms of cancer, Church leaders
will once again forget their initial opposition and hail these
achievements as evidence of God's love for mankind. Today, science is
prevailing, but throughout most of recorded history, religion
strangled scientific inquiry and often tortured and executed those who
advocated the scientific method. " -- David Mills.
Chris Thompson
You goon. It's because this country was settled by religious nut cases
who were trying to get away from rational influences in Europe.
You're so, so, stupid.
Chris
snip
--
"We are all capable of believing things which we know to be untrue, and
then, when we are finally proved wrong, impudently twisting the facts so
as to show that we were right. Intellectually, it is possible to carry
on this process for an indefinite time: the only check on it is that
sooner or later a false belief bumps up against solid reality, usually
on a battlefield." --George Orwell, 1946, "Under Your Nose"
sto...@the.net
They weren't "TRRRROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO" Christians.
**
Contempt of Congress meter reading-offscale.
Vote for Bush. Why vote for the lesser of two evils?
'Jesus' is a sock-puppet Christians utilize to add 'authority' to
whatever action they intend on taking. -Stoney
sto...@the.net
So, send all Christians to Pitcairn Island to fight out and determine
which sect is the 'chosen' one.
sto...@the.net
The same cultural genocide tactics were conducted in the US.
>It is this implicit fear and hatred of other world views that was behind
>these attrocities, and allowed demagogues to manipulate the average person.
>You show these hatreds and fears yourself, just look at the lengths you will
>go to to try to discount evolution, and the constant attempts at equating
>atheism and evolution. You show the same symptoms of wanton ignorance and
>fear that so many in the past have done.
The disease was so bad his name was removed and it remains;
*nameless.* It's gotten logrythmically worse in that five or six
years. "God" would be better served by calling him 'home' before he
climbs on an elevated platform and opens fire.
sto...@the.net
Worse, it's the equivalent of Ebola.
sto...@the.net
<RemoveThisPref...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>On Tue, 28 Sep 2004 01:55:16 +0000 (UTC),
>eros_tal...@hotmail.com (Eros) wrote:
>
>>"Dale" <dmg...@nspm.airmail.net> wrote in message news:<buO5d.1526$zc1....@newssvr12.news.prodigy.com>...
>[snip]
>
>>> Still, even with all these caveats it's sure that the total number of
>>> indigenous individuals directly killed by Europeans is quite large,
>>> certainly in the millions or low tens of millions. And this was done
>>> primarily by devoutly religious people, believing in Jesus Christ and the
>>> Bible. When you figure it relative to the available population, the killing
>>> of indigenous Americans by Christians probably compares closely to the
>>> killings done by the Nazis and the Communists.
>>
>>All that pales into insignificance compared to the Divinely-sanctioned
>>genocide in the Old Testament.
>>
>Killings which took place are more significant than those that did not
>take place.
Certainly. However, nameless fervently believes they took place
because they're written in the Bible.
sto...@the.net
wrote:
>Our ancestor were murderers ALL of them,red ,whites ,brown and black,some
>did it before the others but all did it at one time or other.
Thank you for the acknowledgement the Bible is one big book of
'loving' atrocities.
sto...@the.net
Perhaps, there's a hint of humanity breaking through? It may be that
lower numbers makes things easier to handwave away.
>I suspect Thorton (who I tend to stick with) is being conservative.
>
>> Many if not most of the indigenous people who died in the 150 years
>> following 1490 were killed by diseases brought by the Europeans, and not
>> at their murderous hands.
>
>Definitely. I've seen estimates of a 70 to 90% epidemic related population
>crash. Even people in the interior would not have escaped the early
>contact plagues as neighbors passed diseases along. I suspect the "New
>World" seen by the "settlers" was already a radically changed place.
Agreed.
>> Finally, and still recognizing the deplorable, shameful, and
>> dishonorable way in which the US government treated the indigenes in the
>> US, mentioning the number 250,000 in with the other numbers is some kind
>> of dishonest statistical sleight of hand. Since the first and second
>> numbers referred to the entire Western Hemisphere, while the last number
>> refers only to the US, which had fewer people than the rest of the
>> Western Hemisphere in the first place.
>
>Point.
>
>The 250K figure is the nadir in the conterminous US. It's a definite
>"apples and oranges" issue.
>
>> Still, even with all these caveats it's sure that the total number of
>> indigenous individuals directly killed by Europeans is quite large,
>> certainly in the millions or low tens of millions. And this was done
>> primarily by devoutly religious people, believing in Jesus Christ and
>> the Bible. When you figure it relative to the available population, the
>> killing of indigenous Americans by Christians probably compares closely
>> to the killings done by the Nazis and the Communists.
>
>I tend to agree with you here. Though I tend to count the "indirect"
>effects of dislocation, social destruction, relocation, and forced
>containment (particularly in areas where not much of anybody could manage
>a decent living) as just as "direct" as shooting people and handing out
>blankets with smallpox.
Yes, but the Christian daemon god prefers when a death is long and
agonizing. That is how it feeds.
>What happened here could actually--relative to population--swamp what the
>Nazis did...
I have no doubt it did, by the orders of several magnitude.
Eric Root
<snip>
>
>
>There's more to this story then what you're letting on. People are
>people. Not everyone was a Christian back in those days. Criminals
>were actually sent to the Americas as a way to get rid of them. There
>were brothels everywhere. Don't give me this blame the Christians
>mentality. You're wrong. IF you want to talk about blood shed, talk
>about the anti-religious blood thirsty French Revolution, or the
>Communist purges. Those are the fruits of atheism.
>
>JM
>
But how many of them were _true_ atheists_? There you go with the
"blame the atheists" mentality again.
wbarwell
I have just been reading a large set of volumes, History of the Great Civil
War - volumes 1 - 4 by
S. R.. Gardiner on the English Civil Wars of 1640 - 1660.
Huge numbers of people were sent to The Americas and West Indies,
not because they were criminals, but because the were prisoners of
war. After a battle, often a lot of prisoners were so treated,
you might have 2,000 Scots sent abroad this way after England
took the wars to Scotland. Royalists taken in battle by the
Parlimentarians were commonly divided into groups, those
pressed into service who were allowed to sign a pledge to support
the Parlimentarian side and not fight for the Royalists, and allowed
to go home, and the known volunteers and pro-Royalist partisans
who were transported. Sometimes they were sent to France or
or other European nations as military conscripts for their wars.
Early in these wars, Irish found in England were outright killed
if taken prisoner. Later many were sent to the Americas.
--
Kerry - two medals a silver and bronze star.
Bush? Well they don't give medals
for going AWOL, missing your medical and
getting grounded or falling off of a bar stool.
Kerry - a hero, Bush - a zero
Cheerful Charlie