American Holocaust' 1993 , David Stannard Essay

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. . The most sustained on record" whilst the American Indian: The First Victim (1972) maintained that American civilization had originated in "theft and murder" and "efforts toward . . . genocide." In the Conquest of Paradise (1990), Sale condemned the British and American people for pursuing a genocidal program for more than four centuries (Lewy, 2004).

It was not only masssacre; epidemics were introduced by the White people too, one of which was smallpox that destroyed entire tribes at one go. Measles, influenza, syphilis, bubomic plague, typhus, and cholera were only a few of the other plagues that the "visitors" bequeathed to the inhabitants already living on this soil. Approximately 75 to 890% of the deaths of American Indians resulted from these pathogens.

There was forced relocation of Indian tribes. The removal of the Cherokee from their homeland in 1838 -- an experience that was later called the Trail of Tears -- annihilated thousands.

That the U.S. government deliberately infected Indians with deathly...

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Unsubstantiated, too, is the report that the Puritans conducted deliberate massacre against the Pequots (a particularly brutal Indian tribe). Sometimes, self-preservation and revenge for the scalping endured by the Indians took a toll (Lewy, 2004).
In that manner, whilst historian such as Stannard see the fate of the Native Indians as a crime, Lewy (2004) sees it as a tragedy where a collision between cultures and values caused the extinction of numerous individuals. The Indians were not prepared to surrender their nomadic existence, whilst the new Americans fuelled (as is the quintessential American character) by their perceived cultural and racial superiority, refused to keel to the native's demands. The result was a conflict and the deaths of millions for people.

Sources Used in Documents:

References

Lewy, G. Were American Indians the Victims of Genocide? History News Network, 2004. Web. http://www.hnn.us/articles/7302.html

Stannard, D. American Holocaust USA: Oxford University Press, 1993


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