The official website of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs today released "Historical Facts and Realistic Evidence of the Genocide of Indians in the United States." The full text is as follows:
Genocide (genocide) is composed of the ancient Greek word "race, nation or tribe" (genos) and the Latin word "slaughter, elimination" (caedere). In 1944, the word was coined by Polish Jewish legal scholar Raphael Lemkin proposed in his book "The Dominion of Axis Powers in Europe" that it originally referred to "the destruction of a country or a nation".
In 1946, United Nations General Assembly Resolution No. 96 confirmed genocide as a crime stipulated in international law. It held that "genocide is the denial of the entire human group---the right to survival, just as murder is the denial of the survival of an individual." The denial of rights is the same; this deprivation of the right to existence shocks the conscience of mankind... and violates the moral law and the spirit and goals of the United Nations ."
On December 9, 1948, the United Nations General Assembly adopted Resolution 260A, "Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide", which came into effect on January 12, 1951. The resolution stated that "genocide has caused the most tragic harm to mankind in history." Article 2 of the Convention clearly defines genocide as any person who commits one of the following acts with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group: (1) killing members of that group; (2) causing that group to Members of the group suffer serious physical or mental harm; (3) Deliberately subject the group to a living situation designed to destroy all or part of its life; (4) Enforce measures intended to prevent reproduction within the group; (5) Forced transfer of children from this group to another group. The United States ratified the convention in 1988.
US domestic law also has clear provisions on genocide. The definition of genocide in Section 1091 of Volume 18 of the United States Code is similar to that of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. It considers that the crime of genocide is the complete or partial destruction of a national, ethnic, racial or religious group. Violent assault with intent.
According to historical records and media reports, since the founding of the country, the United States has systematically deprived Indians of their right to survival and basic political, economic, and cultural rights through massacres, expulsions, and forced assimilation, in an attempt to eliminate them physically and culturally. a group. Indians still face a serious existential crisis today.
Comparing international law and U.S. domestic law, what the United States did to Indians covers all the behaviors that define the crime of genocide and is indisputable genocide. The US "Foreign Policy" magazine commented that crimes against Native Americans fully comply with the definition of genocide under current international law.
The profound sin of genocide is a historical stain that can never be washed away in the United States, and the painful tragedy of the Indians is a historical lesson that mankind should never forget.
1. Evidence that the U.S. government committed genocide against Indians
1. The government led the implementation of
. On July 4, 1776, the United States issued the " Declaration of Independence " and the United States of America was established. The "Declaration of Independence" clearly records: "He (referring to the British King) incited civil strife among us, and tried his best to instigate the cruel and uncivilized Indians to kill and plunder the residents of our frontiers", and publicly slandered the Native Americans as "cruel and cruel" , uncivilized" race.
When treating Native Americans, the U.S. government and rulers pursue white supremacy and white supremacy, exterminate the Indians, and attempt to eliminate this race through "cultural genocide."
During the First American War of Independence (1775-1783), the Second War of Independence (1812-1815), and the Civil War (1861-1865), the American rulers were eager to get rid of the European colonialist economy. With the economic status of vassal plantations, they expanded their territory and set their sights on the large amounts of land in the hands of Indians. They launched thousands of attacks on Indian tribes, massacred Indian leaders, soldiers and even civilians, and occupied Indian lands. own.
In 1862, the United States promulgated the "Homestead Act".This law stipulates that every U.S. citizen over the age of 21 only needs to pay a registration fee of $10 to obtain no more than 160 acres (approximately 64.75 hectares) of land in the West. Under the temptation of the land, white people rushed to the area where the Indians were and carried out massacres. Thousands of Indians were killed.
The leader of the U.S. government at the time once publicly stated that "high-quality boots can be made from Indian skins", "Indians must be exterminated or driven to places where we will not go", "Indians must be quickly exterminated" "Eradicate", "Only dead Indians are good Indians". American soldiers regarded the killing of Indians as a matter of course and even an honor, and "will never stop until they kill them all." There are countless similar hate speeches and atrocities, and they are detailed in many monographs on the extermination of Native Americans.
2． Bloody massacres and atrocities
Ever since the colonists set foot in North America, there has been a planned large-scale hunting of North American bison, cutting off the Indians' food and basic source of livelihood, causing them to die in batches due to starvation.
According to statistics, since the United States declared independence in 1776, the U.S. government has launched more than 1,500 attacks, attacking Indian tribes, massacring Indians, and occupying their land. The crimes are countless. In 1814, the United States issued a decree stipulating that for every Indian scalp turned over, the U.S. government would reward US$50 to US$100. Frederick Turner acknowledged in "The Importance of the Frontier in American History" published in 1893: "Every frontier was gained by a series of Indian wars."
The California Gold Rush also brought Come to the California Massacre. Peter Burnett, the first governor of California, proposed launching a war of extermination against the Native Americans, and calls for the extermination of Indians in the state grew. In California in the 1850s and 1860s, an Indian head or scalp could be exchanged for $5, and the average daily wage at that time was 25 cents. From 1846 to 1873, California's Indian population dropped from 150,000 to 30,000. Countless Indians died from atrocities. Some major massacres include:
◆ In 1811, the U.S. army defeated the famous Indian leader Tecumseh and his army in the Battle of Tippecanoe, burned the Indian capital of Prophetstown and carried out brutal massacres.
◆From November 1813 to January 1814, the U.S. military launched the Creek War against Native Americans, also known as the Battle of Horseshoe Bend. On March 27, 1814, about 3,000 soldiers attacked the Creek Indians at Horseshoe Bend in Mississippi Territory. In this battle, more than 800 Creek warriors were massacred, and the military strength of the Creek tribe was greatly weakened. According to the Treaty of Fort Jackson signed on August 9 of the same year, the Creeks ceded more than 23 million acres of land to the U.S. federal government.
◆On November 29, 1864, because a few Indians opposed the signing of an agreement to transfer land, American pastor John Chivington massacred the Indians at Sand Creek in the southeastern part of Colorado. It was also the most notorious massacre of Native Americans. Maria Montoya, a professor of history at New York University, mentioned in an interview that Chivington's soldiers scalped women and children, chopped off their heads, and paraded them through the streets after returning to Denver.
Anaya, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples, submitted a country visit report after visiting the United States in 2012, saying that descendants of the victims of the Sand Creek Massacre complained that in 1864, about 700 U.S. armed soldiers attacked people living in Sand Creek, Colorado. Cheyenne and Arapaho tribesmen on the Border Indian Reservation were raided and shot. According to media reports, the massacre resulted in the deaths of 70 to 163 out of more than 200 tribe members. Two-thirds of the dead were women or children. No one was held responsible for the massacre. The U.S. government has reached a compensation agreement with the descendants of the tribe, but it has not yet been fulfilled.
◆On December 29, 1890, near the Wounded Knee River in South Dakota , the U.S. Army shot at Indians. According to U.S. Congressional records, more than 350 people were killed or injured. After the Wounded Knee Massacre, the Indians' armed resistance was basically suppressed, and about 20 U.S. soldiers were awarded the Medal of Honor.
◆In 1930, the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs sterilized Indian women through the "Indian Health Service" project. Sterilization operations were performed under the guise of protecting the health of Indian women, and some operations were even performed without the women's knowledge. According to statistics, in the early 1970s, more than 42% of Indian women of childbearing age were sterilized. For many small tribes, this almost led to the extinction of the entire tribe. As of 1976, approximately 70,000 Indian women had been forcibly sterilized.
3. Westward Expansion and Forced Relocation
At the beginning of the founding of the United States, the United States regarded Indian tribes as sovereign entities. It mainly relied on negotiating treaties to negotiate with them on land, trade, judicial and other issues, and occasionally went to war with them. As of 1840, the United States had reached more than 200 treaties with various tribes. Most of them were unequal treaties reached under the military and political pressure of the United States. They were full of deception, coercion, and inducements. They were only binding on the Indian tribes and were plundering the Indian tribes. main tool.
In 1830, the United States passed the Indian Removal Act, marking the institutionalization of forced relocation of Indians in the United States. The act also legally deprived Indian tribes of their right to live in the eastern United States, forcing about 100,000 Indians to migrate from their southern homelands to the west of the Mississippi River. The migration began in the scorching summer, and went through the winter when the temperature reached subzero, walking 16 miles a day. Thousands of people died on the way due to hunger and cold, overwork, or diseases and plagues. The Indian population dropped sharply, and the road to forced migration became a "The Trail of Blood and Tears". Tribes that refused to be relocated were conscripted, violently relocated, and even massacred by the U.S. government.
In 1839, before Texas joined the United States, the government required the Indians to evacuate immediately, otherwise they would destroy their possessions and destroy their tribes. As a result, a large number of Cherokees who refused to submit were shot.
In 1863, the U.S. military implemented the " scorched earth policy" against the Navajo tribe, coercing them to burn their houses, crops, kill their livestock, and destroy their property, and then armed them to escort the Navajo people to New Mexico on foot for hundreds of kilometers. In the eastern reservation, pregnant women and elderly people who could not keep up with the team were shot dead.
In the mid-19th century, almost all American Indians were driven west of the Mississippi River, and the government forced them to live in indigenous reservations.
"Cambridge American Economic History" writes: "Because the U.S. government carried out forceful expulsion of the last Indians in the East, there were only a handful of Indians left in the region who were citizens of a single country, or in the process of forceful expulsion Those individual Indians in hiding. "
Sadly, in order to beautify history, American historians often beautify the "Western Expansion Movement" as the American people's economic development of the western territories, claiming that it accelerated the political democratization process in the United States. It promoted the economic development of the United States and contributed to the formation and development of the American national spirit, but it did not mention the barbaric massacre of Native Americans.
In fact, it was after the westward expansion that the nascent American civilization was destroyed. Indians, as one of the major human races, faced the situation of being completely extinct.
4. Forced assimilation and cultural genocide
In order to defend the unjust acts of the U.S. government, some 19th-century American scholars vigorously incited the binary opposition theory of "civilization versus barbarism" and portrayed Native Americans as a barbaric, evil, and inferior ethnic group. . Parkman, a well-known American historian in the 19th century, claimed that Native Americans "are unable to learn the various skills of civilization, and they and their forests will all disappear together."
Bancroft, another well-known American historian of the same period, also claimed that Native Americans were "inferior to white people in reasoning and moral character, and this inferiority was not just personal, but related to them." It is related to organization and is a characteristic of the entire ethnic group.” This kind of speech that wantonly derogates Indians in order to justify colonial plunder is full of racial discrimination.
From the 1870s to the 1880s, the U.S. government adopted a more radical "forced assimilation" policy to eliminate the social organizational structure and culture of Indian tribes.The core goal of the forced assimilation strategy is to destroy the original group affiliation, ethnic identity and tribal identity of the Indians, and transform them into single individuals, American citizens with American citizenship, civic awareness and identification with mainstream American values. To this end, four measures were taken:
First, the Indian tribes were completely deprived of their autonomy. Indians have survived as tribes for many years, and tribes are their source of strength and spiritual sustenance. The U.S. government forcibly abolished the tribal system and threw the Indians as individuals into a white society that was completely different from their traditions. They were unable to find a job and settle down, were economically impoverished, suffered political and social discrimination, and suffered great mental pain and suffering. A profound existential crisis and cultural crisis. The Cherokee tribe in the 19th century was originally prosperous and their material life was comparable to that of the white people on the frontier. However, as the U.S. government gradually revoked its autonomy and abolished tribalism, Cherokee society rapidly declined and became the poorest among the indigenous residents. crowd.
The second is to try to destroy Indian reservations in the form of land distribution, and then disintegrate their tribes. The Dawes Act passed in 1887 authorized the president to dissolve Aboriginal reservations, abolish tribal land ownership within the original reservations, and allocate land directly to Indians living inside and outside the reservations, forming an actual private land system. The abolition of tribal land ownership disintegrated Indian society and tribal authority suffered a heavy blow. The " sun dance ", as the highest form of tribal unity, was banned because it was regarded as "heretical behavior". Most of the land in the original reservations was transferred to white people through auctions; the Indians who were unprepared for farming soon lost their land due to various reasons such as being deceived, and their lives worsened day by day.
The third step is to gradually and eventually comprehensively impose American "citizenship" status on Indians. Aboriginal people identified as "half-blood" had to give up their tribal status, and others were "detribalized," greatly damaging Indian identity.
The fourth is to eradicate the ethnic consciousness and tribal identity of Indians through education, language, culture, religion and other measures and a series of social policies. Beginning with the Civilizing Fund Act of 1819, the United States established or funded boarding schools across the country and forced Indian children to enroll. According to the report of the American Indian Boarding School Healing Alliance, there were 367 boarding schools in the United States in history. By 1925, 60,889 Indian children were forced to attend the schools. By 1926, the proportion of Indian children enrolled was as high as 83%, but the total number of students enrolled today is still Not clear. In line with the concept of "erasing Indian culture and saving Indians," the United States prohibits Indian children from speaking national languages, wearing national costumes, and performing national activities, erasing their language, culture, and identity, and committing cultural genocide. Indian children suffered in schools and some died from starvation, disease, and abuse. After that, the "forced foster care" policy was launched, forcibly handing over children to white people to raise, continuing the assimilation policy and depriving them of cultural identity. This phenomenon was not banned until the United States passed the Indian Child Welfare Act in 1978. When the United States Congress passed the law, it acknowledged that "a large number of Indian children were transferred to non-Indian families and institutions without permission, causing the fragmentation of Indian families."
Famous historian Henry Steele Commager and others said that due to forced assimilation, "one of the most despicable things in American history... developed to its culmination, which was perhaps the most unfortunate stage for Indians. . ”
2. American Indians are still facing a serious survival and development crisis
The genocide of Indians by the US government and rulers has led to a sharp decline in the population of the Indian ethnic group, deterioration of living environment, lack of social security, and loss of economic status. Low profile and threatened by security, political influence plummeted.
1． The population dropped sharply.
There were 5 million Indians before the arrival of white colonists in 1492, but by 1800 the number dropped sharply to 600,000. According to data from the U.S. Census Bureau, the number of Native Americans in 1900 was the lowest in history, only 237,000. Among them, more than ten tribes including the Pequet, Mohican , and Massachusetts were completely extinct.
From 1800 to 1900, the number of American Indians decreased by more than half, and their proportion of the total population of the United States also dropped from 10.15% to 0.31%. Throughout the 19th century, while the U.S. population grew by 20% to 30% every ten years, the number of Indians experienced a cliff-like decline. The current population of Indians and Alaska Aboriginal people only accounts for 1.3% of the total population of the United States.
2． The living environment has deteriorated.
Indians have been driven from the east to live in the barren west. Most of the Indian reservations are in remote locations and are not suitable for the development of agriculture. No one will invest in the development of industry. In addition, they are scattered and vary in size. Tribes were unable to acquire large enough tracts of land for development, severely limiting Indian development. There are currently about 310 Aboriginal reservations in the United States, accounting for about 2.3% of the U.S. territory. Not all federally recognized tribes have their reservations . Most of the reserves are located in remote and barren places with poor living conditions and lack of water and other important resources. More than 60% of the road system is dirt or gravel roads. On the surface, the Indians have changed from "extinct" to "forgotten", "invisible" and "discriminated", but in fact they have been "allowed to become extinct".
The U.S. government has also systematically used Indian reservations as dumping grounds for toxic or nuclear waste through deception, coercion, and other methods. They have been exposed to uranium and other radioactive materials for a long time, causing the cancer incidence and mortality rates in the relevant communities to be significantly higher than Rest of the United States. Indian communities have effectively become the "trash can" in the development of the United States. Take the Navajo reservation, the largest Indian tribe in the United States, as an example. About a quarter of the women and some babies in this tribe contain high concentrations of radioactive substances in their bodies. According to reports, in the past 40 years before 2009, the U.S. government conducted a total of 928 nuclear tests in the Shoshone Indian tribe, producing approximately 620,000 tons of radioactive fallout , which was the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945. Nearly 48 times the amount of radioactive fallout produced after the explosion.
3. Lack of social security
According to a report released by the American Indian Health Service, the life expectancy of American Indians is 5.5 years lower than the average life expectancy of Americans The incidence rates of diabetes , chronic liver disease and alcohol dependence are 3.2 years higher than the U.S. average respectively. times, 4.6 times and 6.6 times. Relevant academic research shows that among all ethnic groups in the United States, Indians have the shortest life expectancy and the highest infant mortality rate; the incidence of drug abuse among Indian teenagers is 13.3 times higher than the national average, the incidence of alcoholism is 1.4 times higher, and the suicide rate It is 1.9 times the national average. These phenomena are closely related to factors such as the government’s insufficient investment in public medical resources, potential health inequalities, and the overall backward development of ethnic minority communities.
The U.S. government provides limited educational and medical assistance to Indians, 99% of which goes to reservation residents, but 70% of Indians live in cities and cannot receive corresponding protection. Many Indians do not have access to health insurance outside of the Indian Health Service, and Indians often face discrimination and language barriers in non-Indian Health Service and non-tribal health care settings.
During the COVID-19 epidemic, the disadvantaged status of Indians in medical care has been further highlighted. Statistics from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that as of August 18, 2020, the prevalence rate of COVID-19 among Indians is 2.8 times that of white people, and the mortality rate is 1.4 times. The report prepared by the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Housing Rights in accordance with Human Rights Council Resolution 343/14 pointed out that Native Americans and African Americans have been severely affected by the COVID-19 epidemic, and their hospitalization rate is five times that of non-Hispanic whites. The new coronavirus infection rate in the Navajo Nation, the largest Indian reservation in the United States, once surpassed New York and became the highest in the United States.
In terms of education, the educational conditions in Indian reservations lag far behind those in areas where white Americans live. According to 2013-2017 U.S. Census Bureau data, only 14.3% of Indians have a bachelor's degree or higher. In comparison, 15.2% of Hispanics, 20.6% of African Americans and 34.5% of whites have a bachelor's degree or higher. Schools on many Indian reservations are dilapidated and the education system is falling apart.
" The New York Times " reported that at the Wind River Native American Reservation School, only 60% of Indian students completed high school, compared with 80% of white students in Wyoming ; dropout rate on the reservation At 40 percent, it’s more than twice Wyoming’s average dropout rate; teens are twice as likely to commit suicide as their U.S. peers.
4. Low economic and security levels
Many reservations in barren areas in the central and western regions have stagnated in economic development and become the poorest areas. The poverty rate in some reservations even exceeds 85%. U.S. Census Bureau data from 2018 shows that Indians have the highest poverty rate of all minorities at 25.4%, African Americans at 20.8%, Hispanics at 17.6%, and whites at 8.1%. The median income of Indian households is equivalent to only 60% of that of white households.
" Atlantic Monthly " once visited the Pine Ridge Native Reservation in South Dakota, USA, and found that the unemployment rate here is as high as 80%. Most Indians live below the federal poverty line, and many families have no access to running water and water. electricity. Because the subsidized foods provided by the federal government are generally high in sugar and calories, the incidence of diabetes here is eight times higher than the national average, and the average life expectancy is only about 50 years old.
The low economic level has led to serious social security problems. On the Pine Ridge Aboriginal Reserve, young people with nothing to do often seek identity and a sense of belonging in gang culture. Drinking, fighting, and drug abuse are common here. Research by the National Institute of Justice shows that more than 1.5 million Indian and Alaska Native women in the United States have experienced violence, accounting for 84.3% of the total population of this group. In addition, many criminals take advantage of legal loopholes in the reservation to engage in criminal activities, causing local security to deteriorate.
5. Low political status
In the mainstream political ecology of the United States, Indians and other indigenous peoples are not so much collectively "lost their voice" as they are "silenced" and "systematically erased" by the system. The number of Indians is small and their willingness to participate in politics is not strong. The voting rate is lower than that of other ethnic groups. Their interest demands are often ignored by politicians, resulting in Indians being reduced to second-class citizens in the United States. They are called "invisible groups" or "disappearing groups" "race" was conditionally granted citizenship status in 1924 and the right to vote in 1965.
In June 2020, the Native American Rights Foundation and others took the lead, with participation from national and local grassroots organizations, legal circles and academic circles in the United States, to conduct a survey on the obstacles to political participation faced by Native American voters. The results showed that only 66% of the 4.7 million Native American voters eligible to vote were registered. More than 1.5 million indigenous voters who are eligible to vote are unable to exercise their voting rights due to political obstacles. According to the survey, Native American voters face 11 common obstacles to participating in politics, including limited government services, lack of election funds, and discrimination. Currently, there are only 4 Indian-American members of Congress in the U.S. Congress, accounting for approximately 0.74% of the total members of both houses of Congress. The overall political status and political influence of Native Americans is far below their proportion of the U.S. population.
Native American groups have long suffered from neglect and discrimination. Many U.S. government statistics ignore Native Americans entirely or lumpily classify them as "other." Shannon Keller, an attorney and executive director of the Society of American Indian Affairs, said the greatest hope Native peoples have is to gain social acceptance. “We are culturally and linguistically diverse, but too often we are viewed not as an ethnic group but as a political class with limited autonomy based on our treaties with the Commonwealth.” Brookings Institution recently published an article stating that the U.S. monthly employment report ignores Indians, and no one pays attention to or discusses the economic situation of this group. There are nearly 200 Indian tribes in California, only half of which are federally recognized. Although the Biden administration has appointed the first Indian cabinet minister, the overall political participation and political influence of Indians is far lower than their proportion of the U.S. population.
Poll results from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in the United States show that more than one-third of Native Americans have experienced indifference, violence, humiliation, and discrimination in the workplace, and Indians living in Indian-inhabited areas have trouble dealing with the police, More likely to be discriminated against at work and when voting. According to statistics from the US Department of the Interior , Indians are twice as likely to be imprisoned for minor crimes as other ethnic groups. The incarceration rate for Indian men is four times that of white men, and the incarceration rate for Indian women is six times that of white women.
"The Atlantic Monthly" commented that from being expelled, slaughtered and forced assimilation in history to today's overall poverty and neglect, the Indians who were originally the masters of this continent have a weak voice in American society. American Indian writer Rebecca Nagel pointedly pointed out that being invisible is a new type of racial discrimination against Indians and other indigenous peoples. The Los Angeles Times commented that the unfair treatment suffered by indigenous people is deeply embedded in the American social organizational structure and legal system.
6． Cultural Endangerment
From the 1870s to the late 1920s, in order to promote English and Christian education, the U.S. government vigorously promoted the Indian boarding school system in Indian residential areas. In many places, Indian children were even kidnapped and forced to attend school. Historically, the United States has implemented a boarding school system for Indians, which has caused irreversible serious trauma, especially to youth and children. Many younger generations of Native Americans are unable to gain a foothold in mainstream society, maintain and promote traditional culture, and feel confused and painful about their own culture and identity.
These boarding schools often cut off Indian children's long braids that symbolize courage, burn their traditional clothing, and strictly prohibit them from speaking their native language, otherwise they will be beaten severely. In these schools, Indian children were forced to accept militarized management. Not only were they subject to corporal punishment by teachers, but some children were also sexually abused. Many Indian children became sick or even died due to harsh education methods, differences in living habits, longing for relatives, and malnutrition.
The U.S. government has also enacted laws that prohibit indigenous peoples from holding religious ceremonies that have been passed down from generation to generation. Those who participate in such activities will be arrested and imprisoned. Since the 20th century, with the surging civil rights movement in the United States, the protection status of Native American traditional culture and history has improved to a certain extent, but it has already suffered too serious damage, and most of what remains are cultural relics preserved by later generations with the help of English.
Nagel believes that information about Native Americans has been systematically erased from mainstream American media and popular culture. Native American education organizations report that 87 percent of state history textbooks do not cover Native history after 1900. Smithsonian Institution and others wrote an article saying that the content about Indians taught in American schools is full of inaccurate information and does not truthfully describe the experiences of indigenous peoples. Santorum, a former Republican senator from Pennsylvania , publicly stated at the Youth Foundation of America that "the United States is a country born from scratch. There was almost nothing here before... To be honest, there is almost nothing in American culture. Not including Native American culture "ignores and erases the place of Native American culture in American culture.
3. There are endless criticisms of the "genocide" of Indians in the United States, but they are ignored by the government.
First, there is a consensus among the academic circles. Since the 1970s, American academic circles have begun to use the term "genocide" to accuse American Indian policies. In the 1990s, "American Holocaust: Conquering the New World" written by David Stannard, a professor at the University of Hawaii, and "That Little Affair of Genocide" written by Ward Churchill, a former professor at the University of Colorado, shocked the academic world. In addition, Yale University Professor Ben Kiernan’s book "Blood and Land: A History of Genocide and Destruction in the World" briefly introduces the Indian genocide launched by the United States at different historical stages. University of California, Los Angeles Associate Professor Benjamin Mader Lee's book "American Genocide: The Tragedy of Native Americans in the United States and California, 1846-1873" provides an in-depth exploration of the numerous tragedies launched by the government to exterminate Native Americans during the California Gold Rush.
Native American historian Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz has argued that each of the five counts of genocide listed in the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide can be found in crimes against Indians in the United States. Correspondingly, Native Americans are undoubtedly victims of genocide, and it is of great significance to recognize that the United States' policy toward Indians is genocide.
Second, the media has appealed. The New York Times published an article reporting that the Hastings School of Law at the University of California was named after a genocide, accelerating the process of renaming the school. ABC reported that the demands of Native Americans range from fighting for sovereignty to small demands to be heard. Some interviewees said that the theft of Indian land and the erasure of language constituted systematic genocide. The "Washington Post" published an article condemning the genocidal policy implemented by the United States against indigenous peoples that has never been officially recognized. Foreign Policy published an article demanding that the United States recognize the genocide of Indians. In November 2021, a documentary titled "Bounty" was released, inviting indigenous people to read the official historical documents of the United States offering high bounties for Indian scalps, and causing people to reflect on the United States' brutal genocide policy.
With the development of the affirmative action movement after World War II , American society began to reflect on the Indian issue. The government has issued a resolution to apologize to Aboriginal people. California Governor Newsom issued a statement in 2019 to apologize to California's indigenous people, acknowledging that California's actions against Indian groups in the mid-19th century were genocide.
However, the government's reflection is more like a "political show" and it has still not officially recognized the atrocities committed by the United States against Indians as genocide. Real change is far away.
To sum up, successive U.S. governments not only physically eliminated large numbers of Indians, but also put the survival of the indigenous people into an irreversible dilemma through systematic institutional design and bullying cultural suppression, and the Indian culture was fundamentally damaged. , the intergenerational survival of life and spirit is seriously threatened. The massacre, forced relocation, cultural assimilation and unfair treatment of Indians by the United States have constituted de facto genocide, which fully complies with the definition of genocide in the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, and it continues to this day after hundreds of years. continue. The U.S. government should abandon its hypocrisy and double standards on human rights issues and take seriously the serious racial problems and crimes that exist in the country.
Source: Xinhua News Agency
