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Author | David Stannard |
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Language | English |
Subject | History of the Americas, colonialism, genocide of indigenous peoples |
Publisher | Oxford University Press |
Publication date | November 1993 |
Media type | Print (Hardback) |
Pages | 358 |
ISBN | 9780195085570 |
American Holocaust: Columbus and the Conquest of the New World is a multidisciplinary book about the Indigenous peoples of the Americas and colonial history written by American scholar and historian David Stannard.
This book generated a significant amount of critical commentary. Stannard responded to some of it in an essay titled "Uniqueness as Denial: The Politics of Genocide Scholarship", published in Is the Holocaust Unique? , edited by Alan S. Rosenbaum. [1]
Stannard begins with a description of the cultural and biological diversity in the Americas prior to contact in 1492. The book surveys the history of European colonization in the Americas, for approximately 400 years, from the first Spanish assaults in the Caribbean in the 1490s to the Wounded Knee Massacre in the 1890s--the indigenous inhabitants of North and South America have suffered dispossession, oppression and exploitation. During that time the indigenous population of the Western Hemisphere declined by as many as 100 million people. The author follows the path of colonialism from the Caribbean to Mexico and Central and South America, then North America to Florida, Virginia, and New England, and finally out across the Great Plains and Southwest to California and the North Pacific Coast. Stannard reveals that wherever Europeans or their descendants went, the native people were caught between imported epidemics and colonialism, typically resulting in the annihilation of 95 percent of their populations.
The author explores the history of ancient European and Christian attitudes toward religion, race, and war, he finds the cultural ground well prepared by the end of the Middle Ages for the centuries-long genocide campaign that Europeans and their descendants launched--and in places continue to wage--against indigenous peoples of the Americas. [2] Stannard suggests that the perpetrators of the American Holocaust drew on the same ideological foundations as did the later architects of the Nazi Holocaust. He writes that the indigenous genocides in the New World were based upon the proposition that American Indians were biologically, racially, and inherently inferior. Thus, the process of “dehumanization” results in sadism and genocide in the personifications of entire peoples (p. 253). It is an ideology of Western supremacy that remains alive today, he adds, and one that in recent years has resulted in American justifications for military interventions overseas.
Stannard concludes that America’s surviving indigenous peoples are still faced with the dilemma going back to 1492. Their choice then was to give up their religion, their lands and culture or suffer further punishment the European colonizers would inflict (p. 258).
Francis Jennings of Early American Literature [3] [4] wrote:
In essence the book comprises two main features: descriptions of the horrible bloodshed suffered by American Indians as a consequence of European "discovery"; and an explanation of the evolution of European ideas that culminated in the genocide of the title.
Samuel R. Cook of The American Indian Quarterly [5] wrote:
...the author focuses on the genocidal component of the conquest of the Americas, labeling it, "far and away, the most massive act of genocide in the world... American Holocaust is a substantial addition to the library of injustice toward American Natives....From an ethical standpoint, works such as Stannard's are necessary to counterbalance the ethnocentricities of past historical works on Natives...". [6]
Wilbur Jacobs in Journal of American Ethnic History [7] wrote:
"Stannard begins his book with a survey of Indian life and societies throughout the Americans in the era “before Columbus.” With scholarly precision he explores the relevant literature as a basis for evaluating the widespread destruction of American Indian peoples who came in contact with European peoples, especially the Spaniards. His chapters then expand to dramatic accounts of pestilence, genocide, and then to fascinating discussions on sex, race and the holy war against native peoples of the Americas. The main thread of discussion demonstrates that, after the impact of Columbus and his followers, the paths of Europeans and America’s native people were enmeshed in a double disaster of European plagues of disease and savage treatment and atrocities. Stannard estimates that 95 percent of indigenous peoples were annihilated."
Daniel T. Reff from Ohio State University has some praise for the book: "The great strength of this book is the clarification of the many institutional and ideological contingencies that contributed to the American holocaust as well as subsequent genocides". [8]
Christopher Columbus was an Italian explorer and navigator from the Republic of Genoa who completed four Spanish-based voyages across the Atlantic Ocean sponsored by the Catholic Monarchs, opening the way for the widespread European exploration and colonization of the Americas. His expeditions were the first known European contact with the Caribbean and Central and South America.
During the Age of Discovery, a large scale colonization of the Americas, involving a number of European countries, took place primarily between the late 15th century and the early 19th century. The Norse explored and colonized areas of Europe and the North Atlantic, colonizing Greenland and creating a short term settlement near the northern tip of Newfoundland circa 1000 AD. However, due to its long duration and importance, the later colonization by the European powers involving the continents of North America and South America is more well-known.
Genocide denial is the attempt to deny or minimize the scale and severity of an instance of genocide. Denial is an integral part of genocide and includes the secret planning of genocide, propaganda while the genocide is going on, and destruction of evidence of mass killings. According to genocide researcher Gregory Stanton, denial "is among the surest indicators of further genocidal massacres".
The encomienda was a Spanish labour system that rewarded conquerors with the labour of conquered non-Christian peoples. In theory, the conquerors provided the labourers with benefits, including military protection and education. The encomienda was first established in Spain following the Christian Reconquista, and it was applied on a much larger scale during the Spanish colonization of the Americas and the Spanish East Indies. Conquered peoples were considered vassals of the Spanish monarch. The Crown awarded an encomienda as a grant to a particular individual. In the conquest era of the early sixteenth century, the grants were considered a monopoly on the labour of particular groups of indigenous peoples, held in perpetuity by the grant holder, called the encomendero; starting from the New Laws of 1542, the encomienda ended upon the death of the encomendero, and was replaced by the repartimiento.
Genocide is the intentional destruction of a people in whole or in part. The term was coined in 1944 by Raphael Lemkin. It is defined in Article 2 of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (CPPCG) of 1948 as "any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group, as such: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group's conditions of life, calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; [and] forcibly transferring children of the group to another group."
Population figures for the Indigenous peoples of the Americas before European colonization have been difficult to establish. Estimates have varied widely from as low as 8 million to as many as 100 million, though many scholars gravitated toward an estimate of around 50 million by the end of the 20th century.
David Edward Stannard is an American historian and Professor of American Studies at the University of Hawaii. He is particularly known for his book American Holocaust, in which he argues that European colonization of the Americas after the arrival of Christopher Columbus resulted in some of the largest series of genocides in history.
Guenter Lewy is a German-born American author and political scientist who is a professor emeritus of political science at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. His works span several topics, but he is most often associated with his 1978 book on the Vietnam War, America in Vietnam, and several controversial works that deal with the applicability of the term genocide to various historical events, where Lewy denies both the Romani genocide and the Armenian genocide.
The first wave of European colonization began with Spanish and Portuguese conquests and explorations, and primarily involved the European colonization of the Americas, though it also included the establishment of European colonies in India and in Maritime Southeast Asia. During this period, European interests in Africa primarily focused on the establishment of trading posts there, particularly for the African slave trade. The wave ended with the British annexation of the Kingdom of Kandy in 1815 and the founding of the colony of Singapore in 1819.
Holocaust trivialization refers to any comparison or analogy that diminishes the scale and severity of the atrocities that were carried out by Nazi Germany during the Holocaust. The Wiesel Commission defined trivialization as the abusive use of comparisons with the aim of minimizing the Holocaust and banalizing its atrocities. Originally, holocaust meant a type of sacrifice that is completely burnt to ashes; starting from the late 19th century, it started to denote extensive destruction of a group, usually people or animals. The 1915 Armenian genocide was described as a "holocaust" by contemporary observers.
Is the Holocaust Unique? Perspectives on Comparative Genocide is a 1995 book about the Holocaust uniqueness debate, edited by Alan Rosenbaum. In the book, scholars compare the Holocaust to other well-known instances of genocide and mass death. The book asks whether there are any historical parallels to the Jewish Holocaust and whether Armenians, Romani people, American Indians, or others have undergone a comparable genocide.
A Little Matter of Genocide: Holocaust and Denial in the Americas 1492 to the Present (1997) is a book which was written by Ward Churchill. A Little Matter of Genocide surveys ethnic cleansing from 1492 to the present. Churchill compares the treatment of North American Indians to historical instances of genocide by communists in Cambodia, Turks against Armenians, and Europeans against the Gypsies, as well as Nazis against the Poles and Jews.
The genocide of Indigenous peoples, colonial genocide, or settler genocide is the intentional elimination of Indigenous peoples as a part of the process of colonialism.
There are 17 indigenous tribes in Paraguay with the majority having their territories in the Chaco region. Tribes in this region include the Guaraní, Ayoreo, Toba-Maskoy, Aché and Sanapan which according to the census from 2002 number an estimated 86,000 or roughly around 2 per cent of the total population. These peoples have faced persecution particularly under the dictator Alfredo Strossner that some observers called a genocide.
The connection between colonialism and genocide has been explored in academic research. According to historian Patrick Wolfe, "[t]he question of genocide is never far from discussions of settler colonialism." Historians have commented that although colonialism does not necessarily directly involve genocide, research suggests that the two share a connection.
This is a select annotated bibliography of scholarly English language books and journal articles about the subject of genocide studies; for bibliographies of genocidal acts or events, please see the See also section for individual articles. A brief selection of English translations of primary sources is included for items related to the development of genocide studies. Book entries may have references to journal articles and reviews as annotations. Additional bibliographies can be found in many of the book-length works listed below; see Further Reading for several book and chapter-length bibliographies. The External links section contains entries for publicly available materials on the development of genocide studies.
Denial of genocides of Indigenous peoples consists of a claim that has denied any of the multiple genocides and atrocity crimes, which have been committed against Indigenous peoples. The denialism claim contradicts the academic consensus, which acknowledges that genocide was committed. The claim is a form of denialism, genocide denial, historical negationism and historical revisionism. The atrocity crimes include genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and ethnic cleansing.
Indigenous response to colonialism has varied depending on the Indigenous group, historical period, territory, and colonial state(s) they have interacted with. Indigenous peoples have had agency in their response to colonialism. They have employed armed resistance, diplomacy, and legal procedures. Others have fled to inhospitable, undesirable or remote territories to avoid conflict. Nevertheless, some Indigenous peoples were forced to move to reservations or reductions, and work in mines, plantations, construction, and domestic tasks. They have detribalized and culturally assimilated into colonial societies. On occasion, Indigenous peoples have formed alliances with one or more Indigenous or non-Indigenous nations. Overall, the response of Indigenous peoples to colonialism during this period has been diverse and varied in its effectiveness. Indigenous resistance has a centuries-long history that is complex and carries on into contemporary times.
The historiography of Indigenous genocide is the study of how these type of genocides have been documented and interpreted by historians throughout the colonial age up to today.
The destruction of Native American peoples, cultures, and languages has been characterized as genocide. Debates are ongoing as to whether the entire process and which specific periods or events meet the definitions of genocide or not. Many of these definitions focus on intent, while others focus on outcomes. Raphael Lemkin, who coined the term "genocide", considered the displacement of Native Americans by European settlers as a historical example of genocide. Others, like historian Gary Anderson, contend that genocide does not accurately characterize any aspect of American history, suggesting instead that ethnic cleansing is a more appropriate term.