Colonialism and genocide

{{Genocide of Indigenous peoples}}

• Another example of colonialism and genocide is the genocide which was committed against the Taíno people on Hispaniola after the arrival of Christopher Columbus and other Spanish colonizers in December 1492. Initially leaving 39 Spaniards behind, Columbus left, and a year later, he returned with more Spaniards in order to complete his conquest of the Dominican Republic. There are no exact tallies of how many Taíno people inhabited Hispaniola when Columbus arrived on it. However, it is estimated that the number of Taíno people who lived on Hispaniola was at least hundreds of thousands and it may have been up to a million or more. However, during the 25 years when the Spanish colonized the islands of Hispaniola, the Taino people were murdered, subjected to slavery, and by the year 1514, only 32,000 Taíno people remained alive.
• The Black War of Tasmania (1820s–1832) was a guerrilla war fought between British settlers and Aboriginal Tasmanians, which resulted in the deaths of nearly 900 Aboriginal locals and the near extinction of the island's Aboriginal population.{{sfn|Moses|Stone|2013|pp=71–78}}
• According to Jack Norton, a Hupa and Cherokee scholar, the colonization of California was attributed to Manifest Destiny, and the success of European colonizers in the West was attributed to the genocide of indigenous peoples.{{Cite web |last=Reed |first=Kaitlin |date=2020 |title=We Are a Part of the Land and the Land Is Us: Settler Colonialism, Genocide & Healing in California |url=https://digitalcommons.humboldt.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1131&context=hjsr |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240603161241/https://digitalcommons.humboldt.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1131&context=hjsr |archive-date=2024-06-03}} In a government-sponsored move to California, European colonizers emigrated west to further colonize the north American continent due to the discovery of gold in California. Upon arriving, Brendan Lindsay, an American behavioral scientist, notes that the euro-American group encountered nearly 150,000 indigenous tribes, and colonizers worked to drive them away, murder them, or have them collected by militiamen or vigilante forces. As the gold rush ended and as euro-American colonizers began to cultivate the land and create democracy in California, the treatment of indigenous tribes became much worse. The first California Governor, Peter H. Burnett, declared that a "war of extermination" should be waged against Indians, the war was recounted by numerous newspapers which were published at that time.
• According to the Tibetan Government in Exile (TGIE), during the early years of the rule of the Chinese administration in Tibet, an estimated 1.2 million Tibetans died between 1951 and 1984. Tibet expert Barry Sautman considers this number highly "inaccurate," because there is "no credible evidence of ongoing mass killing, physically enforced birth control, or forced intermarriage in Tibet." Sautman also challenges the notion that Chinese practices in Tibet can be considered genocidal or colonial, stating that "Tibet's non-colonial nature can be derived from the nature of modern colonialism" and citing the political and legal equality of Tibetans under the current administration.{{sfn|Sautman|2006}}
• In Belgium, the atrocities in the Congo Free State are not in the public discourse, and the topic is not entirely addressed in education.{{Cite news |last=Gerdziunas |first=Benas |date=17 October 2017 |title=Belgium's genocidal colonial legacy haunts the country's future |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/long_reads/belgium-s-genocidal-colonial-legacy-haunts-the-country-s-future-a7984191.html |access-date=29 March 2023 |work=The Independent |language=en |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240406111102/https://www.independent.co.uk/news/long_reads/belgiums-genocidal-colonial-legacy-haunts-the-country-s-future-a7984191.html |archive-date=6 April 2024}}{{Cite news |last=Bates |first=Stephen |date=13 May 1999 |title=The hidden holocaust |language=en-GB |work=The Guardian |url=https://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/1999/may/13/features11.g22 |access-date=29 March 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240601163002/https://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/1999/may/13/features11.g22 |archive-date=1 June 2024}} The archive of the colony was destroyed.{{Cite book |last=Hochschild |first=Adam |url=http://archive.org/details/kingleopoldsghos00adam |title=King Leopold's ghost : a story of greed, terror, and heroism in colonial Africa |date=2002 |location=London |publisher=Pan |via=Internet Archive |isbn=978-0-330-49233-1 |pages=294}} In 1999, Adam Hochschild published King Leopold's Ghost, an award-winning book (and a documentary) about the atrocities committed in the Congo Free State. The American Historical Association has awarded the book and claimed that Belgium has come to terms with this history because of the book.{{Cite web |title=2008 Theodore Roosevelt-Woodrow Wilson Award Recipient {{!}} AHA |url=https://www.historians.org/awards-and-grants/past-recipients/theodore-roosevelt-woodrow-wilson-award-recipients/2008-theodore-roosevelt-woodrow-wilson-award-recipient |access-date=29 April 2023 |website=www.historians.org |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240513220943/https://www.historians.org/awards-and-grants/past-recipients/theodore-roosevelt-woodrow-wilson-award-recipients/2008-theodore-roosevelt-woodrow-wilson-award-recipient |archive-date=13 May 2024}}

File:Mystic_Massacre_1637_Destruction_Of_The_Pequots_in_Connecticut.png 1637]]

There is a number of international scholars whose work established a relation between settler colonialism and genocide, as seen below.{{sfn|Moses|Stone|2013}}{{Cite web |last=Rose-Redwood |first=Reuben |date=2 July 2018 |title=Genocide hoax tests ethics of academic publishing |url=http://theconversation.com/genocide-hoax-tests-ethics-of-academic-publishing-98436 |access-date=30 July 2023 |website=The Conversation |language=en |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231017195235/https://theconversation.com/genocide-hoax-tests-ethics-of-academic-publishing-98436 |archive-date=17 October 2023}} Settler colonialism is different from immigration because immigrants often assimilate into an existing society, not to destroy it to replace it.{{Cite web |last=Dunbar-Ortiz |first=Roxanne |author-link=Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz |title=The United States Is Not "a Nation of Immigrants" |url=https://www.bostonreview.net/articles/the-united-states-is-not-a-nation-of-immigrants/ |access-date=14 November 2023 |website=Boston Review |language=en-US |archive-url=https://archive.today/20240109112919/https://www.bostonreview.net/articles/the-united-states-is-not-a-nation-of-immigrants/ |archive-date=9 January 2024}}{{Cite web |last=Cox |first=Alicia |date=2017 |title=Settler Colonialism |url=https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/display/document/obo-9780190221911/obo-9780190221911-0029.xml |access-date=15 November 2023 |website=Oxford Bibliographies |language=en |doi=10.1093/OBO/9780190221911-0029 |isbn=978-0-19-022191-1 |quote=Foundational theories in settler colonialism studies distinguish settler colonialism from classical colonialism through work that demonstrates that settler colonizers destroy indigenous peoples and cultures in order to replace them and establish themselves as the new rightful inhabitants. In other words, settler colonizers do not merely exploit indigenous peoples and lands for labor and economic interests; they displace them through settlements.}}

Ann Curthoys is an Australian historian and academic who wrote about the view of genocide scholar Leo Kuper: "Nevertheless, the course of colonization of North and South America, the West Indies, and Australia and Tasmania, [Leo] Kuper observes, has certainly been marked all too often by genocide."{{cite book |last=Curthoys |first=Ann |author-link=Ann Curthoys |title=The Historiography of Genocide |year=2008 |isbn=978-0-230-27955-1 |editor1-last=Stone |editor1-first=Dan |editor1-link=Dan Stone (historian) |pages=26 |chapter=Defining Genocide |doi=10.1057/9780230297784}} Noam Chomsky has considered settler colonialism to be the most vicious form of imperialism, and describes the lack of self-awareness of the genocide by some Americans.{{Cite web |last=Chomsky |first=Noam |author-link=Noam Chomsky |date=1 September 2010 |title=Monthly Review {{!}} Genocide Denial with a Vengeance: Old and New Imperial Norms |url=https://monthlyreview.org/2010/09/01/genocide-denial-with-a-vengeance-old-and-new-imperial-norms/ |access-date=30 March 2023 |website=Monthly Review |page=16 |quote=Settler colonialism, commonly the most vicious form of imperial conquest, provides striking illustrations. The English colonists in North America had no doubts about what they were doing. Revolutionary War hero General Henry Knox, the first Secretary of War in the newly liberated American colonies, described "the utter extirpation of all the Indians in most populous parts of the Union" by means "more destructive to the Indian natives than the conduct of the conquerors of Mexico and Peru", which would have been no small achievement. In his later years, President John Quincy Adams recognized the fate of "that hapless race of native Americans, which we are exterminating with such merciless and perfidious cruelty, [to be] among the heinous sins of this nation, for which I believe God will one day bring [it] to judgement". |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240227025022/https://monthlyreview.org/2010/09/01/genocide-denial-with-a-vengeance-old-and-new-imperial-norms/ |archive-date=27 February 2024}}{{Cite book |last1=Chomsky |first1=Noam |author1-link=Noam Chomsky |url=http://archive.org/details/chroniclesofdiss00chom |title=Chronicles of dissent: interviews with David Barsamian |last2=Barsamian |first2=David |author2-link=David Barsamian |date=1992 |location=Monroe, Me.; Stirling, Scotland |publisher=Common Courage Press; AK Press |via=Internet Archive |isbn=978-0-9628838-8-0 |page=13 |quote=Take just north of the Rio Grande, where once there were maybe 10 or 12 million native Americans. By 1900 there were about 200,000. In the Andean region and Mexico there were very extensive Indian societies, and they're mostly gone. Many of them were just totally murdered or wiped out, others succumbed to European-brought diseases. This is massive genocide, long before the emergence of the twentieth century nation-state. It may be one of the most, if not the most extreme example from history, but far from the only one. These are facts that we don't recognize.}}{{Cite journal |last=Jones |first=Adam |author-link=Adam Jones (Canadian scholar) |date=7 May 2020 |title=Chomsky and Genocide |journal=Genocide Studies and Prevention |volume=14 |issue=1 |pages=76–104 |doi=10.5038/1911-9933.14.1.1738 |s2cid=218959996 |doi-access=free}}{{Cite web |last=Chomsky |first=Noam |author-link=Noam Chomsky |date=3 November 2011 |title=Noam Chomsky: can revolutionary pacificism deliver peace? |url=http://theconversation.com/noam-chomsky-can-revolutionary-pacificism-deliver-peace-4150 |access-date=26 October 2023 |website=The Conversation |language=en-US |quote=The calculation is off by tens of millions, and the "vastness" included advanced civilizations, facts well known to those who choose to know decades ago. No letters appeared reacting to this truly colossal case of genocide denial. |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240221115614/https://theconversation.com/noam-chomsky-can-revolutionary-pacificism-deliver-peace-4150 |archive-date=21 February 2024}}

Pulitzer Prize winning historian Bernard Baylin has said that the Dutch and English conquests were just as brutal as those of the Spanish and Portuguese, in certain places and in certain times "genocidal".{{Cite book |last=Bailyn |first=Bernard |author-link=Bernard Bailyn |url=http://archive.org/details/barbarousyearspe0000bail |title=The barbarous years : the peopling of British North America : the conflict of civilizations, 1600-1675 |date=2012 |location=New York |publisher=Alfred A. Knopf |via=Internet Archive |isbn=978-0-394-51570-0 |pages=XV |chapter=Introduction}} He says that this history, for example the Pequot War, is not erased but conveniently forgotten.{{Cite web |last=Rosenbaum |first=Ron |title=The Shocking Savagery of America's Early History |url=https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-shocking-savagery-of-americas-early-history-22739301/ |access-date=15 April 2023 |website=Smithsonian Magazine |language=en |quote=It's a grand drama in which the glimmers of enlightenment barely survive the savagery, what Yeats called "the blood-dimmed tide," the brutal establishment of slavery, the race wars with the original inhabitants that Bailyn is not afraid to call "genocidal," the full, horrifying details of which have virtually been erased. |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240702100545/https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-shocking-savagery-of-americas-early-history-22739301/ |archive-date=2024-07-02}} The different European colonizing powers were all similarly cruel in their dealings with Indigenous peoples.{{Cite book |last=Sale |first=Kirkpatrick |url=http://archive.org/details/conquestofpa00sale |title=The conquest of paradise: Christopher Columbus and the Columbian legacy |date=1990 |location=New York |publisher=Knopf : Distributed by Random House |via=Internet Archive |isbn=978-0-394-57429-5 |pages=161 |quote=It is important to realize that there is not a single European nation which, when the opportunity came, did not engage in practices as vicious and cruel as those of Spain—and in the case of England, worse—with very much the same sort of demographic consequences. The Spanish, for all their faults, at least thought it right to convert, and in many cases to marry, the Indians, regarding them on a plane of humanity, capable of receiving Christian precepts and European civilization, above that generally accorded by other colonizers.}}

David Stannard historian and professor of American Studies at the University of Hawaii analyzed the genocidal process in two cases of colonization. He said that the British did not need massive labor as the Spanish, but land: "And therein lies the central difference between the genocide committed by the Spanish and that of the Anglo-Americans: in British America extermination was the primary goal." Thus, in British America they would clear the land of Indigenous peoples, and put the few survivors in reserves.{{Cite book |last=Stannard |first=David E. |author-link=David Stannard |title=American Holocaust: The Conquest of the New World |date=1994 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-508557-0 |location=Oxford, New York |page=221}}

Gregory D. Smithers, a lecturer in the Department of History at the University of Aberdeen, has weighed in as well: "Ward Churchill refers to settler colonialism in North America as 'the American holocaust', and David Stannard similarly portrayed the European colonization of the Americas as an example of 'human incineration and carnage'."{{Cite book |last1=Smithers |first1=Gregory D. |author1-link=Gregory D. Smithers |title=Oxford Handbook of Genocide Studies |last2=Moses |first2=A. Dirk |author2-link=A. Dirk Moses |date=15 April 2010 |publisher=Oxford University Press |location=Oxford |isbn=978-0-19-161361-6 |pages=330 |language=en |chapter=Rethinking Genocide in North America}}

Mark Levene, a historian at University of Southampton, linked colonialism and genocide: "In this, of course, we come back to the fatal nexus between the Anglo-American drive to rapid state-building and genocide." Levene has said that the authorities are silent about genocide in the case of the colonization of Australia, even though the press reports described the events.{{Cite book |last=Levene |first=Mark |author-link=Mark Levene |url=http://www.ibtauris.com/ibtauris/display.asp?K=510000000742634 |title=Genocide in the age of the nation state |volume=2: the rise of the west and the coming of genocide |publisher=I. B. Tauris |year=2005 |isbn=978-1-84511-057-4 |location=New York |pages=73, 84 |quote=What, however, does make these Australian moments of genocide particularly noteworthy – if not in themselves that unusual – is not only the bizarre disjuncture between their regular reportage in the local and national press and official denial, or more accurately silence on the matter on the part of the authorities, but the peculiar lengths to which the latter were prepared to go to give the appearance that such 'extra-judicial' killings would not be tolerated and that the pacification of hostile tribes would rather – somehow – proceed by due legal process.}}

Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, an American historian, professor at California State University, describes settler colonialism as inherently genocidal from the perspective of the terms of the Genocide Convention. She pointed out that genocide does not have to be total to be genocide, as the most famous genocide (the Holocaust) of all was not total.{{Cite book |last=Dunbar-Ortiz |first=Roxanne |author-link=Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz |title=An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States |publisher=Beacon Press |year=2014 |isbn=978-0-8070-0041-0 |pages=9 |quote=Settler colonialism is inherently genocidal in terms of the genocide convention. In the case of the British North American colonies and the United States, not only extermination and removal were practiced but also the disappearing of the prior existence of Indigenous peoples, and this continues to be perpetuated in local histories.}}

Stephen Howe, professor in the History and Cultures of Colonialism at the University of Bristol, UK, relates colonialism with genocide and says the case for colonialism causing genocide is very strong.{{Cite journal |last=Howe |first=Stephen |date=2010 |title=Colonising and Exterminating? Memories of Imperial Violence in Britain and France |journal=Histoire@Politique |volume=11 |issue=2 |pages=12 |doi=10.3917/hp.011.0012 |quote=The crucial relevance of this to debates over colonial violence lies in the argument, made in recent years in many different contexts and with unprecedented force, that settler colonialism is inherently bound up with extreme, pervasive, structural and even genocidal violence....And quite simply, since Britain (and, before a United Kingdom or a compound British identity were formed, England) founded more and more successful, 'explosive' settler colonies than anyone else, so probably more alleged or potential cases of pre-twentieth century genocide occurred in the British world than anywhere outside it...For British North America and for Australasia, however, the case for numerous genocidal episodes –by even restricted definitions, since large-scale deliberate killing was repeatedly involved– seems to me very strong.}}

Martin Shaw has argued that in a colonial context: "each side shattered the opposing civilian population while pursuing military goals."{{Cite journal |last=Shaw |first=Martin |author-link=Martin Shaw |date=3 January 2024 |title=Inescapably Genocidal |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14623528.2023.2300555 |journal=Journal of Genocide Research |language=en |pages=1–5 |doi=10.1080/14623528.2023.2300555 |s2cid=266778978 |issn=1462-3528}}

Historian Jacques Depelchin has said that the crimes of colonization have always been denied.{{cite book |last=Depelchin |first=Jacques |chapter=The history of mass violence since colonial times: trying to understand the roots of a mindset |title=Development Dialogue, Revisiting the heart of darkness, Explorations into genocide and other forms of mass violence |date=December 2008 |number=50 |pages=13–31 |quote=The systematic denying of evil (during and following colonial rule) while singling out only one (Nazism) as the only certifiable one has contributed significantly to the denying of other effects of the same socio-economic and ideological mindset. The fear of those who have seen nothing wrong in the system except for occasional slips may stem from the perception that an admission of failure will lead to a sort of domino effect, forcing an acknowledgement of the magnitude of the crimes that have always been denied.}}

Christian P. Sherrer has argued that almost all European colonial powers used genocide as part of the colonization process.{{Cite journal |last=Scherrer |first=Christian P. |date=1999 |title=Towards a theory of modern genocide. Comparative genocide research: Definitions, criteria, typologies, cases, key elements, patterns and voids |url=http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14623529908413932 |journal=Journal of Genocide Research |language=en |volume=1 |issue=1 |pages=13–23 |doi=10.1080/14623529908413932 |issn=1462-3528 |quote=One of the most important observations is that genocide and colonization were always closely linked. The largest ever genocide in modern history was committed by half a dozen European stales in what was later called the Third World. Large scale genocide was committed against American Indians, against Africans and against subjugated peoples in European colonies.}} According to Elyse Semerdjian, settler colonial warfare is a slow genocidal process.{{Cite journal |last=Semerdjian |first=Elyse |date=2024-01-24 |title=A World Without Civilians |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14623528.2024.2306714 |journal=Journal of Genocide Research |language=en |pages=1–6 |doi=10.1080/14623528.2024.2306714 |issn=1462-3528 |quote=The field of Genocide Studies also includes a group of scholars who have argued that settler colonial warfare is genocidal, often deploying "slow violence" or "slow genocide" to achieve its aims in infinitesimal acts of violence interspersed with larger genocidal episodes.}}

{{Main|Outline of genocide studies}}

• Denial of atrocities against indigenous peoples
• Genocide of indigenous peoples
• Indigenous response to colonialism

{{reflist}}

{{refbegin}}

• {{cite book |editor1-last=Benvenuto |editor1-first=Jeff |editor2-last=Hinton |editor2-first=Alexander Laban |editor3-last=Woolford |editor3-first=Andrew |year=2014 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xBPqBQAAQBAJ|title=Colonial Genocide in Indigenous North America |publisher=Duke University Press |doi=10.1215/9780822376149 |isbn=978-0-8223-7614-9 |access-date=30 December 2021|via=Google Books}}
• {{cite journal |last1=Benvenuto |first1=Jeff |last2=Woolford |first2=Andrew |year=2015 |title=Canada and Colonial Genocide |journal=Journal of Genocide Research |volume=17 |issue=4 |pages=373–390 |doi=10.1080/14623528.2015.1096580 |doi-access=free}}
• {{cite journal |last1=Crook |first1=Martin |last2=Short |first2=Damien |author2-link=Damien Short |last3=South |first3=Nigel |year=2018 |url=http://repository.essex.ac.uk/23005/1/RIS%20version%20Crook%20et%20al.%20--%20Ecocide%20Genocide%20Capitalism%20and%20Colonialism.pdf |title=Ecocide, Genocide, Capitalism and Colonialism: Consequences for Indigenous Peoples and Glocal Ecosystems Environments |journal=Theoretical Criminology |volume=22 |issue=3 |pages=298–317 |doi=10.1177/1362480618787176 |s2cid=150239863 |access-date=30 December 2021 |via=open access institutional repository for the University of Essex}}
• {{cite journal |last=Docker |first=John |author-link=John Docker |year=2015 |title=A Plethora of Intentions: Genocide, Settler Colonialism and Historical Consciousness in Australia and Britain |journal=The International Journal of Human Rights |volume=19 |issue=1 |pages=74–89 |doi=10.1080/13642987.2014.987952 |s2cid=145745263}}
• {{cite journal |last=Kühne |first=Thomas |year=2013 |title=Colonialism and the Holocaust: Continuities, Causations, and Complexities |journal=Journal of Genocide Research |volume=15 |issue=3 |pages=339–362 |doi=10.1080/14623528.2013.821229 |s2cid=144591957}}
• {{cite book |editor1-last=Moses |editor1-first=Dirk |editor1-link=A. Dirk Moses |editor2-last=Stone |editor2-first=Dan |year=2013 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pTfdAAAAQBAJ |title=Colonialism and Genocide |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-317-99753-5 |access-date=30 December 2021 |via=Google Books}}
• {{cite journal |last=Sautman |first=Barry |year=2006 |title=Colonialism, Genocide, and Tibet |journal=Asian Ethnicity |volume=7 |issue=3 |pages=243–265 |doi=10.1080/14631360600926949 |s2cid=145798586 |issn=1463-1369}}
• {{cite book |last=Short |first=Damien |author-link=Damien Short |year=2016 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vudiDgAAQBAJ |title=Redefining Genocide: Settler Colonialism, Social Death and Ecocide |publisher=Zed Books |isbn=978-1-78360-170-7 |access-date=30 December 2021 |via=Google Books}}
• {{cite journal |last1=Weber |first1=Heloise |last2=Weber |first2=Martin |year=2020 |title=Colonialism, Genocide and International Relations: the Namibian–German Case and Struggles for Restorative Relations |journal=European Journal of International Relations |volume=26 |issue=1_suppl |pages=91–115 |doi=10.1177/1354066120938833 |s2cid=222003104 |doi-access=free}}
• {{cite journal |last1=Wolfe |first1=Patrick |author1-link=Patrick Wolfe |year=2006 |title=Settler Colonialism and the Elimination of the Native |journal=Journal of Genocide Research |volume=8 |issue=4 |pages=387–409 |doi=10.1080/14623520601056240 |s2cid=143873621 |doi-access=free}}

{{refend}}

{{Main|Bibliography of Genocide studies}}

• {{cite journal |last=Gurmendi Dunkelberg |first=Alonso |date=22 January 2025 |title=How to Hide a Genocide: Modern/Colonial International Law and the Construction of Impunity |journal=Journal of Genocide Research |doi=10.1080/14623528.2025.2454739|doi-access=free }}

Category:Colonialism

Category:Historiography of genocide

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