Because today is Columbus Day, I thought this would be a good time for discussion about Columbus and what we've learned about him in history thus far.
In elementary school (and, perhaps, middle school), as many of you probably know, Columbus is taught in a heroic sense... that is, he is viewed in a relatively good light. He discovered America, made a mistake and thought it was India, and basically is considered a hero because he was the "first one" to discover the "New World."
Then we get to the later grades (ie... world history sophomore year and US history junior year) and we start to learn about the details of Columbus' arrival. He brought over disease that killed the Native Americans, he cheated them, he killed them. Columbus is suddenly shown in a very different light.
My question is: from what we've learned about Columbus, can his actions here in America be considered "genocide?"
Also, consider this: President Andrew Jackson slaughtered many Native Americans (intentionally) during the War of 1812. Is this a genocide?
And... both Jackson and his successor, Martin Van Buren, forced many Native Americans out of their homes (Trail of Tears), causing the deaths of thousands. Is this genocide?
If these are considered genocide, can the US Government be held accountable today? How is this different from the Armenian Genocide and the Turkish Government?
Anyway, just some food for thought... Happy Columbus Day!
-coe
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I talked a little about this in the Allan Ryan post, because all of this plays into the definition of genocide and how specific its perameters are. According to the UN's definition of genocide (see the post in the Allan Ryan, or the site http://www.hrweb.org/legal/genocide.html), the U.S. should be guilty of genocide in multiple cases because the government's actions apply directly to the perameters set by the U.N., but I do not think the U.S. should be tried for them. Mainly because many of those involved are not alive today and play no role in the current government.
So is this situation any different than the Armenian genocide?
I think the U.S. should formally aknowledge and apologize for the horror of past events. Similarly, I'm not so sure that the Turkish government should be tried in international court for the Armenian genocide, but it definitely should aknowledge that it happened and formally apologize. Besides, who would be tried in court? Most of those involved (if not all) are dead, and one can hardly find people guilty of a crime commited before they were even born.
I'm glad you mentioned this in the blog, Coe. I wrote about this to some extent for history last year, and one of the things that is so upsetting about the situation is to what extent this genocide (because I do consider it a genocide, as it was the systematic murder of a people based on ethnicicy to make way for people of another ethnicity) has impacted Native Americans even up until the modern day. The legislature around Native American reservations over the past decade has been very active, one example being termination. Termination was the term applied to the removal of government services for the Native Americans, such as guaranteed education in public schools and support for medical facilities. I won't go into the details of evidence here, but there is evidence from the Bureau of Indian Affairs that some tribes were essentialyl blackmailed into accepting termination, so federal support does not apply to reservations. As a result, health care and education are still suffering. According to the DRUMS committee, (in reference to the Menominee tribe, "Since 1961, [their] high school drop-out rates ha[d] increased substantially, absenteeism ha[d] soared, and [their] children apparently [were] suffering a downward trend in achievement."
There is also still rampant stereotyping of Native Americans. The film "Peter Pan" was just re-released either last year or a few years ago, advertised as a children's classic. I love Disney films as much as the next person, but if you watch it again take note of the song "What makes the red man red?", the frequent discussion of scalping, and the fragmented language used by the Native American characters. It seems weird to me that this really racist scene was one of the first things I saw as a child, but it's still commonly accepted today, which I think is very interesting. Red Man chewing tobacco is still sold with a stereotypical Native American chief on the front....the list goes on.
What I'm getting at here is that I think the government owes the Native Americans an apology, and maybe as well some legislative action helping the communities that have been harmed (by termination, etc.) What do you think?
citation for that quote: (pardon my use of MLA, it's what I used for the essay and I don't have the book anymore)
“The Menominees Are Terminated” from DRUMS testimony, Hearings on Senate Concurrent Resolution 26, Senate Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs. 21 July 1971. Native American Testimony: A Chronicle of Indian-White Relations from Prophecy to the Present, 1492-1992. Peter Nabokov. New York: Penguin Books Ltd, 1992.
So Coe and I were having a bit of discussion about this the other day, and I'm glad it made it to a post. We were wondering when reparations for genocide or any horrific historical events expire.
So if we declare that Columbus or Jackson committed a genocide, what should happen in terms of judgment and justice? Should the present-day government somehow offer reparations to the descendants of those that were wronged?
How far removed must we get in history before we no longer "owe" anything? Should the US government today be responsible for what the US government hundreds of years ago did? Will whites in America always feel a sense of guilt regarding slavery even if they haven't necessarily actively participated in slavery, but their ancestors did?
Lots of questions I know, feel free to answer any of them. I'm curious to know what you guys think.
I don't think that time should make a difference in terms of owing reparations to a certain group due to a wrong done in the past. Although we might feel more distant from the problem as time goes on, historically, the problem still existed. It's never too late to apologize for a wrong doing.
I do think the that the U.S. government today should be held responsible for what the previous government did years ago. However, I don't think that the current government sees this as much of a problem because they are more focused on dealing with current issues. In the U.S. we have SO MANY other issues that aren't receiving enough attention already, so to ask the government to deal with what happened 200 or so years ago is not being very practical. I think it should be done though.
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