Reports of hunting and then beheading or scalping native men, women and children for bounties exist even locally here in Northern California.
Northern newspapers like the Humboldt Times expressed the hope that volunteer militia "will succeed in totally breaking up or exterminating the skulking bands of savages." " Towns offered bounty hunters cash for every head or scalp that was obtained. " "It is a mercy to the red devils to exterminate them. and a saving of many white lives ... there is only one kind of treaty that is effective - cold lead." - Chico Courant, July 28, 1866 (Chatterjee)
Right here in the Shasta County area lived the Yana tribe. A search of tribal histories reveals that:
In Aug. 1864 the neighboring miners organized a massacre of the whole tribe, then numbering about 3,000, of whom all but about 50 were slaughtered in the course of a few days.
"By 1902, 'only about half a dozen' were left alive" (Access Geneology).
The condition of "killing members of the group" is so well documented and ingrained in the general public's understanding of U.S. history that it need not be argued further. What makes it genocide, as per the 1948 law, is the "intent to destroy, in whole or in part..." It is here that the statements and actions of officials and military leaders prove the case. This intent is also revealed in the literature and newspapers of the age.
One of America's best known and highly venerated authors, Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens), wrote an essay in 1870 wherein he openly called for the "extermination" of Native Americans.
"truly [the "Red Man"] is nothing but a poor, filthy, naked scurvy vagabond, whom to exterminate were a charity to the Creator's worthier insects and reptiles which he oppresses. " he is a good, fair, desirable subject for extermination if ever there was one " The scum of the earth" (Twain) !
This type of rhetoric could be expected in Nazi Germany. Such blatant genocidal racism would be considered shocking today, especially considering the ongoing series of massacres occurring at the time, perpetrated by federal troops and state militias against native tribes. But this rhetoric was apparently acceptable to readers in 19th century America, and it did not damage Twain's reputation or popularity in any noticeable fashion. Most of his great literary successes were published after this call for the "extermination" of Indians.
More to the point, the policies of military officers who orchestrated the various slaughters bear directly on the questions of genocidal intent and purpose.
General William Tecumseh Sherman claims perhaps the most damning orders on record. In his campaign against the Sioux, Sherman wrote to General Grant:
"I have given general instructions to General Cooke about the Sioux " We most act with vindictive earnestness against the Sioux, even to their extermination, men, women, and children. Nothing less will reach the root of the case (Signed) W. T. Sherman, Lieutenant-General, 1866" (Custer).
Sherman's "general instructions" would be considered evidence at a modern war crimes trial. It is rare that an officer commits such orders to paper, knowing how they could be perceived later and used against him. Sherman felt comfortable enough in his convictions and immersed in the racist anti-Indian environment of the day that he would try to influence officers above him such as General Grant to adopt his clearly genocidal battlefield policy.
Another famous incident occurred when General Phillip Sheridan joked at the surrender of a Comanche Chief who had claimed to be a "good Indian."
"The only good Indians I ever saw were dead." -General Phillip Sheridan, 1869 (Ellis).
A US Congressman in 1852 expressed the United States' Indian policy thusly:
Next Page 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
4
4
4
