Native American Holocaust
The barbarity of the onslaught on indigenous people by Euro-Americans settlers can scarcely be believed. Historian David Stannard states the indigenous peoples of North and South America had undergone the “worst human holocaust the world had ever witnessed, roaring across two continents non-stop for four centuries and consuming the lives of countless tens of millions of people.” The Native American Holocaust is a historical fact, “but the wreckage that it caused,” Stannard declares, “remains vividly evident among many of its survivor descendants. Today, from the desert southwest of Arizona to the Black Hills of South Dakota many American Indian communities barely survive, mired in poverty and despair that has little equal except in some so-called desperately impoverished Third World countries.” Yet to add insult to injury, Columbus Day is still a federal holiday. But, in defiance, many cities have changed the name to Indigenous Peoples’ Day.
Recorded at Vanderbilt University.
Speaker
David Stannard
David Stannard, an award-winning historian, taught at the University of Hawaii. He has lectured at colleges and universities across the U.S. He is the author of many books including The Puritan Way of Death, Before the Horror and American Holocaust: The Conquest of the New World.
Ruth in Watertown, MA –
The David Stannard program on American Indian Genocide reminded me that when I give
lectures to Armenian audiences in the USA and talk about the Armenian Genocide,
I remind my audience that we as Armenian Americans should remember the two genocides
perpetrated by our American government that WE have never acknowledged:
that of our indigenous peoples and our black citizens.
jay –
Europeans owe indigenous North Americans nothing other than an opportunity to participate in and contribute to contemporary Anglo-American culture. Sorry, Pocahontas, you are not getting your land back.
Henry –
Thanks so much for this. His work is dynamite.