Last Monday, instead of mourning the lives of millions of American Indians who were systematically slaughtered to make way for the society in which we currently live, we celebrated the "great achievements" of Christopher Columbus, the first European to "discover" the "new world." The myth about Columbus is that he was a hero of history, a fearless adventurer to whom we owe a great debt. The reality is that Columbus was a mass murderer who, during his tenure as governor of the Caribbean Islands and the mainland, instituted policies of slavery and systematic extermination of the native Taino population of the Island he called Espanola (Haiti and Dominican Republic).
The wider myth about the indigenous population of the Americas is that rather than being systematically eliminated, their deaths were an accidental byproduct of the introduction of new diseases to the continent. Alternatively, many were killed in the course of violent exchanges they initiated against "peaceful" settlers. At times, a massacre here and there will be acknowledged. However, after an initial expression of regret, these events will be explained away as "isolated incidents" rather than key episodes in a systematic project of extermination.
The first myth has even been parroted by respectable Holocaust scholars such as Stephen Katz from Cornell University. It seems to matter little to Katz that the historical record provides us with evidence that American Indian tribes were victims of purposeful biological warfare. To take one example, in 1763, Lord Jeffrey Amherst wrote to his subordinate Colonel Henry Bouquet "you will do well to infect the Indians by means of blankets as well as to try every other method that can serve to extirpate this execrable race." The "Indians" he was referring to were the Ottawa and Lenape peoples, both of whom were almost entirely wiped out.
The correct translation of the second myth (in light of the historical record) is that killing Indians in large numbers was justified because they failed to peacefully accept the violent theft of their lands or to quietly submit to their new rulers. Myth three is difficult to believe given the rate of extermination, the methods used, and the actual disposition of the indigenous population. Recent studies indicate that the pre-contact Indian population of North America was between 10 and 18 million people. In the 1890s, the indigenous population was 237,000 — a 98 to 99 percent, or near total extermination rate. It's difficult to believe such a high rate of attrition was the product of armed conflict between the native population and settlers or that "isolated incidents" could have a combined effect of this magnitude.
Denial of the massive genocide that took place in the Americas is common to almost every position on the political spectrum. One complaint is that those who try to shed light on the relentless atrocities suffered by American Indians can only be motivated by a "hatred" of America and its accomplishments. However, criticism is a necessary condition of social improvement, and the idea that something is amenable to improvement can happily co-exist with a healthy respect for its existing virtues. Another frequently cited objection is that "this is just the way history is made," so complaining about it is a form of meaningless resistance to history itself. The atrocities committed against American Indians are a mere relic of the past that cannot possibly be compensated for, and although what happened was regrettable, we now live in a society that respects the rights of all of its citizens and provides them almost boundless opportunities for economic and social improvement.
The oppression of Native Americans is not a relic of the past and what happened in the past has a significant effect on present day conditions. They continue to suffer at the hands of a government that reserves the "right" to define who's an Indian and who's not. They are denied genuine self-determination and political control over their traditional lands, even when those lands are available to accommodate their return. Instead, their communal existence is confined to "reservations," circumscribed areas where they have nominal control over their internal affairs. The social problems affecting Indian communities are often attributed to "laziness," "backwardness" or an "inability to adapt to modern life," rather than to the unrelenting institutionalized racism they face.
To accept that "this is the way history is made" is to deny the idea of moral and social progress. No ends justify the use of such atrocious means. Although it may not be possible to pay reparations in exact proportion to crimes of this magnitude, it is possible for the U.S. government to do everything in its power make amends, including granting American Indian communities true sovereignty over as much of their traditional lands as possible, provision of monetary compensation and bringing an end to institutionalized racism in all its forms. If one believes in the ideals of human freedom this country represents, then surely support for a solution of this form is a foregone conclusion.
Mohammed Abed ([email protected]) is a lecturer in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
