Their skin is dark. Their language is special. Their worldview and spiritual beliefs are beyond the comprehension of most white Americans.
On a cool day in May 1758, a 10-year-old girl named Mary Campbell was caring for a neighbor's child in the countryside of western Pennsylvania. Moments later, the Delaware Indians took her and took her to the Indian tribe for the next six years, and her life changed forever. Mary became the first of about 200 known white captive cases.
While Mary eventually returned to her white family, and there is some evidence that she lived happily ever after with her adopted Indian tribe, stories such as her story becoming a warning tale of white settlers sparked fear of "savage" Indians and created an escalating hatred.
A group of Native Americans looked at a sailboat in the bay below them
From the moment Europeans arrived on the shores of the United States, the concept of borders The periphery between white civilization and the untamed natural world became a vast, conflicting shared space of differences. These disagreements led the U.S. government to authorize more than 1,500 wars, raids, and raids against Indians, the largest number of countries in the world that targeted indigenous peoples. By the end of the Indian Wars in the late 19th century, fewer than 238,000 indigenous people remained, and when Columbus arrived in North America in 1492, an estimated 5 million people lived in North America, a sharp drop to 15 million.
The causes of this genocide are multi-layered. Most of the settlers were forbidden to inherit property in Europe, and they came to the Coast of the United States, eager to own Indian lands and the rich natural resources that came with them.
More fundamentally, the indigenous people were so different that their skin was dark. Their language is special. Their worldview and spiritual beliefs are beyond the comprehension of most whites. For settlers who feared becoming the next Mary Campbell, all of this provoked racial hatred and paranoia, and it was easy to portray indigenous peoples as pagan barbarians.
Here are some of the most aggressive acts of genocide against Native Americans
Gnardon Hutton Massacre of 1782.
< h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > the Garnerdon Hooton Massacre</h1>
In 1782, a group of Moravian Protestants in Ohio killed 96 Christianized Delaware Indians, indicating growing contempt for the Natives. Captain David Williamson ordered the militia to execute the Delaware Indians who attacked the white settlement (in fact the Indians had not done anything to attack whites), where they were beaten and hacked to death with mallets and axes.
Ironically, Delaware was the first Indian settlement to capture white settlers and the first Indian tribe to sign the U.S.-India Treaty four years ago, setting a precedent for 374 Indian treaties over the next 100 years. 229 of these agreements frequently used the common term "peace and friendship," leading to the cession of tribal lands to a rapidly expanding United States.
Battle of Tippercanu, 1811.
< h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > the Battle of Tippercanu</h1>
In the early 1800s, the rise of the Indian tribal war leader Tkumsai and his brother (known as the Prophet) convinced the Indians of the tribes that it was in their interest to stop tribal infighting and unite to protect their common interests.
During the Creek War of 1813, The Creek Indians and residents of Fort Membs, Alabama.
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > the Creek War</h1>
The Crick's War of 1813-1814 served as a clash between the Crick Indians and the American colonizers, which also involved the British and Spaniards, who supported the Indians and prevented the Americans from violating their interests. It was a one-sided massacre, with the colonist general and his men slaughtering more than a hundred Creek Indians at Tarusaki. The general of the main battle at the time said, "We shoot them like dogs!" ”
In desperation, the Indian women of the Mfskok River killed their children so as not to see the soldiers slaughtering them. When a woman began killing her baby, anthony Indian warrior Andrew snatched the child from her mother. Later he gave the Indian baby to his wife.
David Croctor continued to win the battle. A subsequent treaty required the Creek Indians to cede more than 21 million acres of land to the United States.
A painting depicting the Trail of Tears, when Native Americans were forced by law to leave their homes and move to designated territories in the West.
< h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > forcibly remove Native Americans</h1>
One of the most hotly debated issues in Congress was the Indian Migration Act of 1830, which was vigorously promoted by the president at the time. Although slammed by many lawmakers as immoral, the bill was passed in the Senate, where more than three percent of the eastern tribes stood in the eyes of the colonists at the time, blocking the colonists' right to build houses, grow cotton and other crops. In his annual address to Congress in 1833, the President denounced the Indians, saying, "They have neither wisdom, diligence, moral habits, nor a desire to improve, which are essential for any favorable change in their condition." Built in the middle of another superior race, they must succumb to the forces of the environment. ”
From 1830 to 1840, U.S. troops expelled 60,000 Indians from the east in exchange for new territory west of the Mississippi River. Thousands of people from Indian tribes lost their lives on what came to be known as the "Trail of Tears." As the whites continued to advance westward, the territory designated by the Indians continued to shrink.
In 1862, Dakota Sioux Indians were executed in Mankato, Minnesota.
< h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > Mankato executed</h1>
In the Little Crow War of 1862, the Indians launched a surprise attack on the colonists because of oppression and lack of water and land, in which more than 100 colonist soldiers were killed. U.S. President Abraham Lincoln sent soldiers to defeat the Dakota Indian tribes, and after a series of large trials, more than 600 men of the Indian tribe were sentenced to death.
The day after Christmas, military officials in the city of Mankato executed 38 Indigenous Indians at the same time. More than 4,000 people gathered in the street to watch, and the 38 were buried in a shallow grave along the Minnesota River, where colonist doctors reportedly dug up most of the bodies for medical experiments.
Sand Creek Massacre, 1864.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > the Shaxi Massacre</h1>
The Indians fought back to defend their people and homeland, providing a good reason for U.S. troops to kill Indians on the border at will. On November 29, 1864, Methodist Pastor John Chivington launched a surprise attack in southeastern Colorado. His unit consisted of 700 men, mostly volunteers from the First and Third Regiments of Colorado. The night before, Chivington and his men had drunk too much wine, boasting that they were going to kill the Indians. He declared, "Damn anyone who sympathizes with the Indians!" ...... I have come to kill the Indians, and I believe that it is right and honorable to kill the Indians by any means in God's Heaven. ”
On that cold morning, Chivington led his men in a battle against 200 Indian Cheyennes and Indians. Cheyenne Chief Black Kettle tied an American flag to the pole of his hut as instructed to indicate that his village was at peace. When Chivington ordered the attack, the black kettle tied a white flag under the U.S. flag, calling on his people's soldiers not to kill them. But as many as 160 people, mostly women and children, were slaughtered.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > Slaughterer Castel</h1>
On November 29, 1868, on the orders of General Philip Sheridan, Custer and his Seventh Cavalry Regiment attacked Cheyenne and their Arapaho allies on the western border of indian territory near the Vasita River. After slaughtering 103 Indian women and children, Custer said "a great victory was won" and described, "First, the Indians fell asleep. Secondly, women and children have little resistance. Third, the Indians were confused about our policy changes. ”
Custer later led the Seventh Cavalry against the Lakotas, Arapajos, and Northern Cheyennes in the northern plains. He boasted that "the Seventh Cavalry can handle anything" and that "there are not enough Indians in the world to defeat the Seventh Cavalry." ”
The massacre was followed by the burial of indian dead.
< h1 class = "pgc-h-arrow-right" > Indians who could not choose their faith</h1>
In the late 1880s, anti-Indian outrage rose to careful heights, indians were defeated and confined to reservations, and the U.S. Army's Seventh Cavalry Slaughtered 150 to 200 Indians in South Dakota simply because indians could not abandon their traditions.
As a result of their mass murder of Indians, President Benjamin Harrison awarded about 20 soldiers the Medal of Honor.