Uncovering Settler Colonialism: Westward Expansion & Native Displacement in the US

1. Colonizing the American West?: Evaluating Theories of Settler Colonialism, Ethnic Cleansing, & GENOCIDE

2. Words & Meanings Atrocity Massacre Conflict Settler Colonialism Ethnic Cleansing Conquest Genocide

3. UN Resolution 260 (9 Dec 1948) • In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: • Killing members of the group; • Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; • Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; • Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; • Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

4. Defining Ethnic Cleansing “Ethnic cleansing means rendering an area ethnically homogenous by using force or intimidation to remove persons of given groups from the area. . . ethnic cleansing has been carried out [in the former Yugoslavia] by means of murder, torture, arbitrary arrest and detention, extrajudicial executions, rape and sexual assault, confinement of the civilian population, deliberate military attacks or threats of attacks on civilians and civilian areas, and wanton destruction of property.” United Nations Commission of Experts report to the Security Council (1994)

5. DEFINING SETTLER COLONIALISM “Territoriality is settler colonialism’s specific irreducible element. . . . Settler colonialism destroys to replace.” “Settler colonialism is inherently eliminatory but not invariably genocidal.” Patrick Wolfe, Journal of Genocide Research (2006)

6. DRIVING out Native Populations Australia German Southwest Africa “Settler colonialism refers to a history in which settlers drove indigenous populations from the land in order to construct their own ethnic and religious national communities.” Walter Hixson, American Settler Colonialism (2013)

7. The Overland Trails The Growth of the Railroads The Homestead Act (1862) The “People Rush” into the post-Bellum West OPENING THE PLAINS to Conflict

8. Protect White Settlers Keep the Peace Among the Tribes Protect the Indian Tribes from white encroachment The US Army’s Dilemma “There are two classes of people, one demanding the utter extinction of the Indians, and the other full of love for their conversion to civilization. Unfortunately, the army stands between them and gets the cuff from both sides.” Gen. William T. Sherman

9. Garrisoning the west

10. In 1849 the Department of the Interior takes responsibility from the War Department for administering US policy to the Indian tribes Indian agents & Superintendents are placed in charge of the agencies & reservations The so called “Indian Ring” becomes a symbol of corruption & failure to provide promised supplies to the tribes The army and the Indian Bureau become involved in constant disputes & accusations aimed at each organization’s policies THE ARMY VS. THE INDIAN BUREAU

11. Christianize Civilize Cultivate EQUALS ASSIMILATION The RESERVATION SOLUTION “A system which looks towards the extinction of a race is too horrible for a nation to adopt without entailing upon itself the wrath of all Christendom, and without engendering in the citizen a disregard for human life. I see no substitute for such a system except in placing all the Indians on large reservations, as rapidly as it can be done, and giving them absolute protections there.” President US Grant (1869)

12. The Reservation SYSTEM ANOTHER VIEW “The reservation was not supposed to be just a place where Indians adopted elements of white belief systems and technology; the reservation was, above all, supposed to be a place where Indians were to be individualized and detribalized.”Richard White “The education of the Indian girl means the uplifting of the tribes in every way, and yet it means also and soon, the losing of the races of red men from off the face of the earth.” Mary Todd, Head of an Indian School

13. WHAT ARE SOME OF THE CRITICAL ASSUMPTIONS EMBODIED BY THE US GOVERNMENT’S RESERVATION POLICY? POINT TO PONDER Tribes will embrace and/or accept process of assimilation Tribes will remain on the reservations when placed there

14. “Pursue and punish” Napoleonic warfare on the Plains? Lessons from the Civil War? “Warfare of exhaustion” The Army’s Strategy The US Army’s punishment strategy has a disproportionate impact on the native tribes since younger Indian men are most often involved in raids and “breakouts” from the reservations. In fact, army orders typically state “try to surprise them, kill as many warriors as possible and capture their families and animals” US Army orders (4 July 1869) “All captured Indians must be treated as prisoners of war and all captured stock regarded as government property. All surrenders [sic] must be total and absolute and arms of every description delivered also.”Gen Philip Sheridan’s orders in the Red River War (1874)

15. THE RHETORIC OF ANNIHILATION? “I want you to be bold, enterprising, and at all times full of energy, when you begin, let it be a campaign of annihilation, obliteration, and complete destruction. . . .” Gen Sheridan’s orders to Col Ranald Mackenzie during a campaign against the Kickapoo in 1873 The resulting operation against the Kickapoos resulted in the killing of an estimated 20 and the capture of approximately 50 mostly women and children. “I have told them that they must decide at once upon unconditional surrender or to fight it out; that [in the] latter event hostilities should be resumed at once and the last one of them killed if it took fifty years.” Gen George Crook to Warm Spring Apache (1886) “I thought that when we all grew up and were big together, maybe we could kill all the Wasichus [whites] or drive them far away from our country.” Sioux Warrior Black Elk

16. Regulars vs. Volunteers “Given their prejudices and indiscipline, state and territorial volunteers and militia usually proved . . . incompetent for the missions citizens demanded, unless they were able to operate with genocidal freedom against fragments of Native American societies.” Samuel Watson, Peacekeepers and Conquerors “To many volunteers and westerners it seemed that a short cut and a definitive answer to the [Indian] problem was extermination, a word that was frequently used.” Thomas Dunlay, Wolves for Blue Soldiers “Regular troops did not lack racist attitudes and emotions, and army commanders sought to attack Indian villages on the same military grounds-compelling surrender by destroying food and shelter, rather than trying to chase down more agile Indian horsemen.” Samuel Watson, Peacekeepers and Conquerors

17. Views from the West? “The Pioneer has before declared that our only safety depends upon the total extermination of the Indians. Having wronged them for centuries, we had better, in order to protect our civilization, follow it up by one more wrong and wipe these untamed and untamable creatures from the face of the earth. In this lies future safety for our settlers and the soldiers who are under incompetent commands. Otherwise, we may expect future years to be as full of trouble with the redskins as those have been in the past.” L. Frank Baum, Aberdeen Saturday Pioneer (3 Jan 1891)

18. The INDIAN WAY OF WAR “The strength of the Indian is in surprises or ambuscades. . . His tactics are always the same; never to receive a charge, but by constantly breaking, to separate the enemy into detached fragments, then suddenly concentrating to overwhelm them in detail. . . . I know of no single instance where troops have gained any signal advantage over Indians in open fight.” Colonel Richard Dodge “The young men were happy, for war was their life. We were essentially a hunting and fighting people, and gloried in the fact.” Apache Warrior Kaywayla “Warriors still practiced guerrilla tactics masterfully and made uncanny use of terrain, vegetation, and other natural conditions, all to the anguish of their military antagonists.” Robert Utley

19. AMERICAN SPARTA? “The little girls in the band received the same training as the boys. Each day all practiced with bows and arrows, sling and spears. Each was taught to mount an unsaddled horse without help. We caught the mane, dug our toes into the foreleg, and swung ourselves astride the animal.” Apache Warrior Kaywaykla “But all the boys from five or six years were playing war. . . . the big boys played the game called Throwing-Them-Off-Their-Horses, which is a battle all but the killing; and sometimes they got hurt. The horsebacks from the different bands would line up and charge upon each other . . . . the riders would seize each other, wrestling until one side had lost all its men, for those who fell upon the ground were counted dead.” Sioux Warrior Black Elk

20. Army operations focus on converging columns to pursue the Indians & bring them to battle The mobility of these columns was often limited by terrain, weather, & wagon trains US Army OPERATIONS “No man, be he white or Indian, likes to be hunted, and if the hunt is continued it will in time unnerve the stoutest hearted.” General Nelson Miles aka Bear Coat “There were few clashes and little bloodshed, but gradually the exhaustion of the chase, the discomforts of weather and hunger, and, above, all the constant gnawing fear of soldiers storming into their camps at dawn wore them down.” Historian Robert Utley on the Red River War

21. The Telegraph The Railroad The Rifle The Revolver TECHNOLOGY & WARfare in the West Springfield Musket (1863)

22. THE LOSS OF THE BISON “By now [1873] the army had adopted a proactive role in the bison’s destruction, providing protection for hunting squads and supplying them with equipment and ammunition—”all you could use, all you wanted, more than you needed,” as one runner marveled. . . . The spring hunts, performed amidst American hunting squads, failed. Already weak from the winter’s hardships, Comanches collapsed into starvation.” PekkaHämäläinen, The Comanche Empire “These men [the buffalo hunters] have done in the last two years, and will do more in the next years, to settle the vexed Indian question, than the entire regular army has done in the last thirty years. . . [by] destroying the Indian’s commissary; and it is a well known fact that an army losing its base of supplies is placed at a great disadvantage.” Gen. Sheridan to the Texas Legislature (1875)

23. WHAT ARE THE CRITICAL EFFECTS OF THE LOSS OF THE SOUTHERN BISON HERDS BY 1875 AND THE SUBSEQUENT LOSS OF THE NORTHERN HERDS BY 1883? POINT TO PONDER --PHYSICAL EFFECT --SPIRITUAL EFFECT --MILITARY EFFECT

24. WAR WITHOUT MERCY? Sand Creek (1864) “I have come to kill Indians, and believe that it is right and honorable to use any means under God’s heaven to kill Indians.” John Chivington (1821-1894) Wounded Knee (1890)

25. EMPIRE AND AGENCY “Comanches spent their tenure on the southern plains and in the Southwest as an imperial power, and they also fell like one. Like most empires, the Comanche empire carried within itself the seeds of its destruction; . . . Comanches fashioned a prodigious production system that eventually collapsed under its own bloated size. . . Unleashing its overwhelming economic and technological might, the US pushed the remains of Comanche power aside with a brief, concentrated scorched earth campaign” Hämäläinen, The Comanche Empire

26. Another View of Comanche Collapse “I contend that Comanche looting expeditions, including raids in which captives were taken, resulted in Comanche deaths outnumbering the captives who were eventually assimilated. Hence, rather than compensating Comanche population decline, as is often assumed, those expeditions brought about a net population loss.” JoaquínRivaya-Martínez, Ethnohistory61 (Summer 2014)

27. US Army Commanders on the Plains & in the Southwest make extensive use of Indian Scouts These scouts possess critical skills in helping to track & locate Indian bands SCOUTS & Allies? Apache Scouts “[The Pawnee scouts were] of the greatest service to us throughout the campaign . . . And the result has shown their value.” Bvt Gen. Eugene Carr on the Republican River Campaign (1869) Pawnee Scouts

28. THE GREAT SIOUX WAR (1876-1877) “[E]xceptunder extraordinary provocation, or in circumstances not at all to be apprehended, it is not probable that as many as five hundred Indian warriors ever again will be mustered at one point for a fight; . . . such an event as a general Indian war can never again occur in the United States.” Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Edward Smith (1875)

29. BATTLE OF Little Big Horn (25-26 JUNe 1876) “[T]he Sioux charged the different soldiers [i.e., Custer’s force] below and drove them in confusion; these soldiers became foolish, many throwing away their guns and raising their hands, saying, “Sioux, pity us, take us prisoners.” The Sioux did not take a single soldier prisoner, but killed all of them; none were left alive for even a few minutes.” Sioux Warrior Red Horse

30. “the time when Babies CRY” “The Indians cannot stand a continuous campaign. . . The best time to strike the Indians is in winter. . . and then is the time to throw a large force on each band, and crush them all in detail.” General George Crook “We wallowed through the mountain snows for several days. We had no lodges, only a few blankets, and there was only a little dry meat food among us. Men died of wounds, women and children froze to death.” Iron Teeth, Cheyenne woman, on the effects of the Dull Knife Battle (25 Nov 1876)

31. WAR IN the SOUTHWEST “In 1779 a Spanish official, José de Galvez, described the frustration and difficulty in battling the indiosbárbaros, “the kind of Indian who infests these regions cannot be exterminated or reduced with a decisive blow, or by that methodical series of wisely directed battles that make glorious campaigns in war between cultured nations.” Indeed, the Apaches and the Comanches were a constant thorn in the side of the Spanish, and later the Mexicans and Americans, due to their skill at conducting raids using small groups of mounted warriors adept at surprising isolated settlers or wagon trains. Although raiding provided an opportunity for the warriors to display their martial skills and gain social status, it is important to note that raiding was not an optional activity but a necessity since these operations often meant the difference between starvation and survival.” ?????

32. A Military VICTORY in the West? “Millions of dollars in appropriations and virtually inexhaustible pools of supplies and manpower enabled the army to overcome the defects of its policy-making structure and eliminate the Indian military threat. . . . the army used forts, railroads, telegraphs, converging columns, and mixed forces to pursue the Indians they labeled as hostile.” Robert Wooster, The Military and United States Indian Policy, 1865-1910

33. STATISTICS & THE INDIAN WARS Between 1866 and 1891 the US Army recorded 1,065 engagements with the Indian tribes: --592 (63%) engagements fought by company or smaller unit --70 (7%) engagements fought by five companies or more --the US Army lost 932 KIA and 1,061 WIA in this period --Civilian losses included 461 killed and 116 wounded ---Indian losses were estimated at 5,519 killed and wounded “[The typical nature of army service was] characterized not by the stirring charge of blueclad horsemen—bugles blaring, banners snapping, sabers waving—but by the punishing, unheroic, usually fruitless reconnaissance over hostile terrain, pounded by rain, snow, or scorching sun, searching for an invisible enemy.” Robert Utley

34. Assessing CONQUEST & GENOCIDE “Conquest forms the historical bedrock of the whole nation [the United States], and the American West is a preeminent case study in conquest and its consequences. Conquest [in the case of the United States] was a literal, territorial form of economic growth.” Patricia Nelson Limerick, The Legacy of Conquest “In the broad view, professional army officers certainly remained “agents of empire.” the sword of a republic increasingly defined by whiteness, carrying out the final stage in a process of ethnic cleansing that historians commonly label Indian removal.” Samuel Watson, Peacekeepers and Conquerors “Ambivalent reform efforts throughout the nineteenth century were fundamentally ethnocentric and genocidal, as they functioned to destroy the Indian way of life.” Walter Hixson, American Settler Colonialism