austin-murphy-the-triumph-of-evil

36 THE TRIUMPH OF EVIL
(Jaimes, 1992). To further expedite the extermination process at mini­
mal expense, dogs were often used to hunt down the Indians (to save on
the labor costs of hunting them), and, once caught, Indian children were
sometimes killed by bashing their heads against trees to save gunpow­
der costs (Waters, 1977). Few Indians put up a fight, since 70% of the
Indian tribes were outright pacifists (Sale, 199 1 ), and since most of the
rest also realized that they could not win against the superio r fire power
of t�e white k!llers (Merriam, 1905). In this extermination campaign,
stattonary Indtan farmers had little chance of survival and so some
.
lndtans attempted to escape from the USA's New Order by becoming
s�ri�tly mobile hunters of buffalo and other game (Hobhouse, 1989),
gtvmg up their extensive agricultural pursuits even on the breadbasket
�f the Midwest (Larsen, 1994). Although this non-stationary form of
hfe was contrary to most Indians' nature (Domenech, 1860), a number
of Indians were able to successfully adapt to this environment, with
one tribe (the Navajo which had historically been composed of nomadic
hunters) even being able to prosper under these conditions, more than
doubling its population between 1600 and 1860 (Meister, 1976). None­
theless, in the end, few were able to escape from the genocidal policies
of the USA, which reacted to the Indian hunting strategy by deliberately
killing tens of millions of their buffalo food (and other game) in a delib­
erate attempt to starve the remaining Indians into extinction (Thornton,
1987).
Nevertheless, because even these efficient extermination procedures
were not fast enough for some white invaders, the USA frequently
resorted to deliberately spreading diseases, such as by having items
(like blankets) known to be in fected with deadly germs put in or near
Indian settlements (Stannard, 1992). Jennings ( 1988) documents allega­
tions that offering Indians "gifts" infected with smallpox was a "wide­
spread" practice on the western frontier in the 1800s as well as earlier
(Jennings, 1988) . There were also very serious Indian accusations of the
USA infecting Indian prisoners with smallpox prior to releasing them
back into their tribes to cause epidemics (Mississippi Valley Historical
Review, 1925) . Evidence exists that the deliberate spreading of disease
by USA settlers began in the 1600s (Jaimes, 1992) and continued into
the late 1800s (Stearn and Steam, 1945). Although "such things ... were
not likely to be advertised to the world by the perpetrators" (Mississippi
'
/NTRODUCTION
Valley Historical Review, 1925), concrete evidence has been uncovered
for at least some of the terrible deeds (Jennings, 1988) . In just one such
campaign alone in the mid-nineteenth century, the USA may have killed
several hundred thousand Indians by giving them blankets known to be
infected with smallpox (Jaimes, 1992). Pe rhaps, partly as a result, there
were Indian religious movements that preached a refusal to accept any
gifts, tradable goods, or other items that had been in contact with the
white settlers (Downes, 1940).
Although other European invaders, especially the Spanish, also delib­
erately slaughtered many Indians (Stannard, 1992), the USA was by
far the most atrocious. Just for instance, according to Cook (1943), the
Indian population in California fell by only 33% between 1770 and
1848 during Spanish and Mexican. rule, but it fell by over 800/o from
this lower level during the first 32 years of USA rule from 1848- 1880.4
In addition, in contrast to the fact that a significant portion of the drop
in Indian population under Spanish and Mexican rule was due to Chris­
tian conversions and interracial marriages assimilating a number of the
Indians into the "civilized" society, virtually all of the decline in Indian
population under USA rule was caused by extermination policies that
did not allow interracial marriages and assimilation until much later. In
the USA, not just the military but virtually all who came into contact
with the Indians were involved in the genocide, as the various local
gove rnments themselves had not only legalized the slaughter, but they
also paid rewards for the killings (Waters, 1977) .
While the exact number of Indians slaughtered by the USA is not
known, the evidence is too overwhelming to seriously question the
deliberate and extensive nature of the genocide. The evidence also pro­
vides substantial support for a hypothesis that the number of unarmed
innocent Indians deliberately killed by the USA far exceeds the very
conservative 5 million estimated here.
Subsequent USA Killings of Innocent Unarmed Civilians
Scarcely had the USA's virtual extermination of the Indians been
accomplished, and the USA sought out more lands to steal and more
peo ple to slaughter. After attacking and defeating Spain in the War of
1898, the USA proceeded to seize some of Spain 's former colonies
such as the Philippines (Copeland, 2000). Although the people in many
of the new lands now claimed by the USA did not conduct any major
37