american-holocaust

PESTILENCE AND GENOCIDE 121lowed upon the previous century's whirlwind of massive destruction. Ineastern North and South Carolina the decline between 1685 and 1790 was97 percent-again, following upon two earlier centuries of genocidal devastation.In Louisiana the 1685-1790 figure for population collapse was91 percent, and in Florida 88 percent. As a result, when the eighteenthcentury was drawing to its close, less than 5000 native people remainedalive in all of eastern Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Louisianacombined, while in Florida-which alone contained more than700,000 Indians in 1520-only 2000 survivors couid be found. 92Overwhelmingly, these disasters were the result of massively destructiveepidemics and genocidal warfare, while a small portion of the loss innumbers derived from forced expulsion from the Indians' traditionalhomelands. How these deadly phenomena interacted can be seen clearlyby examining the case of the Cherokee. After suffering a calamitous measureof ruination during the time of their earliest encounters with Europeans,the Cherokee population continued to decline steadily and precipitouslyas the years unfolded. During the late seventeenth and major partof the eighteenth century alone, for example, the already devastated Cherokeenation endured the loss of another three-fourths of its population. 93Then, just as the colonies were going to war in their quest for liberationfrom the British, they turned their murderous attention one more time tothe quest for Indian liquidation; the result for the Cherokee was that "theirtowns is all burned," wrote one contemporary, "their Corn cut down andThemselves drove into the Woods to perish and a great many of themkilled." 94 Before long, observed James Mooney, the Cherokee were on"the verge of extinction. Over and over again their towns had been laid inashes and their fields wasted. Their best warriors had been killed and theirwomen and children had sickened and starved in the mountains." 95 Thus,the attempt at straightforward extermination. Next came expulsion.From the precipice of non-existence, the Cherokee slowly struggled back.But as they did, more and more white settlers were moving into and ontotheir lands. Then, in 1828 Andrew Jackson was elected President. Thesame Andrew Jackson who once had written that "the whole CherokeeNation ought to be scurged." The same Andrew Jackson who had ledtroops against peaceful Indian encampments, calling the Indians "savagedogs," and boasting that "I have on all occasions preserved the scalps ofmy killed." The same Andrew Jackson who had supervised the mutilationof 800 or so Creek Indian corpses-the bodies of men, women, and childrenthat he and his men had massacred--