History is messy. It’s rarely the clean, linear progression toward "civilization" that older textbooks used to preach. When you look at the US genocide of Native Americans, you aren’t just looking at a few isolated battles or some tragic accidents. You’re looking at a deliberate, centuries-long process that fundamentally reshaped a continent. It was violent. It was legalistic. Honestly, it was a Bureau of Indian Affairs filing cabinet just as often as it was a cavalry charge.
We have to talk about the scale first. Experts estimate that before 1492, the Americas were home to tens of millions of people. By 1900, the Indigenous population in the United States had bottomed out at roughly 237,000. That’s not just "population decline." It’s a collapse.
The Legal Architecture of Removal
The United States didn't just stumble into westward expansion. They planned it. In 1823, the Supreme Court case Johnson v. M’Intosh basically decided that Native tribes didn't actually own their land—they just "occupied" it. Chief Justice John Marshall argued that the "discovery" of the land by Europeans gave them the ultimate title.
It sounds absurd today. But that ruling laid the groundwork for the Indian Removal Act of 1830. Andrew Jackson pushed this hard. He wanted the Southeast cleared for white cotton farmers. This led directly to the Trail of Tears. About 16,000 Cherokee were forced to march west; roughly 4,000 died from cold, hunger, and disease. Imagine your entire community being told to leave their homes with nothing but what they could carry. It was brutal.
Not Just War, But Starvation
We often think of the US genocide of Native Americans as a series of gunfights. It wasn't always that. Sometimes, the most effective weapon was a dead buffalo.
General Philip Sheridan once famously (and controversially) praised the slaughter of the American bison. He knew exactly what he was doing. The Plains Indians—the Sioux, the Cheyenne, the Comanche—depended on the buffalo for everything. Food, shelter, clothing, tools. By encouraging hunters to kill millions of bison for just their hides, the US government effectively destroyed the "commissary" of the Indigenous people.
If you can't eat, you can't fight. If you can't fight, you move onto the reservation.
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The Horror of the Boarding Schools
Physical death is one thing. Cultural death is another. This is what historians call "ethnocide" or cultural genocide.
In 1879, Richard Henry Pratt founded the Carlisle Indian Industrial School. His motto? "Kill the Indian in him, and save the man." This wasn't a metaphor. Thousands of children were taken—sometimes by force—from their parents. Their hair was cut. Their traditional clothes were burned. They were beaten for speaking their native languages.
- The trauma was multi-generational. Children grew up without seeing healthy parenting.
- Abuse was rampant. Recent investigations by the Department of the Interior have identified hundreds of marked and unmarked burial sites at these schools.
- The goal was erasure. If you take the children, you take the future of the tribe.
It’s heavy stuff. But it’s the reality of how the United States was built.
Sand Creek and Wounded Knee: The Massacre Reality
We use the word "battle" a lot in history, but it's often the wrong word. Take Sand Creek in 1864. Colonel John Chivington led about 700 troops into a village of Cheyenne and Arapaho. Most of the men were out hunting. The village was full of women, children, and the elderly. They were flying a white flag of surrender and a US flag.
Chivington’s men killed over 150 people. They didn't just kill them; they mutilated the bodies. It was a war crime by any modern standard.
Then you have Wounded Knee in 1890. This is often cited as the "end" of the Indian Wars. The Lakota were performing the Ghost Dance—a religious movement they believed would bring back the buffalo and make the white man disappear. The US military got nervous. In the chaos of trying to disarm the Lakota, a shot went off. The soldiers opened fire with Hotchkiss mountain guns. They mowed down nearly 300 people, many of whom were fleeing.
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Why the Term "Genocide" Is Controversial (But Accurate)
For a long time, historians avoided the word "genocide." They called it "unfortunate" or "inevitable." Raphael Lemkin, the guy who actually coined the term genocide in 1944, specifically pointed to the treatment of Indigenous peoples in the Americas as a primary example.
The UN Convention on Genocide defines it as acts committed with the "intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group."
When you look at the systematic removal of children, the intentional destruction of food sources, and the legal stripping of land rights, it fits the definition. Some argue it was just "collateral damage" of war or disease. Sure, smallpox killed millions. But many times, those deaths happened because tribes were already weakened by forced marches and confined to cramped, unsanitary reservations.
The Myth of the Empty Wilderness
You’ve probably heard the term "Manifest Destiny." It’s the idea that white Americans were divinely ordained to settle the whole continent. This required the myth that the land was "empty" or "unused."
It wasn't.
Indigenous people had massive trade networks, complex agriculture, and sophisticated political structures. The Iroquois Confederacy, for instance, influenced the American founders. By framing Native Americans as "nomadic savages," the US government made it easier for the public to swallow the violence.
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Moving Toward Action and Understanding
You can't change what happened in the 19th century. But you can change how we handle the fallout today. The US genocide of Native Americans isn't a closed chapter; its effects are seen in current poverty rates, health disparities, and land disputes.
If you want to move beyond just reading about history and actually engage with it, here are some practical steps.
First, look up whose land you are currently living on. Use tools like Native-Land.ca to identify the original inhabitants of your area. It’s a simple way to acknowledge that history is under your feet.
Second, support Indigenous-led organizations. Groups like the Native American Rights Fund (NARF) do the heavy lifting in courtrooms to protect tribal sovereignty.
Third, read Indigenous authors. Don't just get the history from the "winners." Read Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown for the classic perspective, or The Inconvenient Indian by Thomas King for a sharper, more modern take.
Finally, pay attention to current legislation regarding tribal lands and the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA). These legal battles are the modern front lines of a struggle that started hundreds of years ago. Understanding the past is the only way to make sure the future doesn't look like a repeat of it.