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The historiography of Indigenous genocide is the study of how these type of genocides have been documented and interpreted by historians throughout the colonial age up to today.

Overview

Historian Samuel Totten and Professor Robert K. Hitchcock stated in their work on genocide historiography that the genocide of Indigenous peoples became a public issue for many non-Indigenous scholars until after the last part of the twentieth century.^[1]

American historian Ned Blackhawk said that nationalist historiographies have been forms of denial that erase the history of destruction of European colonial expansion. Blackhawk said that near consensus has emerged that genocide against some Indigenous peoples took place in North America following colonization.^[2]

Historian Jeffrey Ostler says that in older historiography, key events in genocidal massacres in the context of U.S. Army missions to dominate Indian nations of the American West were narrated as battles. The concept of genocide has had a modest impact on the writing of American Indian history.^[3]^[4]

Benjamin Madley highlighted that the Genocide Convention designates genocide a crime whether committed in time of peace or war. He has argued that the violent Indigenous resistance to genocidal campaigns have been described as war or battles, instead of genocidal massacres. He defines genocidal massacres as:^[5]

"...massacres are the intentional killing of five or more disarmed combatants or largely unarmed noncombatants, including women, children, and prisoners, whether in the context of a battle or other wise. Massacres, when they form part of a pattern targeting a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group, are frequently genocidal."

Benjamin Madley performed a case study of the Modoc War, comparing details of death tolls in both sides in the conflict, to support this point. He said that throughout the world, groups targeted for annihilation resist, often violently.^[6] The penalty for the death of a white man resulted in the loss of the lives of a hundred California Indians for each incident.^[5]

Madley also studied two cases of genocide (Pequot and Yuki) analyzing four elements: statements of genocidal intent, presence of massacres, state-sponsored body-part bounties (rewards officially paid for corpses, heads and scalps) and mass death in government custody. He suggests that detailed breakdown of genocide studies by individual nation is a new direction in genocide studies: "...offering a powerful tool with which to understand genocide and combat its denial around the world."^[7]

The Canadian Historical Association has maintained that the Canadian historical profession was complicit in denial^[8] and also said in a statement: "Settler governments, whether they be colonial, imperial, federal, or provincial have worked, and arguably still work, towards the elimination of Indigenous peoples as both a distinct culture and physical group."^[9] Some historians disagreed and issued a letter against and for the claim of broad consensus in the view of this aspect of Canadian history.^[10]^[11]^[12] Professors Sean Carleton and Andrew Woolford say that there is scholar consensus on genocide in Canada: "In the end, a broad scholarly consensus has indeed emerged in recent years that agrees on the applicability of genocide in the Canadian context."^[13]

David Moshman, a professor at University of Nebraska–Lincoln, highlighted the lack of awareness of the fact that Indigenous nations are not a monolithic entity, and many have disappeared: "The nations of the Americas remain virtually oblivious to their emergence from a series of genocides that were deliberately aimed at, and succeeded in eliminating, hundreds of Indigenous cultures."^[14]

References

^ Totten, Samuel; Hitchcock, Robert K. (2011). "Introduction The Genocide of Indigenous Peoples". In Hitchcock, Robert K. (ed.). Genocide of Indigenous Peoples: A Critical Bibliographic Review. Routledge. pp. 2, 13. doi:10.4324/9780203790830. ISBN 978-1-4128-4455-0. (p. 2.) ...It was only in the latter part of the twentieth century that the genocide of Indigenous peoples started to become a significant issue for human rights activists, non-governmental organizations, international development and finance institutions, such as the United Nations and the World Bank, and indigenous and other community-based organizations... (p. 13.) "Invisible" and "silent" genocide is just as much genocide as those cases that claim the attention of the mass media and outrage the masses across the globe (if, in fact, that actually happens) Part and parcel of being human rights or genocide scholars involves, or so it seems to us. being activists who seek, along with indigenous peoples around the world, to promote human rights and social justice for all.
^ Blackhawk, Ned (2023). "'The Centrality of Dispossession': Native American Genocide and Settler Colonialism". In Blackhawk, Ned; Kiernan, Ben; Madley, Benjamin; Taylor, Rebe (eds.). The Cambridge World History of Genocide. Vol. II: Genocide in the Indigenous, Early Modern and Imperial Worlds, from c.1535 to World War One. Cambridge University Press. pp. 23–45 [38, 44]. doi:10.1017/9781108765480. ISBN 978-1-108-76548-0.
^ Ostler, Jeffrey (2 March 2015), "Genocide and American Indian History", Oxford Research Encyclopedia of American History, doi:10.1093/acrefore/9780199329175.013.3, ISBN 978-0-19-932917-5, retrieved 25 November 2023
^ Ostler, Jeffrey (11 June 2019). Surviving Genocide: Native Nations and the United States from the American Revolution to Bleeding Kansas. Yale University Press. p. 384. ISBN 978-0-300-21812-1.
^ ^a ^b Madley, Benjamin (2016). An American Genocide: The United States and the California Indian Catastrophe, 1846-1873. New Haven: Yale University Press. pp. 11–12. ISBN 978-0300181364.
^ Madley, Benjamin (2014). "California and Oregon's Modoc Indians: How Indigenous Resistance Camouflages Genocide in Colonial Histories". In Woolford, Andrew; Benvenuto, Jeff; Laban Hinton, Alexander (eds.). Colonial Genocide in Indigenous North America. Duke University Press. pp. 3, 9, 11, 95, 120, 150, 160. doi:10.2307/j.ctv11sn770. ISBN 978-0-8223-5763-6. JSTOR j.ctv11sn770. As such it is important for the peoples of the United States and Canada to recognize their shared legacies of genocide, which have too often been hidden, ignored, forgotten, or outright denied. (p3) Thankfully a new generation of genocide scholarship is moving beyond these timeworn and irreconcilable divisions. (p11) Variations of the Modoc ordeal occurred elsewhere during the conquest and colonization of Africa, Asia, Australia, and North and South America. Indigenous civilizations repeatedly resisted invaders seeking to physically annihilate them in whole or in part. Many of these catastrophes are known as wars. Yet by carefully examining the intentions and actions of colonizers and their advocates it is possible to reinterpret some of these cataclysms as both genocides and wars of resistance. The Modoc case is one of them (p120). Memory, remembering, forgetting, and denial are inseparable and critical junctures in the study and examination of genocide. Absence or suppression of memories is not merely a lack of acknowledgment of individual or collective experiences but can also be considered denial of a genocidal crime (p150). Erasure of historical memory and modification of historical narrative influence the perception of genocide. If it is possible to avoid conceptually blocking colonial genocides for a moment, we can consider denial in a colonial context. Perpetrators initiate and perpetuate denial (p160).
^ Madley, Benjamin (2015). "Reexamining the American Genocide Debate: Meaning, Historiography, and New Methods". The American Historical Review. 120 (1): 106,107,110,111,120,132,133,134. doi:10.1093/ahr/120.1.98. JSTOR 43696337. The study of massacres defined here as predominantly one-sided intentional killings of five or more noncombatants or relatively poorly armed or disarmed combatants, often by surprise and with little or no quarter.
^ Rocksborough-Smith, Ian (11 October 2021). "Canada is Going through its Own History Wars". History News Network. Retrieved 5 May 2023.
^ "The History of Violence Against Indigenous Peoples Fully Warrants the Use of the Word "Genocide"". Canadian Historical Association. Retrieved 5 May 2023.
^ Hopper, Tristin (11 August 2021). "Historians oppose statement saying Canada is guilty of genocide". National Post. Retrieved 5 May 2023.
^ "Open letter to the Council of the Canadian Historical Association and the Canadian Public". 13 August 2021.
^ "Opinion: The past is present: What role should Canada's historians play in reconciliation? The question has proved surprisingly controversial". The Globe and Mail. 13 May 2022. Retrieved 5 May 2023.
^ Carleton, Sean; Woolford, Andrew. "Ignore debaters and denialists, Canada's treatment of Indigenous Peoples fits the definition of genocide". Royal Society of Canada.
^ Moshman, David (15 May 2007). "Us and Them: Identity and Genocide". Identity. 7 (2): 115–135. doi:10.1080/15283480701326034. S2CID 143561036.