Again on genocide versus ethnic cleansing: Gary Clayton Anderson, ‘The Native Peoples of the American West: Genocide or Ethnic Cleansing?’, Western Historical Quarterly, 2016 | settler colonial studies blog

Again on genocide versus ethnic cleansing: Gary Clayton Anderson, ‘The Native Peoples of the American West: Genocide or Ethnic Cleansing?’, Western Historical Quarterly, 2016

14Aug16

Excerpt: If western history has a common thread, it is that conquest and violence went hand in hand. This is not to say that American history east of the Mississippi River is devoid of such a theme; the despicable treatment of black slaves in the South, the Irish in northern cities, or even specific Native groups themselves belies such an argument. But in the West, government officials, army officers, and common settlers often found themselves in disputes with American Indians, and this conflict is at the core of hundreds of books and studies. Indian tribes lost most of these contests, so it is crucial that historians look at the nature of the conflicts and try to understand what they meant—then and now. In many cases, if not most, non-Indians committed crimes against Indians. The question here is what should we call those crimes?

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