Genocides of Indigenous Peoples

Indigenous peoples have been characterized as ‘victims of progress’, 1 ‘invisible indigenes’, 2 ‘resource rebels’, 3 and ‘First Nations who are organizing to survive’. 4 Most, if not all peoples, who consider themselves to be indigenous or aboriginal have histories that include complex kinds of contacts with other peoples, some of which were negative. All too often, indigenous peoples have had to cope with efforts by other groups, governments, settlers, or transnational corporations to take away their lands and resources, sometimes by force or through the application of questionable means. As David Maybury-Lewis 5 notes, ‘Indigenous peoples are those who are subordinated and marginalized by those who rule over them.’ Patrick Brantlinger points out that the advent of Europeans in Australia, New Zealand, southern Africa, Latin America, and North America ‘meant steep population declines in indigenous populations’. He goes on to say, ‘One of the main causes for these declines is not mysterious: violence, warfare, genocide.’ 6 These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.