Oppression and Genocide

The history of contact between the Indians and the whites from the sixteenth through the nineteenth centuries is often considered in terms of a genocidal war carried out against the Native Americans. After the arrival of the whites, native populations were drastically reduced, some groups disappearing forever. They were killed by diseases brought to the New World by Europeans, including, as Alice B. Kehoe describes in North American Indians: A Comprehensive Account, smallpox, measles, and whooping cough. Some of these diseases were accidentally transmitted—by contact with fur trappers, traders, and settlers. Others were spread deliberately by the whites, in contaminated blankets, for instance, as an early form of biological warfare. Native American populations were also greatly damaged by armed attacks and the ills that resulted from forced relocation, including starvation, exposure, and disease.

"I Will Fight No More Forever" documents this long and violent struggle...