Chapter 16, In Black and White Summary and Analysis

When European settlers first arrived in Tasmania, they found it inhabited by an estimated 5,000 black native inhabitants. Those inhabitants were entirely eliminated over several years by the process of genocide. Alarmingly, the Tasmanian genocide was looked upon as a successful process by many European inhabitants of Australia, some of whom argued that a similar genocide should be carried out upon the black native inhabitants of Australia.

Genocide is rather loosely defined as the mass killing of an identifiable demographic of people simply because of their demographic association. The text then provides three world maps that indicate the locations and times of various documented genocidal events occurring from 1492 through 1900, 1900 through 1950, and 1950 through 1990. Not all genocidal events are included in the maps and tables.

Genocide is thus established as an unfortunately common occurrence in human...