A Chronology of Important Events in the Genocides and Rights of Indigenous Peoples

Abstract

A Chronology of Important Events in the Genocides and Rights of Indigenous Peoples1 Diana Vinding (bio) and Robert K. Hitchcock (bio) 1492–1502: Christopher Columbus and his crew land in the Bahamas, opening up what came to be known as the Americas. Initial contact was with the Tainos, who later experienced a marked population decline as a result of a combination of their treatment and disease.2 1504: Hernán Cortez arrives in Mexico.3 1519: Cortez and his conquistadores conquer Mexico, defeating Montezuma and the Aztecs at Tenochtitlan in the Valley of Mexico. The majority of deaths were a result of enslavement and disease, but many members of indigenous groups were also killed directly. 1552: Bartolomé de Las Casas, in Devastation of the Indies, describes the mistreatment of indigenous peoples in the Caribbean and Latin America.4 1613: The first record of the European practice of scalp taking in Canada dates from this year. 1623: Two hundred Chiskiack on the Potomac River, who were celebrating the peace that they concluded with the British colony of Virginia, die after being given poisoned brandy; Chiskiack women and children are also slaughtered by English soldiers. 1637–1638: The Pequot Indian War in Connecticut results in the slaughter of several thousand Pequot Indians at the hands of English settlers.5 1729–1731: Natchez Indians are massacred by French colonists in Louisiana in retaliation for their massacre of French settlers. 1754–1763: American Indians are involved in the French and Indian War. In 1763, Susquehanna Indians are massacred by white settlers at Conestoga Town in Pennsylvania. 1774: As noted by John Phillip in 1828, “From the time of the ‘General Commando’ of 1774 in South Africa, the Boers had been waging an intermittent war against the Bushmen with the avowed aim of exterminating them.”6 1788: The colonization of Australia begins. It is estimated that 300,000 Aboriginal people, speaking approximately 250 languages, inhabit Australia at this time; killings, disease, and starvation will significantly reduce their numbers over time.7 [End Page 111] 1803: Date of the first settlement (a penal colony) in Tasmania. 1812: Missionaries working under the auspices of the London Missionary Society (LMS) bring attention to the treatment of “Hottentots” (Khoi peoples) in South Africa. 1825–1830: Settlers and Tasmanian Aboriginals fight the “Black War” in Tasmania. 1828: John Phillip publishes Researches in South Africa: Illustrating the Civil, Moral, and Religious Condition of the Native Tribes, with the intention of bringing public attention “to the oppressions of the native tribes, with a view to obtain for them the protection of the British government.”8 Colonization, he writes, has entailed “an unbroken line of crimes and blood toward aborigines.”9 1830: The “Black Line” is founded in Tasmania. This organization of a dragnet of settlers, soldiers, and freed convicts aims at exterminating the indigenous people of the Tasman Peninsula, but its effort is singularly unsuccessful.10 1833: Slavery is officially abolished in Great Britain. 1834–1835: The sixth “Caffre War” in South Africa leads to an investigation by the British government of actions in the colonies and to Thomas Falwell Buxton’s establishment, in 1835, of the Aborigines Committee in the British Parliament. 1835–1837: A series of hearings and investigations is held by Thomas Falwell Buxton and his fellow committee members into the treatment of indigenous peoples at the hands of colonists, in South Africa and throughout the British colonies. 1836: The Aborigines Protection Society (APS) is founded in England. 1838: Donald S. Moodie’s The Record, or Series of Official Papers Relative to the Condition and Treatment of the Native Tribes of South Africa is published.11 1840: The Treaty of Waitangi is signed in New Zealand (Aotearoa).12 1841: Donald S. Moodie publishes The Evidence of the Motives and Objects of the Bushman Wars, 1769–77.13 1842: The Ethnological Society is established as an independent institution in Great Britain. 1846–1873: Settlers commit killings, rapes, and other human-rights violations against the Indians of California.14 1857: The great “cattle killing” among the Xhosa leads to the starvation of thousands of Xhosa in South Africa. 1864: A massacre of Cheyenne and Arapahoe Indians is carried out by...