Zack Siemsen
Merri Ferles
HIS 202
02-12-13
Native American Genocide
The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide states that according to Article 2. “Genocide, deems any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group. Such as killing members of a group, causing serious bodily or mental harm, inflicting the group member lives to cause destruction, imposing measures intended to prevent birth, and forcibly transferring children of a particular group. Based off these criteria of genocide I believe the acts upon the Lakota Sioux Indians highlighting the instance of the Battle of Wounded Knee and Indian Boarding Schools are acts of genocide. The …show more content…

The buffalo was the Plains Indians life line, they used them for food, shelter making, clothing, trading, and the actions of the white men severed that life line indefinitely. Benjamin Harrison reported that, “Since March 4, 1889, about 23, 000,000 acres have been separated from Indian reservations and added to the public domain for the use of those desire to secure free homes under our beneficent laws.” This land was their resource, stripping them of their fertile land is equivalent to destroying our supermarkets, utterly consequential. This most definitely supports deliberately inflicting the conditions of a group’s livelihood, yet another qualification for the acts committed on the Plains Indians as ones of genocidal intent. Since the children of the Plains Indians were suggested or forced to be placed in boarding schools, where their culture, identity, and even dignity was stripped away and indoctrinated with the majorly supported Western culture ideals. An 1890 “Rules for Indian Boarding School’s” reads; “the Americanization of Indians advocated ending the reservation system that encouraged tribal separation from mainstream culture. They also