By Wade Frazier
February 24, 2008 (slightly revised,
with latest revision in December 2010)
Several Wikipedia articles have
linked to my website over the years, and I have contributed myself a few
times. I found Wikipedia to often be a good source of information, but I
also noticed a disturbing bias that mirrored the Euro-Anglo-American-centric
bias that has dogged the West for centuries. In late 2007, I read a
Wikipedia article that referred to a list of massacres.
I studied that subject matter for many years, and was immediately stuck by the
list’s overwhelming bias. History’s greatest genocide
was what the Spanish invasions inflicted on the Western Hemisphere’s natives during the 16th century. That genocide was punctuated early and often by
massive slaughters, usually as a way of establishing political control.
In that list, there was not one mention of any of those
slaughters. In addition, the English version of Wikipedia is obviously
dominated by Americans (with the British also well represented), and when the
Indian genocide began happening on what became American soil, the massacre
list’s bias was even more evident.
The Spanish initiated the mass
slaughters of Indians in North America, beginning with Hernando de Soto in
1539, but they continued unabated (with the English, Dutch, French and
Americans also inflicting large-scale massacres) until the Wounded Knee massacre in
1890. About two massacres of Indians by Americans made that massacre
list, while more than a dozen Indian-inflicted massacres were on that list,
with “massacres” of as few as three white people making that list. The
list also had very little documentary support.
A few weeks after I came upon that
massacre list, I mentioned my dismay to a friend and he suggested a little
experiment: I would produce a list of omitted massacres, and he would use his
technical skills to add them to that list.
It was easy to quickly assemble a
list of massacres that were far larger and more historically significant than
three “pioneers” being murdered by some angry Indians in the Wild West. I
had already documented most of those slaughters that we added on my
website. I also provided sources for our massacre list additions.
The documentary support was very sparse on that list before we made our
additions, and any “editing” of our entries on the grounds that they were not
documented would be invalid, not when they were the only
consistently-documented additions to that list.
In
addition, many massacres on that list were wartime slaughters, particularly
World War II slaughters such as the Katyn massacre, perpetrated by the
Soviets. American slaughters of civilians during World War II were
conspicuously absent. While my friend and others were adding the allied
firebombing of Dresden and the American firebombing of Tokyo, I decided to
contribute the “Grand Finale”
bombing of Japan, made while the Japanese were surrendering. I have also
reproduced the text from the official Air Force history, describing that Grand
Finale, below. As Japanese peace activist Makoto Oda
later related, accompanying the bombs dropped during the Grand Finale were
leaflets that announced Japan’s surrender.
Click on image to enlarge
As we suspected would happen, people
immediately began editing our contributions. While some edits were
understandable, they were obviously made by white people who began framing the
European/American massacres of Indians as somehow justified, or that the person
in charge of the slaughters disobeyed orders to do so (which was a strained
interpretation of the events), to provide “context.” Then the jingoists
charged into the fray, deleting entire entries, stridently claiming “bias,”
that the massacres somehow lacked proper documentation, and so forth (not all
of those kinds of attacks were directed at our entries specifically, but that
was the trend of comments and general atmosphere under which the edits were
made). Somewhat surprisingly, among the worst offenders were Wikipedia's
administrators. It was not long before all of our additions were
deleted, and the article is now almost back where it started, but at least the
killing of three invading “pioneers” by the Indians is no longer on the list as
a “massacre” (although as few as five whites killed by Indians still qualifies
as a massacre on that list).
Here is our list of omitted
massacres, posted to the Wikipedia massacre article.
All of them have been removed, and there has been a recent effort to remove the
massacre list altogether. Some were moved to an Indian Massacre
list, but the list itself originally began with Euro-American apologetics
(calling Indian slaughters of the invaders “atrocities” and the white slaughter
of Indians “retaliations" - in fact, the opposite was true the vast
majority of the time - as of March 2009, that biased introduction was revised,
for more evidence that there may be some hope for Wikipedia - however, it was
changed back to the jingoist version by September 2009, and Indian killings of
as few as two people have become a "massacre" on that list).
However, the really big ones, all perpetrated by the Spanish during the first
century of conquest, have been completely removed from the massacre lists,
except for the last two, which occurred on North American soil. Somehow, Indian
massacres south of the United States do not count.
Date
|
Name
|
Deaths
|
Location
|
Summary
|
Claimants
|
March 1495
|
Hispaniola
|
Christopher Columbus led first
organized slaughter of native Americans to “pacify” them in order to enact
his hand-amputating, gold-acquiring “tribute system.”
|
Stannard, D., American
Holocaust, p. 70.
|
||
1503
|
At least several hundred
|
Xaraguá, Hispaniola
|
The governor of Hispaniola,
Nicolas de Ovando, led expedition to “improve relations” with remaining
unconquered natives of island and, in a surprise attack on their hosts, they
slaughtered hundreds of leaders of southwestern Hispaniola.
|
Las Casas, B. A Short Account
of the Destruction of the Indies, p. 22. Sauer, C. The Early
Spanish Main, p. 149.
|
|
1511
|
At least 20,000
|
Cuba
|
As gold and slaves ran low on
Hispaniola, an expedition to Cuba pursued the survivors of the 1503 Xaraguá
Massacre and slaughtered native Cubans along the way.
|
Las Casas, B., A Short Account
of the Destruction of the Indies, pp. 27-30. Stannard, D., American
Holocaust, p. 71.
|
|
1513
|
c. 600
|
Pacra, Panama
|
During expedition to discover
Pacific Ocean, night attack on sleeping village. Forty men fed to the
Spaniards’ dogs for the crime of “dressing like women.”
|
Varner and Varner, The Dogs of
Conquest, pp. 36-39. Todorov, T., The Conquest of America,
p. 141.
|
|
1519
|
Thousands
|
On way to Tenochtitlán, Cortes’s
invasion encounters Tlaxcala, who fiercely resist the Spaniards. After
burning ten towns and slaughtering thousands of non-combatants (a tactic
unknown to Mesoamerica) the Tlaxcalans surrender and become Cortes’ most
significant ally against the Aztecs.
|
Thomas, H., Conquest, pp.
236-250.
|
||
1519
|
c. 3,000
|
Cholula, Mexico
|
On way to Aztec capital, Hernan
Cortes visited religious center of Cholula and slaughtered city residents who
he accused of “plotting” against him.
|
Cortes, H., Second Letter to King
Charles of Spain, Letters from Mexico, translated and edited by A.
Pagden, p. 73.
|
|
1520
|
c. 3,000
|
Tenochtitlan, Mexico
|
While Cortes was away battling
other Spaniards, Pedro Alvarado led massacre during a festival, justifying it
by accusing the natives of “plotting” against the Spaniards.
|
Thomas, H., Conquest, pp.
383-393.
|
|
1521
|
c. 40,000
|
Tenochtitlan, Mexico
|
After the successful siege and
destruction of the Aztec capital city, most of the city’s survivors were put
to death.
|
Thomas, H., Conquest, pp.
261.
|
|
1532
|
Cajas Massacre
|
Hundreds
|
Cajas, Ecuador
|
After raping several hundred nuns of the Temple
of the Sun, Hernando de Soto’s men
slaughtered the angry residents of Cajas.
|
Duncan, E., Hernando de Soto,
p. 136.
|
1532
|
c. 3,000
|
Cajamarca, Ecuador
|
In surprise attack, killing 3,000
unarmed retainers, Pizarro’s expedition captured the Incan sovereign,
Atahualpa.
|
Hemming, J., The Conquest of
the Incas, pp. 23-45.
|
|
1539
|
c. 200
|
Napituca, Florida
|
After defeating resisting Timucuan
warriors, Hernando de Soto had two hundred of them executed, in the first
large-scale massacre by Europeans on what became American soil.
|
Duncan, E., Hernando de Soto,
pp. 286-291.
|
|
1540-1541
|
c. 250
|
Tiguex, New Mexico
|
After the invading Spaniards
seized the houses, food and clothing of the Tiguex, and raped their women,
the Tiguex resisted, which led to a Spanish attack that burned fifty people
at the stake who had surrendered. Francisco Vázquez de Coronado’s men
then laid siege to the Moho Pueblo, and after a months-long siege, they
slaughtered two hundred fleeing warriors.
|
Sauer, C. Sixteenth Century
North America, p. 141. Flint, R., No Settlement, No Conquest,
pp. 144-153.
|
|
1540
|
Mabila Massacre
|
c. 2,500
|
Mabila, Alabama
|
Hernando de Soto’s expedition
burned palisaded town of Mabila.
|
Duncan, E., Hernando de Soto,
pp. 376-384. Steele, I., Warpaths, p. 15.
|
1598
|
Acoma Massacre
|
c. 800
|
Acoma, New Mexico
|
In retaliation for the killing of
11 Spanish soldiers, Juan de Oñate led punitive expedition to slaughter the
natives at the Acoma mesa.
|
Weber, D., The Spanish Frontier
in North America, pp. 85-86.
|
1623
|
c. 200
|
Virginia
|
The English poisoned the wine at a
peace conference.
|
Steele, I., Warpaths, p.
47.
|
|
1637
|
c. 600-700
|
Fort Mystic, Connecticut
|
John Underhill led night attack on
sleeping village of Fort Mystic, burning the Pequot inhabitants alive and
slaughtering the survivors.
|
Cave, A., The Pequot War,
pp. 144-154.
|
|
1643
|
c. 80
|
Pavonia, New Jersey
|
Wappinger tribe fled to near
Manhattan Island, seeking protection of Dutch governor, who had hired John
Underhill. The sleeping village was slaughtered and the tribe was
exterminated.
|
Churchill, W., A Little Matter
of Genocide, p. 198.
|
|
1644
|
c. 500
|
Hired by the Dutch, John Underhill
reproduced successful Fort Mystic strategy of burning sleeping village and
slaughtering the survivors.
|
Steele, I., Warpaths, p.
116. Trelease, A., Indian Affairs in Colonial New York; The
Seventeenth Century, pp. 79-80.
|
||
1848-1870
|
>4,000
|
Central and Northern California
|
In less than fifty years, the
150,000 Californian natives that survived the Spanish/Mexican
experience were about 90% eradicated by the American “settlers,” with several
thousand killed during a twenty-year period of “military operations,” while
the natives killed less than 300 invaders.
|
Starn, Orin, Ishi’s Brain,
pp. 110-113.
|
|
1868
|
103
|
Washita River, Oklahoma
|
George Custer led dawn attack on
sleeping Cheyenne tribe led by Black Kettle, who survived the Sand Creek Massacre.
|
Andrist, R., The Long Death,
pp. 157-162.
|
|
1871
|
c. 150
|
Camp Grant, Arizona
|
Led by ex-Tucson mayor, William
Oury, vigilante band from Tucson slaughtered Apache women and children while
men were doing their spring planting.
|
Terrell, J., Land Grab, pp.
4-10.
|
This situation of Wikipedia’s bias
in favor of the exterminators, while the exterminated receive passing mention,
if at all, is typical in the West. Today’s genocide in Iraq,
to seize control over the world’s hydrocarbon deposits, is another typical
instance of the West’s murderous, collective egocentrism. Lies of omission
are most commonly used in the service of propaganda, not lies of commission,
and this instance of Wikipedia’s heavily biased massacre list is standard
operating procedure. Many criticisms have been published regarding
Wikipedia recently. One of its founders even began another web-based
effort, where he has chosen “truth over democracy.” My friend who helped
me add to that massacre list had a series of dismaying episodes with Wikipedia,
the massacre censorship being one of many incidents that pointed to Wikipedia’s
shortcomings, and that goes for all the languages that it is presented
in. My friend has far more to say than I do about Wikipedia’s flaws, but
my experience with that massacre list showed me how far Wikipedia has to go
before it becomes a truly relevant and useful informational resource on the
Internet. It can be appallingly poor when dealing with fringe science and
other controversial topics (free energy suppression and Gaston Naessens’s discoveries, for instance). Whether it can overcome its obvious
failings (which are largely due to the human condition these days) is an open
question for me.
[1] I never stop reading, and since I first published this
essay in February 2008, I added more references and provided clarification,
such as for the Tiguex
and Pound Ridge massacres. I also replaced the Yahi massacres with the California genocide in general.
The single-minded, genocidal intensity inflicted on California’s natives by
Americans was one of the greatest recorded during Europe’s conquest and
settling of the Western Hemisphere. Other death tolls were far greater, but the
California genocide was nearly the European invasion’s last one, perhaps its
most modern, and it was openly exterminatory on a grand scale. The mission system (which
predated Hitler’s death camps, like the reservations did –
the mission system was long ago compared to Hitler’s
death camps) and its aftermath killed off at
least half of California’s natives, but 90% of the remainder were killed off in
fifty years by the American invasion, with thousands being killed in
exterminatory “military operations,” as Sherburne Cook aptly described
it.
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