Ethnic cleansing
Ethnic cleansing is the systematic forced removal of ethnic or religious groups from a given territory by a more powerful ethnic group, with the intent of making it ethnically homogeneous. The forces applied may be forms of forced migration, intimidation, as well as mass murder. An antecedent to the term is the Greek word andrapodismos, which was used in ancient texts to describe atrocities that accompanied Alexander the Greats conquest of Thebes in 335 BC. In the early 1900s, regional variants of the term could be found among the Czechs, the Poles, the French, a 1913 Carnegie Endowment report condemning the actions of all participants in the Balkan Wars contained various new terms to describe brutalities committed toward ethnic groups. During World War II, the euphemism čišćenje terena was used by the Croatian Ustaše to describe military actions in which non-Croats were purposely killed or otherwise uprooted from their homes. Viktor Gutić, a senior Ustaše leader, was one of the first Croatian nationalists on record to use the term as a euphemism for committing atrocities against Serbs.
This process was repeated on a larger scale in 1939–41. During The Holocaust, Nazi Germany pursued a policy of ensuring that Europe was cleansed of Jews, according to Israeli historian Benny Morris, the term cleansing was used in Israeli military documents dating to the 1948 Israeli–Arab war, referring to the expulsion of Arabs from Israel. In the 1980s, the Soviets used the term ethnic cleansing to describe the violence in Nagorno-Karabakh. At around the time, the Yugoslav media used it to describe what they alleged was an Albanian nationalist plot to force all Serbs to leave Kosovo. It was widely popularized by the Western media during the Bosnian War, the first recorded mention of its use in the Western media can be traced back to an article in The New York Times dated 15 April 1992, in a quote by an anonymous Western diplomat. Those practices constitute crimes against humanity and can be assimilated to specific war crimes, such acts could fall within the meaning of the Genocide Convention.
As a category, ethnic cleansing encompasses a continuum or spectrum of policies, in the words of Andrew Bell-Fialkoff, thnic cleansing defies easy definition. At one end it is virtually indistinguishable from forced emigration and population exchange while at the other it merges with deportation, at the most general level, ethnic cleansing can be understood as the expulsion of a population from a given territory. The term ethnic cleansing has frequently employed to refer to the events in Bosnia. General Assembly resolution 47/121 referred in its Preamble to the abhorrent policy of ethnic cleansing and it can only be a form of genocide within the meaning of the Convention, if it corresponds to or falls within one of the categories of acts prohibited by Article II of the Convention. The expulsion of a group or part of a group does not in itself suffice for genocide, there is no international treaty that specifies a specific crime of ethnic cleansing. There are however situations, such as the expulsion of Germans after World War II, timothy V.
Waters argues that if similar circumstances arise in the future, this precedent would allow the ethnic cleansing of other populations under international law
Canadian Indian residential school system
In Canada, the Indian residential schools were a network of residential schools for Indigenous people. The network was funded by the Canadian governments Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, the school system was created for the purpose of removing children from the influence of the aboriginal culture and assimilating them into the dominant Canadian culture. Over the course of the existence, approximately 30% of native children. It has been estimated that at least 6,000 of these students died while in attendance, an amendment to the Indian Act in 1884 made attendance at day schools, industrial schools, or residential schools compulsory for First Nations children. Due to the nature of many communities, school locations meant that for some families residential schools were the only way to comply. School distance was used as a way to intentionally keep families from their children. Indian Commissioner Hayter Reed argued for schools at greater distances to cut down on family visits that he viewed as counteracting the civilizing of Indigenous children, parental visits were further restricted by the use of a pass system designed to confine Indigenous peoples to reserves.
Disconnected from their families and culture, students who attended the school system often graduated unable to fit in to their communities or Canadian society. Forced to speak English or French and abandon their cultural heritage, on June 11,2008, a public apology was offered by Prime Minister Stephen Harper on behalf of the Government of Canada and the leaders of the other federal parties in the Canadian House of Commons. Nine days prior, the Indian Residential Schools Truth and Reconciliation Commission was established to uncover the truth about the schools, the commission gathered statements from residential school survivors through public and private statement gatherings at various local and national events across Canada. Seven national events held between 2008-2013 commemorated the experience of students of residential schools. The ‘civilizing mission’ rested on a belief of racial and cultural superiority, attempts at assimilating Indigenous populations began as early as the 17th century with the arrival of French colonists in New France.
The establishment of day and boarding schools by including the Récollets, Jesuits. The political instability and realities of life played a role in the decision to halt the education programs. An increase in orphaned and foundling colonial children limited Church resources, responsible for separating children from their families and communities, the system has been described as cultural genocide because its aim was killing the Indian in the child. Designed as a program, children were prohibited, in many schools. The primary stated goal was to convert Indigenous children to Christianity, the renewed interest in residential schools at the turn of the 19th century has been linked to the decline in military hostility faced by British settlers, particularly after the War of 1812. With the threat of invasion minimized Indigenous communities were no longer viewed as allies and this system of using established school facilities set up by missionaries was employed by the federal government for economic expedience
Religious violence
Religious violence is a term that covers phenomena where religion is either the subject or object of violent behavior. Religious violence is, violence that is motivated by or in reaction to religious precepts, texts, or doctrines. This includes violence against religious institutions, objects, or when the violence is motivated to some degree by some aspect of the target or precept of the attacker. Religious violence does not refer exclusively to acts committed by religious groups, Religious violence, like all violence, is a cultural process that is context-dependent and very complex. Oversimplifications of religion and violence lead to misguided understandings and exaggerations of causes for why some people commit violence. Religious violence is primarily the domain of the violent actor, which may be distinguished between individual and collective forms of violence. Overall, religious violence is perpetrated for a variety of ideological reasons and is generally only one of the contributing social and political factors that leads to unrest.
Ralph Tanner cites the definition of violence in the Oxford English Dictionary as far beyond pain, Abhijit Nayak writes, The word violence can be defined to extend far beyond pain and shedding blood. It carries the meaning of force, violent language, fury. Terence Fretheim writes, For many people, only physical violence truly qualifies as violence. But, violence is more than killing people, unless one includes all those words, the effect of limitation to a “killing fields” perspective is the widespread neglect of many other forms of violence. We must insist that violence refers to that which is psychologically destructive, many forms of systemic violence often slip past our attention because they are so much a part of the infrastructure of life. Charles Selengut characterizes the phrase religion and violence as jarring, asserting that religion is thought to be opposed to violence and he acknowledges, that the history and scriptures of the worlds religions tell stories of violence and war even as they speak of peace and love.
He notes that when discussing religious violence, one should note that the overwhelming majority of religious people do not get inspired to engage in violence. While religion can be used as a means of rallying support for violence, Hector Avalos argues that religions create violence over four scarce resources, access to divine will, primarily through scripture, sacred space, group privileging, and salvation. Not all religions have or use theses four resources and he believes that religious violence is particularly untenable as these resources are never verifiable and, unlike claims to scare resources such a water or land, cannot be adjudicated objectively. Regina Schwartz argues that all religions are inherently violent because of an exclusivism that inevitably fosters violence against those that are considered outsiders. Lawrence Wechsler asserts that Schwartz isnt just arguing that Abrahamic religions have a violent legacy, who can dispute that they did their bloody deeds by claiming to be establishing a new man and a religion-free utopia
Extermination camp
This genocide of the Jewish people of Europe was the Third Reichs Final Solution to the Jewish question. It is now known as the Holocaust. In 1941, the experience gained in the killing of these hospital patients led to the creation of extermination camps for the implementation of the Final Solution. By then, the Jews were already confined to new ghettos and interned in Nazi concentration camps along with other targeted groups, including Roma, and the Soviet POWs. The Nazi Endlösung der Judenfrage, based on the killing of Europes Jews by gassing, began during Operation Reinhard. Responsibility for the logistics were to be executed by the programme administrator, the order preceded the Wannsee Conference by three months, but the gassings at Kulmhof north of Łódź using gas vans began already in December, under Sturmbannführer Herbert Lange. The camp at Bełżec was operational by March 1942, with leadership brought in from Germany under the guise of Organisation Todt, Auschwitz concentration camp was fitted with brand new gassing bunkers in March 1942.
Majdanek had them built in September, todeslagers were designed specifically for the systematic killing of people delivered en masse by the Holocaust trains. The executioners did not expect the prisoners to more than a few hours beyond arrival at Belzec, Sobibór. The Jewish men and children were delivered from the ghettos for special treatment in an atmosphere of terror by uniformed police battalions from both and Schupo. From March 1936, all Nazi concentration camps were managed by the SS-Totenkopfverbände, who operated extermination camps from 1941 as well. An SS anatomist, Dr. Johann Kremer, after witnessing the gassing of victims at Birkenau, wrote in his diary on 2 September 1942 and they dont call Auschwitz the camp of annihilation for nothing. The distinction was evident during the Nuremberg trials, when Dieter Wisliceny was asked to name the extermination camps, when asked How do you classify the camps Mauthausen and Buchenwald. He replied, They were normal concentration camps, from the point of view of the department of Eichmann, irrespective of round-ups for extermination camps, the Nazis abducted millions of foreigners for slave labour in other types of camps, which provided perfect cover for the extermination programme.
Prisoners represented about a quarter of the workforce of the Reich, with mortality rates exceeding 75 percent due to starvation, exhaustion, executions. On top of that, the new death camps outside the borders of the Third Reich proper could be kept secret from the German civil populace. The killing method was based on experience gained by the SS during the secretive Aktion T4 programme of involuntary euthanasia, there were two types of death chambers operating during the Holocaust. The three killing centres of Einsatz Reinhard were constructed predominantly for the extermination of Polands Jews trapped in the Nazi ghettos
Indian removal
The Indian Removal Act was the key law that forced the removal of the Indians, and was signed into law by President Andrew Jackson on May 28,1830. Some of these views are summarised below and he would write, I believe the Indian to be in body and mind equal to the whiteman. His desire, as expressed by Francis Paul Prucha, was for the Native Americans to intermix with European Americans, to achieve that end, Jefferson would, as President, offer U. S. In March and April of 1792, Washington met with 50 tribal chiefs in Philadelphia–including the Iroquois–to discuss closer friendship between them and the United States. To enable, by competent rewards, the employment of qualified and trusty persons to reside among them, as agents, would contribute to the preservation of peace. Constitution of 1787 calls for regulating commerce with the Indian tribes, in 1790, Congress passed the Indian Nonintercourse Act to protect and codify the Indians’ land rights. President Andrew Jacksons actions and statements in the 1830s would stand in contrast to the acts and sentiments.
As president, Thomas Jefferson developed a far reaching Indian policy that had two primary goals, the security of the new United States was paramount, so Jefferson wanted to assure that the Native nations were tightly bound to the United States, and not other foreign nations. Second, he wanted to civilize them into agricultural or more urbanized lifestyles and these goals would be achieved through trade and treaties. Jefferson encouraged American policy to allow Native Americans to remain east of the Mississippi as long as they became assimilated or civilized and you are our brethren of the same land, we wish your prosperity as brethren should do. As President, Jefferson sought full U. S. citizenship for those Indian nations which desired it, including the Cherokee. In his Eighth Annual Message to Congress on November 8,1808, he presented to the nation a vision of White and Indian unity, With our Indian neighbors the public peace has been steadily maintained. And, from a conviction that we consider them as part of ourselves, and cherish with sincerity their rights and interests, and will amply requite us for the justice and friendship practiced towards them.
In 1817, years after the Jefferson presidency, the U. S. government would again offer citizenship to the Cherokee who lived east of the Mississippi River, along with 640 acres per family. Jeffersons intention was to change Indian lifestyles from hunter-gatherer to farming, Jefferson expected that the switch to agriculture would make them dependent on White Americans for trade goods and therefore more likely to give up their land in exchange. At our trading houses, too, we mean to sell so low as merely to repay us cost and charges, so as neither to lessen or enlarge our capital. In this way our settlements will gradually circumscribe and approach the Indians, the former is certainly the termination of their history most happy for themselves, but, in the whole course of this, it is essential to cultivate their love. Reason, and by giving them protection against wrongs from our own people
Oklahoma
Oklahoma is a state located in the South Central United States. Oklahoma is the 20th-most extensive and the 28th-most populous of the 50 United States, the states name is derived from the Choctaw words okla and humma, meaning red people. The name was settled upon statehood, Oklahoma Territory and Indian Territory were merged, on November 16,1907, Oklahoma became the 46th state to enter the union. Its residents are known as Oklahomans, or informally Okies, and its capital, a major producer of natural gas and agricultural products, Oklahoma relies on an economic base of aviation, telecommunications, and biotechnology. In 2007, it had one of the economies in the United States, ranking among the top states in per capita income growth. Oklahoma City and Tulsa serve as Oklahomas primary economic anchors, with nearly two-thirds of Oklahomans living within their metropolitan statistical areas. With small mountain ranges, prairie and eastern forests, most of Oklahoma lies in the Great Plains, Cross Timbers, interior Highlands—a region especially prone to severe weather.
The name Oklahoma comes from the Choctaw phrase okla humma, literally meaning red people, equivalent to the English word Indian, okla humma was a phrase in the Choctaw language used to describe Native American people as a whole. Oklahoma became the de facto name for Oklahoma Territory, and it was approved in 1890. Oklahoma is the 20th-largest state in the United States, covering an area of 69,898 square miles and it is one of six states on the Frontier Strip and lies partly in the Great Plains near the geographical center of the 48 contiguous states. It is bounded on the east by Arkansas and Missouri, on the north by Kansas, on the northwest by Colorado, on the far west by New Mexico, much of its border with Texas lies along the Southern Oklahoma Aulacogen, a failed continental rift. The geologic figure defines the placement of the Red River, the Oklahoma panhandles Western edge is out of alignment with its Texas border. The Oklahoma/New Mexico border is actually 2.1 to 2.2 miles east of the Texas line, the border between Texas and New Mexico was set first as a result of a survey by Spain in 1819.
It was set along the 103rd Meridian, in the 1890s, when Oklahoma was formally surveyed using more accurate surveying equipment and techniques, it was discovered the Texas line was not set along the 103rd Meridian. Surveying techniques were not as accurate in 1819, and the actual 103rd Meridian was approximately 2.2 miles to the east and it was much easier to leave the mistake than for Texas to cede land to New Mexico to correct the surveying error. The placement of the Oklahoma/New Mexico border represents the true 103rd Meridian, cimarron County in Oklahomas panhandle is the only county in the United States that touches four other states, New Mexico, Texas and Kansas. Its highest and lowest points follow this trend, with its highest peak, Black Mesa, at 4,973 feet above sea level, situated near its far northwest corner in the Oklahoma Panhandle. The states lowest point is on the Little River near its far southeastern boundary near the town of Idabel, which dips to 289 feet above sea level
Guatemalan genocide
The Guatemalan genocide, Mayan genocide, or Silent Holocaust refers to the massacre of Maya civilians during the Guatemalan military governments counterinsurgency operations. A report from 1984 discussed the murder of thousands by a government that maintains its authority by terror. HRW have described extraordinarily cruel actions by the forces, mostly against unarmed civilians. The repression reached genocidal levels in the predominantly indigenous northern provinces where the EGP guerrillas operated, while massacres of Indian peasants had occurred earlier in the war, the systematic use of terror against the Indian population began around 1975 and peaked during the first half of the 1980s. The military had carried out 626 massacres against the Maya during the conflict, the Guatemalan army itself acknowledged destroying 440 Mayan villages between 1981 and 1983, during the most intense phase of the repression. In some municipalities such as Rabinal and Nebaj, at least one third of the villages were evacuated or destroyed and this does not account for the fact that children were often primary targets in many village massacres.
Former military dictator General Efrain Rios Montt was indicted for his role in the most intense stage of the genocide, an estimated 200,000 Guatemalan civilians were killed during the Guatemalan Civil War – 93% by government forces – including at least 40,000 persons who disappeared. Of the 42,275 individual cases of killing and disappearances documented by the CEH, 83% of the victims were Maya, the other the intelligence unit called Presidential Security Department, known as Archivo or AGSAEMP. Archivo was formed with money and support from US advisors under President Enrique Peralta Azurdia, a telecommunications database known as the Regional Telecommunications Center or La Regional was integrated into this agency and served as a vital part of the Guatemalan intelligence network. La Regional was used by the government as a depository for records on suspected subversives, treasury Police and National Police confidenciales could be contracted either through provincial army commanders or by direct contact with provincial commanders of the police services.
The confidenciales assembled in the capital using this system were used in covert operations involving the use of death squads. The Inter-American Court of Human Rights has stated that the services in Guatemala have been responsible for multiple human rights violations. In these places, victims were not only deprived of their liberty arbitrarily, in the majority of cases, the detainees disappeared or were executed. The CEH stated that at no time during the armed confrontation did the guerrilla groups have the military potential necessary to pose an imminent threat to the State. The number of insurgent combatants was too small to be able to compete in the arena with the Army. The State and the Army were well aware that the military capacity did not represent a real threat to Guatemalas political order. The CEH concludes that the State deliberately magnified the military threat of the insurgency, the inclusion of all opponents under one banner, democratic or otherwise, pacifist or guerrilla, legal or illegal, communist or non-communist, served to justify numerous and serious crimes.
On this basis the CEH explains why the vast majority of the victims of the committed by the State were not combatants in guerrilla groups
Trail of Tears
The forced relocations were carried out by various government authorities following the passage of the Indian Removal Act in 1830. The relocated people suffered from exposure and starvation while en route, the removal included members of the Cherokee, Seminole and Choctaw nations. The phrase Trail of Tears originated from a description of the removal of the Cherokee Nation in 1838. Between 1830 and 1850, the Chickasaw, Creek and Cherokee people were removed from their traditional lands in the Southeastern United States. Those Native Americans that were relocated were forced to march to their destinations by state, the Cherokee removal in 1838 was brought on by the discovery of gold near Dahlonega, Georgia in 1828, resulting in the Georgia Gold Rush. Approximately 2, 000-6,000 of the 16,543 relocated Cherokee perished along the way, the process of cultural transformation, as proposed by George Washington and Henry Knox, was gaining momentum, especially among the Cherokee and Choctaw. Although the effort was opposed by many, including U. S.
In 1831, the Choctaw became the first Nation to be removed, after two wars, many Seminoles were removed in 1832. The Creek removal followed in 1834, the Chickasaw in 1837, a limited number of non-Indians, including some Africans, accompanied the Indians on the trek westward. By 1837,46,000 Indians from the states had been removed from their homelands. Territories—federally administered regions whose boundaries supervened upon the Native treaty claims, the removals, conducted under Presidents Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren, followed the Indian Removal Act of 1830. The Act provided the President with powers to exchange land with Native tribes, the law gave the president power to pay for transportation costs to the West, should tribes choose to relocate. The law did not, allow the President to force tribes to move West without a mutually agreed-upon treaty, in the years following the Act, the Cherokee filed several lawsuits regarding conflicts with the state of Georgia. Some of these reached the Supreme Court, the most influential being Worcester v.
Georgia. Samuel Worcester and other non-Indians were convicted by Georgia law for residing in Cherokee territory in the state of Georgia, without a license. The Court ruled in Worcesters favor, declaring that the Cherokee Nation was subject only to federal law, chief Justice Marshall argued, The Cherokee nation, then, is a distinct community occupying its own territory in which the laws of Georgia can have no force. The whole intercourse between the United States and this Nation, is, by our constitution and laws, vested in the government of the United States, Andrew Jackson did not listen to the Supreme Court mandate barring Georgia from intruding on Cherokee lands. He feared that enforcement would lead to warfare between federal troops and the Georgia militia, which would compound the ongoing crisis in South Carolina
Freedom of religion
It includes the freedom to change ones religion or belief. Freedom of religion is considered by people and most of the nations to be a fundamental human right. Historically, freedom of religion has been used to refer to the tolerance of different theological systems of belief, each of these have existed to varying degrees. Compare examples of individual freedom in Italy or the Muslim tradition of dhimmis, in Antiquity, a syncretic point of view often allowed communities of traders to operate under their own customs. When street mobs of separate quarters clashed in a Hellenistic or Roman city, Cyrus the Great established the Achaemenid Empire ca.550 BC, and initiated a general policy of permitting religious freedom throughout the empire, documenting this on the Cyrus Cylinder. Some of the exceptions have been in regions where one of the revealed religions has been in a position of power, Zoroastrianism, Christianity. This was the core for resentment and the persecution of early Christian communities, Freedom of religious worship was established in the Buddhist Maurya Empire of ancient India by Ashoka the Great in the 3rd century BC, which was encapsulated in the Edicts of Ashoka.
Greek-Jewish clashes at Cyrene in 73 AD and 117 AD and in Alexandria in 115 AD provide examples of cities as scenes of tumult. Dhimmis were allowed to operate their own courts following their own systems in cases that did not involve other religious groups. ISIS re-established the punitive jizya tax and forbade Christians in Syria from building places of worship, ringing bells, wearing crosses or criticizing Islam, ancient Jews fleeing from persecution in their homeland 2,500 years ago settled in India and never faced anti-Semitism. Freedom of religion edicts have been written during Ashoka the Greats reign in the 3rd century BC. Freedom to practise and propagate any religion is a right in Modern India. Most major religious festivals of the communities are included in the list of national holidays. Although India is an 80% Hindu country, India is a state without any state religions. Many scholars and intellectuals believe that Indias predominant religion, has long been a most tolerant religion, rajni Kothari, founder of the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies has written, is a country built on the foundations of a civilisation that is fundamentally non-religious.
The Dalai Lama, the Tibetan leader in exile, said that religious tolerance of Aryabhoomi, not only Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism which are the native religions but Christianity and Islam have flourished here. Religious tolerance is inherent in Indian tradition, the Dalai Lama said, Freedom of religion in the Indian subcontinent is exemplified by the reign of King Piyadasi. One of King Ashokas main concerns was to reform governmental institutes and exercise moral principles in his attempt to create a just and humane society
Religious persecution
Religious persecution is the systematic mistreatment of an individual or group of individuals as a response to their religious beliefs or affiliations or lack thereof. The tendency of societies or groups within society to alienate or repress different subcultures is a recurrent theme in human history, Religious persecution may be triggered by religious bigotry or by the state when it views a particular religious group as a threat to its interests or security. At a societal level, this dehumanisation of a religious group may readily turn into violence or other forms of persecution. Indeed, in countries, religious persecution has resulted in so much violence that it is considered a human rights problem. Religious persecution can be considered the opposite of freedom of religion, Religious persecution may affect atheists in that they may be denounced as being amoral or be persecuted by the religious on the grounds that they are godless. Persecution in this case may refer to confiscation or destruction of property, incitement to hate, imprisonment, torture, denial of civil rights on the basis of religion is most often described as religious discrimination, rather than religious persecution.
The difference between religious and ethnic identity might sometimes be obscure, cases of genocide in the 20th century cannot be explained in full by citing religious differences, the Holocaust made no distinction between secular Jews, atheistic Jews, orthodox Jews and Jews that had converted to Christianity. The descriptive use of the religious persecution is rather difficult. Religious persecution has taken place at least since the antiquity, and has happened in different historical and social contexts, until the 18th century, some groups were nearly universally persecuted for their views about religion, such as atheists and zoroastrians. One period of persecution which has been studied extensively is early modern England, since the rejection of religious persecution, now common in the Western world. The most ambitious chronicle of that time is W. K. Jordans magnum opus The Development of Religious Toleration in England, jordan wrote as the threat of fascism rose in Europe, and this work is seen as a defense of the fragile values of humanism and tolerance.
More recent introductions to this period are Persecution and Toleration in Protestant England, 1558–1689 by John Coffey and intolerance in England, 1500-1700 by Alexandra Walsham. To understand why religious persecution has occurred, historians like Coffey pay close attention to what the persecutors said they were doing, no religion is free from internal dissent, although the degree of dissent that is tolerated within a particular religious organization can strongly vary. This degree of diversity tolerated within a church is described as ecclesiastical tolerance. However, when people speak of religious tolerance, they most often mean civil tolerance. Before that, theologians like Joseph Hall had reasoned from the intolerance of the early Christian church in the New Testament to the civil intolerance of the Christian state. Before a vigorous debate about religious persecution took place in England, for centuries in Europe, in England there had been several Acts of Uniformity, in continental Europe the Latin phrase cuius regio, eius religio had been used.
Concerning the church, he went on, A church, then, I take to be a society of men
Selk'nam genocide
The Selknam genocide was the genocide of the Selknam people, indigenous inhabitants of Tierra del Fuego in South America, from the second half of the 19th to the early 20th century. Spanning a period of ten and fifteen years the Selknam, which had an estimated population of some three thousand, saw their numbers reduced to 500. The Selknam people, known as the Ona, were a people who inhabited the northeastern part of the archipelago of Tierra del Fuego for thousands of years before Europeans arrived. They were nomads known as foot-people, as they did their hunting on land, the last full-blooded Selknam, Ángela Loij, died in 1974. They were one of the last aboriginal groups in South America to be reached by Europeans, about 4,000 Selknam were alive in the mid-nineteenth century, by 1930 this had been reduced to about 100. Cattle breeders and gold-prospectors from Argentina, Chile, UK and USA had entered the region, the natives were plied with alcohol and exterminated, with bounties paid to the most ruthless hunters.
The large ranchers tried to run off the Selknam, began a campaign of extermination against them, with the compliance of the Argentine and Chilean governments. Large companies paid sheep farmers or militia a bounty for each Selknam dead and they were given more for the death of a woman than a man. In addition, missionaries disrupted their livelihood through forcible relocation and introduced deadly epidemics, repression against the Selknam persisted into the early twentieth century. Chile moved some Selknam to Dawson Island, confining them in an internment or concentration camp, Argentina finally allowed Salesian missionaries to aid the Selknam and attempt to assimilate them, but their culture and people were largely destroyed. Julius Popper Sociedad Explotadora de Tierra del Fuego Tierra del Fuego Gold Rush Fuegians Luis Alberto Borrero, Los Selknam, lucas Bridges, Uttermost Part of the Earth, London 1948. Media related to Selknam Genocide at Wikimedia Commons Montes de Gonzales, Chapman, Los Onas, vida y muerte en Terra del Fuego.
El Comite Argentino del film Antropologico, Genocide In Chile, A Monument Is Not Enough
