In 1492, the native Arawaks of the Caribbean islands met Christopher Columbus of Spain. Columbus wrote in his logbook: “They will make good servants… We need only fifty men to subdue them and let them do as they please.” Columbus began a reign of terror never seen before. By the time he was finished, eight million Arawaks would have been wiped out through torture, murder, forced labor, starvation, disease, and despair.
Columbus’ atrocities of the cross and sword were justified by the Christian teaching of “divine discovery” and set religious and legal precedents for the invasion and genocide of Native Americans…for the next 500 years and beyond. By the 1650s, the uneasy relationship between Native Americans on the east coast of North America and the New England colonies had crumbled…in the massacre and enslavement of Native Americans by settlers who wanted more land and wealth. Most of the British colonies sanctioned and encouraged the exploitation of Native Americans. In 1776, the United States created its original 13 states from the ethnic cleansing of dozens of tribes. The Declaration of Independence further cemented the belief in the supremacy of European and American settlers, declaring the natives to be ruthless Indian savages.
In 1787, the United States adopted the Constitution…Article 6 established treaties as the supreme “laws of the land.” Despite this supreme law, treaties with sovereign native nations turned into unrealistic commitments that could easily be broken when the need arises. In 1823, in Johnson and Graham’s Tenant v. McIntosh, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the right of Native peoples to occupy was subordinated to the United States’ sacred right to discovery. “The United States expressly agrees that … this discovery confers the exclusive right to cancel Indian title.”
The landmark ruling provides legal protection for government policies that would assert white European and Christian supremacy as a justification for the theft of indigenous lands and the genocide of indigenous peoples. In 1849, the California Gold Rush triggered a massive westward movement of settlers, bringing them into direct conflict with existing indigenous peoples.
