Here is my letter:
Douglas
Brinkley’s review of Peter Cozzens’s “The Earth Is Weeping” is as misguided as
apparently the book itself is. There is more than one way to commit genocide as
Raphael Lemkin, who coined the word, would tell you; it varies in methods and
intensity, he said. Military operations are only one way. Genocide was never
official US policy, but there are unofficial ways to achieve the same result.
You can harass and demoralize a people to death, which fits the American
experience.
Since
the earliest colonial days, there was constant talk of exterminating the
Indians. In 1881 in her magnificent “A Century of Dishonor,” Helen Hunt wrote, “The
word ‘extermination’ is as ready on the frontiersman’s tongue to-day as it was
a hundred years ago.” A British pamphlet published in 1816 stated that it was
certain that “American policy is directed towards the total extermination of
the Indians.” Though this talk may never have been officially sanctioned, its
advocates influenced other policies.
Indian
tribes were not just placed on reservations once. They were moved again and
again whenever American settlers coveted the new lands placed aside for the
Indians. One tribe was moved 8 times in 16 years. They could hardly establish a
good life before they were moved again. This kind of harassment does not
encourage a long life. The government also controlled the legal system which
was rigged against the Indians. It often failed to make payments for land
supposedly purchased from Indians, keeping them in dire poverty. And the
government frequently failed to punish people who murdered Indians. All this
stress on natives can have a negative impact on the birth rate, which is one
factor in genocide. You can choke a people to death by such means.
I
discuss some of these issues in a chapter on genocide in my book “Darwin’s
Racism” (which is a critique of Darwin, not evolution). I am devoting more
attention to this in my current project which will be an eclectic history of
humanitarianism. If Brinkley’s review is accurate, the Cozzens book is a
biased, lopsided view of the evidence. It is my Jewish heritage that pushes me
towards historical truth-telling. I am weeping.
That was the end of the letter. About Darwin, I should say that in the 19th century, they knew all about stress on a tribe or group. Darwin called it changed conditions of life and he knew it was bringing down the birth rate. He expressed no regrets about this. Hardly anyone did, except for a few humanitarians. European countries kept doing it, despite their knowledge that stress was contributing to extermination.
