Native America and the Question of Genocide

Alex Alvarez, Native America and the Question of Genocide. Baltimore: Rowman & Littlefield, 2014. 203 pages. ISBN 978-1-4422-2581-7. $40 USD hardcover.This book sets out to discuss Native American experience through the lens of genocide. It does so from a distinctly settler perspective. Beginning with an account of his personal curiosity about societies that have disappeared, the author contextualizes the issues with an overview of Euro-Indigenous relations and then describes how the term was coined by Polish lawyer Raphael Lemkin in Axis Rule in Occupied Europe (Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1944). After Lemkin, definitions were established in international law and by social scientists whose research has shown that genocides are planned and based on particular perceptions and ideologies.The theme Alvarez pursues is summed up by Oscar Wilde's observation in Importance of being Earnest that The truth is rarely pure and never simple. To this end, Alvarez provides an overview of events in Spain and Ireland that set precedents for subsequent assaults on Indigenous peoples in the Americas. He presents the argument that colonialism is inherently genocidal, but instead of examining this proposition systematically, he becomes distracted by the complexity and variety of colonial initiatives and by the capacity of individuals to express sympathy or change their goals. After recounting the devastating and largely accidental effect of European diseases, he acknowledges the attitudes of the likes of General Amherst and then recounts atrocities committed by Chivington's men at Sand Creek, Custer's attack on peaceful Cheyenne, the Gatling guns that mowed down ghost dancers at Wounded Knee, the Clear Lake and Smith River massacres during the California gold rush, and the Pequot War. From this survey he concludes that not all massacres are the same and the issue of hinges on local questions. After recalling Apache, Navajo and Cherokee relocations, he addresses cultural with an account of the beginning of residential schools and by noting that, while Lemkin included forced assimilation in his definition of genocide, it was expressly excluded from the UN Convention.Alvarez concludes by reviewing the high rate of violent crimes and addictions among Indigenous peoples, suggesting that the legacy of colonialism and military and cultural conquest has resulted in Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Genocide, he observes, has become an iconic representation for the most heinous of crimes yet Not every atrocity or outrage is genocide (166). He warns that application of this term to the complexity of Native American experience risks discounting suffering that does not meet its definitional criteria. Finally, he asks who has the right to impose their interpretation of and repeats his plea for definitional rigour and detachment when seeking to acknowledge past wrongs.Alvarez obviously intends to be sympathetic to Indigenous peoples. His writing style is engaging and highly readable. However, he is blind to on-going genocidal practices and lacks the very definitional rigour he claims to seek, failing to distinguish legal from colloquial usages of the word. Coupled with some crucial inaccuracies and oversimplifications, this book does not establish a solid foundation for further research or for the institution of measures to prevent repetition of this tragic social phenomenon. In the end, it clouds issues of serious and on-going importance to Canadians in general and Indigenous peoples in particular.The undoing of what could have been a go-to book derives primarily from the author's failure to distinguish the legal definition of from the broader concerns involved in investigating the social roots of genocidal behaviour. Specific processes are required to make something legal. Had he explained this principle and applied the UN definition rigorously, Alvarez would have found enough evidence of genocidal intent in other domains not to need to mince words about the impact of disease (86). …

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