The Odawa Smallpox Genocide

 

“Let those I serve express their thanks according

to their own upbringing and honor.”

-Ohiyesa

 

Smallpox was used in biological warfare against a segment of the population unprepared to fight off its lethal properties. In 1763, the British provided the Odawa Indians gifts consisting of three little insulated metal boxes. During the time the biological warfare occurred, the Odawa were on a peace mission returning British soldiers safely to the British settlement in Montreal. The British instructed them to not open the metal boxes until the Odawa returned from Montreal to their village near present day Harbor Springs, Michigan. Once the metal boxes were opened, the smallpox virus ran rampant amongst the Odawa people. Thousands lost their lives to the dreadful virus. The smallpox massacre was remembered in legends passed down for generations with the Odawa people. Pontiac’s rebellion, and the actions of few British officers were linked to the rationale behind the biological warfare inflicted against the unsuspecting Odawa people in 1763.   

           

            The Odawa Indians resided in various locations stemming from Canada, lower Michigan, the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and as far as Oklahoma. Ancient birch bark scrolls indicated the Odawa resided in the eastern areas of North America. They lived in the Great Lakes area for centuries before the arrival of the French in the 17^th century.  In the past, colonists in Quebec referred to all Algonquian tribal people from the Great Lakes as Odawa even if they were from another tribe such as the Ojibwe tribe. However, like other tribes they had their own language, customs, traditions, and own history which made them a distinct population and tribal nation. The Odawa, also known as the Ottawa, had a close connection to the Ojibwe/Chippewa and Potawatomi. All three tribes, referred to as the Anishnaabek (the original people), were known as the Three Fires Confederacy. They fought wars together, inter-married, and shared villages.

The name Odawa was said to mean traders, buyers and sellers. They were considered prominent leaders concerning the fur trading business. Their abilities included their diplomatic skills with other tribal nations and white settlers. They were great fishermen, hunters and also relied upon their corn crops, prepared maple syrup and gathered wild berries to provide for their families. The Odawa products, sought after by other tribal nations and white settlers, consisted of woven mats, black ash baskets and birch bark goods (Cappel, 2007).

The area the Odawa  lived in was referred to as L’Arbre Croche, which included a series of villages stretching from present day Cross Village to Harbor Springs, Michigan. “Arbre,” meant tree and “croche,” meant crooked or hook like. They deformed trees to serve as council trees and marker trees. Most of the trees were large maples. The deformed trees were formerly used to guide Native Americans on the overland path from Chicago to the Straits of Mackinac. To deform a tree, the center trunk was removed at a human’s shoulder height which caused the surrounding branches to grow out in an inverted umbrella shape. Deformed trees of this nature can also be found in ancient sacred sites in New England (Hanka, N.D.).

The Odawa people were not completely exterminated or moved to another part of the country like many other tribes. Because many of the Odawa people were peace-loving and agrarian, they decided to assimilate with the white settlers. The common belief of the white settlers was if the inhabitants farmed the land they lived on, the land belonged to them. Otherwise, if the land was not being farmed, it was up for grabs. They worked as lumbermen, shop keepers, carpenters, and educators alongside the settlers and were part of the changing economic environment.

During the summer months, women were responsible for planting and cultivating corn, beans, peas, and other vegetables. When crops were plentiful, they traded the surplus. White merchants often depended on Indian corn to feed their voyageurs (canoeists) each year.  Agriculture was considered to be the responsibility of the women of the village along with the production of bulrush mats, and tanned hides for the wigwams. The hides were attached to a frame of saplings bent to form a dome shape. The women also made fishing nets, sweet grass baskets, and other containers. While the women worked the fields and watched their children, the men hunted or fished. They were also on alert to protect their village. The Odawa relied on agriculture, hunting, fishing and berry gathering to provide for the community.

 

            From 1763 to 1766 Chief Pontiac of the Odawa tribe from the Detroit area became famous because of his role in Pontiac’s rebellion. The rebellion represented an American Indian struggle against the British military efforts concerning the Great Lakes region. In July of 1763 Pontiac successfully defeated the British at the Battle of Bloody Run. He was unable to capture the fort at Detroit. Other Indian groups joined Pontiac’s rebellion against the British and these groups captured eight forts in what were present-day Illinois, Michigan, Indiana, Ohio and Pennsylvania. They were crafty warriors with one thing in mind, to defeat the British by tricking the soldiers into allowing them to enter the forts, then they would capture and/or kill the residents (Cappel, 2007).

            When the Detroit Fort was under siege other tribal groups attacked and took over Ft. Presque Isle, Ft. Le Boeuf, Ft. Venango, Ft. Miami, Ft. St. Joseph, Ft. Ouilatenon, Fort Sandusky and Ft. Michilimackinac. Ft. Bedford and Ft. Ligonier. Ft. Pitt and Ft. Niagara were assaulted but not taken. Pontiac led a multitude of American Indians from several tribes in the resistance effort to drive the British from American/Indian held lands. The attacks on British forts may have led to much of the animosity of the British towards the Indian people.  Sir Jeffery Amherst heard about the Indian attacks on the British forts (Cappel, 2007). Pontiac’s Rebellion came to an abrupt halt when Colonel Henry Bouquet led a large army unit from Fort Pitt to Ohio and forced the Indian warriors to make peace (Douglas, 1996).

            Amherst served as a British officer in the British Army. He was responsible for Britain’s successful war campaign at the New France territory during the French and Indian War in 1763 and he took over New France.  Because of this victory, Amherst was promoted to Commander-in-Chief of the Forces; shortly after this appointment he was also promoted to General. Amherst was known for being a racist and he passed on his beliefs to those under his command. He believed all Indian people were “savages,” undeserving of living.

            “The depiction of Indians as wild beasts was quite common among early American leaders, including George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. David E. Stannard writes: ‘As is so often the case, it was New England’s religious elite who made the point more graphically than anyone. Referring to some Indians who had given offense to the colonists, the Reverend Cotton Mather wrote: ‘Once you have but got the Track of those Ravenous howling Wolves, then pursue them vigorously; Turn not back till they are consumed…Beat them small as the Dust Before the Wind.’ Lest this be regarded as mere rhetoric, empty of literal intent, consider that another of New England’s most esteemed religious leaders, the Reverend Solomon Stoddard, as late as 1703 formally proposed to the Massachusetts Governor that the colonists be given the financial wherewithal to purchase and train large packs of dogs ‘to hunt Indians as they do bears’” (Stannard, 1992, pg. 241).

Amherst’s blindness, due to his hatred, led him to seek war against the Indian people as much as possible. Native Americans, concerned about warnings given them by the French that the British wanted to take all their land,  led them to fear Amherst. He gave Seneca land near Niagara to some of his officers for payment for their dedicated service. His actions proved the Britain’s attitude toward land rights and treaty rights between the Six Nations and the colony of New York were to be ignored (Utley and Washburn, 2001).

Amherst plotted to exterminate the Indian people at the same time the Odawa were returning British officers and soldiers to the British fort in Montreal. “With the surrender of New France to Great Britain, command of the English North American military forces fell to Lord Jeffrey Amherst. An arrogant aristocrat who despised all Indians, Amherst withheld gunpowder and lead from France’s former native allies, stating that England’s enemies ought to be punished, not rewarded. When informed the tribes depended on their muskets for taking game and would starve without ammunition, he remained unswayed, callously informing his aides that they should seed the complaining bands with smallpox so as to lend starvation a speedy hand” (Robertson, 2001, pg. 119).

He gave orders to supply smallpox infected blankets to American Indians at Ft. Pitt. He expressed his readiness to use any possible method to wipe out the Indian race completely. A letter from Colonel Henry Bouquet to General Amherst dated July 13, 1763 suggested the distribution of blankets to exterminate the Indians. In another letter dated July 16, 1763 from Amherst to Bouquet, Amherst gave approval of supplying contaminated blankets and every other method to exterminate the Indian people (Cappel, 2007).

“In the spring of 1763, during the Indian uprising led by Ottawa Chief Pontiac, a party of Delewares ringed British owned Fort Pitt (now Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania), calling for its surrender. Captain Simeon Ecuyer, a Swiss mercenary and the fort’s senior officer, saved the garrison by giving the Delawares a gift – two blankets and a handkerchief. The Indians readily accepted the offering, but still demanded the Ecuyer vacate the stockade. They had no inkling that the blankets and kerchief were more deadly than a platoon of English sharpshooters. Ecuyer had ordered the presents deliberately infected with small pox spores at the post hospital. By mid-July, the Delewares were dying as though they had been raked by a grape cannonade. Fort Pitt remained firmly in English hands” (Robertson, 2001, pg. 119).

                       

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            On June 2nd, 1763, a group of Ojibwe men joined by members of the Sauk nation decided to invite the soldiers and settlers residing at the fort to watch a performance of a game called baaga’adowe, a game later referred to as lacrosse. The game was staged outside of the fort. Soldiers and Canadians intermingled with the Indian people. Many of the Native women were covered in blankets and they moved near the open gate to the fortress. 

They played diligently pretending their focus was on the game until one of the men threw a ball near the gate to the fort. As they ran towards the gate, they began yelling war howls. They grabbed hatchets from the Indian women which were hidden under the blankets the women were wearing. The attack was fierce. During the massacre many of the soldiers were scalped while they were still alive. (Scalping was also practiced by the British, it was not only an Indian warfare custom.) 

Lieutenant Lesley, Captain Etherington, eleven soldiers and three traders survived the attack. The three traders and an English soldier were taken by the Ojibwe in a canoe. While they were being transported to the Isles of Castor, approximately 100 Odawa warriors saved the four prisoners. It was rumored the Ojibwe planned on taking the prisoners to the Isles of Castor to kill them. The Odawas shook hands with the prisoners and took them in their own canoes back to Ft. Michilimackinac. The Odawa were well-armed and took over the fort. In spite of the takeover, they made peace and it was decided to join forces concerning the running of the fort with the Ojibwe. Ft. Michilimackinac, a busy hub for trade, had proven to be a successful venture (Amour, 1971). 

            On June 11, 1763 the Odawa people transported Lieutenant Lesley, Captain Etherington, and eleven soldiers by canoe to L’Arbre Croche. They were welcomed and invited to participate in the day-to-day activities at the Odawa settlement. The Odawa people residing at L’Arbre Croche wanted to be friends with the British and many did not support Pontiac’s efforts to destroy the British. They established a working relationship with the white settlers in the area based on peaceful cooperation, trading and commerce. The Odawa traded furs and venison for items that made their lives easier such as pots and pans. They worked alongside the white settlers in the lumber business. The British captives provided help with the building of the longhouses for the Odawa.

 

Canoes heavily packed with dried venison, apples, other produce, and weapons were lined up along the beach awaiting departure. The soldiers were eager to return to their people; but at the same time they were feeling some regret about leaving the hospitality of the Odawa people. It was the middle of July in 1763. Some of the same Odawa men who took over the fort from the Ojibwe were transporting the British soldiers back to Montreal (Cappel, 2007).

The Odawa men, British officers and soldiers boarded the canoes. The British officers and soldiers were required to row the canoes. They sat in the center of the canoes with the Odawa men in the back and front of the canoes. The rowing was easier since the waters were not choppy for most of the journey. The group of Odawa men and British made good time and arrived in Montreal on the second week in August. It took a little over three weeks to complete the journey. Stops were made along the way to sleep, fish and hunt. After holding council with the British leaders, they departed to return to L’Arbre Croche the third week in August in 1763 and arrived at L’Arbre Croche the third week in September. Amherst and other British officers gave them a metal box and told them not to open it until they arrived at their village (Cappel, 2007).

“…it was notable fact at this time the Ottawas were greatly reduced in numbers from what they were in former times, on account of the small-pox which they brought from Montreal during the French War with Great Britain. This smallpox… shut up in a tin box, with the strict injunction not to open the box on their way homeward, but only when they should reach their country; and that this box contained something that would do them great good, and their people! The foolish people believed really there was something in the box – supernatural, that would do them great good. Accordingly, after they reached home, they opened the box; but behold there was another box inside the second box, smaller yet. So, they kept on this way till they came to a very small box, which was not more than an inch long; and when they opened the last one, they found nothing but moldy particles in this last little box! They wondered very much what it was, and a great many closely inspected to try to find out what it meant. But alas, alas! Pretty soon burst out a terrible sickness among them” (Cappel, 2007, pg. 104-105).

Once smallpox finds a host in a community, it can spread rapidly. There are two types of the smallpox virus: variola major and variola minor. Variola major was the most severe and the most common form which had a death rate of 30%. The strain of variola minor has a death rate of 1%. Between 1940 and 1970 there was a widespread vaccination to prevent the disease.

            The smallpox virus can be spread from person to person by simply breathing in airborne respiratory droplets from a contaminated person or by touching the skin rash, sores and scabs of an infected person, being exposed to cadavers who died from it or by sharing blankets, clothing, and towels. Smallpox is a highly contagious disease. The best way to prevent the disease from spreading during the 1700s was by either burning or burying the deceased along with their clothing and blankets.

            The infection of the virus begins after an incubation period of approximately 12 to 14 days. During the incubation period, people do not experience any symptoms and they are not contagious at all. The first sign of the disease, referred to as the prodromal phase, lasts two to four days and the symptoms during this phase were: fever, severe headache, nausea and vomiting, aching body, and sore throat. People may be contagious during this stage. The prodromal stage may last up to 20 days or longer.

            During the prodromal stage, small red spots appear on a person’s tongue and in the mouth which turn into sores containing the virus. The rash spreads on a person’s face, arms, legs, and feet and the rest of the body within 24 hours. A rash turn into raised bumps and these bumps become fluid filled. A fever reoccurs and remains high until scabs form. Again, this was when the infected person was the most contagious especially when the mouth sores break open and fill the mouth and throat with the variola virus.       

            Which further complicates this virus were some of the other life threatening and extremely problematic symptoms such as bronchopneumonia, arthritis, serious eye problems, and osteomyelitis. The eye problems include corneal ulceration and blindness. Osteomyelitis, referred to as an infection in a bone, can reach a bone by traveling through the bloodstream or spreading from nearby tissue. Once considered an incurable condition, osteomyelitis can be successfully treated today. Most people required surgery to remove parts of the bone that had died which was followed by strong antibiotics, often delivered intravenously, typically for at least six weeks. The disease caused serious and problematic symptoms which often ended in death (Cappel, 2007). Native Americans lived in fear of smallpoxs’ debilitating and deadly symptoms.

 

            “Smallpox, which was introduced into the mainland of the Americas in the early part of the sixteenth century, not only decimated the native population for four centuries, but so demoralized the tribes through the terror it spread among them that it has been considered by many authorities to have been an important factor in their comparatively easy subjugation by the whites. Before the advent of the white man, tribal warfare and, at times, famine made the chief inroads on the native population, but during the period of exploration and settlement the diseases of the white man, new to the native, caused terrific havoc…” (Wanger and Stearn, 1945, pg. 13).

 

Thousands died from the smallpox epidemic at the L’Arbre Croche settlement in 1763 as a result of an act of genocide conducted by General Amherst and the men under his command. The medicine men and women did not know how to treat the foreign disease that had taken the lives of so many of their people. They asked some of the white settlers about what could be happening to them.  Father du Jaunay informed the Odawa people that he thought it was smallpox and they needed to protect themselves from spreading the disease any further. The Odawa Indians who had already contracted the disease were required to bury the people who died from the disease. The sick were sequestered in longhouses and kept away from the healthy people at the settlement. The Odawa people buried many of their dead family members and friends in shallow graves along the water front.

 

Hitler's Deadly Reign

 

Hitler’s Nazi party mass murdered many people who lived on the fringe of the German population which included, but not limited to, the Jewish people, Communists, Social Democrats, blacks, gypsies, gay people, and people with disabilities. The perceived racial superiority of the Aryan race was the central point of Nazism. The coming together of nationalism piloted the diabolical political movement which fostered German pride by vilifying all other political and religious groups that did not fall under the Nazi belief system. Anger fueled Germany’s hatred toward other countries as the end result of World War I and the sanctions implemented such as the Treaty of Versailles. Hitler’s charm and manipulation led a multitude of German people to buy into his promises of establishing a stable and peaceful country, a country not filled with animosity. While those promises were being made, the Nazis caused the most chaos and destruction. Hitler’s faulty belief system led to much of the genocide which was linked to Anti-semitism and a hatred of any party that opposed the Nazi party.

    Anti-semitism was a term coined in 1879 by Wilhelm Marr to explain the anti-Jewish campaigns that occurred in central Europe at the time. Anti-semitism has appeared to occur since the Crusades. Multiple villages and groups of Jewish people faced massacres during that time. Nazi anti-semitism culminated as a result of Hitler’s belief that the Jewish people were Bolsheviks or Russian Communists and for biological reasons, they were considered inferior (Berembaum, ND).

   Another of Hitler’s most prominent faulty beliefs involved the communist party. Hitler hung onto the defective conviction that the communists supported capitalistic ideals. Capitalism was not a part of the communist’s agenda, quite the opposite. He believed all Jewish people happened to be Russian Bolsheviks associated with the Russian communist party. Many of the Jewish people held prominent positions such as lawyers and bankers before the Nazis stepped in and ruined their chances of earning a living. The beliefs of the Communist Party were contrary and somewhat similar to that of the Nazis. Both groups focused on hierarchy. The communist pushed to have the poor and less fortunate rise up against the affluent. The Nazi believed the rich needed to run the country. They were a part of the superior race (Whittock, 2011). 

    The Treaty of Versailles, signed in June 1919 at the Palace of Versailles in Paris, classified peace terms between Germany and the triumphant allies at the end of World War I. The treaty held Germany responsible for starting the war and imposed severe penalties resulting in a loss of territory, extensive reparations payments and demilitarization. The sanctions humiliated Germany while at the same time did not resolve the primary reasons that led to war in the first place. Economic hardship and resentment of the treaty within Germany fueled the extreme nationalist mindset that led to the rise of Adolf Hitler and his Nazi Party. The compilation of harsh feelings of resentment led to World War II after years of Germany’s efforts to work towards rearmament (History.com Editors, 2020).

    The Munich Putsch in 1923 led by Hitler and a group of nationalists in their attempt to seize power of Munich, the capital of Bavaria in southern Germany, ended up with mixed results for Hitler. The Nazis held a march in Berlin to drum up support for their cause. During the month of January in 1923 many Germans were angry that France occupied the German Ruhr coalfields  which led to economic crisis and hyperinflation.

    On the evening of November 8, Hitler and his supporters seized control of a beer hall. The leader of the Bavarian government was giving a speech. Hitler declared a “National Revolution” and the Bavarian leader gave his support at first. However, the leader changed his mind and during a marching demonstration police and troops fired on the marchers. Four police officers and 14 of Hitler’s supporters were killed. Hitler, charged with high treason, served only nine months of his five-year sentence and the judge also decided not to deport Hitler back to his native Austria. He received much leniency by the court. The Nazi Party membership rose from 20,000 to 55,000 as a result of their actions against what happened in Munich concerning the French occupation.

    Hitler changed his focused to the Jewish people and referred to them as “Jewish Bolshevism.” He believed the Jewish people dominated the world by their control of two forces: Bolshevism (Russian Communism) and world capitalism. In essence, the two groups opposed each other which posed no difficulty for Hitler’s beliefs. Both camps served as enemies of German nationalism. Many anti-semitic groups bought into the unfounded conspiracy theory based on mutually irreconcilable dual hatreds of the lower middle class: communism and capitalism. They based their beliefs on the fact that some of the capitalists were Jewish and that Karl Marx was Jewish along with a number of communists in the USSR. The fact that most capitalists and communists were not Jewish did not deter the anti-semitic individuals from buying into Hitler’s conspiracy theory. Again, the fact that communist and capitalist systems completely opposed one another did not come into Hitler’s distorted reality (Whittock, 2011).

    After WWI Germany tried to get on its feet financially which the Nazis believed meant having more Germans work the land. The Nazi regime, who considered themselves to be good traditional Germans, felt threatened by the communists concerning Nazi land ownership. They believed the communists wanted to take over their land and the wealthy capitalists wanted to charge them high interest rates on loans. The complex Nazi approach concerning those who worked the land involved reducing the debts of farmers and to have German industrial workers return to working the land. The Nazi attempt to gain support of the German farmers was slow to develop. They ended up exploiting the land with the assistance of Slav agricultural workers who were reduced to slavery.

    Hitler’s view concerning women involved the expansion of more Germans and their role of staying home to produce large families to increase the size of the German population. A third of the men were unemployed after the Depression in 1929. The Nazis presented the argument that women were taking the jobs away from men. During Hitler’s campaign for office in 1932, he claimed that 800,000 women would be out of their employment positions within four years. In 1933, a law was passed to enable couples who were having children to obtain loans to set up homes and start families. Single people and couples without children paid the price with higher taxes. 

    The Nazis empathized racial purity and the making of a new German community free from communists, Jewish people and other undesirables. German women already managed their households and raised their children. The Nazis promised protection for families and sought to eliminate unemployment that disrupted households. The Nazis instilled fear with the women when they told them that if the communists took over there would be crime and disorder.

    The wealthier businesspeople, drawn to the promises by the Nazis to control workers and trade-union activities, bought into the possibility of increased profits for industry. By November of 1932 pressure was applied for the Nazis to become a nationalist authoritarian regime. When Hitler became Chancellor in January of 1933, large donations flooded the Nazi party’s coffers. Before Hitler became the Chancellor, many business people watched to see if the Nazi party had a prominent future. Throughout the history of this world, chances of making high profits superseded any other political agendas.

       Many of the struggles faced by German business people arose from the 1929 U.S. stock market crash which made a serious negative impact on Germany’s economy. The Nazi party appeared to be established overnight in September of 1930 and the party made promises to all social groups to a larger and lesser degree. The unpredictability of the variety of voters explained Hitler’s actions when he came into power. Democracy appeared to be insecure and unpredictable which led to complete and total control through a dictatorship. Hitler faced a challenge of contradictory expectations.

    Hitler came into power legally and constitutionally in January of 1933 through a fair election. When Hitler first became the Chancellor, he was in a difficult situation. He could not achieve the role of a dictator as long as President Hindenburg was still in office. The president could dismiss him at any time. Hindenburg died on August 2, 1934 at the age of 86 from lung cancer. After the president’s death, Hitler declared the office of president to be permanently vacant and he became Germany’s both head of state and its head of government. He also became the supreme commander of the military which only answered personally to Hitler. The process of bringing Germany in line took a massive step forward. When things started turning for the worse under Hitler’s rule, the legality of Hitler becoming the Chancellor affected how most Germans viewed the regime. His regime became the most violent and criminal government in world history but hard to oppose because it was a legitimate government. Difficult to overthrow.

    By February 1933, the Social Democrats and Communists faced multiple attacks. If they fought back, they would be completely defeated since the military and police served the Nazis. Their meetings were disrupted and people from the two aforementioned groups were assaulted and killed. Hitler started accomplishing his goal of crushing any opposition. 

    On March 22 the first concentration camp opened at Dachua, near Munich. Those considered enemies of the new Nazi regime, ended up at the camp. Held without trail and many tortured and murdered. Soon other camps were established across Germany and approximately 100,000 were arrested and 600 murdered in 1933.

    By July of 1933, the Nazis infiltrated the local government and institutions. The communists, crushed under the Nazi regime, joined the other political parties who were banned or dissolved such as the Social Democrats. Soon anyone who opposed the new political party took resident in the concentration camps. On July 13^th, the regime ordered all public employees to greet each other with the “Hitler Salute” (Whittock, 2011).

    The Daily Mail presented an approving account on July 2, 1934 of Hitler’s efforts to ban all opposition. “Herr Adolf Hitler, the German Chancellor, has saved his country. Swiftly and with exorable severity, he has delivered Germany from men who had become a danger to the unity of the German people and to the order of the state. With lightning rapidity he has caused them to be removed from high office, to be arrested, and put to death.

    “The names of the men who have been shot by his orders are already known. Hitler’s love of Germany has triumphed over private friendships and fidelity to comrades who had stood shoulder to shoulder with him in the fight for Germany’s future,” (Whittock, 2011, pg. 70). A multitude of the German population either became complacent and cooperative with the Nazi party due to fear and/or admiration. They were also blinded by the manipulation games of the Nazi party to gain absolute power.

    Hitler and the accompanying Nazi party took other steps to gain power through corruption which was seen at all levels of business and banking. Germany’s largest bank, the Deutsche Bank, served an important role for expropriation of Jewish owned businesses both in Germany and areas seized by the German army during WWII. The Aryanization policies put in place by the Nazi regime permitted the Aryan (non-Jewish) Germans to seize Jewish assets. Gold transactions conducted by the aforementioned bank played an important part in the financing of the construction of Auschwitz. In other words, Jewish assets paid for the construction of the infamous concentration camp. 

    The German economy, unstable and highly abnormal, reached a point by the late 1930s in which war was inevitable. The imbalanced economic system would require theft, and control of European resources, markets and populations especially in the East. The huge expansion of armaments the country had undertaken had placed a burden on them financially. The country lacked enough gold and foreign currency reserves to buy products legitimately. The administration decided the best way to accommodate their needs was to gain more living space and resources. Hitler would solve his economic problems by invasion and plunder (Whittock, 2011).

 

    The anti-semitic beliefs perpetuated by Hitler and the Nazis had been bred throughout history as typical persecution and scapegoating of a minority. During the middle ages, the Jewish people have been recognized as a religious minority. They served as easy targets for any problems the country was facing. The Jewish people were the only people who could lend money and collect interest. Often resented even though they provided a valuable service for funding developments in the economy. As a result, they ended up in situations in which they faced violent attacks and acts of discrimination. By the 19^th century, economic anti-semitism was more prevalent than religious anti-semitism. The Jewish people were accused of manipulating trade and banking to the detriment of the German people. What complicated things was the addition of categorizing human communities which caused a competition between races, religions and political views.

    When the Nazis came into power, there were approximately 100,000 businesses owned by the Jewish people, typically small scale enterprises. By June of 1935, their businesses fell by 25% and by mid 1938 their businesses fell by 70%. By the end of that year Jewish businesses did not exist at all. The Jewish businesses had been Aryanized, taken over by non-Jewish people.

     In January of 1933 the Nazi government embraced the idea of racial purity and considered some lives worthless. In July of 1933 they put into place the Law for Prevention of Genetically Diseased Offspring. The law was also referred to as the sterilization law which legalized compulsory sterilization for any citizen the Genetic Health Court deemed to have genetic disorders. The list of genetic disorders included many mental health and health issues such as epilepsy and mood disorders. Later on, alcoholism and criminal behaviors were added to the list.

German settlers and missionaries married African women during the Kaiser’s empire and as a result in 1937, 400 of the “Rhineland bastards” were sterilized. Under Hitler’s rule, approximately 400,000 individuals underwent sterilization against their will (Whittock, 2011).

    In November of 1933 the Nazi administration implemented the Law against Dangerous Habitual Criminals which gave police authority to arrest what were considered the dregs of society: prostitutes, beggars, gypsies, chronic alcoholics and homeless people. The individuals, who were arrested, ended up in the increasing number of concentration camps.

    The idea of sterilization was considered controversial, while euthanasia was thought to be even more so. The patients in Germany’s mental health facilities created a whole new problem. The Nazi radicals pressured the administration to do something about the “useless mouths to feed.” First the resources provided to the asylum patients were reduced considerably, doctor to patient ratio decreased to 1:500. Nazi party members took over the post of psychiatric nurses and the treatment of the patients became brutal. The requests for mercy killings moved the cruel treatment to actual murders.

    The establishment of the Reich Committee for the Scientific Registration of Serious Hereditary and Congenital Illnesses led to the killing which became fully institutionalized. Children at specialized pediatric clinics were killed by a mixture of starvation and strong sedatives. At six secret locations, a team of doctors, nurses and other Nazi members killed over 70,000 people between 1939 to 1941, primarily by gassing them. The gassing technique became one of the chosen methods for killing the Jewish people from 1942 (Whittock, 2011).

 

    Hitler’s plans which involved killing spread to other countries. In September of 1939 the Nazis attacked Poland which left Britain and France with little choice then to resist Hitler’s efforts. The takeover of Poland caused a serious imbalance of power which made Germany the winner. The invasion served as an effort for Germany’s rearmament and to address its economic issues mentioned earlier. Hitler, committed to a Europe-wide war, was obsessed with a racially warped geopolitical scheme. He not only wanted to dismantle the Treaty of Versailles, he also had a strong desire to create a slave empire in eastern Europe as far as the Urals. His drive for all out war went up a lot due to his belief that he did not have much time. Countries such as the U.S became involved. The World Jewish Conspiracy, which was located in the U.S, pushed the U.S. to become involve in WWII to support Britain and France against Germany. Hitler attacked Poland on September 1^st, 1939. By September 3, 1939, the British and French were mobilized and WWII broke out between the three nations (Whittock, 2011).

 

    One of the techniques used by the Nazis to run the country was their use of fear and many  reported feeling watched which occurred at work and at home. They felt a sense of threat and they needed to be very careful what they said.

    “Two men meet. ‘Nice to see you’re free again. How was the concentration camp?’

    “’Great! Breakfast in bed, a choice of coffee or chocolate, and for lunch we got soup, meat and desert. And we played games in the afternoon before getting coffee and cakes. Then a little snooze and we watched movies after dinner.’

    “The man was astonished: ‘That’s great! I recently spoke to Meyer, who was also locked up there. He told me a different story’(Whittock, 2011,  pg.212).

    “The other man nods gravely and says: ‘Yes, well that’s why they’ve picked him up again.’

    In place was a well-developed system of repression which was devised by the police to punish and intimidate individuals who threatened Nazi rule. As mentioned earlier, many people died while they were at the concentration camps. They worked like slaves and were underfed while at the concentration camps. “In September 1939, there were about 25,000 prisoners held in one of six camps: Dachau, Sachsenhausen, Buchenwald, Flossenburg, Mauthausen and Ravensbruck. This constituted 0.04 percent of the total German adult population aged 15 – 65 years old, which was 52,581,000. Even allowing for the fact that released prisoners were still subject to police supervision, this was clearly not a nation dominated by the numbers of its concentration camp population” (Whittock, 2011, pgs. 219-220).

 

    The confinement of the eastern Jewish people on small plots of land referred to as reservations but better known as ghettos served as part of the genocidal process. In October of 1939 the first ghetto was established in Piotrkow Trybunalski. Larger ghettos followed in other locations such as Lodz in April of 1940, The Warsaw ghetto was constructed by using one quarter of the Polish capital. Within a short amount of time the area in Warsaw became overcrowded with approximately 380,000 people. Trapped, they fell victim to hunger, disease and violence by the Germans.

 

    During the 1930s, the Nazis established a substantial level of backing for their regime in Germany. This level of support survived until 1945. The Nazis deliberate use of terror against what they considered unwanted dregs of society, which was kept in the public view, led to the agreement of such policies by the majority of Germans. The increasing persecution of Jews, Gypsies, Socialists, trade unions, the mentally and physically disabled and Communists that led to the elimination of the undesirables was met with an alarmingly level of approval with the majority of Germans (including non-Jewish and noncommunist groups). Opposition and nonconformity did occur but coincided with widespread acceptance of the Third Reich which probably existed due to the extent of the collusion that was present with the Nazi party (Whittock, 2011).

   

    The Nazis did not only seek to murder the Jewish people in Germany, they ordered other countries to hand over their Jewish people so they could murder them. The Romanians originally agreed and then refused in 1942. During early 1943, the Hungarians blocked the German demands for deportation of their country’s Jewish people. In Bulgaria, the Jewish people from areas annexed from Greece and Yogoslavia, were handed over to the Nazis. Mussolini bought into anti-semitism, but did not support turning them over to the Nazis. The Jewish population numbered approximately 800,000 in Hungary so when Germany occupied Hungary, the Hungarian Jewish population was murdered at Auschwitz.

   

    The persecution of the Jewish people and others who were considered undesirables created a thriving industrial business concerning the production of the killing agents used to murder them. The primary killing agent was IG Farben’s poison gas crystals (Zyklon B), which was originally invented as a pesticide. The Nazis used approximately 22,000 pounds in their process of mass murder. At Auschwitz, IG Farben also constructed a multifaceted fuel and synthetic rubber plant. The plant could not be hit by allied bombing raids and it was well connected to the railroad system with plenty of slave labor. The plant, when it was fully operational, consumed more electricity than Berlin per day. This same industrial plant established notoriety for its research and development of a vast range of medicines and their scientists won a multitude of Nobel Prizes.

 

    Of the six million Jewish people who lost their lives during the Holocaust, 1.5 million were children. The earliest victims of the Nazi mass murder were people with disabilities. However, the Nazis did not invent concentration camps. The first camps were in South Africa, Cuba, the Philippines, Namibia and the United States. The Nazis were the first to use poison gas to murder people at sites referred to as killing centers. When the Nazi party came into power in 1933, the Jewish people made up less than 1% of the German population and most of the Jewish victims of the Holocaust did not come from Germany but from other Eastern European countries. Most of the concentration camp survivors were not liberated from the camps they spent most of the war at because they were ordered to partake in death marches toward the center of Germany during the last days of WWII (Lester Campus & Sue Smith Campus, ND).

 

    The Nazis went through a final solution process with the invasion of the USSR and the killing of their perceived Jewish-Bolshevik enemies. Hitler and the rest of the Nazi party were driven to eliminate all undesirables in their drive to have Germany and possibly other countries fall under the order of the master race, the Aryans. During the invasion of the USSR, the general population in Latvia and the Ukraine believed the arrival of the Germans meant they needed to kill their Jewish neighbors because they were blamed for the communist repression. Massacres took place in all German occupied places in the USSR and the Ukraine. One of the largest mass murders occurred at the Babi Yar ravine, in the Ukraine, during the month of September in 1941, approximately 33,700 Jewish people were shot near Kiev. In a number of cases the regular army units and police justified their action as reprisals against the Jewish-Bolsheviks (Whittock, 2011).

    WWII, a war fought between Germany, England, France and the U.S. and the various countries Germany invaded, led the countries involved to set up peace treaties. Hitler was behind the inception of the war and approximately 70 million people lost their lives. The countries that fought with Hitler lost territory and had to pay reparations to the Allies. Germany and its capital Berlin were divided into four parts. The zones were controlled by Great Britain, the U.S., France and the Soviet Union. Lots of dissention existed between the Soviet Union and the Allies.  As a result, Germany was divided into two separate countries, East Germany which was a Communist government and West Germany, which was a democratic state. Before the end of WWII Hitler took his life on April 30 in his Berlin Bunker which ended his reign of terror (History.com Editors, 2021).

    Only approximately 10% of the Germans who worked at Auschwitz were ever put on trial. People around the world were aware about the Holocaust while it was happening, however, the Allies decided that ending WWII would be the best way to end the Holocaust. Reports of mass murder appeared in newspapers including in the U.S. while it was occurring. The horribleness of the Holocaust has left much of the world questioning how such heinous acts could happen towards any group of people. Hitler and the Nazi party have been remembered for their completely evil and domineering form of government and anti-semitism, or the hatred of Jewish people, still exists today all over the world.

    The positive consequences of the Holocaust have included the establishment of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The Holocaust was not the only example of genocide. There have been multiple genocides throughout the history of the world such as the genocide of the Native American people in the U.S. The wounds caused by the Holocaust have been slow to heal. Many of the survivors of the concentration camps could not return home. They had lost their families and denounced by their non-Jewish neighbors and communities. The 1940s brought about a huge number of refugees, POWs and other displaced populations in Europe. The Allies in an effort to punish the villains associated with Nazi atrocities held the Nuremberg Trials of 1945-46. The trial brought the horrific actions of the Nazis to the forefront. Ordinary Germans who were not a part of the terrible atrocities since the Holocaust have struggled with the bitter legacy. Beginning in 1953, the German government made payments to individual Jewish people as a way of the government taking responsibility for the crimes committed in their name.

    Hitler and the Nazi party made a long-lasting impact on Germany and the rest of the world. The shock of the astrocities committed by them has caused many to study the harm and end result of their regime. Hitler went to his grave believing the Jewish people were a part of the communist party and a threat to Germany. Many lost their lives because of his faulty beliefs. Racial purity efforts led to the deaths of people with physical and mental disabilities and others the Nazi party considered unworthy. The war to end all wars, which Hitler caused, involved the eastern and western part of the world and multiple countries and millions of people lost their lives.  Anti-semitism still exists in the world today and the Jewish people are still under attack.

   

 

   

       

 

 

African American Slavery

 

    The Africans who were kidnapped were referred to as African Americans because of the role they played in bringing wealth to the southern states even though they did not become citizens of this country until the 14^th Amendment was passed in 1868. In 1808 federal legislation was passed that made it illegal to import captive people from Africa into the U.S. Like all bans it was violated to some degree. However, most of the black people in the country by 1868 were naturalized citizens. The involuntary labor black people provided in the fields planting and harvesting cotton and tobacco along with other crops was invaluable. While at the same time the southerners built a pampered lifestyle of opulence. The African women suffered from being raped continuously and had children by their owners. Their families often broken up and traded to other rich landowners. Some of the slave owners were kind and others practiced cruel forms of oppression. Most were malicious. In order to prevent rebellion, a hierarchy created a separation between the slaves. Some served in the households, a higher position, while others toiled in the fields, a lower ranking position. Laws prevented them from learning how to read. Needed to keep them as ignorant as possible to prevent rebellion. An age of “neoslavery” existed after the Civil War in which they served in the shadow of involuntary servitude. Modern-day slavery, also known as the aforementioned neo-slavery, referred to as institutional slavery that has continued to occur through vagrancy laws against black people. Many acts of discrimination have held black people hostage to the insidious legacy of racism.

    Captive Africans from Angola, in southwestern Africa, suffered the journey from their country in the cargo hold of a Portuguese slave ship. They were bound for a life of slavery in Mexico. Approximately half of the kidnap victims died while on the ship. The remaining captives were taken to Point Comfort near the port of Jamestown, the capital of the English colony of Virginia, by a ship called the “Dutch man of war.” The governor and cape merchant purchased the captives in exchange for food for the kidnappers. Even though people of African descent were present in North America since the 1500s, free and enslaved, the sale of the 20+ African people set the stage for what became of slavery in the United States. After that transaction, the white settlers in the colonies defined status by race and class. Freedom was limited to preserve the operation of slavery and to ensure power for the white colonists and southerners at a later date.

    The prisoners, crammed in the ships’ hauls, wore shackles around their arms and legs made of iron that tore at their skin. They spent months at sea before arriving at America. The unfortunate children usually made up 26 percent of the captives which was advantageous because they filled the ship’s small spaces. As a result, the kidnappers could increase the size of their cargo. The forced migration was known as the Middle Passage (Elliot, 2019).

    Olaudah Equiano, a formerly enslaved author said “I was soon put down under the decks, and there I received such a salutation in my nostrils s I had never experienced in my life: so that, with the loathsomeness of the stench, and crying together, I became so sick and low that I was not able to eat, nor had I the least desire to taste anything. I now wished for the last friend, death to relive me” (Elliot, 2019, para. 7). The captives faced extreme heat, thirst, starvation and violence while aboard the slave ships. Approximately 15 percent of the captives died before reaching land. Suicide attempts were very common. The captains put netting around their ships to prevent loss of the human cargo. A loss of human cargo, a loss of profit. The white working class crew members also committed suicide or ran away at port to break from the brutality. Sometimes the captives expressed resistance by refusing to eat or jumping overboard to mutiny. The kidnapped did not know what was in store for them, how long they would be on the ships, what would happen to them when they reached land.

    The slave trade ensured political power, a social standing and wealth for churches and European settlers. They made money by slave trading and buying and selling the commodities the slaves produced. The entrepreneurs secured political positions which determined the destiny of the nation.

    The Virginia law in 1662 declared the status of the children born to enslaved women was the same of their mother. Enslaved women gave birth to generations of children who ended up as commodities. Families of black people were often torn apart when parts of the family were sold to other rich landowners. African people were enslaved for life.

 

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,

that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable

Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of

Happiness.”

 

   While the colonists fought against the British for their freedom, they sustained slavery and avoided the matter stated in the Constitution. The enslaved people took advantage of every opportunity to assure their freedom. Many were not successful. They served in the military during the Revolutionary War either for the British or the other European settlers. Emancipation enacted in some states such as Pennsylvania, New York, and New Jersey provided some of the enslaved freedom with contingencies. For example, in New York, if children were born after July 4, 1799, they became legally free after their 25^th birthday if they were women and 28 if they were men. The rationale was that slaveholders kept the enslaved during their most productive years. The introduction to the cotton crop in the Deep South called upon a need for more slaves (Elliot, 2019). Before the Civil War, almost 4 million slaves worked the fields in the South. Only a few slaves accepted their lack of freedom or enjoyed life on the plantation. As one ex-slave put it, “No day dawns for the slave, nor is it looked for. It is all night – night forever.” For many slaves the night of slavery only ended in death, (Constitutional Rights Foundation, 2023, para. 2).

 

    George Washington enslaved 317 black people. Life at Mount Vernon was like it was at a lot of other plantations. Family members were separated across different farms due to their work assignments. The 317 Africans enslaved at Mount Vernon worked in various areas. Some worked with skilled trades, while others worked in the fields and the lucky ones worked as butlers, waiters and cooks. They worked 14 hour days in the summer from the time the sun rose until it set. Washington wanted the slaves to be as productive as possible. Their diet consisted of cornmeal and salted fish which they harvested themselves. With what little spare time they had some slaves kept gardens, raised poultry and foraged. A one room log structure with a wooden chimney served as their home. While many enslaved people who worked as house servants and craftsmen lived in barracks style quarters (Wiencek, 2022).

 

    The crops grown in the South before the Civil War included sugar, rice and corn. Cotton ended up being the main money-maker. Millions of acres was turned to cotton production after the invention of the cotton gin in 1793. More cotton lands became cultivated, especially in Mississippi and Texas. The need for more slaves escalated. By 1860, a male slave cost between $1,000 to $2,000. A female sold for a few hundred dollars less. The majority of slaves were field hands which included men, women and children. Their owners decided when the child would work in the field, usually between 10 and 12 years of age.

    The cotton picking season, usually in August, consisted of a time of very hard work and fear concerning the slaves. Solomon Northup described what picking cotton was like on a plantation located along the Red River in Louisiana:

    “An ordinary day’s work is two hundred pounds… The hands are required to be in the  cotton field as soon as it is light in the morning, and, with the exception of ten or fifteen minutes, which is given them at noon to swallow their allowance of cold bacon, they are not permitted to be a moment idle  until it is too dark to see… The day’s work over in the field, the baskets are ‘toted,’ or in other words, carried to the gin house, where the cotton weighed. No matter how fatigued and weary he may be… a slave never approaches the gin-house with his  basket of cotton but with fear. If it falls short of weight… he knows that he must be whipped. And if he has exceeded it by ten or twenty pounds, in all probability his master will measure the next day’s task accordingly” (Constitutional Rights Foundation, 2023, para. 14).

    They could only return to the crude home after they finally finished working for their master to tend to their family needs. The lives of the enslaved came under the control of a variety of customs, rules and laws known as the slave codes. Slaves could not travel without a written pass and they were forbidden to learn how to read and write. They could be searched at any time and could not buy or sell anything without a permit. They were subjected to a nightly curfew.

    When they sought marriage, they had to seek permission from the master. Slaves could marry others living at the plantation they were working or at neighboring ones. Their marriages carried no legal standing (Constitutional Rights Foundation, 2023).

   

    Slaves were punished for not working fast enough, for arriving late to the fields, for defying authority, for running away, and a multitude of other reasons. Various forms of punishment were inflicted on them: whippings, torture, mutilation, imprisonment, and being sold away from the plantation. Flogging or whipping was the most common form of punishment. Often the slaves were attached to the ground and their back was flogged.

    “In Twelve Years a Slave, Northup reported one instance in which a young slave woman named Patsey was brutally whipped for visiting a neighboring plantation without permission:

    “The painful cries and shrieks of the tortured Patsey, mingling with the loud and angry curses of Epps [the slave master whipping her] loaded the air. She was terribly lacerated — I may say, without exaggeration, literally flayed. The lash was wet with blood.... How did the slaves react to the whippings, the endless labor for others’ profit, the lack of freedom? Some like Nat Turner rebelled. In 1831, he led a slave revolt that left nearly 60 white persons dead in Virginia. Such insurrections were relatively rare in the South. White people outnumbered slaves in most places, possessed firearms, and could call on the power of the government to suppress rebellions. Nevertheless, slaves everywhere found other ways to resist their bondage. They sabotaged tools and crops, pretended illness, and stole food from the master’s own kitchen. The most effective way that a slave could retaliate against an owner was to run away. It is estimated that 60,000 black people fled slavery before the Civil War.

    “Solomon Northup attempted to run away but failed. Then, in 1852, a white carpenter with abolitionist sentiments met Northup and learned about his kidnapping. The carpenter wrote several letters to New York state officials on behalf of Northup. In response, the governor of New York sent an agent carrying documents proving that Northup was a free black man. After a court hearing in January 1853, a Louisiana judge released Northup from his bondage. He finally returned home to his wife and children” (Constitutional Rights Foundation, 2023, paras. 19 – 22).

    Congress ratified the 13^th Amendment to the Constitution on December 6, 1865 outlawing slavery in the United States. That did not end the hardships faced by many black people in the South. The Old South continued to amass sins which infuriated the Republicans. To make a mockery out of the 13^th Amendment they implemented Black Codes. Black people were not permitted to own land or weapons, break work contracts with white employers or establish any independent business, use rude gestures or mutinous speeches. South Carolina went as far as only allowing black people to only work as farmers and house servants. Florida ordered 39 lashes for blacks who tried to attend white assemblies and the same punishment occurred when black people were caught publicly smoking cigars in Alabama. Insolent servants were fined $50 under Alabama’s Black Code. Black children over two years of age were torn from their families and apprenticed to whites until maturity if their parents did not teach them white-approved “habits of industry and honesty” (Newton, 2005, pg. 4).

     Law enforcement joined in the Southerners efforts to destroy the black people. May of 1866 the Memphis police led white rioters and killed 46 freedmen, and two white Republicans. Approximately 80 blacks were wounded and 90 black homes, 12 schools and four churches were burned to the ground. In July of 1866 New Orleans police led another massacre in which 34 blacks were killed and 200 wounded. Throughout the Dixie area individual lynchings, murders and assaults upon freedmen increased dramatically. The Ku Klux Klan operated in full force against the black people. The Klan and other white supremacists threatened, murdered, assaulted and tortured many people who were a threat to the southern way of life and continued to do so for many years. The Confederate flag was represented at the January 6^th, 2021 attack on the Capitol in the U.S. that was instigated by POTUS.

    Douglas A. Blackmon provided his readers with a rendition of a specific black person’s life named Green Cottenham in his book “Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II.” In 1908, he faced vagrancy charges in Alabama. Other southern state legislatures followed the same format which was enforced by local sheriffs and constables. High unemployment rates among southern men, primarily black men, led to the outlawed vagrancy charges and the public looking for free labor. The court found twenty-two year old Cottenham guilty and ordered him to spend 30 days of hard labor. Because of his inability to pay a variety of fees to the sheriff, the deputy, the court clerk, and witnesses, his sentence increased to approximately one year of grueling labor.

    Cottenham, the youngest of nine children born to former slaves, was sold. The county had an agreement with the U.S. Steel Corporation. The young man was turned over to them for the duration of his sentence. The subsidiary of the steel company, Tennessee Coal, Iron and Railroad Company paid $12. a month for Cottenham’s fine and fees. It was entirely up to the company’s managers what they did with Cottenham and the other thousand of black men.

    He was plunged deep into the darkness of a mine referred to as Slope No. 12 at the edge of Birmingham called the Pratt Mines. He was chained inside a long wooden barrack at night and had to spend every waking hour digging and loading coal. The requirement of the removal of eight tons of coal must be met or he faced a whipping. The catacombs of darkness were filled with desperate men covered in sweat and coated with coal dust. The scene resembled hell even for a child of slaves.

    During the 1920s, many black people were lynched. White Supremacists continued to assault, kill and torture African Americans until current day when they feel threatened by civil right actions and when black people rise politically and economically. Their actions have held people of color in a prison laced with hatred. Native Americans also faced the same vagrancy laws and had to serve hard labor. People of color faced many acts of discrimination and genocide.

 

1970s Sterilization of Native American Women

 

https://time.com/5737080/native-american-sterilization-history/?fbclid=IwAR29sZRLpjTHpnnF14h1cU7G-0S4gSKHlncGCH6etCgY1gUFhJ75lRSmPaM

·       

·      HISTORY 

·      OPINION

·      A 1970 LAW LED TO THE MASS STERILIZATION OF NATIVE AMERICAN WOMEN. THAT HISTORY STILL MATTERS 

A 1970 Law Led to the Mass Sterilization of Native American Women. That History Still Matters

A Navajo woman walks towards her hogan on the Navajo Indian Reservation between Chinle and Ganado, Ariz., in August of 1970.

 

Bettmann/Getty Images

BY BRIANNA THEOBALD

 

UPDATED: NOVEMBER 28, 2019 11:47 AM ET | ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: NOVEMBER 27, 2019 11:00 AM EST

Marie Sanchez, chief tribal judge on the Northern Cheyenne Reservation, arrived in Geneva in 1977 with a clear message to deliver to the United Nations Convention on Indigenous Rights. American Indian women, she argued, were targets of the “modern form” of genocide—sterilization.

Over the six-year period that had followed the passage of the Family Planning Services and Population Research Act of 1970, physicians sterilized perhaps 25% of Native American women of childbearing age, and there is evidence suggesting that the numbers were actually even higher. Some of these procedures were performed under pressure or duress, or without the women’s knowledge or understanding. The law subsidized sterilizations for patients who received their health care through the Indian Health Service and for Medicaid patients, and black and Latina women were also targets of coercive sterilization in these years.

But while Sanchez and the Native women with whom she organized responded to the results of that 1970 law, they also recognized that the fight against involuntary sterilization was one of many intertwined injustices rooted—as was their resistance—in a much longer history of U.S. colonialism. And that history continues to this day.

When the federal government forced Native peoples onto reservations in the 19th century, the situation produced a cascade of public-health disasters. By 1900, the American Indian population had reached its nadir of less than a quarter million. Infants and children proved particularly vulnerable to illness and death. One government official estimated in 1916 that approximately three-fifths of Indian infants died before age 5. On many reservations, women responded by bearing more children despite their compromised health. The historian Frederick Hoxie has argued that “only the maintenance of extraordinarily high birth rates” saved one nation from “dropping into oblivion.”

As Native peoples confronted the hardships of reservation life, the federal government embarked on a campaign to assimilate—or Americanize—them. Rather than killing Indians through physical violence, as had been a hallmark of federal policies into the 1870s, politicians and reformers set out to kill off all markers of Indianness: language, clothing, and cultural and spiritual practices. In this context, the federal government criminalized Native healers and disparaged midwives and their birthing knowledge. Under pressure, ceremonial practices, including women’s coming-of-age ceremonies, were circumscribed, driven underground or ceased.

Treaties signed before 1871, and executive orders and other agreements thereafter, established federal responsibility for the provision of health care for tribal members. As the poor health conditions plaguing many reservations became more difficult for the federal government to ignore, the Office of Indian Affairs began constructing rudimentary hospitals, which employees encouraged Native women to use for childbirth. By the 1950s, when the Indian Health Service was created, the vast majority of Native women gave birth in hospitals—at rates that nearly reached national levels.

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In these same years, however, the federal government closed some reservation hospitals and threatened to close more, as politicians chipped away at federal services that benefited only Indians. Their ultimate objective, although never realized, was to absolve the federal government of any responsibility for Indian affairs. Some of the sterilization procedures that Marie Sanchez and others protested in the 1970s occurred in remaining reservation hospitals, while others took place in off-reservation hospitals the federal government had contracted to provide health services for tribal members.

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For her part, Sanchez did not lose momentum after her return from the United Nations. The following year, she was a founding member of the Women of All Red Nations, or WARN, an organization led by Native women, and she soon joined the advisory board of the National Women’s Health Network. By the end of the decade, advocacy by Native women and other women of color resulted in the adoption of federal regulations that offered women some protections from unwanted sterilization procedures. The new regulations required, for example, an extended waiting period—from 72 hours to 30 days—between consent and an operation.

But Native women’s reproductive autonomy was constrained in other ways. Since the late 1970s, the Hyde Amendment has prohibited federal funding for abortion services with few exceptions. The amendment hinders the ability of all low-income women to terminate a pregnancy and disproportionately affects women of color, but it discriminates against Native women specifically because they are entitled to receive health services from a federal agency.

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From the establishment of the first government hospitals, Native women—as nurses and other staff, as members of tribal health committees, and as activists—have struggled to ensure that these institutions met patients’ needs. But non-Native hospital staff’s openness to Native healing practices has varied over time and by institution, and reservation hospitals have been consistently underfunded. In recent years, some hospitals have reduced or eliminated obstetric services, forcing women to drive up to two hours to give birth. Drive time, as public health researchers emphasize, directly affects outcomes.

This history matters. It matters because it continues to affect Native maternal and infant health outcomes. It matters because today Native American women continue a rich legacy of advocating for the health and well-being of their communities. At a congressional briefing session on Native maternal and reproductive health earlier this year, Native experts advocated policy changes such as the repeal of the Hyde Amendment. They insisted that the Indian Health Service be held accountable for providing quality health care to tribal members. They called for greater resources for community and grassroots organizations that are already providing culturally oriented maternal and reproductive health care.

This history matters because knowledge of historical injustices can be a crucial ingredient in working toward a more just future.