This controversial treatise focuses on the social and cultural issues
involved in the invasion of the Americas by European nations. It describes the
suppression or extermination of native cultures, and focuses on the cultural
and ideological principles behind the colonization efforts.For four hundred years--from the first Spanish assaults against the Arawak
people of Hispaniola in the 1490s to the US Army's massacre of Sioux Indians at
Wounded Knee in the 1890s--the indigenous inhabitants of North and South
America endured an unending firestorm of violence. During that time the native
population of the Western Hemisphere declined by as many as 100 million people.
Indeed, as historian David E. Stannard argues in this stunning new book, the
European and white American destruction of the native peoples of the Americas
was the most massive act of genocide in the history of the world.; Stannard begins with a portrait of the enormous richness and diversity of
life in the Americas prior to Columbus's fateful voyage in 1492. He then
follows the path of genocide from the Indies to Mexico and Central and South
America, then north to Florida, Virginia, and New England, and finally out
across the Great Plains and Southwest to California and the North Pacific
Coast. Stannard reveals that wherever Europeans or white Americans went, the
native people were caught between imported plagues and barbarous atrocities,
typically resulting in the annihilation of 95 percent of their populations.
What kind of people, he asks, do such horrendous things to others? His highly
provocative answer: Christians. Digging deeply into ancient European and
Christian attitudes toward sex, race, and war, he finds the cultural ground
well prepared by the end of the Middle Ages for the centuries-long genocide
campaign that Europeans and their descendants launched--and in places continue
to wage--against the New World's original inhabitants. Advancing a thesis that
is sure to create
