The Holocaust in America

Whenever a people are killed, imprisoned, or enslaved just for who they are and this is done by people who have the power to do it, that is a holocaust. Formerly used to describe an overwhelming fire, the Ha-Shoah of the Jews in World War II took the english word holocaust. It means the fire, from the Greek, originally referred to fire consumption of sacrifices.

Elie Wiesel, the so-called "Nazi hunter," was a champion of defining the Jewish holocaust, but he was also an outspoken critic who said the Nazi killing of Gypsies, Catholics, and others should not be considered as part of the holocaust. In that way, the holocaust became a numbers game and an exclusionary attempt to make the Jewish holocaust the primary and only example of wide scale genocide in the world. For a long time he got away with it, but now, because genocidal practices are still going on and because other genocide has not been recognized and acknowledged, his arguments are losing credibility in world opinion. Wiesel's writing and influence, along with others made holocaust a singular term and conferred on it the status of "Holocaust" with a capital "H" meant to mean only the genocide against the Jews in World War II.

I have been studying the origins of the war between Minnesota Europeans and the Dakota people in 1862. The antecedents of this war go back a hundred years, more if the French incursions are considered before the 1754-1763 "French Indian War." At the onset of that war, when Wabasha I, who was born at Mille Lacs, went to Canadian territory to meet with the British, an alliance was formed. Meanwhile, the French had already recruited the Ojibwe to the French cause. 100 years later, the Americans and British, having settled their differences, left the Dakota poor and hungry. Is this not a holocaust? Death by war, perhaps not, but death by usurpation, death by starvation, and death by trickery, and death by squeezing the Dakota off their land. That was a holocaust.

I believe the Dakota people are owed an apology, not just by the United States, but also by the United Kingdom and the French government. There is still a long way to go in understanding what happened to the Dakota and their allies who lived along the Mississippi and its connecting rivers. France claimed the Dakota and other Native National lands. The Louisiana Purchase of 1806 by the U.S. contained a provision in Article VI in which the United States agreed to make compacts with the tribes in the sale territory. But the treacherous United States Congress reneged on the Dakota agreements, lied about what it promised, and in the end hanged the largest number of men and boys in the history of the country. It is a record that still stands.

It is a record of infamy. In the Nuremberg trials after World War II, the defense tried to say that little was known about the killings of Jews and of those who did know, little was known about the number killed. The prosecution response was that the number killed was not the point. It was the intent. So Americans can say that 38 is not such a big number, but we know it was the intent.

Are there other holocausts? Assuredly there were and still are in countries such as Brazil. I do think it is the responsibility of the countries who are guilty to admit their guilt and apologize, amend, and commemorate these holocausts. But I think it is the role of we the Indian people to tell these histories and let the world know what really happened in this country and the entire Western Hemisphere. We are the authentic voice and we must be heard.