Before 1490

According to Canadian scholar Adam Jones, if a dominant group of people had little in common with a marginalized group of people, it was easy for the dominant group to define the other as subhuman. As a result, the marginalized group might be labeled as a threat that must be eliminated. footnote 5 cites

Helen Fein Helen Fein (1934 – May 14, 2022) was a historical sociologist and professor who specializes on genocide, human rights, collective violence and other issues. She is an author and editor of four books and monographs, a former associate of the Inte ...

, ''Genocide: A Sociological Perspective'', (London: Sage, 1993), p. 26 Jones continues: "The difficulty, as Frank Chalk and Kurt Jonassohn pointed out in their early study, is that such historical records as exist are ambiguous and undependable. While history today is generally written with some fealty to 'objective' facts, most previous accounts aimed rather to praise the writer's patron (normally the leader) and to emphasize the superiority of one's own gods and religious beliefs." Wrote Chalk and Jonassohn: "Historically and anthropologically peoples have always had a name for themselves. In a great many cases, that name meant 'the people' to set the owners of that name off against all other people who were considered of lesser quality in some way. If the differences between the people and some other society were particularly large in terms of religion, language, manners, customs, and so on, then such others were seen as less than fully human: pagans, savages, or even animals."

Ancient genocides

Scholars of antiquity differentiate genocide from

gendercide Gendercide is the systematic killing of members of a specific gender. The term is related to the general concepts of assault and murder against victims due to their gender, with violence against women and men being problems dealt with by human r ...

, in which groups of people were conquered and the males who belonged to the conquered groups were killed but the children (particularly girls) and women were incorporated into the conquering groups. Jones notes, "Chalk and Jonassohn provide a wide-ranging selection of historical events such as the

Assyrian Empire Assyrian may refer to: * Assyrian people, the indigenous ethnic group of Mesopotamia. * Assyria, a major Mesopotamian kingdom and empire. ** Early Assyrian Period ** Old Assyrian Period ** Middle Assyrian Empire ** Neo-Assyrian Empire * Assyr ...

's root-and branch depredations in the first half of the first millennium BCE, and the destruction of

Melos Milos or Melos (; el, label=Modern Greek, Μήλος, Mílos, ; grc, Μῆλος, Mêlos) is a volcanic Greek island in the Aegean Sea, just north of the Sea of Crete. Milos is the southwesternmost island in the Cyclades group. The ''Venus d ...

Athens Athens ( ; el, Αθήνα, Athína ; grc, Ἀθῆναι, Athênai (pl.) ) is both the capital and largest city of Greece. With a population close to four million, it is also the seventh largest city in the European Union. Athens dominates ...

during the

Peloponnesian War The Peloponnesian War (431–404 BC) was an ancient Greek war fought between Athens and Sparta and their respective allies for the hegemony of the Greek world. The war remained undecided for a long time until the decisive intervention of th ...

(431–404 BCE), a gendercidal rampage described by

Thucydides Thucydides (; grc, , }; BC) was an Athenian historian and general. His ''History of the Peloponnesian War'' recounts the fifth-century BC war between Sparta and Athens until the year 411 BC. Thucydides has been dubbed the father of "scientifi ...

in his '

Melian Dialogue The siege of Melos occurred in 416 BC during the Peloponnesian War, which was a war fought between Athens and Sparta. Melos is an island in the Aegean Sea roughly east of mainland Greece. Though the Melians had ancestral ties to Sparta, they we ...

'. Massacres which are recorded in religious scriptures like the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''. Hebrew: ''Tān ...

have also been described as genocides, such as the destruction of the Midianites by the Israelites which is described in Numbers 31:7-18, an event which took place in the 2nd millennium BCE. Jones notes that this massacre is an example of the partial destruction and the partial incorporation of an enemy ethnicity.

Destruction of Carthage

During the

Third Punic War The Third Punic War (149–146 BC) was the third and last of the Punic Wars fought between Carthage and Rome. The war was fought entirely within Carthaginian territory, in modern northern Tunisia. When the Second Punic War ended in 201 ...

, the city of

Carthage Carthage was the capital city of Ancient Carthage, on the eastern side of the Lake of Tunis in what is now Tunisia. Carthage was one of the most important trading hubs of the Ancient Mediterranean and one of the most affluent cities of the classi ...

was besieged by Roman forces for three years (149–146 BCE). Once the city was breached, the Romans spent seven days systematically destroying it and killing its inhabitants. Ben Kiernan has labelled the devastation of the city and the massacre of its population "The First Genocide."

Asiatic Vespers

In 88 BCE, King

Mithridates VI of Pontus Mithridates or Mithradates VI Eupator ( grc-gre, Μιθραδάτης; 135–63 BC) was ruler of the Kingdom of Pontus in northern Anatolia from 120 to 63 BC, and one of the Roman Republic's most formidable and determined opponents. He was an e ...

ordered the murder of all Italics in Asia Minor, resulting in the deaths of about 100,000, mainly civilians. The death toll makes it one of the deadliest recorded genocides in classical antiquity. This action provoked the Romans, leading to the

First Mithridatic War The First Mithridatic War (89–85 BC) was a war challenging the Roman Republic's expanding empire and rule over the Greek world. In this conflict, the Kingdom of Pontus and many Greek cities rebelling against Roman rule were led by Mithridates ...

Tencteri and Usipetes

Julius Caesar Gaius Julius Caesar (; ; 12 July 100 BC – 15 March 44 BC), was a Roman general and statesman. A member of the First Triumvirate, Caesar led the Roman armies in the Gallic Wars before defeating his political rival Pompey in a civil war, and ...

's campaign against the

Tencteri The Tencteri or Tenchteri or Tenctheri (in Plutarch's Greek, Tenteritē and possibly the same as the Tenkeroi mentioned by Claudius Ptolemy if these were not the Tungri) were an ancient tribe, who moved into the area on the right bank (the norther ...

and

Usipetes The Usipetes or Usipii (in Plutarch's Greek, Ousipai, and possibly the same as the Ouispoi of Claudius Ptolemy) were an ancient tribe who moved into the area on the right bank (the northern or eastern bank) of the lower Rhine in the first century B ...

has been characterized as genocidal.

Gallic Wars

During the

Gallic Wars The Gallic Wars were waged between 58 and 50 BC by the Roman general Julius Caesar against the peoples of Gaul (present-day France, Belgium, Germany and Switzerland). Gallic, Germanic, and British tribes fought to defend their homela ...

Caesar reported that he burnt every village and building that he could find in the territory of the Eburones, drove off all of the cattle, and his men and beasts consumed all of the corn that the weather of the autumnal season had not destroyed. He left those who had hid themselves, if there were any, alive in the hope that they would all die of hunger in the winter. Caesar said that he wanted to annihilate the Eburones as well as their name, and indeed, we hear nothing more about the Eburones. Their country was soon occupied by a Germanic tribe with a different name, the

Tungri The Tungri (or Tongri, or Tungrians) were a tribe, or group of tribes, who lived in the Belgic part of Gaul, during the times of the Roman Empire. Within the Roman Empire, their territory was called the ''Civitas Tungrorum''. They were described b ...

. However, the report by Tacitus which states that the Tungri were the original "''Germani''" who first crossed the Rhine, and the way this matches Caesar's description of the Eburones and their neighbours, leads to the possibility that they survived under a new name. However, Heinrichs (2008) argues that the

genocide Genocide is the intentional destruction of a people—usually defined as an ethnic, national, racial, or religious group—in whole or in part. Raphael Lemkin coined the term in 1944, combining the Greek word (, "race, people") with the Latin ...

of the Eburones in 53 BCE could not have happened as

Caesar Gaius Julius Caesar (; ; 12 July 100 BC – 15 March 44 BC), was a Roman people, Roman general and statesman. A member of the First Triumvirate, Caesar led the Roman armies in the Gallic Wars before defeating his political rival Pompey in Caes ...

claimed. If the systematic destruction of infrastructure by the Roman forces was intended to prevent the local people from regaining power, the physical extermination of them proved to be impractical. The available areas of refuge which were hardly accessible to the Roman legions were numerous: the low mountain range of the

Ardennes The Ardennes (french: Ardenne ; nl, Ardennen ; german: Ardennen; wa, Årdene ; lb, Ardennen ), also known as the Ardennes Forest or Forest of Ardennes, is a region of extensive forests, rough terrain, rolling hills and ridges primarily in Be ...

, the swamps and wastelands which were located towards the

Menapii The Menapii were a Belgic tribe dwelling near the North Sea, around present-day Cassel, during the Iron Age and the Roman period. Name Attestations They are mentioned as ''Menapii'' by Caesar (mid-1st c. BC) and Orosius (early 5th c. AD), ...

, the coastal islands, etc. Moreover, Caesar's second attempt to annihilate the tribe two years later is proof that the community survived, and its apparent ability to regenerate itself lead Caesar to believe that he needed to launch more raids against them. According to Roymans (2004), their disappearance from the political map may have resulted from "a policy of ''

damnatio memoriae is a modern Latin phrase meaning "condemnation of memory", indicating that a person is to be excluded from official accounts. Depending on the extent, it can be a case of historical negationism. There are and have been many routes to , includi ...

'' on the part of the Roman authorities, in combination with the confiscation of Eburonean territory". A great part of their gold fell into Roman hands during repeated Roman raids on the Eburones in 53–51 BCE, and then it was melted down and carried off.

Bar Kokhba revolt

The

Bar Kokhba revolt The Bar Kokhba revolt ( he, , links=yes, ''Mereḏ Bar Kōḵḇāʾ‎''), or the 'Jewish Expedition' as the Romans named it ( la, Expeditio Judaica), was a rebellion by the Jews of the Judea (Roman province), Roman province of Judea, led b ...

( he, מֶרֶד בַּר כּוֹכְבָא, links=no; ''Mered Bar Kokhba'') was a rebellion of the Jews of the Roman province of Judea, led by

Simon bar Kokhba Simon ben Koseba or Cosiba ( he, שִׁמְעוֹן בַּר כֹסֵבָא, translit= Šīmʾōn bar Ḵōsēḇaʾ‎ ; died 135 CE), commonly known as Bar Kokhba ( he, שִׁמְעוֹן בַּר כּוֹכְבָא‎, translit=Šīmʾōn bar ...

, against the

Roman Empire The Roman Empire ( la, Imperium Romanum ; grc-gre, Βασιλεία τῶν Ῥωμαίων, Basileía tôn Rhōmaíōn) was the post-Republican period of ancient Rome. As a polity, it included large territorial holdings around the Mediterr ...

. Fought circa 132–136 CE, it was the last of three major

Jewish–Roman wars The Jewish–Roman wars were a series of large-scale revolts by the Jews of the Eastern Mediterranean against the Roman Empire between 66 and 135 CE. The First Jewish–Roman War (66–73 CE) and the Bar Kokhba revolt (132–136 CE) were nati ...

. The revolt erupted as a result of religious and political tensions which existed in Judea since the end of the failed First Revolt in 66–73 CE. These tensions were exacerbated by the establishment of a large Roman military presence in Judea, changes in administrative life and the economy, together with the outbreak and suppression of Jewish revolts from

Mesopotamia Mesopotamia ''Mesopotamíā''; ar, بِلَاد ٱلرَّافِدَيْن or ; syc, ܐܪܡ ܢܗܪ̈ܝܢ, or , ) is a historical region of Western Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the F ...

Libya Libya (; ar, ليبيا, Lībiyā), officially the State of Libya ( ar, دولة ليبيا, Dawlat Lībiyā), is a country in the Maghreb region in North Africa. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to Egypt–Libya bo ...

and

Cyrenaica Cyrenaica ( ) or Kyrenaika ( ar, برقة, Barqah, grc-koi, Κυρηναϊκή ��παρχίαKurēnaïkḗ parkhíā}, after the city of Cyrene), is the eastern region of Libya. Cyrenaica includes all of the eastern part of Libya between ...

. The proximate reasons seem to be the construction of a new city,

Aelia Capitolina Aelia Capitolina (Traditional English Pronunciation: ; Latin in full: ) was a Roman colony founded during Emperor Hadrian's trip to Judah in 129/130, centered around Jerusalem, which had been almost totally razed after the siege of 70 CE. The f ...

, over the ruins of

Jerusalem Jerusalem (; he, יְרוּשָׁלַיִם ; ar, القُدس ) (combining the Biblical and common usage Arabic names); grc, Ἱερουσαλήμ/Ἰεροσόλυμα, Hierousalḗm/Hierosóluma; hy, Երուսաղեմ, Erusałēm. i ...

and the erection of a temple to

Jupiter Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the List of Solar System objects by size, largest in the Solar System. It is a gas giant with a mass more than two and a half times that of all the other planets in the Solar System combined, but ...

on the

Temple Mount The Temple Mount ( hbo, הַר הַבַּיִת, translit=Har haBayīt, label=Hebrew, lit=Mount of the House f the Holy}), also known as al-Ḥaram al-Sharīf (Arabic: الحرم الشريف, lit. 'The Noble Sanctuary'), al-Aqsa Mosque compoun ...

. The

Church Fathers The Church Fathers, Early Church Fathers, Christian Fathers, or Fathers of the Church were ancient and influential Christian theologians and writers who established the intellectual and doctrinal foundations of Christianity. The historical per ...

and

rabbinic literature Rabbinic literature, in its broadest sense, is the entire spectrum of rabbinic writings throughout Jewish history. However, the term often refers specifically to literature from the Talmudic era, as opposed to medieval and modern rabbinic writ ...

emphasize the role of

Rufus Rufus is a masculine given name, a surname, an Ancient Roman cognomen and a nickname (from Latin ''rufus'', "red"). Notable people with the name include: Given name Politicians * Rufus Ada George (born 1940), Nigerian politician * Rufus Al ...

governor A governor is an administrative leader and head of a polity or political region, ranking under the head of state and in some cases, such as governors-general, as the head of state's official representative. Depending on the type of political ...

of Judea, in provoking the revolt.William David Davies, Louis Finkelstein: ''The Cambridge History of Judaism: The late Roman-Rabbinic period'', p. 35, Cambridge University Press, 1984, The Bar Kokhba revolt resulted in the extensive depopulation of Judean communities, more so than during the

First Jewish–Roman War The First Jewish–Roman War (66–73 CE), sometimes called the Great Jewish Revolt ( he, המרד הגדול '), or The Jewish War, was the first of three major rebellions by the Jews against the Roman Empire, fought in Roman-controlled ...

of 70 CE. According to

Cassius Dio Lucius Cassius Dio (), also known as Dio Cassius ( ), was a Roman historian and senator of maternal Greek origin. He published 80 volumes of the history on ancient Rome, beginning with the arrival of Aeneas in Italy. The volumes documented the ...

, 580,000 Jews perished in the war and many more died of hunger and disease. In addition, many Judean war captives were sold into slavery.Mor, M. ''The Second Jewish Revolt: The Bar Kokhba War, 132-136 CE''. Brill, 2016. P471/ The Jewish communities of Judea were devastated to an extent which some scholars describe as a

.Totten, S. ''Teaching about genocide: issues, approaches and resources.'' p24

/ref> However, the Jewish population remained strong in other parts of Palestine, thriving in Galilee, Golan, Bet Shean Valley and the eastern, southern and western edges of Judea.David Goodblatt, 'The political and social history of the Jewish community in the Land of Israel,' in William David Davies, Louis Finkelstein, Steven T. Katz (eds.
''The Cambridge History of Judaism: Volume 4, The Late Roman-Rabbinic Period''
Cambridge University Press, 2006 pp. 404–30 06 Roman casualties were also considered heavy— XXII ''Deiotariana'' was

disbanded The fifth season of the American television series ''Arrow'' premiered on The CW on October 5, 2016, and concluded on May 24, 2017, with a total of 23 episodes. The series is based on the DC Comics character Green Arrow, a costumed crime-fighter ...

after serious losses.L. J. F. Keppie (2000) ''Legions and veterans: Roman army papers 1971–2000'' Franz Steiner Verlag, pp. 228–29livius.org account
(Legio XXII Deiotariana) In addition, some historians argue that

Legio IX Hispana Legio IX Hispana ("9th Spanish Legion"), also written Legio VIIII Hispana, was a legion of the Imperial Roman army that existed from the 1st century BC until at least 120 AD. The legion fought in various provinces of the late Roman Re ...

's disbandment in the mid-2nd century could have been a result of this war. In an attempt to erase any memory of Judea or

Ancient Israel The history of ancient Israel and Judah begins in the Southern Levant during the Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age. "Israel" as a people or tribal confederation (see Israelites) appears for the first time in the Merneptah Stele, an inscripti ...

, Emperor Hadrian wiped the name off the map and replaced it with

Syria Palaestina Syria Palaestina (literally, "Palestinian Syria";Trevor Bryce, 2009, ''The Routledge Handbook of the Peoples and Places of Ancient Western Asia''Roland de Vaux, 1978, ''The Early History of Israel'', Page 2: "After the revolt of Bar Cochba in 135 ...

.H.H. Ben-Sasson, ''A History of the Jewish People'', Harvard University Press, 1976, , p. 334: "In an effort to wipe out all memory of the bond between the Jews and the land, Hadrian changed the name of the province from Judaea to Syria-Palestina, a name that became common in non-Jewish literature."Ariel Lewin. ''The archaeology of Ancient Judea and Palestine''. Getty Publications, 2005 p. 33. "It seems clear that by choosing a seemingly neutral name—one juxtaposing that of a neighboring province with the revived name of an ancient geographical entity (Palestine), already known from the writings of Herodotus—Hadrian was intending to suppress any connection between the Jewish people and that land." ''The Bar Kokhba War Reconsidered''
by Peter Schäfer,

Wu Hu and Jie

Ancient Chinese texts state that General

Ran Min Ran Min (; died 352), also known as Shi Min (石閔), posthumously honored by the Former Yan as Heavenly King Wudao of (Ran) Wei ((冉)魏武悼天王), courtesy name Yongzeng (永曾), nickname Jinu (棘奴), was a military leader during the er ...

ordered the extermination of the Wu Hu, especially the

Jie people Jie or JIE may refer to: * Jie of Xia, last ruler of the Xia Dynasty of China * Jie Zhitui or Zitui (7th centuryBC), a famed minister of Zhou China * Jie (ethnic group), tribe in the Xiongnu Confederation in the 4th and 5th centuries * Jie (Uganda ...

, during the Wei–Jie war in the fourth century CE. The Jie were an ethnic group which possessed racial characteristics which included high-bridged noses and bushy beards, and as a result, they were easily identified and killed. In total, 200,000 of them were reportedly massacred.

Zandaqa

Zindīq (زنديق) or Zandik (𐭦𐭭𐭣𐭩𐭪) was initially used to negatively denote the followers of the Manichaeian religion in the

Sasanian Empire The Sasanian () or Sassanid Empire, officially known as the Empire of Iranians (, ) and also referred to by historians as the Neo-Persian Empire, was the History of Iran, last Iranian empire before the early Muslim conquests of the 7th-8th cen ...

. By the time of the 8th-century

Abbasid Caliphate The Abbasid Caliphate ( or ; ar, الْخِلَافَةُ الْعَبَّاسِيَّة, ') was the third caliphate to succeed the Islamic prophet Muhammad. It was founded by a dynasty descended from Muhammad's uncle, Abbas ibn Abdul-Muttalib ...

however, the meaning of the word zindīq and the adjectival ''zandaqa'' had broadened and could loosely denote many things:

Gnostic Gnosticism (from grc, γνωστικός, gnōstikós, , 'having knowledge') is a collection of religious ideas and systems which coalesced in the late 1st century AD among Jewish and early Christian sects. These various groups emphasized pe ...

Dualists as well as followers of Manichaeism,

agnostics Agnosticism is the view or belief that the existence of God, of the divine or the supernatural is unknown or unknowable. (page 56 in 1967 edition) Another definition provided is the view that "human reason is incapable of providing sufficient ...

, and

atheists Atheism, in the broadest sense, is an absence of belief in the existence of deities. Less broadly, atheism is a rejection of the belief that any deities exist. In an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there no d ...

.. However, many of those who were persecuted for being ''zandaqa'' under the Abbasids claimed to be Muslims, and when it was applied to Muslims, the accusation was that the accused secretly harbored Manichaean beliefs. "The proof for such an accusation was sought, if at all, in an indication of some kind of dualism, or if that individual openly flouted Islamic beliefs or practices." As such, certain Muslim poets of early Abbasid times could also be accused of being ''zandaqa'' as much as an actual Manichaean might be. The charge of being a ''zandaqa'' was a serious one, and it could cost the accused his/her life. A history of the time states cites the "Spiller" caliph Abu al-'Abbas as having said "tolerance is laudable, except in matters which are dangerous to religious belief, or matters which are dangerous to the sovereign's dignity." The third Abbasid caliph,

Al-Mahdi Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Manṣūr ( ar, أبو عبد الله محمد بن عبد الله المنصور; 744 or 745 – 785), better known by his regnal name Al-Mahdī (, "He who is guided by God"), was the third Abba ...

, ordered the composition of polemical works that were to be used to refute the beliefs of freethinkers and other heretics, and for years, he attempted to completely exterminate them, hunting them down and exterminating freethinkers in large numbers, putting anyone who was merely suspected of being a ''zindiq'' to death.. Al-Mahdi's successors, the caliphs al-Hadi and

Harun al-Rashid Abu Ja'far Harun ibn Muhammad al-Mahdi ( ar , أبو جعفر هارون ابن محمد المهدي) or Harun ibn al-Mahdi (; or 766 – 24 March 809), famously known as Harun al-Rashid ( ar, هَارُون الرَشِيد, translit=Hārūn ...

, continued the pogroms, although they occurred with diminished intensity during the reign of the latter and were later ended by him. In turn this policy influenced the

Mihna The Mihna ( ar, محنة خلق القرآن, ''Miḥnat k͟halaq al-Qurʾān'' "ordeal egardingthe createdness of the Qur'an") refers to the period of religious persecution instituted by the 'Abbasid Caliph al-Ma'mun in 833 CE in which reli ...

policy of

al-Ma'mun Abu al-Abbas Abdallah ibn Harun al-Rashid ( ar, أبو العباس عبد الله بن هارون الرشيد, Abū al-ʿAbbās ʿAbd Allāh ibn Hārūn ar-Rashīd; 14 September 786 – 9 August 833), better known by his regnal name Al-Ma'mu ...

which targeted those Muslim religious scholars and officials who refused to accept the doctrine of the created nature of the Quran.

Ancestral Puebloans

A 2010 study suggests that a group of

Ancestral Puebloans The Ancestral Puebloans, also known as the Anasazi, were an ancient Native American culture that spanned the present-day Four Corners region of the United States, comprising southeastern Utah, northeastern Arizona, northwestern New Mexico, a ...

in the

American Southwest The Southwestern United States, also known as the American Southwest or simply the Southwest, is a geographic and cultural region of the United States that generally includes Arizona, New Mexico, and adjacent portions of California, Colorado, N ...

were killed in a genocide that took place circa 800 CE.

Kashmiri Shias

The history of

Shi'ism Shīʿa Islam or Shīʿīsm is the second-largest Islamic schools and branches, branch of Islam. It holds that the Prophets and messengers in Islam, Islamic prophet Muhammad in Islam, Muhammad designated Ali, ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib as his S ...

Kashmir Kashmir () is the northernmost geographical region of the Indian subcontinent. Until the mid-19th century, the term "Kashmir" denoted only the Kashmir Valley between the Great Himalayas and the Pir Panjal Range. Today, the term encompas ...

is marked by conflicts and strife, spanning over half a millennium. Incidents of

sectarian violence Sectarian violence and/or sectarian strife is a form of communal violence which is inspired by sectarianism, that is, discrimination, hatred or prejudice between different sects of a particular mode of an ideology or different sects of a religion ...

occurred in Kashmir under the rule of Mirza Haider Dughlat, followed by the Mughals (1586–1752), the Afghans (1752–1819), the Sikhs (1819–1845) and the Dogras (1846–1947). A small Shia community has managed to survive in Kashmir until today.

13th-century extermination of the Cathars

The Albigensian Crusade or the Cathar Crusade (1209–1229) was a 20-year-long military campaign which

Pope Innocent III Pope Innocent III ( la, Innocentius III; 1160 or 1161 – 16 July 1216), born Lotario dei Conti di Segni (anglicized as Lothar of Segni), was the head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 8 January 1198 to his death in 16 J ...

initiated in order to eliminate

Catharism Catharism (; from the grc, καθαροί, katharoi, "the pure ones") was a Christian dualist or Gnostic movement between the 12th and 14th centuries which thrived in Southern Europe, particularly in northern Italy and southern France. Follow ...

Languedoc The Province of Languedoc (; , ; oc, Lengadòc ) is a former province of France. Most of its territory is now contained in the modern-day region of Occitanie in Southern France. Its capital city was Toulouse. It had an area of approximately ...

, in

Southern France Southern France, also known as the South of France or colloquially in French language, French as , is a defined geographical area consisting of the regions of France that border the Atlantic Ocean south of the Marais Poitevin,Louis Papy, ''Le midi ...

. The Crusade was primarily prosecuted by the French crown and it promptly took on a political flavour, it not only resulted in a significant reduction in the number of practising Cathars, it also resulted in a realignment of the

County of Toulouse The County of Toulouse ( oc, Comtat de Tolosa) was a territory in southern France consisting of the city of Toulouse and its environs, ruled by the Count of Toulouse from the late 9th century until the late 13th century. The territory is the ...

in Languedoc, bringing it into the sphere of the French crown and diminishing the distinct regional culture and high level of influence of the

Counts of Barcelona The Count of Barcelona ( ca, Comte de Barcelona, es, Conde de Barcelona, french: Comte de Barcelone, ) was the ruler of the County of Barcelona and also, by extension and according with the Usages of Barcelona, usages and Catalan constitutions, of ...

Raphael Lemkin Raphael Lemkin ( pl, Rafał Lemkin; 24 June 1900 – 28 August 1959) was a Polish lawyer who is best known for coining the term ''genocide'' and initiating the Genocide Convention, an interest spurred on after learning about the Armenian genocid ...

, who coined the word "

" in the

20th century The 20th (twentieth) century began on January 1, 1901 ( MCMI), and ended on December 31, 2000 ( MM). The 20th century was dominated by significant events that defined the modern era: Spanish flu pandemic, World War I and World War II, nuclear ...

, referred to the Albigensian Crusade as "one of the most conclusive cases of genocide in religious history".

Mark Gregory Pegg Mark Gregory Pegg (born 1963) is an Australian professor of medieval history, currently teaching in the United States at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. His scholarship focuses upon heresy, the inquisition, the Albigensian Crusade ...

writes that "The Albigensian Crusade ushered genocide into the West by linking divine salvation to

mass murder Mass murder is the act of murdering a number of people, typically simultaneously or over a relatively short period of time and in close geographic proximity. The United States Congress defines mass killings as the killings of three or more pe ...

, by making slaughter as loving an act as His sacrifice on the cross." Robert E. Lerner argues that Pegg's classification of the Albigensian Crusade as a genocide is inappropriate, on the ground that it "was proclaimed against unbelievers ... not against a 'genus' or people; those who joined the crusade had no intention of annihilating the population of southern France ... If Pegg wishes to connect the Albigensian Crusade to modern ethnic slaughter, well—words fail me (as they do him)."

Laurence Marvin Laurence W. Marvin is assistant professor of history in the Evans School of Humanities and Social Sciences at Berry College whose primary scholarly focus is the Albigensian Crusade. He is the author of ''The Occitan War: A Military and Political H ...

is not as dismissive as Lerner regarding Pegg's contention that the Albigensian Crusade was a genocide; he does however take issue with Pegg's argument that the Albigensian Crusade formed an important historical precedent for later genocides including the

Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; a ...

. Kurt Jonassohn and Karin Solveig Björnson describe the Albigensian Crusade as "the first ideological genocide". Kurt Jonassohn and Frank Chalk (who together founded the

Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies The Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies (MIGS) is a research institute based at Concordia University (Quebec), Concordia University in Montreal, Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It was founded in 1986 and promotes human rights awaren ...

) include a detailed case study of the Albigensian Crusade in their genocide studies textbook ''The History and Sociology of Genocide: Analyses and Case Studies'', authored by Strayer and

Malise Ruthven Malise Walter Maitland Knox Hore-Ruthven (born 14 May 1942) is an Anglo-Irish academic and writer. Born in Dublin in 1942, he earned an M.A. in English literature at the University of Cambridge, before working as a scriptwriter with the BBC Ar ...

Mongol Empire

Quoting Eric Margolis, Jones observes that in the 13th century the Mongol armies under

Genghis Khan ''Chinggis Khaan'' ͡ʃʰiŋɡɪs xaːŋbr />Mongol script: ''Chinggis Qa(gh)an/ Chinggis Khagan'' , birth_name = Temüjin , successor = Tolui (as regent)Ögedei Khan , spouse = , issue = , house = Borjigin , ...

were genocidal killers who were known to eradicate whole nations. He ordered the extermination of the Tata Mongols, and all

Kankalis The Kangly (康曷利; pinyin: Kānghélì; Middle Chinese ( ZS): /kʰɑŋ-ɦɑt̚-liɪH/ or 康里 pinyin: ''Kānglĭ'' < MC-ZS: /kʰɑŋ-lɨ^X/;

Bukhara Bukhara (Uzbek language, Uzbek: /, ; tg, Бухоро, ) is the List of cities in Uzbekistan, seventh-largest city in Uzbekistan, with a population of 280,187 , and the capital of Bukhara Region. People have inhabited the region around Bukhara ...

"taller than a wheel" using a technique called measuring against the linchpin. In the end, half of the Mongol tribes were exterminated by Genghis Khan. Rosanne Klass referred to the Mongols' rule of Afghanistan as "genocide". It has been estimated that approximately 11% of the world's population was killed either during or immediately after the

Turco-Mongol The Turco-Mongol or Turko-Mongol tradition was an ethnocultural synthesis that arose in Asia during the 14th century, among the ruling elites of the Golden Horde and the Chagatai Khanate. The ruling Mongol elites of these Khanates eventually ...

invasions (around 37.75 - 60 million people

Eurasia Eurasia (, ) is the largest continental area on Earth, comprising all of Europe and Asia. Primarily in the Northern and Eastern Hemispheres, it spans from the British Isles and the Iberian Peninsula in the west to the Japanese archipelago a ...

, out of which at least 35 million deaths were in China). If the calculations are accurate, the events would be the deadliest acts of mass killings in human history. The second campaign against

Western Xia The Western Xia or the Xi Xia (), officially the Great Xia (), also known as the Tangut Empire, and known as ''Mi-nyak''Stein (1972), pp. 70–71. to the Tanguts and Tibetans, was a Tangut-led Buddhist imperial dynasty of China tha ...

, the final military action led by Genghis Khan, and during which he died, involved an intentional and systematic destruction of Western Xia cities and culture. According to

John Man John Man (1512–1569) was an English churchman, college head, and a diplomat. Life He was born at Lacock or Winterbourne Stoke, in Wiltshire. He was educated at Winchester College from 1523, and New College, Oxford, where he graduated B.A. in ...

, because of this policy of total obliteration, Western Xia is little known to anyone other than experts in the field because so little record is left of that society. He states that "There is a case to be made that this was the first ever recorded example of attempted

. It was certainly very successful ''

ethnocide Ethnocide is the extermination of cultures. Reviewing the legal and the academic history of the usage of the terms genocide and ethnocide, Bartolomé Clavero differentiates them by stating that "Genocide kills people while ethnocide kills social ...

''."

Tamerlane

Similarly, the Turko-Mongol conqueror

Tamerlane Timur ; chg, ''Aqsaq Temür'', 'Timur the Lame') or as ''Sahib-i-Qiran'' ( 'Lord of the Auspicious Conjunction'), his epithet. ( chg, ''Temür'', 'Iron'; 9 April 133617–19 February 1405), later Timūr Gurkānī ( chg, ''Temür Kür ...

was known for his extreme brutality and his conquests were accompanied by

genocidal massacre The term ''genocidal massacre'' was introduced by Leo Kuper (1908–1994) to describe incidents which have a genocidal component but are committed on a smaller scale when they are compared to genocides such as the Rwandan genocide. Others such as ...

s. William Rubinstein wrote: "In

Assyria Assyria (Neo-Assyrian cuneiform: , romanized: ''māt Aššur''; syc, ܐܬܘܪ, ʾāthor) was a major ancient Mesopotamian civilization which existed as a city-state at times controlling regional territories in the indigenous lands of the A ...

(1393–4)—Tamerlane got around—he killed all the Christians he could find, including everyone in the, then, Christian city of

Tikrit Tikrit ( ar, تِكْرِيت ''Tikrīt'' , Syriac language, Syriac: ܬܲܓܪܝܼܬܼ ''Tagrīṯ'') is a city in Iraq, located northwest of Baghdad and southeast of Mosul on the Tigris River. It is the administrative center of the Saladin Gover ...

, thus virtually destroying

Assyrian Church of the East The Assyrian Church of the East,, ar, كنيسة المشرق الآشورية sometimes called Church of the East, officially the Holy Apostolic Catholic Assyrian Church of the East,; ar, كنيسة المشرق الآشورية الرسول� ...

. Impartially, however, Tamerlane also slaughtered Shi'ite Muslims, Jews and heathens."

Guanches

The conquest of the

Canary Islands The Canary Islands (; es, Canarias, ), also known informally as the Canaries, are a Spanish autonomous community and archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean, in Macaronesia. At their closest point to the African mainland, they are west of Morocc ...

by the

Crown of Castille The Crown of Castile was a medieval polity in the Iberian Peninsula that formed in 1230 as a result of the third and definitive union of the crowns and, some decades later, the parliaments of the kingdoms of Castile and León upon the accessi ...

took place between 1402 and 1496. Initially carried out by members of the Castilian nobility in exchange for a covenant of allegiance to the crown, the process was later carried out by the Spanish crown itself during the reign of the

Catholic Monarchs The Catholic Monarchs were Queen Isabella I of Castile and King Ferdinand II of Aragon, whose marriage and joint rule marked the ''de facto'' unification of Spain. They were both from the House of Trastámara and were second cousins, being bot ...

. Some historians have labeled the conquest genocidal in nature due to the brutal treatment of the Islands' indigenous

Guanches The Guanches were the indigenous inhabitants of the Canary Islands in the Atlantic Ocean some west of Africa. It is believed that they may have arrived on the archipelago some time in the first millennium BCE. The Guanches were the only nativ ...

which contributed to their extinction as a distinct group.

1490 to 1914

Africa

Atlantic Slave Trade

Canadian scholar Adam Jones characterized the mass death of millions of Africans during the

Atlantic slave trade The Atlantic slave trade, transatlantic slave trade, or Euro-American slave trade involved the transportation by slave traders of enslaved African people, mainly to the Americas. The slave trade regularly used the triangular trade route and i ...

as a

due to the fact that it was "one of the worst holocausts in human history" because it resulted in 15 to 20 million deaths according to one estimate, and he contradicts arguments such as the one which states that "it was in slave owners’ interest to keep slaves alive, not exterminate them" by stating that they are "mostly sophistry" by stating: "the killing and destruction were intentional, whatever the incentives to preserve survivors of the Atlantic passage for labor exploitation. To revisit the issue of intent already touched on: If an institution is deliberately maintained and expanded by discernible agents, though all are aware of the hecatombs of casualties it is inflicting on a definable human group, then why should this not qualify as genocide?"

Congo

From 1885 to 1908, the

Congo Free State ''(Work and Progress) , national_anthem = Vers l'avenir , capital = Vivi Boma , currency = Congo Free State franc , religion = Catholicism (''de facto'') , leader1 = Leopo ...

in central Africa was privately controlled by

Leopold II of Belgium * german: link=no, Leopold Ludwig Philipp Maria Viktor , house = Saxe-Coburg and Gotha , father = Leopold I of Belgium , mother = Louise of Orléans , birth_date = , birth_place = Brussels, Belgium , death_date = ...

, who extracted a fortune from the land by the use of forced labour of natives. Under his regime, there were 2 to 15 million deaths among the Congolese people. Deliberate killings, abusive punishments, and general exploitation were major causes of the deaths. As in the colonization of the Americas, European diseases, hitherto unknown in the region, also led to a considerable number of deaths. Because the main motive for the killings was financial gain, it has been debated whether the term ''genocide'' describes these atrocities well. However, Robert Weisbord wrote in the ''

Journal of Genocide Research The ''Journal of Genocide Research'' is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal covering studies of genocide. Established in 1999, for the first six years it was not peer-reviewed. Since December 2005, it is the official journal of the Internat ...

'' in 2003 that attempting to eliminate a portion of the population is enough to qualify as genocide under the UN convention. Reports of the atrocities led to a major international scandal in the early 20th century, and Leopold was ultimately forced in 1908 by the Belgian government to relinquish control of the colony to the civil administration.

Ethiopia under Menelik II (1889–1913)

During its military conquests, its centralization of its power and its incorporation of territories into

Ethiopia Ethiopia, , om, Itiyoophiyaa, so, Itoobiya, ti, ኢትዮጵያ, Ítiyop'iya, aa, Itiyoppiya officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country in the Horn of Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the ...

as decreed by

Menelik II , spoken = ; ''djānhoi'', lit. ''"O steemedroyal"'' , alternative = ; ''getochu'', lit. ''"Our master"'' (pl.) Menelik II ( gez, ዳግማዊ ምኒልክ ; horse name Abba Dagnew ( Amharic: አባ ዳኘው ''abba daññäw''); 17 ...

, his army committed

genocidal Genocide is the intentional destruction of a people—usually defined as an ethnic, national, racial, or religious group—in whole or in part. Raphael Lemkin coined the term in 1944, combining the Greek word (, "race, people") with the Latin ...

Mekuria Bulcha, Genocidal violence in the making of nation and state in Ethiopia, African Sociological Review atrocities against civilians and combatants which included

torture Torture is the deliberate infliction of severe pain or suffering on a person for reasons such as punishment, extracting a confession, interrogation for information, or intimidating third parties. Some definitions are restricted to acts c ...

mass killings Mass killing is a concept which has been proposed by genocide scholars who wish to define incidents of non-combat killing which are perpetrated by a government or a state. A mass killing is commonly defined as the killing of group members without ...

and the imposition of large scale

slavery Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...

.Mohammed Hassen, Conquest, Tyranny, and Ethnocide against the Oromo: A Historical Assessment of Human Rights Conditions in Ethiopia, c. 1880s–2002, Northeast African Studies Volume 9, Number 3, 2002 (New Series) Large scale atrocities were also committed against the

Dizi people Dizi (also known as the Maji) is the name of an ethnic group living in southern Ethiopia. They share a number of somatic similarities with certain culturally (but not always linguistically) related peoples of south-western Ethiopia, which include ...

and the people of the Kaficho kingdom.Alemayehu Kumsa, Power and Powerlessness in Contemporary Ethiopia, Charles University in Prague Some estimates of the number of people who were killed in the atrocities that were committed during the war and the famine which coincided with it go into the millions.Alemayehu Kumsa, Power and Powerlessness in Contemporary Ethiopia, Charles University in Prague p. 1122Eshete Gemeda
African Egalitarian Values and Indigenous Genres: A Comparative Approach to the Functional and Contextual Studies of Oromo National Literature in a Contemporary Perspective
p. 186 According to

Alexander Bulatovich Alexander Ksaverievich Bulatovich (russian: Алекса́ндр Ксаве́рьевич Булато́вич; 26 September 1870 – 5 December 1919) tonsured Father Antony (отец Антоний) was a Russian military officer, explorer of Af ...

, Menelik's Russian military aide, Menelik's armies "dreadfully annihilated more than half" of the Oromo (Galla) population down to 5 million people, which "took away from the Galla all possibility of thinking about any sort of uprising." Eshete Gemeda put the death toll even higher at 6 million. These deaths may have also been caused by the great famine, which lasted from 1888 to 1892 and was the worst famine in the region's history; a third of Ethiopia's total population of 12 million was killed according to some estimates.Peter Gil
Famine and Foreigners: Ethiopia Since Live Aid
OUP Oxford, 2010 Google Books The famine was caused by

rinderpest Rinderpest (also cattle plague or steppe murrain) was an infectious viral disease of cattle, domestic buffalo, and many other species of even-toed ungulates, including gaurs, buffaloes, large antelope, deer, giraffes, wildebeests, and warthogs ...

, an infectious viral cattle disease which wiped out most of the national livestock, killing over 90% of the

cattle Cattle (''Bos taurus'') are large, domesticated, cloven-hooved, herbivores. They are a prominent modern member of the subfamily Bovinae and the most widespread species of the genus ''Bos''. Adult females are referred to as cows and adult mal ...

. The population of native cattle had no prior exposure to the disease and as a result, it was unable to fight it off.Paul Dorosh, Shahidur Rashi
Food and Agriculture in Ethiopia: Progress and Policy Challenges
University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012 p. 257 Google Books Despite the violence of the conquest, some historians stress the fact that before the centralization process was completed, Ethiopia was devastated by numerous wars which started in the

16th century The 16th century begins with the Julian year 1501 ( MDI) and ends with either the Julian or the Gregorian year 1600 ( MDC) (depending on the reckoning used; the Gregorian calendar introduced a lapse of 10 days in October 1582). The 16th cent ...

. In the intervening period, military tactics had not changed much. In the 16th century, the Portuguese Bermudes documented depopulation and widespread atrocities against civilians and combatants (atrocities which included torture, mass killings and the imposition of large scale slavery) during several successive Aba Gedas' Gadaa conquests of territories which were located north of the Genale river (

Bali Bali () is a province of Indonesia and the westernmost of the Lesser Sunda Islands. East of Java and west of Lombok, the province includes the island of Bali and a few smaller neighbouring islands, notably Nusa Penida, Nusa Lembongan, and Nu ...

, Amhara, Gafat, Damot,

Adal Adal may refer to: *A short form for Germanic names in ''aþala-'' (Old High German ''adal-''), "nobility, pedigree"; see Othalan **Adál Maldonado (1948-2020), Puerto Rican artist **Adal Ramones (born 1969), Mexican television show host **Adal He ...

).Richard Pankhurs
The Ethiopian Borderlands: Essays in Regional History from Ancient Times to the End of the 18th Century – Google Books"
1997. p. 284.J. Bermude
The Portuguese expedition to Abyssinia in 1541–1543 as narrated by Castanhoso – Google Books"
1543. p. 229. Warfare in the region essentially involved acquiring cattle and slaves, winning additional territories, gaining control of trade routes and carrying out ritual requirements or securing trophies to prove masculinity.Donald N. Levin
Greater Ethiopia: The Evolution of a Multiethnic Society
University of Chicago Press (2000) p. 43 Google BooksW. G. Clarence-Smit
The Economics of the Indian Ocean Slave Trade in the Nineteenth Century
Psychology Press (1989) p. 107 Google BooksDonald N. Levin
Greater Ethiopia: The Evolution of a Multiethnic Society
University of Chicago Press (2000) p. 56 Google BooksHarold G. Marcu
A History of Ethiopia
University of California Press (1994) p. 55 Google BooksProf. Feqadu Lamess
History 101: Fiction and Facts on Oromos of Ethiopia
Salem-News.com (2013) Wars were fought between people who might be members of the same linguistic group, religion and culture, or between unrelated tribes. Centralization greatly reduced these continuous wars; minimizing the loss of lives, raids, destruction and

that had previously been the norm.Donald N. Levin
Greater Ethiopia: The Evolution of a Multiethnic Society
University of Chicago Press (2000) p. 156 Google BooksDonald N. Levin
Greater Ethiopia: The Evolution of a Multiethnic Society
University of Chicago Press (2000) p. 136 Google BooksDonald N. Levin
Greater Ethiopia: The Evolution of a Multiethnic Society
University of Chicago Press (2000) p. 85 Google BooksDonald N. Levin
Greater Ethiopia: The Evolution of a Multiethnic Society
University of Chicago Press (2000) p. 26 Google Books

French conquest of Algeria

Ben Kiernan wrote in his book '' Blood and Soil: A World History of Genocide and Extermination from Sparta to Darfur'' on the French conquest of

Algeria ) , image_map = Algeria (centered orthographic projection).svg , map_caption = , image_map2 = , capital = Algiers , coordinates = , largest_city = capital , relig ...

, that within three decades of the French conquest of Algeria in 1830, war, famine and disease had reduced the original population from 3 million by a figure ranging from 500,000 to 1,000,000.

By 1875, the French conquest was complete. The war had killed approximately 825,000 indigenous Algerians since 1830. A long shadow of genocidal hatred persisted, provoking the French author to protest in 1882 that in Algeria, "we hear it repeated every day that we must expel the native and if necessary destroy him." As a French statistical journal urged five years later, "the system of extermination must give way to a policy of penetration."

In response to

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

's recognition of

Armenian genocide The Armenian genocide was the systematic destruction of the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, Armenian people and identity in the Ottoman Empire during World War I. Spearheaded by the ruling Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), it was ...

Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with ...

accused

of committing

against 15% of

Algeria ) , image_map = Algeria (centered orthographic projection).svg , map_caption = , image_map2 = , capital = Algiers , coordinates = , largest_city = capital , relig ...

's population.

German South West Africa

The

Herero Herero may refer to: * Herero people, a people belonging to the Bantu group, with about 240,000 members alive today * Herero language, a language of the Bantu family (Niger-Congo group) * Herero and Namaqua Genocide * Herero chat, a species of b ...

and Namaqua peoples of present-day

Namibia Namibia (, ), officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country in Southern Africa. Its western border is the Atlantic Ocean. It shares land borders with Zambia and Angola to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south and ea ...

endured a genocidal persecution between 1904 and 1907 while their homeland was under colonial rule as

German South West Africa German South West Africa (german: Deutsch-Südwestafrika) was a colony of the German Empire from 1884 until 1915, though Germany did not officially recognise its loss of this territory until the 1919 Treaty of Versailles. With a total area of ...

. Large percentages of their populations perished in a brutal

scorched earth A scorched-earth policy is a military strategy that aims to destroy anything that might be useful to the enemy. Any assets that could be used by the enemy may be targeted, which usually includes obvious weapons, transport vehicles, communi ...

campaign led by German General

Lothar von Trotha General Adrian Dietrich Lothar von Trotha (3 July 1848 – 31 March 1920) was a German military commander during the European new colonial era. As a brigade commander of the East Asian Expedition Corps, he was involved in suppressing the Boxe ...

. An estimated 10,000 Namaqua were killed, with estimates for the Herero ranging from 60,000 and 100,000. A copy of Trotha's Extermination Order survives in the Botswana National Archives. The order states "every Herero, with or without a gun, with or without cattle, will be shot. I will no longer accept women or children, I will drive them back to their people o die in the desertor let them be shot at." Olusoga and Erichsen write: "It is an almost unique document: an explicit, written declaration of intent to commit genocide."

Zulu Kingdom under Shaka Zulu

Between 1810 and 1828, the

Zulu kingdom The Zulu Kingdom (, ), sometimes referred to as the Zulu Empire or the Kingdom of Zululand, was a monarchy in Southern Africa. During the 1810s, Shaka established a modern standing army that consolidated rival clans and built a large following ...

under

Shaka Zulu Shaka kaSenzangakhona ( – 22 September 1828), also known as Shaka Zulu () and Sigidi kaSenzangakhona, was the king of the Zulu Kingdom from 1816 to 1828. One of the most influential monarchs of the Zulu, he ordered wide-reaching reforms that ...

laid waste to large parts of present-day

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countri ...

and

Zimbabwe Zimbabwe (), officially the Republic of Zimbabwe, is a landlocked country located in Southeast Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo Rivers, bordered by South Africa to the south, Botswana to the south-west, Zambia to the north, and Mozam ...

. Frequently, Zulu armies not only aimed to defeat their enemies, they aimed to totally destroy them. Those who were exterminated included

prisoners of war A prisoner of war (POW) is a person who is held Captivity, captive by a belligerent power during or immediately after an armed conflict. The earliest recorded usage of the phrase "prisoner of war" dates back to 1610. Belligerents hold priso ...

, women, children and even dogs. Estimates of the death toll range from 1 million to 2 million.

Americas

According to historian

David Stannard David Edward Stannard (born 1941) is an American historian and Professor of American Studies at the University of Hawaii. He is particularly known for his book '' American Holocaust'' (Oxford University Press, 1992), in which he argues that Europea ...

, over the course of more than four centuries "from the 1490s into the 1890s, Europeans and white Americans engaged in an unbroken string of genocide campaigns against the native peoples of the Americas." Stannard writes that the native population had been reduced savagely by invasions of European plague and violence and that by around 1900 only one-third of one percent of America's population—250,000 out of 76,000,000 people–were natives. He calls it "the worst human holocaust the world had ever witnessed", and it leveled off because "there was, at last, almost no one left to kill." On 20 January 1513,

Vasco Núñez de Balboa Vasco Núñez de Balboa (; c. 1475around January 12–21, 1519) was a Spanish explorer, governor, and conquistador. He is best known for having crossed the Isthmus of Panama to the Pacific Ocean in 1513, becoming the first European to lead an ...

wrote to the king advocating genocide against the native population in the

Caribbean The Caribbean (, ) ( es, El Caribe; french: la Caraïbe; ht, Karayib; nl, De Caraïben) is a region of the Americas that consists of the Caribbean Sea, its islands (some surrounded by the Caribbean Sea and some bordering both the Caribbean Se ...

. Balboa slew hundreds in Caribbean villages. The crown later withdrew support and Balboa was executed in 1519.

(coiner of the term

) considered colonial abuses of the

Native Native may refer to: People * Jus soli, citizenship by right of birth * Indigenous peoples, peoples with a set of specific rights based on their historical ties to a particular territory ** Native Americans (disambiguation) In arts and entert ...

population of the Americas to constitute cultural and even outright

including the abuses of the

Encomienda The ''encomienda'' () was a Spanish labour system that rewarded conquerors with the labour of conquered non-Christian peoples. The labourers, in theory, were provided with benefits by the conquerors for whom they laboured, including military ...

system. He described slavery as "cultural genocide par excellence" noting "it is the most effective and thorough method of destroying culture, of desocializing human beings." He considers colonists guilty due to failing to halt the abuses of the system despite royal orders. He also notes the

sexual abuse Sexual abuse or sex abuse, also referred to as molestation, is abusive sexual behavior by one person upon another. It is often perpetrated using force or by taking advantage of another. Molestation often refers to an instance of sexual assa ...

of Spanish colonizers of Native women as acts of "biological

". In this vein, Stannard described the

encomienda The ''encomienda'' () was a Spanish labour system that rewarded conquerors with the labour of conquered non-Christian peoples. The labourers, in theory, were provided with benefits by the conquerors for whom they laboured, including military ...

as a genocidal system which "had driven many millions of native peoples in Central and South America to early and agonizing deaths." Anthropologist

Jason Hickel Jason Edward Hickel (born 1982) is an economic anthropologist whose research focuses on ecological economics, global inequality, imperialism and political economy. He is known for his books ''The Divide: A Brief Guide to Global Inequality and ...

asserts that during Spanish rule of

Hispaniola Hispaniola (, also ; es, La Española; Latin and french: Hispaniola; ht, Ispayola; tnq, Ayiti or Quisqueya) is an island in the Caribbean that is part of the Greater Antilles. Hispaniola is the most populous island in the West Indies, and th ...

, many

Arawak The Arawak are a group of indigenous peoples of northern South America and of the Caribbean. Specifically, the term "Arawak" has been applied at various times to the Lokono of South America and the Taíno, who historically lived in the Greater ...

s died from lethal forced labor in the mines, in which a third of workers died every six months and that within two years of the arrival of

Christopher Columbus Christopher Columbus * lij, Cristoffa C(or)ombo * es, link=no, Cristóbal Colón * pt, Cristóvão Colombo * ca, Cristòfor (or ) * la, Christophorus Columbus. (; born between 25 August and 31 October 1451, died 20 May 1506) was a ...

half the population of Hispaniola had been killed. According to anthropologist Russell Thornton, for the American Indians "the arrival of the Europeans marked the beginning of a long holocaust, although it came not in ovens, as it did for the Jews. The fires that consumed North America Indians were the fevers brought on by newly encountered diseases, the flashes of settlers' and soldiers' guns, the ravages of 'firewater,' the flames of villages and fields burned by the scorched-earth policy of vengeful Euro-Americans." Some authors, including Holocaust scholar

David Cesarani David Cesarani (13 November 1956 – 25 October 2015) was a British historian who specialised in Jewish history, especially the Holocaust. He also wrote several biographies, including ''Arthur Koestler: The Homeless Mind'' (1998). Early life ...

, have argued that United States government policies in furtherance of its so-called

Manifest Destiny Manifest destiny was a cultural belief in the 19th century in the United States, 19th-century United States that American settlers were destined to expand across North America. There were three basic tenets to the concept: * The special vir ...

constituted genocide. Some historians disagree that genocide, defined as a crime of intent, should be used to describe the colonization experience.

Stafford Poole The Reverend Stafford Poole, C.M., (March 6, 1930 – November 1, 2020) was a Catholic priest and a research historian. He was formerly a professor of history at, and later served as President of, the former St. John's Seminary College (closed ...

, a research historian, wrote: "There are other terms to describe what happened in the Western Hemisphere, but genocide is not one of them. It is a good propaganda term in an age where slogans and shouting have replaced reflection and learning, but to use it in this context is to cheapen both the word itself and the appalling experiences of the

Jews Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

and

Armenians Armenians ( hy, հայեր, ''hayer'' ) are an ethnic group native to the Armenian highlands of Western Asia. Armenians constitute the main population of Armenia and the ''de facto'' independent Artsakh. There is a wide-ranging diaspora ...

, to mention but two of the major victims of this century." Noble David Cook, writing about the Black Legend and the conquest of the Americas wrote, "There were too few Spaniards to have killed the millions who were reported to have died in the first century after Old and New World contact". He instead estimates that the death toll was caused by diseases like

smallpox Smallpox was an infectious disease caused by variola virus (often called smallpox virus) which belongs to the genus Orthopoxvirus. The last naturally occurring case was diagnosed in October 1977, and the World Health Organization (WHO) c ...

, which according to some estimates had an 80–90% fatality rate in Native American populations. Political scientist

Guenter Lewy Guenter Lewy (born 22 August 1923) is a German-born American author and political scientist who is a professor emeritus of political science at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. His works span several topics, but he is most often associa ...

says "even if up to 90 percent of the reduction in Indian population was the result of disease, that leaves a sizable death toll caused by mistreatment and violence"; however, he rejected calling it genocide stating that Historian

Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz (born September 10, 1938) is an American historian, writer, and activist, known for her 2014 book ''An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States''. Early life and education Born in San Antonio, Texas, in 1938 to ...

opposes these viewpoints and says, "Proponents of the default position emphasize attrition by disease despite other causes equally deadly, if not more so. In doing so they refuse to accept that the colonization of America was genocidal by plan, not simply the tragic fate of populations lacking immunity to disease. In the case of the Jewish Holocaust, no one denies that more Jews died of starvation, overwork, and disease under Nazi incarceration than died in gas ovens, yet the acts of creating and maintaining the conditions that led to those deaths clearly constitute genocide." Historian Andrés Reséndez argues that even though the Spanish were aware of the spread of smallpox, they made no mention of it until 1519, a quarter century after Columbus arrived in Hispaniola. Instead he contends that enslavement in gold and silver mines was the primary reason why the Native American population of Hispaniola dropped so significantly. and that even though disease was a factor, the native population would have rebounded the same way Europeans did following the

Black Death The Black Death (also known as the Pestilence, the Great Mortality or the Plague) was a bubonic plague pandemic occurring in Western Eurasia and North Africa from 1346 to 1353. It is the most fatal pandemic recorded in human history, causi ...

if it were not for the constant enslavement they were subject to. He contends that enslavement of Native Americans was one of the causes of their depopulation in North America; that the majority of Indians enslaved were women and children compared to the enslavement of Africans which mostly targeted adult males and in turn they were sold at a 50% to 60% higher price, and that 2,462,000 to 4,985,000 Amerindians were enslaved between Columbus's arrival and 1900 throughout the Americas. Several films and books on the subject were released around the year 1992 to coincide with the 500th anniversary of Columbus' voyage. In 2003,

Venezuela Venezuela (; ), officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela ( es, link=no, República Bolivariana de Venezuela), is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many islands and islets in th ...

n President

Hugo Chávez Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías (; 28 July 1954 – 5 March 2013) was a Venezuelan politician who was president of Venezuela from 1999 until his death in 2013, except for a brief period in 2002. Chávez was also leader of the Fifth Republ ...

urged

Latin Americans Latin Americans ( es, Latinoamericanos; pt, Latino-americanos; ) are the citizens of Latin American countries (or people with cultural, ancestral or national origins in Latin America). Latin American countries and their diasporas are multi-ethn ...

not to celebrate the

Columbus Day Columbus Day is a national holiday in many countries of the Americas and elsewhere, and a federal holiday in the United States, which officially celebrates the anniversary of Christopher Columbus's arrival in the Americas on October 12, 1492. ...

holiday. Chavez blamed Columbus for spearheading "the biggest invasion and genocide ever seen in the history of humanity." According to scientists from

University College London , mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £143 million (2020) , budget = ...

, the colonization of the Americas caused so much disease and death in the 100 years after 1492, that it contributed to

climate change In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to E ...

and

global cooling Global cooling was a conjecture, especially during the 1970s, of imminent cooling of the Earth culminating in a period of extensive glaciation, due to the cooling effects of aerosols or orbital forcing. Some press reports in the 1970s specul ...

. The depopulation caused the abandonment and reforestation of large areas of farmland, resulting in large enough decreases in carbon dioxide to cool the earth.

Argentina

The

Conquest of the Desert The Conquest of the Desert ( es, Conquista del desierto) was an Argentine military campaign directed mainly by General Julio Argentino Roca in the 1870s with the intention of establishing dominance over the Patagonian Desert, inhabited primari ...

was a military campaign mainly directed by General

Julio Argentino Roca Alejo Julio Argentino Roca Paz (July 17, 1843 – October 19, 1914) was an army general and statesman who served as President of Argentina from 1880 to 1886 and from 1898 to 1904. Roca is the most important representative of the Generation ...

in the 1870s, which established Argentine dominance over

Patagonia Patagonia () refers to a geographical region that encompasses the southern end of South America, governed by Argentina and Chile. The region comprises the southern section of the Andes Mountains with lakes, fjords, temperate rainforests, and gl ...

, then inhabited by

indigenous peoples Indigenous peoples are culturally distinct ethnic groups whose members are directly descended from the earliest known inhabitants of a particular geographic region and, to some extent, maintain the language and culture of those original people ...

, killing more than 1,300. Contemporary sources indicate that it was a deliberate genocide by the

Argentine Argentines (mistakenly translated Argentineans in the past; in Spanish (masculine) or (feminine)) are people identified with the country of Argentina. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Argentines, s ...

government. Others perceived the campaign as intending to suppress only groups of aboriginals that refused to submit to the government and carried out attacks on European settlements.

Canada

=Ontario

= Between 1640 and 1649, among the

Indigenous peoples in Canada In Canada, Indigenous groups comprise the First Nations, Inuit and Métis. Although ''Indian'' is a term still commonly used in legal documents, the descriptors ''Indian'' and ''Eskimo'' have fallen into disuse in Canada, and most consider them ...

, the

Iroquois Indians The Iroquois ( or ), officially the Haudenosaunee ( meaning "people of the longhouse"), are an Iroquoian Peoples, Iroquoian-speaking Confederation#Indigenous confederations in North America, confederacy of First Nations in Canada, First Natio ...

committed a "genocidal annihilation" of the

Huron Indians The Wyandot people, or Wyandotte and Waⁿdát, are Indigenous peoples of the Northeastern Woodlands. The Wyandot are Iroquoian Indigenous peoples of North America who emerged as a confederacy of tribes around the north shore of Lake Ontario w ...

. Settlements were burned, and of the 30,000 Hurons, a few thousand were able to flee and avoid the ethnic genocide.

= Newfoundland

= The Beothuks attempted to avoid contact with Europeans in Newfoundland by moving from their traditional settlements. The Beothuks were put into a position where they were forced from their traditional land and lifestyle into ecosystems that could not support them and that led to undernourishment and eventually starvation. While some scholars believe that the Beothuk primarily died out due to the elements noted above, another hypothesis is that Europeans conducted a sustained campaign of genocide against them. They were officially declared "extinct" after the death of

Shanawdithit Shanawdithit (ca. 1801 – June 6, 1829), also noted as Shawnadithititis, Shawnawdithit, Nancy April and Nancy Shanawdithit, was the last known living member of the Beothuk people, who inhabited Newfoundland, Canada. Remembered for her contr ...

in 1829 in the capital, St. John's, where she had been taken.

Haiti

Jean-Jacques Dessalines Jean-Jacques Dessalines (Haitian Creole: ''Jan-Jak Desalin''; ; 20 September 1758 – 17 October 1806) was a leader of the Haitian Revolution and the first ruler of an independent First Empire of Haiti, Haiti under the Constitution of Haiti, 1 ...

, the first ruler of an independent

Haiti Haiti (; ht, Ayiti ; French: ), officially the Republic of Haiti (); ) and formerly known as Hayti, is a country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles archipelago of the Caribbean Sea, east of Cuba and Jamaica, and ...

, ordered the killing of the white population of French creoles on Haiti, which culminated in the 1804 Haiti massacre. According to Philippe Girard, "when the genocide was over, Haiti's white population was virtually non-existent."

Mexico

= Yucatán

The

Caste War of Yucatán The Caste War of Yucatán (1847–1915) began with the revolt of Native Maya people of the Yucatán Peninsula against Hispanic populations, called ''Yucatecos''. The latter had long held political and economic control of the region. A lengthy w ...

(approx. 1847–1901) against the population of European descent, known locally as '' Yucatecos'', who held political and economic control of the region. Adam Jones wrote: "Genocidal atrocities on both sides cost up to 200,000 killed."

= Apaches

= In 1835, Don Ignacio Zuniga, commander of the presidios of northern

Sonora Sonora (), officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Sonora ( en, Free and Sovereign State of Sonora), is one of the 31 states which, along with Mexico City, comprise the Administrative divisions of Mexico, Federal Entities of Mexico. The state is d ...

, asserted that since 1820, the

Apache The Apache () are a group of culturally related Native American tribes in the Southwestern United States, which include the Chiricahua, Jicarilla, Lipan, Mescalero, Mimbreño, Ndendahe (Bedonkohe or Mogollon and Nednhi or Carrizaleño an ...

s had killed at least 5,000 Mexican settlers in retaliation for land encroachments in '' Apachería''. The State of Sonora then offered a bounty on Apache scalps in 1835. Beginning in 1837, the State of Chihuahua also offered a bounty of 100 pesos per warrior, 50 pesos per woman and 25 pesos per child.

= Yaquis

= The Mexican government's response to the various uprisings of the

Yaqui The Yaqui, Hiaki, or Yoeme, are a Native American people of the southwest, who speak a Uto-Aztecan language. Their homelands include the Río Yaqui valley in Sonora, Mexico, and the area below the Gila River in Arizona, Southwestern United Stat ...

tribe have been likened to

particularly under

Porfirio Diaz Porfirio is a given name in Spanish, derived from the Greek Porphyry (''porphyrios'' "purple-clad"). It can refer to: * Porfirio Salinas – Mexican-American artist * Porfirio Armando Betancourt – Honduran football player * Porfirio Barba-Jac ...

. By the end of Diaz's rule at least 20,000 Yaquis were killed in Sonora and their population was reduced from 30,000 to 7,000. Mexican president

Andrés Manuel López Obrador Andrés Manuel López Obrador (; born 13 November 1953), also known by his initials AMLO, is a Mexican politician who has been serving as the 65th president of Mexico since 1 December 2018. He previously served as Head of Government of Mexico ...

said he'd be willing to offer apologies for the abuses in 2019.

Peru

"The indigenous rebellions of

Túpac Amaru II José Gabriel Condorcanqui ( – May 18, 1781)known as Túpac Amaru II was an indigenous Cacique who led a large Andean rebellion against the Spanish in Peru. He later became a mythical figure in the Peruvian struggle for independence and in ...

and

Túpac Katari Túpac Katari or Catari (also Túpaj Katari) (c. 1750 – November 13, 1781), born Julián Apasa Nina, was the Indigenous peoples of the Americas, indigenous Aymara people, Aymara leader of a major insurrection in colonial-era Upper Peru (now Boli ...

against the Spanish between 1780 and 1782, cost over 100,000 mestizos, native peruvians and Spanish settlers' lives in

Peru , image_flag = Flag of Peru.svg , image_coat = Escudo nacional del Perú.svg , other_symbol = Great Seal of the State , other_symbol_type = Seal (emblem), National seal , national_motto = "Fi ...

and Upper Peru (present-day

Bolivia , image_flag = Bandera de Bolivia (Estado).svg , flag_alt = Horizontal tricolor (red, yellow, and green from top to bottom) with the coat of arms of Bolivia in the center , flag_alt2 = 7 × 7 square p ...

)."

United States

According to Native American Studies professor

, US history, as well as inherited Indigenous trauma, cannot be understood without dealing with the genocide that the United States committed against Indigenous peoples. Ortiz states that from the colonial period through the founding of the United States and continuing in the twentieth century, this has entailed torture, terror, sexual abuse, massacres, systematic military occupations, removals of Indigenous peoples from their ancestral territories, forced removal of Native American children to military-like boarding schools, allotment, and a policy of termination. The leader of this battle, British High Commander

Jeffery Amherst Field Marshal Jeffery Amherst, 1st Baron Amherst, (29 January 1717 – 3 August 1797) was a British Army officer and Commander-in-Chief of the Forces in the British Army. Amherst is credited as the architect of Britain's successful campaign ...

authorized the intentional use of disease as a biological weapon, notably during the 1763

Siege of Fort Pitt The siege of Fort Pitt took place during June and July 1763 in what is now the city of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. The siege was a part of Pontiac's War, an effort by Native Americans in the United States, Native Americans to remov ...

against indigenous populations, saying, "You will Do well to try to Innoculate the Indians by means of Blanketts, as well as to try Every other method that can serve to Extirpate this Execrable Race", and instructing his subordinates, "I need only Add, I Wish to Hear of no prisoners should any of the villains be met with arms." British militia's

William Trent William Trent (February 13, 1715–1787) was an American fur trader and merchant based in colonial Pennsylvania. He was commissioned as a captain of the Virginia Regiment in the early stages of the French and Indian War, when he served on the wes ...

and Simeon Ecuyer gave

-exposed blankets to Native American emissaries as gifts during the Siege of Fort Pitt, "to Convey the Smallpox to the Indians", in one of the most famously documented cases of

germ warfare Biological warfare, also known as germ warfare, is the use of biological toxins or infectious agents such as bacteria, viruses, insects, and fungi with the intent to kill, harm or incapacitate humans, animals or plants as an act of war. Bi ...

. While it is uncertain how successful such attempts were against the target population,

For historians who describe this specific attempt at intentional infection as successful, see:

historians have noted that, "history records numerous instances of the French, the Spanish, the British, and later on the American, using smallpox as an ignoble means to an end. For smallpox was more feared by the Indian than the bullet: he could be exterminated and subjugated more easily and quickly by the death-bringing virus than by the weapons of the white man."''The Effect of Smallpox on the Destiny of the Amerindian''; Esther Wagner Stearn, Allen Edwin Stearn; University of Minnesota; 1945; pp. 13–20, 73–94, 97 Execution of 38 Sioux Indians at Mankato Minnesota 1862

Execution of 38 Sioux Indians at Mankato Minnesota 1862

During the

American Indian Wars The American Indian Wars, also known as the American Frontier Wars, and the Indian Wars, were fought by European governments and colonists in North America, and later by the United States and Canadian governments and American and Canadian settle ...

, the

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cla ...

carried out a number of massacres and forced relocations of Indigenous peoples, acts that some scholars say constitute genocide. The Sand Creek Massacre, which caused outrage in its own time, has been called genocide. General

John Chivington John Milton Chivington (January 27, 1821 – October 4, 1894) was an American Methodism, Methodist pastor and Freemasonry, Mason who served as a colonel (United States), colonel in the United States Volunteers during the New Mexico Campaign ...

led a 700-man force of

Colorado Territory The Territory of Colorado was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from February 28, 1861, until August 1, 1876, when it was admitted to the Union as the State of Colorado. The territory was organized in the w ...

militia A militia () is generally an army or some other fighting organization of non-professional soldiers, citizens of a country, or subjects of a state, who may perform military service during a time of need, as opposed to a professional force of r ...

in a massacre of 70–163 peaceful

Cheyenne The Cheyenne ( ) are an Indigenous people of the Great Plains. Their Cheyenne language belongs to the Algonquian language family. Today, the Cheyenne people are split into two federally recognized nations: the Southern Cheyenne, who are enroll ...

and

Arapaho The Arapaho (; french: Arapahos, ) are a Native American people historically living on the plains of Colorado and Wyoming. They were close allies of the Cheyenne tribe and loosely aligned with the Lakota and Dakota. By the 1850s, Arapaho band ...

, about two-thirds of whom were women, children, and infants. Chivington and his men took scalps and other body parts as trophies, including human

fetus A fetus or foetus (; plural fetuses, feti, foetuses, or foeti) is the unborn offspring that develops from an animal embryo. Following embryonic development the fetal stage of development takes place. In human prenatal development, fetal deve ...

es and male and female

genitalia A sex organ (or reproductive organ) is any part of an animal or plant that is involved in sexual reproduction. The reproductive organs together constitute the reproductive system. In animals, the testis in the male, and the ovary in the female, a ...

.United States Congress Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War, 1865 (testimonies and report) In defense of his actions Chivington stated, A study by Gregory Michno concluded that of 21,586 tabulated casualties (killed, wounded or captured) in a selected 672 battles and skirmishes, military personnel and settlers accounted for 6,596 (31%), while indigenous casualties totaled about 14,990 (69%) for the period 1850–90. Michno's study almost exclusively uses Army estimates. His follow-up book "Forgotten Battles and Skirmishes" covers over 300 additional fights not included in these statistics. According to the U.S. Bureau of the Census (1894), between 1789 and 1891, "The Indian wars under the government of the United States have been more than 40 in number. They have cost the lives of about 19,000 white men, women and children, including those killed in individual combats, and the lives of about 30,000 Indians. The actual number of killed and wounded Indians must be very much higher than the given... Fifty percent additional would be a safe estimate..." In the same 1894 report, the Census Bureau dismissed assertions that millions of Native Americans once inhabited what is now the United States, insisting instead that North America in 1492 was an almost empty continent, and "guesstimating" that aboriginal populations "could not have exceeded much over 500,000", whereas modern scholarship now estimates from 2.1 million to more than 10 million. Chalk and Jonassohn argued that the deportation of the

Cherokee The Cherokee (; chr, ᎠᏂᏴᏫᏯᎢ, translit=Aniyvwiyaʔi or Anigiduwagi, or chr, ᏣᎳᎩ, links=no, translit=Tsalagi) are one of the indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands of the United States. Prior to the 18th century, t ...

tribe along the

Trail of Tears The Trail of Tears was an ethnic cleansing and forced displacement of approximately 60,000 people of the "Five Civilized Tribes" between 1830 and 1850 by the United States government. As part of the Indian removal, members of the Cherokee, ...

would almost certainly be considered an act of genocide today. The

Indian Removal Act The Indian Removal Act was signed into law on May 28, 1830, by United States President Andrew Jackson. The law, as described by Congress, provided "for an exchange of lands with the Indians residing in any of the states or territories, and for ...

of 1830 led to the exodus. About 17,000 Cherokees—along with approximately 2,000 Cherokee-owned black slaves—were removed from their homes. The number of people who died as a result of the Trail of Tears has been variously estimated. American doctor and missionary Elizur Butler, who made the journey with one party, estimated 4,000 deaths. Historians David Stannard and Barbara Mann have noted that the army deliberately routed the march of the Cherokee to pass through areas of known cholera epidemic, such as Vicksburg. Stannard estimates that during the forced removal from their homelands, following the

signed into law by President

Andrew Jackson Andrew Jackson (March 15, 1767 – June 8, 1845) was an American lawyer, planter, general, and statesman who served as the seventh president of the United States from 1829 to 1837. Before being elected to the presidency, he gained fame as ...

in 1830, 8,000 Cherokee died, about half the total population. A smallpox epidemic struck the Great Plains in 1836–1840, resulting in the deaths of many, including 90% of the Mandan who previously numbered 1,600. While specific responsibility for the epidemic remains in question, scholars have asserted that the Great Plains epidemic was "started among the tribes of the upper Missouri River by failure to quarantine steam boats on the river", and Captain Pratt of the ''St. Peter'' "was guilty of contributing to the deaths of thousands of innocent people. The law calls his offense criminal negligence. Yet in light of all the deaths, the almost complete annihilation of the Mandans, and the terrible suffering the region endured, the label criminal negligence is benign, hardly befitting an action that had such horrendous consequences."''Rotting Face: Smallpox and the American Indian''; R. G. Robertson; Caxton Press; 2001 pp. 80–83, 298–312 Archaeologist and anthropologist Ann F. Ramenofsky writes, "''Variola Major'' can be transmitted through contaminated articles such as clothing or blankets. In the nineteenth century, the U. S. Army sent contaminated blankets to Native Americans, especially Plains groups, to control the Indian problem." According to

Alexander Hinton Alexander Laban Hinton is an anthropologist whose work focuses on genocide, mass violence, extremism, transitional justice, and human rights. He has written extensively on the Cambodian genocide and, in 2016, was an expert witness at the Khmer ...

, "the genocide of many Native American tribes" including the Mandans, was caused by "governmental assimilationist policies that coexisted with officially or unofficially sanctioned campaigns of war to eradicate, diminish, or forcibly evict the 'savages. When

swept the northern plains of the US in 1837, Secretary of War

Lewis Cass Lewis Cass (October 9, 1782June 17, 1866) was an American military officer, politician, and statesman. He represented Michigan in the United States Senate and served in the Cabinets of two U.S. Presidents, Andrew Jackson and James Buchanan. He w ...

ordered that the

Mandan The Mandan are a Native American tribe of the Great Plains who have lived for centuries primarily in what is now North Dakota. They are enrolled in the Three Affiliated Tribes of the Fort Berthold Reservation. About half of the Mandan still res ...

(along with the

Arikara Arikara (), also known as Sahnish,
''Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Nation.'' (Retrieved Sep 29, 2011)

, the

Cree The Cree ( cr, néhinaw, script=Latn, , etc.; french: link=no, Cri) are a Indigenous peoples of the Americas, North American Indigenous people. They live primarily in Canada, where they form one of the country's largest First Nations in Canada ...

, and the

Blackfeet The Blackfeet Nation ( bla, Aamsskáápipikani, script=Latn, ), officially named the Blackfeet Tribe of the Blackfeet Indian Reservation of Montana, is a federally recognized tribe of Siksikaitsitapi people with an Indian reservation in Monta ...

) not be given smallpox vaccinations, which had been provided to other tribes in other areas. Some have posited that some tribes weren't given vaccines because they were hostile or because their land wasn't important for trading. The U.S. colonization of California started in earnest in 1849, and it resulted in a large number of state-subsidized massacres of Native Americans by colonists in the territory, causing several ethnic groups to be entirely wiped out. In one such series of conflicts, the so-called

Mendocino War The Mendocino War was a conflict between the Yuki (mainly Yuki tribes) and white settlers in Mendocino County, California between July 1859 and January 18, 1860. It was caused by settler intrusion and slave raids on native lands and subsequent ...

and the subsequent

Round Valley War The Round Valley War was an 1887 conflict between American Colonists and Yuki Indians on the Round Valley Indian Tribes of the Round Valley Reservation The Round Valley Indian Reservation is a federally recognized Indian reservation lying primari ...

, the entirety of the

Yuki people The Yuki (also known as Yukiah) are an indigenous people of California, whose traditional territory is around Round Valley, Mendocino County. Today they are enrolled members of the Round Valley Indian Tribes of the Round Valley Reservation. Before ...

were brought to the brink of extinction, from a previous population of some 3,500 people to fewer than 100. According to Russell Thornton, estimates of the pre-Columbian Indigenous population of California were at least 310,000, and perhaps as high as 705,000, but by 1849, due to Spanish and Mexican colonization and epidemics this number had decreased to 100,000, and from 1849 to 1890, the indigenous population of California had fallen below 20,000, primarily because of the killings. In ''An American Genocide, The United States and the California Catastrophe, 1846–1873'', Historian Benjamin Madley recorded the number of killings of California Indians that occurred between 1846 and 1873. He found evidence that during this period, at least 9,400 to 16,000 California Indians were killed by non-Indians. Most of these killings occurred in more than 370 massacres (defined as the "intentional killing of five or more disarmed combatants or largely unarmed noncombatants, including women, children, and prisoners, whether in the context of a battle or otherwise"). 10,000 Indians were also kidnapped and sold as slaves. In a speech before representatives of Native American peoples in June, 2019, California governor

Gavin Newsom Gavin Christopher Newsom (born October 10, 1967) is an American politician and businessman who has been the 40th governor of California since 2019. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as the 49th lieutenant governor of California fr ...

apologized for the genocide. Newsom said, "That’s what it was, a genocide. No other way to describe it. And that’s the way it needs to be described in the history books." Indeed, noted children's book author of " The Wizard of Oz",

L. Frank Baum Lyman Frank Baum (; May 15, 1856 – May 6, 1919) was an American author best known for his children's books, particularly ''The Wonderful Wizard of Oz'' and its sequels. He wrote 14 novels in the ''Oz'' series, plus 41 other novels (not includ ...

, contemporaneously and freely admitted to the definition of genocide—annihilation of a people—as being deliberately intended, in the aftermath of the Wounded Knee Massacre and slaughter of the

Lakota Lakota may refer to: * Lakota people, a confederation of seven related Native American tribes *Lakota language, the language of the Lakota peoples Place names In the United States: * Lakota, Iowa * Lakota, North Dakota, seat of Nelson County * La ...

and their leader

Sitting Bull Sitting Bull ( lkt, Tȟatȟáŋka Íyotake ; December 15, 1890) was a Hunkpapa Lakota leader who led his people during years of resistance against United States government policies. He was killed by Indian agency police on the Standing Rock I ...

"The Whites, by law of conquest, by justice of civilization, are masters of the American continent, and the best safety of the frontier settlements will be secured by the total annihilation of the few remaining Indians. Why not annihilation? Their glory has fled, their spirit broken, their manhood effaced; better that they die than live the miserable wretches that they are."

Asia

Afghanistan

Abdur Rahman Abd al-Rahman ( ar, عبد الرحمن, translit=ʿAbd al-Raḥmān or occasionally ; DMG ''ʿAbd ar-Raḥman''; also Abdul Rahman) is a male Arabic Muslim given name, and in modern usage, surname. It is built from the Arabic words '' Abd'', '' ...

's subjugation of the Hazara ethnic group in the late nineteenth century due to its fierce rebellion against the Afghan king gave birth to an intense feeling of hatred between the

Pashtun Pashtuns (, , ; ps, پښتانه, ), also known as Pakhtuns or Pathans, are an Iranian ethnic group who are native to the geographic region of Pashtunistan in the present-day countries of Afghanistan and Pakistan. They were historically re ...

and the Hazara that would last for years to come. Massive forced displacements, especially in

Oruzgan Uruzgan (Dari), also spelled as Urozgan or Oruzgan, is one of the thirty-four provinces of Afghanistan. Uruzgan is located in the center of the country. The population is 436,079, and the province is mostly a tribal society. Tarinkot serves as t ...

and Daychopan, continued as lands were confiscated and populations were expelled or fled. Some 35,000 families fled to northern Afghanistan,

Mashhad Mashhad ( fa, مشهد, Mašhad ), also spelled Mashad, is the List of Iranian cities by population, second-most-populous city in Iran, located in the relatively remote north-east of the country about from Tehran. It serves as the capital of R ...

(Iran) and

Quetta Quetta (; ur, ; ; ps, کوټه‎) is the tenth List of cities in Pakistan by population, most populous city in Pakistan with a population of over 1.1 million. It is situated in Geography of Pakistan, south-west of the country close to the ...

(Pakistan). It is estimated that more than 60% of the Hazara were either massacred or displaced during Abdur Rahman's campaign against them. Hazara farmers were often forced to give up their property to Pashtuns and as a result many Hazara families had to move seasonally to the major cities in Afghanistan, Iran, or Pakistan in order to find jobs and sources of income. Quetta in Pakistan is home to the third largest settlements of Hazara outside Afghanistan.

British rule of India and elsewhere

Mike Davis argues in his book ''

Late Victorian Holocausts ''Late Victorian Holocausts: El Niño Famines and the Making of the Third World'' is a book by Mike Davis about the connection between political economy and global climate patterns, particularly the impact of colonialism and the introduction of ...

'' that quote; "Millions died, not outside the 'modern world system', but in the very process of being forcibly incorporated into its economic and political structures. They died in the golden age of Liberal Capitalism; indeed many were murdered...by the theological application of the sacred principles of Smith, Bentham, and Mill." WWHooperFamine1876-78GroupOfEmaciaedMenandOneWoman

WWHooperFamine1876-78GroupOfEmaciaedMenandOneWoman

Davis characterizes the Indian famines under the

British Raj The British Raj (; from Hindi ''rāj'': kingdom, realm, state, or empire) was the rule of the British Crown on the Indian subcontinent; * * it is also called Crown rule in India, * * * * or Direct rule in India, * Quote: "Mill, who was himsel ...

, such as the

Great Bengal famine of 1770 The Bengal Famine of 1770 was a famine that struck Bengal and Bihar between 1769 and 1770 and affected some 30 million people. It occurred during a period of dual governance in Bengal. This existed after the East India Company had been granted ...

or the

Great Famine of 1876-78 Great may refer to: Descriptions or measurements * Great, a relative measurement in physical space, see Size * Greatness, being divine, majestic, superior, majestic, or transcendent People * List of people known as "the Great" *Artel Great (born ...

which took over 15 million lives as "colonial genocide." Some scholars, including

Niall Ferguson Niall Campbell Ferguson FRSE (; born 18 April 1964)Biography
Niall Ferguson

, have disputed this judgement, while others, including Adam Jones, have affirmed it. As many as 60 million people may have died of famine and its complications from 1765 to 1946.

Dutch East Indies

The 1740 Batavia massacre ( nl, Chinezenmoord; french: Meurtre des Chinois, literally the "Murder of the Chinese"; id, Geger Pacinan, or the "Chinatown Tumult") was a

pogrom A pogrom () is a violent riot incited with the aim of massacring or expelling an ethnic or religious group, particularly Jews. The term entered the English language from Russian to describe 19th- and 20th-century attacks on Jews in the Russia ...

in which

Dutch East Indies The Dutch East Indies, also known as the Netherlands East Indies ( nl, Nederlands(ch)-Indië; ), was a Dutch colony consisting of what is now Indonesia. It was formed from the nationalised trading posts of the Dutch East India Company, which ...

soldiers and native collaborators killed

ethnic Chinese The Chinese people or simply Chinese, are people or ethnic groups identified with China, usually through ethnicity, nationality, citizenship, or other affiliation. Chinese people are known as Zhongguoren () or as Huaren () by speakers of s ...

residents of the port city of

Batavia Batavia may refer to: Historical places * Batavia (region), a land inhabited by the Batavian people during the Roman Empire, today part of the Netherlands * Batavia, Dutch East Indies, present-day Jakarta, the former capital of the Dutch East In ...

(present-day

Jakarta Jakarta (; , bew, Jakarte), officially the Special Capital Region of Jakarta ( id, Daerah Khusus Ibukota Jakarta) is the capital and largest city of Indonesia. Lying on the northwest coast of Java, the world's most populous island, Jakarta ...

) in the Dutch East Indies. The violence in the city lasted from 9 October until 22 October 1740, with minor skirmishes continuing outside the city walls into late November. Historians have estimated that at least 10,000 ethnic Chinese were massacred; just 600 to 3,000 are believed to have survived.

Dzungar genocide

The

Dzungar Dzungar may refer to: *Dzungar people, Oirat tribes in the Dzungar Khanate *Dzungar Khanate, a historical empire * Jungar Banner, an administrative division of China *Junggar Basin The Junggar Basin () is one of the largest sedimentary basins in ...

(or known as Zunghar),

Oirat Mongols Oirats ( mn, Ойрад, ''Oirad'', or , Oird; xal-RU, Өөрд; zh, 瓦剌; in the past, also Eleuths) are the westernmost group of the Mongols whose ancestral home is in the Altai region of Siberia, Xinjiang and western Mongolia. Histor ...

who lived in an area that stretched from the west end of the

Great Wall of China The Great Wall of China (, literally "ten thousand ''li'' wall") is a series of fortifications that were built across the historical northern borders of ancient Chinese states and Imperial China as protection against various nomadic grou ...

to present-day eastern

Kazakhstan Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country located mainly in Central Asia and partly in Eastern Europe. It borders Russia to the north and west, China to the east, Kyrgyzstan to the southeast, Uzbeki ...

and from present-day northern

Kyrgyzstan Kyrgyzstan,, pronounced or the Kyrgyz Republic, is a landlocked country in Central Asia. Kyrgyzstan is bordered by Kazakhstan to the north, Uzbekistan to the west, Tajikistan to the south, and the People's Republic of China to the east. ...

to southern

Siberia Siberia ( ; rus, Сибирь, r=Sibir', p=sʲɪˈbʲirʲ, a=Ru-Сибирь.ogg) is an extensive geographical region, constituting all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has been a part of ...

(most of which is located in present-day

Xinjiang Xinjiang, SASM/GNC: ''Xinjang''; zh, c=, p=Xīnjiāng; formerly romanized as Sinkiang (, ), officially the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (XUAR), is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China (PRC), located in the northwest ...

), were the last

nomadic empire Nomadic empires, sometimes also called steppe empires, Central or Inner Asian empires, were the empires erected by the bow and arrow, bow-wielding, horse-riding, Eurasian nomads, nomadic people in the Eurasian Steppe, from classical antiquity (Scy ...

to threaten China, which they did from the early 17th century through the middle of the 18th century. After a series of inconclusive military conflicts that started in the 1680s, the Dzungars were subjugated by the

Manchu The Manchus (; ) are a Tungusic East Asian ethnic group native to Manchuria in Northeast Asia. They are an officially recognized ethnic minority in China and the people from whom Manchuria derives its name. The Later Jin (1616–1636) and ...

-led

Qing dynasty The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing,, was a Manchu-led imperial dynasty of China and the last orthodox dynasty in Chinese history. It emerged from the Later Jin dynasty founded by the Jianzhou Jurchens, a Tungusic-speak ...

(1644–1911) in the late 1750s. According to Qing scholar

Wei Yuan Wei Yuan (; April23, 1794March26, 1857), born Wei Yuanda (), courtesy names Moshen () and Hanshi (), was a Chinese scholar from Shaoyang, Hunan. He moved to Yangzhou, Jiangsu in 1831, where he remained for the rest of his life. Wei obtained the ...

, 40 percent of the 600,000 Zunghar people were killed by

, 20 percent fled to Russia or sought refuge among the Kazakh tribes and 30 percent were killed by the Qing army of Manchu

Bannermen Bannerman is a name of Scottish origin (see Clan Bannerman) and may refer to Places ;Canada * Bannerman, Edmonton, a neighbourhood in Edmonton, Canada ;United States * Bannerman, Wisconsin, an unincorporated community * Bannerman's Castle, an a ...

and

Khalkha Mongols The Khalkha ( Mongolian: mn, Халх, Halh, , zh, 喀爾喀) have been the largest subgroup of Mongol people in modern Mongolia since the 15th century. The Khalkha, together with Chahars, Ordos and Tumed, were directly ruled by Borjigin khan ...

. Historian Michael Edmund Clarke has argued that the Qing campaign in 1757–58 "amounted to the complete destruction of not only the Zunghar state but of the Zunghars as a people". Historian Peter Perdue has attributed the decimation of the Dzungars to a "deliberate use of massacre" and has described it as an "ethnic genocide". Mark Levene, a historian of genocide,Dr. Mark Levene

Southampton University , mottoeng = The Heights Yield to Endeavour , type = Public research university , established = 1862 – Hartley Institution1902 – Hartley University College1913 – Southampton University Coll ...

, see "Areas where I can offer Postgraduate Supervision". Retrieved 9 February 2009. has stated that the extermination of the Dzungars was "arguably the eighteenth century genocide par excellence".

Taiping Rebellion

The Taiping Rebellion was a massive rebellion which was launched by

Hong Xiuquan Hong Xiuquan (1 January 1814 – 1 June 1864), born Hong Huoxiu and with the courtesy name Renkun, was a Chinese revolutionary who was the leader of the Taiping Rebellion against the Qing dynasty. He established the Taiping Heavenly Kingdo ...

, an ethnic

Hakka The Hakka (), sometimes also referred to as Hakka Han, or Hakka Chinese, or Hakkas are a Han Chinese subgroup whose ancestral homes are chiefly in the Hakka-speaking provincial areas of Guangdong, Fujian, Jiangxi, Guangxi, Sichuan, Hunan, Zhej ...

(a Han subgroup) and the self-proclaimed younger brother of

Jesus Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label=Hebrew/Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other names and titles), was a first-century Jewish preacher and religious ...

, who sought to overthrow the

-led

and replace it with a

Chinese Christian Christianity in China has been present since at least the 3rd century, and it has gained a significant amount of influence during the last 200 years. While Christianity may have existed in China before the 3rd century, evidence of its existe ...

theocratic Theocracy is a form of government in which one or more deities are recognized as supreme ruling authorities, giving divine guidance to human intermediaries who manage the government's daily affairs. Etymology The word theocracy originates fro ...

absolute monarchy Absolute monarchy (or Absolutism as a doctrine) is a form of monarchy in which the monarch rules in their own right or power. In an absolute monarchy, the king or queen is by no means limited and has absolute power, though a limited constitut ...

which he named the

Taiping Heavenly Kingdom The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, later shortened to the Heavenly Kingdom or Heavenly Dynasty, was an unrecognised rebel kingdom in China and a Chinese Christian theocratic absolute monarchy from 1851 to 1864, supporting the overthrow of the Q ...

. One of the bloodiest

war War is an intense armed conflict between states, governments, societies, or paramilitary groups such as mercenaries, insurgents, and militias. It is generally characterized by extreme violence, destruction, and mortality, using regular o ...

s in history and the bloodiest

civil war A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies ...

in history, the Taiping Rebellion was marked by genocidal atrocities which were perpetrated by both of the sides which fought in the conflict. In every area which they captured, the Taiping immediately exterminated the entire Manchu population. In the province of

Hunan Hunan (, ; ) is a landlocked province of the People's Republic of China, part of the South Central China region. Located in the middle reaches of the Yangtze watershed, it borders the province-level divisions of Hubei to the north, Jiangxi to ...

one Qing loyalist who observed the

s which the Taiping forces committed against the Manchus wrote that the "pitiful Manchus", the Manchu men, women and children were executed by the Taiping forces. The Taiping rebels were seen chanting while slaughtering the Manchus in Hefei. After capturing Nanjing, Taiping forces killed about 40,000 Manchu civilians. On 27 October 1853 they crossed the

Yellow River The Yellow River or Huang He (Chinese: , Standard Beijing Mandarin, Mandarin: ''Huáng hé'' ) is the second-longest river in China, after the Yangtze River, and the List of rivers by length, sixth-longest river system in the world at th ...

in T'sang-chou and murdered 10,000 Manchus. Since the rebellion began in

Guangxi Guangxi (; ; Chinese postal romanization, alternately romanized as Kwanghsi; ; za, Gvangjsih, italics=yes), officially the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region (GZAR), is an Autonomous regions of China, autonomous region of the People's Republic ...

, Qing forces allowed no rebels speaking its dialect to surrender. Reportedly in the province of

Guangdong Guangdong (, ), alternatively romanized as Canton or Kwangtung, is a coastal province in South China on the north shore of the South China Sea. The capital of the province is Guangzhou. With a population of 126.01 million (as of 2020) ...

, it is written that 1,000,000 were executed because after the collapse of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, the Qing dynasty launched waves of massacres against the Hakkas, that at their height killed up to 30,000 each day. These policies of mass murder of civilians occurred elsewhere in China, including

Anhui Anhui , (; formerly romanized as Anhwei) is a landlocked province of the People's Republic of China, part of the East China region. Its provincial capital and largest city is Hefei. The province is located across the basins of the Yangtze River ...

, and

Nanjing Nanjing (; , Mandarin pronunciation: ), alternately romanized as Nanking, is the capital of Jiangsu province of the People's Republic of China. It is a sub-provincial city, a megacity, and the second largest city in the East China region. T ...

. This resulted in a massive civilian flight and death toll with some 600 towns destroyed and other bloody policies resulting.

Japanese colonization of Hokkaido

The Ainu are an indigenous people in Japan (

Hokkaidō is Japan's second largest island and comprises the largest and northernmost prefecture, making up its own region. The Tsugaru Strait separates Hokkaidō from Honshu; the two islands are connected by the undersea railway Seikan Tunnel. The la ...

). In a 2009 news story, ''Japan Today'' reported, "Many Ainu were forced to work, essentially as slaves, for Wajin (ethnic Japanese), resulting in the breakup of families and the introduction of

measles Measles is a highly contagious infectious disease caused by measles virus. Symptoms usually develop 10–12 days after exposure to an infected person and last 7–10 days. Initial symptoms typically include fever, often greater than , cough, ...

cholera Cholera is an infection of the small intestine by some strains of the bacterium ''Vibrio cholerae''. Symptoms may range from none, to mild, to severe. The classic symptom is large amounts of watery diarrhea that lasts a few days. Vomiting and ...

and

tuberculosis Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious disease usually caused by '' Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can also affect other parts of the body. Most infections show no symptoms, in ...

into their communities. In 1869, after the

Battle of Hakodate The was fought in Japan from December 4, 1868 to June 27, 1869, between the remnants of the Tokugawa shogunate army, consolidated into the armed forces of the rebel Ezo Republic, and the armies of the newly formed Imperial government (composed ...

during the

Boshin War The , sometimes known as the Japanese Revolution or Japanese Civil War, was a civil war in Japan fought from 1868 to 1869 between forces of the ruling Tokugawa shogunate and a clique seeking to seize political power in the name of the Imperi ...

, the new

Meiji government The was the government that was formed by politicians of the Satsuma Domain and Chōshū Domain in the 1860s. The Meiji government was the early government of the Empire of Japan. Politicians of the Meiji government were known as the Meiji o ...

renamed the

Republic of Ezo The was a short-lived separatist state established in 1869 on the island of Ezo, now Hokkaido, by a part of the former military of the Tokugawa shogunate at the end of the ''Bakumatsu'' period in Japan. It was the first government to attempt t ...

Hokkaido, whose boundaries were formed by former members of the

Tokugawa shogunate The Tokugawa shogunate (, Japanese 徳川幕府 ''Tokugawa bakufu''), also known as the , was the military government of Japan during the Edo period from 1603 to 1868. Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005)"''Tokugawa-jidai''"in ''Japan Encyclopedia ...

, and together with lands where the Ainu lived, they were unilaterally incorporated into Japan. It banned the Ainu language, took Ainu lands away, and prohibited the Ainu from engaging in salmon fishing and deer hunting." Roy Thomas wrote: "Ill treatment of native peoples is common to all colonial powers, and, at its worst, leads to genocide. Japan's native people, the Ainu, have, however, been the object of a particularly cruel hoax, because the Japanese have refused to accept them officially as a separate minority people." In 2004, the small Ainu community which lives in Russia wrote a letter to

Vladimir Putin Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin; (born 7 October 1952) is a Russian politician and former intelligence officer who holds the office of president of Russia. Putin has served continuously as president or prime minister since 1999: as prime min ...

, urging him to recognize Japanese mistreatment of the Ainu people as a genocide, something which Putin declined to do.

Armenians, Assyrians, Bulgarians, Greeks

The

Massacres of Badr Khan A series of massacres in Hakkari in the years 1843 and 1846 of Assyrians were carried out by the Kurdish emirs of Bohtan and Hakkari, Bedr Khan Bey, Nurullah. The massacres resulted in the killing of more than 10,000 Assyrians and the captivity of ...

were conducted by

Kurdish Kurdish may refer to: *Kurds or Kurdish people *Kurdish languages *Kurdish alphabets *Kurdistan, the land of the Kurdish people which includes: **Southern Kurdistan **Eastern Kurdistan **Northern Kurdistan **Western Kurdistan See also * Kurd (dis ...

and Ottoman forces against the Assyrian Christian population of the Ottoman Empire between 1843 and 1847, resulting in the slaughter of more than 10,000 indigenous Assyrian civilians of the

Hakkari Hakkari or Hakkâri may refer to: *Hakkari (historical region), a historical region in modern-day Turkey and Iraq *Hakkâri (city), a city and the capital of Hakkâri Province, Turkey *Hakkâri Province Hakkâri Province (, tr, Hakkâri ili, ...

region, with many thousands more being sold into slavery. During the suppression of the

April Uprising The April Uprising ( bg, Априлско въстание, Aprilsko vastanie) was an insurrection organised by the Bulgarians in the Ottoman Empire from April to May 1876. The regular Ottoman Army and irregular bashi-bazouk units brutally su ...

Bulgaria Bulgaria (; bg, България, Bǎlgariya), officially the Republic of Bulgaria,, ) is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern flank of the Balkans, and is bordered by Romania to the north, Serbia and North Macedon ...

in May–June 1876, 30,000 Bulgarians died and 5,000 Bulgarians were killed in Batak - according to modern researchers, the

Batak massacre The Batak massacre was a massacre of Bulgarians in Batak by Ottoman irregular cavalry troops in 1876 at the beginning of the April Uprising. The estimate for the number of victims ranges from 1,200 to 8,000, depending on the source. Uprising ...

was the starting point of genocide in the modern era. Between 1894 and 1896, a series of ethnically-religiously motivated Anti-Christian

s which are known as the

Hamidian massacres The Hamidian massacres also called the Armenian massacres, were massacres of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire in the mid-1890s. Estimated casualties ranged from 100,000 to 300,000, Akçam, Taner (2006) '' A Shameful Act: The Armenian Genocide an ...

were conducted against the ancient

Armenian Armenian may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Armenia, a country in the South Caucasus region of Eurasia * Armenians, the national people of Armenia, or people of Armenian descent ** Armenian Diaspora, Armenian communities across the ...

and

Assyrian Assyrian may refer to: * Assyrian people, the indigenous ethnic group of Mesopotamia. * Assyria, a major Mesopotamian kingdom and empire. ** Early Assyrian Period ** Old Assyrian Period ** Middle Assyrian Empire ** Neo-Assyrian Empire * Assyrian ...

Christian Christians () are people who follow or adhere to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. The words ''Christ'' and ''Christian'' derive from the Koine Greek title ''Christós'' (Χρι ...

populations by the forces of the

Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire, * ; is an archaic version. The definite article forms and were synonymous * and el, Оθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία, Othōmanikē Avtokratoria, label=none * info page on book at Martin Luther University) ...

. The massacres mainly took place in what is modern-day south eastern Turkey, north eastern Syria and northern Iraq. The death toll is estimated to have been as high as 325,000 people, with a further 546,000 Armenians and Assyrians made destitute by the forcible deportation of survivors from cities, and the destruction or the theft of almost 2500 of their farmsteads, towns and villages. Hundreds of churches and monasteries were either destroyed or forcibly converted into

mosque A mosque (; from ar, مَسْجِد, masjid, ; literally "place of ritual prostration"), also called masjid, is a place of prayer for Muslims. Mosques are usually covered buildings, but can be any place where prayers ( sujud) are performed, ...

s. The Adana massacre occurred in the Adana Vilayet of the

in April 1909. A massacre of

and

Christians Christians () are people who follow or adhere to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. The words ''Christ'' and ''Christian'' derive from the Koine Greek title ''Christós'' (Χρι ...

in the city of

Adana Adana (; ; ) is a major city in southern Turkey. It is situated on the Seyhan River, inland from the Mediterranean Sea. The administrative seat of Adana Province, Adana province, it has a population of 2.26 million. Adana lies in the heart ...

and its surroundings amidst the Ottoman countercoup of 1909 triggered a series of anti-Christian

s throughout the province. Reports estimated that the Adana Province massacres resulted in the death of as many as 30,000 Armenians and the death of as many as 1,500 Assyrians. From 1913 to 1923, the

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

, and

s took place in the Ottoman Empire. Some historians consider these genocides to be a single event and they refer to them as the ''

late Ottoman genocides The late Ottoman genocides is a historiographical theory which sees the concurrent Armenian, Greek, and Assyrian genocides that occurred during the 1910s–1920s as parts of a single event rather than separate events which were initiated by the ...

''.

Philippines

= Spanish colonial era

= Belinda A. Aquino describes Spanish colonial rule of the Philippines as one of the "most cruel colonial regimes in

world history World history may refer to: * Human history, the history of human beings * History of Earth, the history of planet Earth * World history (field), a field of historical study that takes a global perspective * ''World History'' (album), a 1998 albu ...

", characterized by the systematic destruction of native communities and their institutions, while the natives were forced to work on the colonial government's projects. She writes that the Spaniards imposed an alien religion,

Catholicism The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

, on the population while the native people's sacred indigenous religions and shrines were destroyed. She describes the Spanish conquest as genocide, with killings of natives being common. Furthermore, she writes that the Spanish continued to view the natives of the Philippines as "savages" and "pagans who had to be civilized" despite perpetrating atrocities. According to Linda A. Newson's research, demographic decline occurred in the Philippines during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, primarily as a result of destructive epidemics which were introduced on the islands during the establishment of the Spanish colonial regime. It was previously assumed that the natives of the Philippines were immune to the diseases which decimated the populations of the

New World The term ''New World'' is often used to mean the majority of Earth's Western Hemisphere, specifically the Americas."America." ''The Oxford Companion to the English Language'' (). McArthur, Tom, ed., 1992. New York: Oxford University Press, p. 3 ...

, but Newson, using the data collected from historical demographic documents, argues that intermittent contact and low population density prevented the spread of such diseases before the arrival of the Spaniards, thus making them lethal to vulnerable populations. Yet despite the previous lack of exposure, diseases which were introduced to the Philippines were not seen as having an impact which was as great as the impact which they had on the

. Newson also argues that the same factors which kept the diseases at bay before the Spanish conquest also helped curtail the spread of the infections during the early years of the Spanish colonial period. Newson also concludes that, for the indigenous population of the Philippines, "the demographic decline which occurred during the seventeenth century was the outcome of a complex interaction of factors which included the Hispano-Dutch War, the restructuring of Filipino communities, and periodic famines, epidemics and Moro raids".

= American and Japanese eras

= There were numerous massacres in the Philippines during the American and Japanese occupations, notably massacres on Samar and Sulu, by Americans during Philippine-American war, and the

Manila massacre The Manila massacre ( fil, Pagpatay sa Maynila or ''Masaker sa Maynila''), also called the Rape of Manila ( fil, Paggahasa ng Maynila), involved atrocities committed against Filipino civilians in the City of Manila, the capital of the Phili ...

by Japanese forces during World War 2.

Miller A miller is a person who operates a Gristmill, mill, a machine to grind a grain (for example corn or wheat) to make flour. Mill (grinding), Milling is among the oldest of human occupations. "Miller", "Milne" and other variants are common surname ...

p. 220
PBS documentary "Crucible of Empire"
Ten days after President McKinley's death, the residents of Balangiga, a tiny village 400 miles southeast of Manila, attacked the local U.S. garrison. While U.S. soldiers ate breakfast, the church bells rang a signal. Filipinos brandishing machetes emerged from their hiding places. Forty-eight Americans, two-thirds of the garrison, were butchered, in what is called the

Balangiga massacre The Battle of Balangiga ( es, Batalla de Balangíga; tl, Labanan sa Balangiga; war, Gubat ha Balangiga), also known as the Balangiga Encounter, Balangiga Incident, or Balangiga Conflict, was a battle that occurred during the Philippine–Ameri ...

. On the orders of General Jacob H. Smith, U.S. troops retaliated against the entire island (600 square miles) of Samar where Balangiga is located. The exchange is known because of two courts-martial: one of Waller, who was later court-martialed for ordering or allowing the execution of a dozen Filipino bearers, and the other of Gen. Jacob H. Smith, who was actually court-martialed for giving that order. The jury is out as to what extent that particular order was carried out, because Littleton Waller actually countermanded it to his= own men and said "Captain David Porter, I've had instructions to kill everyone over ten years old. But we are not making war on women =and children, only on men capable of bearing arms. Keep that in mind no matter what other orders you receive." Undoubtedly, some men did commit atrocities regardless of Waller's commands.

Russian Empire

Congress Poland

Siberia

Circassians

The Russian Tsarist Empire waged war against

Circassia Circassia (; also known as Cherkessia in some sources; ady, Адыгэ Хэку, Адыгей, lit=, translit=Adıgə Xəku, Adıgey; ; ota, چرکسستان, Çerkezistan; ) was a country and a historical region in the along the northeast ...

in the Northwest Caucasus for more than one hundred years, trying to secure its hold on the Circassia's

Black Sea The Black Sea is a marginal mediterranean sea of the Atlantic Ocean lying between Europe and Asia, east of the Balkans, south of the East European Plain, west of the Caucasus, and north of Anatolia. It is bounded by Bulgaria, Georgia, Roma ...

coast. After a century of insurgency and war and failure to end the conflict, the Russian military executed the systematic

ethnic cleansing Ethnic cleansing is the systematic forced removal of ethnic, racial, and religious groups from a given area, with the intent of making a region ethnically homogeneous. Along with direct removal, extermination, deportation or population transfer ...

forced migration Forced displacement (also forced migration) is an involuntary or coerced movement of a person or people away from their home or home region. The UNHCR defines 'forced displacement' as follows: displaced "as a result of persecution, conflict, g ...

, and

expulsion Expulsion or expelled may refer to: General * Deportation * Ejection (sports) * Eviction * Exile * Expeller pressing * Expulsion (education) * Expulsion from the United States Congress * Extradition * Forced migration * Ostracism * Persona non ...

of 800,000–1,500,000

Circassians The Circassians (also referred to as Cherkess or Adyghe; Adyghe and Kabardian: Адыгэхэр, romanized: ''Adıgəxər'') are an indigenous Northwest Caucasian ethnic group and nation native to the historical country-region of Circassia in ...

.. The Georgian government has officially recognized the events as a genocide,Georgia Says Russia Committed Genocide in 19th Century
''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

''. May 20, 2011 as have Circassian advocacy organizations, a stance also held by a plethora of scholars of genocide and other historians, with Oliver Bullough crediting the Russian Empire with "the first modern genocide on European soil", and Anssi Kullberg arguing that the Russian state thus invented "the strategy of modern ethnic cleansing and genocide". Antero Leitzinger flagged the affair the 19th century's largest genocide. Calculations including those taking into account the Russian government's own archival figures have estimated a loss of 80%–97%Sarah A.S. Isla Rosser-Owen, MA Near and Middle Eastern Studies (thesis). ''The First 'Circassian Exodus' to the Ottoman Empire (1858–1867), and the Ottoman Response, Based on the Accounts of Contemporary British Observers.'' Page 16: "... with one estimate showing that the indigenous population of the entire north-western Caucasus was reduced by a massive 94 per cent". Text of citation: "The estimates of Russian historian Narochnitskii, in Richmond, ch. 4, p. 5. Stephen Shenfield notes a similar rate of reduction with less than 10 per cent of the Circassians (including the Abkhazians) remaining. (Stephen Shenfield, "The Circassians: A Forgotten Genocide?", in The Massacre in History, p. 154.)" of the Circassian nation in the process. In May 1994, the then

Russian President The president of the Russian Federation ( rus, Президент Российской Федерации, Prezident Rossiyskoy Federatsii) is the head of state of the Russian Federation. The president leads the executive branch of the federal ...

Boris Yeltsin Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin ( rus, Борис Николаевич Ельцин, p=bɐˈrʲis nʲɪkɐˈla(j)ɪvʲɪtɕ ˈjelʲtsɨn, a=Ru-Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin.ogg; 1 February 1931 – 23 April 2007) was a Soviet and Russian politician wh ...

admitted that resistance to the

tsarist Tsarist autocracy (russian: царское самодержавие, transcr. ''tsarskoye samoderzhaviye''), also called Tsarism, was a form of autocracy (later absolute monarchy) specific to the Grand Duchy of Moscow and its successor states ...

forces was legitimate, but he did not recognize "the guilt of the tsarist government for the genocide". On 5 July 2005, the Circassian Congress, an organisation that unites representatives of the various Circassian peoples in the Russian Federation, called on Moscow to acknowledge and apologize for the genocide. There is concern by the Russian government that acknowledging the events as genocide would entail possible claims of financial compensation in addition to efforts toward repatriating diaspora Circassians back to Circassia.. A presidential commission in Russia has been set up "to counter the attempts to falsify history to the detriment of Russia".

Europe

Anti-Romani sentiment (Attempted extirpations of Romani/Gypsies)

There have been several attempts to extirpate the

Romani Romani may refer to: Ethnicities * Romani people, an ethnic group of Northern Indian origin, living dispersed in Europe, the Americas and Asia ** Romani genocide, under Nazi rule * Romani language, any of several Indo-Aryan languages of the Roma ...

(

Gypsies The Romani (also spelled Romany or Rromani , ), colloquially known as the Roma, are an Indo-Aryan ethnic group, traditionally nomadic itinerants. They live in Europe and Anatolia, and have diaspora populations located worldwide, with sign ...

) throughout the

history of Europe The history of Europe is traditionally divided into four time periods: prehistoric Europe (prior to about 800 BC), classical antiquity (800 BC to AD 500), the Middle Ages (AD 500 to AD 1500), and the modern era (since AD 1500). The first early ...

: In 1545, the

Diet of Augsburg The Diet of Augsburg were the meetings of the Imperial Diet of the Holy Roman Empire held in the German city of Augsburg. Both an Imperial City and the residence of the Augsburg prince-bishops, the town had hosted the Estates in many such sess ...

declared that "whosoever kills a Gypsy (Romani), will be guilty of no murder". The subsequent massive killing spree which took place across the empire later prompted the government to step in to "forbid the drowning of Romani women and children". In England, the

Egyptians Act 1530 The Egyptians Act 1530 (''22 Henry VIII, c. 10'') was an Act passed by the Parliament of England in 1531 to expel the "outlandish people calling themselves Egyptians", meaning Gypsies. It was repealed by the Repeal of Obsolete Statutes Act 1856. ...

banned Romani from entering the country and it also required those Romani who were already living in the country to leave it within 16 days. Failure to do so could result in the confiscation of their property, their imprisonment and deportation. The act was amended with the Egyptians Act 1554, which directed that they abandon their "naughty, idle and ungodly life and company" and adopt a settled lifestyle. For those Romani who failed to adhere to a sedentary existence, the

Privy council A privy council is a body that advises the head of state of a state, typically, but not always, in the context of a monarchic government. The word "privy" means "private" or "secret"; thus, a privy council was originally a committee of the mon ...

interpreted the act in a way that permitted the execution of non-complying Romani "as a warning to others". In 1710,

Joseph I Joseph I or Josef I may refer to: *Joseph I of Constantinople, Ecumenical Patriarch in 1266–1275 and 1282–1283 * Joseph I, Holy Roman Emperor (1678–1711) *Joseph I (Chaldean Patriarch) (reigned 1681–1696) *Joseph I of Portugal (1750–1777) ...

, Holy Roman Emperor, issued an edict against the Romani, ordering "that all adult males were to be hanged without trial, whereas women and young males were to be flogged and banished forever."David Crowe (2004): A History of the Gypsies of Eastern Europe and Russia (Palgrave Macmillan) p.XI p.36-37 Additionally, in the

kingdom of Bohemia The Kingdom of Bohemia ( cs, České království),; la, link=no, Regnum Bohemiae sometimes in English literature referred to as the Czech Kingdom, was a medieval and early modern monarchy in Central Europe, the predecessor of the modern Czec ...

, the right ears of Romani men were to be cut off; in the

March of Moravia The Margraviate of Moravia ( cs, Markrabství moravské; german: Markgrafschaft Mähren) was one of the Lands of the Bohemian Crown within the Holy Roman Empire existing from 1182 to 1918. It was officially administrated by a margrave in cooperat ...

, their left ears were to be cut off. In other parts of Austria, they would be branded on the back with a

branding iron A branding iron is used for branding, pressing a heated metal shape against an object or livestock with the intention of leaving an identifying mark. History The history of branding is very much tied to the history of using animals as a commodi ...

, representing the

gallows A gallows (or scaffold) is a frame or elevated beam, typically wooden, from which objects can be suspended (i.e., hung) or "weighed". Gallows were thus widely used to suspend public weighing scales for large and heavy objects such as sacks ...

. These mutilations enabled the authorities to identify the individuals as Romani on their second arrest. The edict encouraged local officials to hunt down Romani in their areas by levying a fine of 100

Reichsthaler The ''Reichsthaler'' (; modern spelling Reichstaler), or more specifically the ''Reichsthaler specie'', was a standard thaler silver coin introduced by the Holy Roman Empire in 1566 for use in all German states, minted in various versions for th ...

on those who failed to do so. Anyone who helped Romani was to be punished by doing

forced labor Forced labour, or unfree labour, is any work relation, especially in modern or early modern history, in which people are employed against their will with the threat of destitution, detention, violence including death, or other forms of ex ...

for half a year. The result was mass killings of Romani across the Holy Roman empire. In 1721, Charles VI amended the decree to include the execution of adult female Romani, while children were "to be put in hospitals for education". In 1774,

Maria Theresa Maria Theresa Walburga Amalia Christina (german: Maria Theresia; 13 May 1717 – 29 November 1780) was ruler of the Habsburg dominions from 1740 until her death in 1780, and the only woman to hold the position ''suo jure'' (in her own right). ...

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

issued an edict which forbade marriages between Romani. When a Romani woman married a non-Romani man, she had to produce proof of "industrious household service and familiarity with

Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

tenets", a male Rom "had to prove his ability to support a wife and children", and "Gypsy children over the age of five were to be taken away and brought up in non-Romani families."

France

Persecution of Huguenots

The St. Bartholomew's Day massacre (french: Massacre de la Saint-Barthélemy) in 1572 was a targeted group of

assassination Assassination is the murder of a prominent or important person, such as a head of state, head of government, politician, world leader, member of a royal family or CEO. The murder of a celebrity, activist, or artist, though they may not have ...

s and a wave of

mob violence A riot is a form of civil disorder commonly characterized by a group lashing out in a violent public disturbance against authority, property, or people. Riots typically involve destruction of property, public or private. The property targete ...

, directed against the

Huguenots The Huguenots ( , also , ) were a Religious denomination, religious group of French people, French Protestants who held to the Reformed, or Calvinist, tradition of Protestantism. The term, which may be derived from the name of a Swiss politica ...

(French

Calvinist Calvinism (also called the Reformed Tradition, Reformed Protestantism, Reformed Christianity, or simply Reformed) is a major branch of Protestantism that follows the theological tradition and forms of Christian practice set down by John Ca ...

Protestant Protestantism is a Christian denomination, branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century agai ...

s) during the

French Wars of Religion The French Wars of Religion is the term which is used in reference to a period of civil war between French Catholic Church, Catholics and Protestantism, Protestants, commonly called Huguenots, which lasted from 1562 to 1598. According to estim ...

. Traditionally believed to have been instigated by Queen

Catherine de' Medici Catherine de' Medici ( it, Caterina de' Medici, ; french: Catherine de Médicis, ; 13 April 1519 – 5 January 1589) was an Florentine noblewoman born into the Medici family. She was Queen of France from 1547 to 1559 by marriage to King ...

, the mother of King Charles IX, the

massacre A massacre is the killing of a large number of people or animals, especially those who are not involved in any fighting or have no way of defending themselves. A massacre is generally considered to be morally unacceptable, especially when per ...

started a few days after the marriage on 18 August of the king's sister Margaret to the Protestant

Henry of Navarre Henry IV (french: Henri IV; 13 December 1553 – 14 May 1610), also known by the epithets Good King Henry or Henry the Great, was King of Navarre (as Henry III) from 1572 and King of France from 1589 to 1610. He was the first monarc ...

(the future Henry IV of France). Many of the wealthiest and most prominent Huguenots had gathered in largely Catholic

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

to attend the wedding. The massacre began in the night of 23–24 August 1572, the eve of the feast of

Bartholomew the Apostle Bartholomew (Aramaic: ; grc, Βαρθολομαῖος, translit=Bartholomaîos; la, Bartholomaeus; arm, Բարթողիմէոս; cop, ⲃⲁⲣⲑⲟⲗⲟⲙⲉⲟⲥ; he, בר-תולמי, translit=bar-Tôlmay; ar, بَرثُولَماو� ...

, two days after the attempted assassination of Admiral Gaspard de Coligny, the military and political leader of the Huguenots. King Charles IX ordered the killing of a group of Huguenot leaders, including Coligny, and the slaughter spread throughout Paris. Lasting several weeks in all, the massacre expanded outward to the countryside and other urban centres. Modern estimates for the number of dead across France vary widely, from 5,000 to 30,000. The massacre marked a turning point in the

. The Huguenot political movement was crippled by the loss of many of its prominent aristocratic leaders, and many rank-and-file members subsequently converted. Those who remained became increasingly radicalized. Though by no means unique, the blood-letting "was the worst of the century's religious massacres". Throughout Europe, it "printed on Protestant minds the indelible conviction that Catholicism was a bloody and treacherous religion".

Vendee

In 1986, Reynald Secher argued that the actions of the French republican government during the revolt in the Vendée (1793–1796), a popular mostly Catholic uprising against the

anti-clerical Anti-clericalism is opposition to religious authority, typically in social or political matters. Historical anti-clericalism has mainly been opposed to the influence of Roman Catholicism. Anti-clericalism is related to secularism, which seeks to ...

Republican government during the

French Revolution The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are considere ...

, was the first modern genocide.Secher, Reynald. ''A French Genocide: The Vendée'', University of Notre Dame Press, (2003), . Secher's claims caused a minor uproar in France and mainstream authorities rejected Secher's claims.Claude Langlois, " Les héros quasi mythiques de la Vendée ou les dérives de l'imaginaire ", in F. Lebrun, 1987, pp. 426–34, et " Les dérives vendéennes de l'imaginaire révolutionnaire ", AESC, n°3, 1988, pp. 771–97. Timothy Tackett countered that "the Vendée was a tragic civil war with endless horrors committed by both sides—initiated, in fact, by the rebels themselves. The Vendeans were no more blameless than were the republicans. The use of the word genocide is wholly inaccurate and inappropriate." However, historians Frank Chalk and Kurt Jonassohn consider the Vendée a case of genocide. Historian Pierre Chaunu called the Vendée the first ideological genocide. Adam Jones estimates that 150,000 Vendeans died in what he also considers a genocide. Fusillades de Nantes

Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth

The

Khmelnytsky Uprising The Khmelnytsky Uprising,; in Ukraine known as Khmelʹnychchyna or uk, повстання Богдана Хмельницького; lt, Chmelnickio sukilimas; Belarusian language, Belarusian: Паўстанне Багдана Хмяльніц ...

( pl, Powstanie Chmielnickiego; lt, Chmelnickio sukilimas; uk, повстання Богдана Хмельницького; russian: восстание Богдана Хмельницкого; also known as the Cossack-Polish War, the Chmielnicki Uprising, or the Khmelnytsky insurrection) was a

Cossack The Cossacks , es, cosaco , et, Kasakad, cazacii , fi, Kasakat, cazacii , french: cosaques , hu, kozákok, cazacii , it, cosacchi , orv, коза́ки, pl, Kozacy , pt, cossacos , ro, cazaci , russian: казаки́ or ...

rebellion Rebellion, uprising, or insurrection is a refusal of obedience or order. It refers to the open resistance against the orders of an established authority. A rebellion originates from a sentiment of indignation and disapproval of a situation and ...

within the

Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, formally known as the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and, after 1791, as the Commonwealth of Poland, was a bi-confederal state, sometimes called a federation, of Crown of the Kingdom of ...

from 1648 to 1657, which led to the creation of a

Cossack Hetmanate The Cossack Hetmanate ( uk, Гетьманщина, Hetmanshchyna; or ''Cossack state''), officially the Zaporizhian Host or Army of Zaporizhia ( uk, Військо Запорозьке, Viisko Zaporozke, links=no; la, Exercitus Zaporoviensis) ...

in Ukrainian lands. Under the command of

Hetman ( uk, гетьман, translit=het'man) is a political title from Central and Eastern Europe, historically assigned to military commanders. Used by the Czechs in Bohemia since the 15th century. It was the title of the second-highest military co ...

Bohdan Khmelnytsky Bohdan Zynovii Mykhailovych Khmelnytskyi ( Ruthenian: Ѕѣнові Богданъ Хмелнiцкiи; modern ua, Богдан Зиновій Михайлович Хмельницький; 6 August 1657) was a Ukrainian military commander and ...

, the

Zaporozhian Cossacks The Zaporozhian Cossacks, Zaporozhian Cossack Army, Zaporozhian Host, (, or uk, Військо Запорізьке, translit=Viisko Zaporizke, translit-std=ungegn, label=none) or simply Zaporozhians ( uk, Запорожці, translit=Zaporoz ...

, allied with the

Crimean Tatars , flag = Flag of the Crimean Tatar people.svg , flag_caption = Flag of Crimean Tatars , image = Love, Peace, Traditions.jpg , caption = Crimean Tatars in traditional clothing in front of the Khan's Palace ...

and local

peasantry A peasant is a pre-industrial agricultural laborer or a farmer with limited land-ownership, especially one living in the Middle Ages under feudalism and paying rent, tax, fees, or services to a landlord. In Europe, three classes of peasants ...

, fought against the armies and

paramilitary A paramilitary is an organization whose structure, tactics, training, subculture, and (often) function are similar to those of a professional military, but is not part of a country's official or legitimate armed forces. Paramilitary units carr ...

forces of the

. The insurgency was accompanied by mass atrocities committed by Cossacks against the civilian population, especially against the

Roman Catholic Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lette ...

clergy and the Jews. In

Jewish history Jewish history is the history of the Jews, and their nation, religion, and culture, as it developed and interacted with other peoples, religions, and cultures. Although Judaism as a religion first appears in Greek records during the Hellenisti ...

, the Uprising is known for the concomitant outrages against the Jews who, in their capacity as leaseholders (''

arendator In the history of the Russian Empire, and Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, arendator (literally "lease holder") (, ) was a person who leased fixed assets, such as land, mills, inns, breweries, or distilleries, or of special rights, such as the r ...

s''), were seen by the peasants as their immediate oppressors.Хмельницкий Богдан
'' The Shorter Jewish Encyclopedia'', 2005.

Herman Rosenthal Herman Rosenthal (October 6, 1843 – 1917) was an American author, editor, and librarian. Biography Rosenthal was born in Friedrichstadt (Jaunjelgava), Courland. He was educated at Bauske (Bauska) and Jakobstadt (Jēkabpils), graduating in 18 ...

COSSACKS' UPRISING
''

The Jewish Encyclopedia ''The Jewish Encyclopedia: A Descriptive Record of the History, Religion, Literature, and Customs of the Jewish People from the Earliest Times to the Present Day'' is an English-language encyclopedia containing over 15,000 articles on th ...

'', 1906. Most of the Jewish communities which existed in the rebellious Hetmanate were devastated by the uprising and the ensuing massacres, though occasionally a Jewish population was spared, notably after the capture of the town of

Brody Brody ( uk, Броди; russian: Броды, Brodï; pl, Brody; german: Brody; yi, בראָד, Brod) is a city in Zolochiv Raion of Lviv Oblast (province) of western Ukraine. It is located in the valley of the upper Styr River, approximately ...

(the population of which was 70% Jewish). According to the book which is titled ''

History of the Rus ''History of Ruthenians or Little Russia'' (russian: Исторія Русовъ, или Малой Россіи, Istoriya Rusov, ili Maloy Rossii) also known as ''History of the Rus' People'' is an anonymous historico-political treatise, most l ...

'', Khmelnytsky's rationale for sparing the Jews of Brody was largely mercantile because Brody was a major trading center and as a result, the Jews who lived there were judged to be useful "for turnovers and profits" and based on this assumption, they were only required to pay "moderate indemnities" in kind. Although many modern sources still give estimates of Jews killed in the uprising at 100,000 or more, others put the numbers killed at between 40,000 and 100,000, and recent academic studies have argued fatalities were even lower. A 2003 study by Israeli demographer

Shaul Stampfer Shaul Stampfer (born 1948) is a researcher of East European Jewry specializing in Lithuanian yeshivas, Jewish demography, migration and education. Biography Shaul Stampfer was born in Atlanta, Georgia, to a Jewish family, and is a descendant of ...

Hebrew University The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJI; he, הַאוּנִיבֶרְסִיטָה הַעִבְרִית בִּירוּשָׁלַיִם) is a public research university based in Jerusalem, Israel. Co-founded by Albert Einstein and Dr. Chaim Weiz ...

dedicated solely to the issue of Jewish casualties in the uprising concludes that 18,000–20,000 Jews were killed of a total population of 40,000.Stampfer, Shaul: ''Jewish History,'' vol 17: "What Actually Happened to the Jews of Ukraine in 1648?", pp. 165–78. 2003
Abstract free
/ref>

Paul Robert Magocsi Paul Robert Magocsi (born January 26, 1945 in Englewood, New Jersey) is an American professor of history, political science, and Chair of Ukrainian Studies at the University of Toronto. He has been with the university since 1980, and became a Fe ...

states that Jewish chroniclers of the 17th century "provide invariably inflated figures with respect to the loss of life among the Jewish population of Ukraine. The numbers range from 60,000–80,000 (Nathan Hannover) to 100,000 (Sabbatai Cohen), but that " e Israeli scholars Shmuel Ettinger and Bernard D. Weinryb speak instead of the 'annihilation of tens of thousands of Jewish lives', and the Ukrainian-American historian Jarowlaw Pelenski narrows the number of Jewish deaths to between 6,000 and 14,000".

Orest Subtelny Orest Subtelny ( uk, О́рест Субте́льний, 17 May 1941 – 24 July 2016) was a Ukrainian-Canadian historian. Born in Kraków, Poland, he received his doctorate from Harvard University in 1973. From 1982 to 2015, he was a Professor ...

concludes:

Between 1648 and 1656, tens of thousands of Jews—given the lack of reliable data, it is impossible to establish more accurate figures—were killed by the rebels, and to this day the Khmelnytsky uprising is considered by Jews to be one of the most traumatic events in their history.

Ireland

= War of the Three Kingdoms

= Towards the end of the

War of the Three Kingdoms The Wars of the Three Kingdoms were a series of related conflicts fought between 1639 and 1653 in the kingdoms of England, Scotland and Ireland, then separate entities united in a personal union under Charles I. They include the 1639 to 1640 Bis ...

(1639–1651), the English

Rump Parliament The Rump Parliament was the English Parliament after Colonel Thomas Pride commanded soldiers to purge the Long Parliament, on 6 December 1648, of those members hostile to the Grandees' intention to try King Charles I for high treason. "Rump" n ...

sent the

New Model Army The New Model Army was a standing army formed in 1645 by the Parliamentarians during the First English Civil War, then disbanded after the Stuart Restoration in 1660. It differed from other armies employed in the 1639 to 1653 Wars of the Th ...

to Ireland to subdue and take revenge on the Catholic population of the country and also to prevent

Royalists A royalist supports a particular monarch as head of state for a particular kingdom, or of a particular dynastic claim. In the abstract, this position is royalism. It is distinct from monarchism, which advocates a monarchical system of governm ...

loyal to Charles II from using

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

as a base to threaten

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. The force was initially under the command of

Oliver Cromwell Oliver Cromwell (25 April 15993 September 1658) was an English politician and military officer who is widely regarded as one of the most important statesmen in English history. He came to prominence during the 1639 to 1651 Wars of the Three Ki ...

and it was later under the command of other

parliamentary A parliamentary system, or parliamentarian democracy, is a system of democracy, democratic government, governance of a sovereign state, state (or subordinate entity) where the Executive (government), executive derives its democratic legitimacy ...

generals. The Army sought to secure the country, but also to confiscate the lands of Irish families that had been involved in the fighting. This became a continuation of the Elizabethan policy of encouraging Protestant settlement of Ireland, because the Protestant New Model army soldiers could be paid in confiscated lands rather than in cash. During the

Interregnum An interregnum (plural interregna or interregnums) is a period of discontinuity or "gap" in a government, organization, or social order. Archetypally, it was the period of time between the reign of one monarch and the next (coming from Latin '' ...

(1651–1660), this policy was enhanced with the passing of the Act of Settlement of Ireland in 1652. Its goal was a further transfer of land from Irish to English hands. The immediate war aims and the longer term policies of the English Parliamentarians resulted in an attempt by the English to transfer the native population to the western fringes to make way for Protestant settlers. This policy was reflected in a phrase attributed—without factual foundation—to Cromwell: "To Hell or to Connaught" and has been described by some nationalist historians as genocide.genocidal or near-genocidal: * * * "It was to be the justification for Cromwell's genocidal campaign and settlement." * " he Act of Settlement of Ireland and the parliamentary legislation which succeeded it the following year, is the nearest thing on paper in the English, and more broadly British, domestic record, to a programme of state-sanctioned and systematic ethnic cleansing of another people. The fact that it did not include 'total' genocide in its remit, or that it failed to put into practice the vast majority of its proposed expulsions, ultimately, however, says less about the lethal determination of its makers and more about the political, structural and financial weakness of the early modern English state."

British Empire

= Great Irish Famine

A small number of historians believe that the Great Famine of Ireland (1845–1852) was a genocide. During the famine, approximately 1 million people died and a million more people emigrated from Ireland, causing the island's population to fall by between 20% and 25% and leading to the formation of the

Irish diaspora The Irish diaspora ( ga, Diaspóra na nGael) refers to ethnic Irish people and their descendants who live outside the island of Ireland. The phenomenon of migration from Ireland is recorded since the Early Middle Ages,Flechner and Meeder, The ...

. The

proximate cause In law and insurance, a proximate cause is an event sufficiently related to an injury that the courts deem the event to be the cause of that injury. There are two types of causation in the law: cause-in-fact, and proximate (or legal) cause. Ca ...

of the

famine A famine is a widespread scarcity of food, caused by several factors including war, natural disasters, crop failure, Demographic trap, population imbalance, widespread poverty, an Financial crisis, economic catastrophe or government policies. Th ...

was a potato disease which is commonly known as

potato blight ''Phytophthora infestans'' is an oomycete or water mold, a fungus-like microorganism that causes the serious potato and tomato disease known as late blight or potato blight. Early blight, caused by ''Alternaria solani'', is also often called "po ...

. Although blight ravaged potato crops throughout Europe during the 1840s, the impact and human cost in Irelandwhere one-third of the population was entirely dependent on the potato for foodwas exacerbated by a host of political, social, and economic factors that remain the subject of historical debate. According to Liam Kennedy, "virtually all historians of Ireland" reject the genocide allegations. Historian

Donald Akenson Donald Harman Akenson (born May 22, 1941, Minneapolis, Minnesota) is an American historian and author. Notably prolific, he has written at least 23 book-length, scholarly monographs, 3 jointly-authored scholarly books, 6 works of fiction and histo ...

, who has written twenty-four books on Ireland, has said of the use of the word 'Holocaust' in relation to Ireland: "When you see it, you know that you are encountering famine-porn. It is inevitably part of a presentation that is historically unbalanced and, like other kinds of

pornography Pornography (often shortened to porn or porno) is the portrayal of sexual subject matter for the exclusive purpose of sexual arousal. Primarily intended for adults,

, is distinguished by a covert (and sometimes overt) appeal to

misanthropy Misanthropy is the general hatred, dislike, distrust or contempt of the human species, human behavior or human nature. A misanthrope or misanthropist is someone who holds such views or feelings. The word's origin is from the Greek words μῖσ ...

and almost always an incitement to hatred."

= Oceania

= Australia

According to one report published in 2009, in 1789 the British deliberately spread

from the

First Fleet The First Fleet was a fleet of 11 ships that brought the first European and African settlers to Australia. It was made up of two Royal Navy vessels, three store ships and six convict transports. On 13 May 1787 the fleet under the command ...

in order to counter overwhelming native tribes near Sydney in New South Wales. In his book ''An Indelible Stain'', Henry Reynolds described this act as genocide. However the majority of scholars disagree that the initial smallpox was the result of deliberate biological warfare and have suggested other causes. The

Black War } The Black War was a period of violent conflict between British Empire, British colonists and Aboriginal Tasmanians in Tasmania from the mid-1820s to 1832. The conflict, fought largely as a guerrilla war by both sides, claimed the lives of 600 ...

was a period of conflict between British colonists and

aboriginal Tasmanians The Aboriginal Tasmanians (Palawa kani: ''Palawa'' or ''Pakana'') are the Aboriginal people of the Australian island of Tasmania, located south of the mainland. For much of the 20th century, the Tasmanian Aboriginal people were widely, and ...

Van Diemen's Land Van Diemen's Land was the colonial name of the island of Tasmania used by the British during the European exploration of Australia in the 19th century. A British settlement was established in Van Diemen's Land in 1803 before it became a sepa ...

(now

Tasmania ) , nickname = , image_map = Tasmania in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of Tasmania in AustraliaCoordinates: , subdivision_type = Country , subdi ...

) in the early 19th century. The conflict, in combination with introduced

diseases A disease is a particular abnormal condition that negatively affects the structure or function of all or part of an organism, and that is not immediately due to any external injury. Diseases are often known to be medical conditions that ar ...

and other factors, had such devastating impacts on the aboriginal Tasmanian population that it was reported that they had been exterminated. Historian Geoffrey Blainey wrote that by 1830, "Disease had killed most of them but warfare and private violence had also been devastating."

Smallpox Smallpox was an infectious disease caused by variola virus (often called smallpox virus) which belongs to the genus Orthopoxvirus. The last naturally occurring case was diagnosed in October 1977, and the World Health Organization (WHO) c ...

was the principal cause of aboriginal deaths in the 19th century. Lemkin and most other comparative genocide scholars present the extinction of the Tasmanian aborigines as a textbook example of a genocide, while the majority of Australian experts are more circumspect. Detailed studies of the events surrounding the extinction have raised questions about some of the details and interpretations in earlier histories. Curthoys concluded, "It is time for a more robust exchange between genocide and Tasmanian historical scholarship if we are to understand better what did happen in Tasmania." On the Australian continent during the colonial period (1788–1901), the population of 500,000–750,000 Australian aborigines was reduced to fewer than 50,000. Most were devastated by the introduction of alien diseases after contact with Europeans, while perhaps 20,000 were killed by massacres and fighting with colonists.

= New Zealand

= In the early 19th century,

Ngāti Mutunga Ngāti Mutunga is a Māori iwi (tribe) of New Zealand, whose original tribal lands were in north Taranaki. They migrated from Taranaki, first to Wellington (with Ngāti Toa and other Taranaki Hāpu), and then to the Chatham Islands (along wit ...

and

Ngāti Tama Ngāti Tama is a historic Māori iwi of present-day New Zealand which whakapapas back to Tama Ariki, the chief navigator on the Tokomaru waka. The iwi of Ngati Tama is located in north Taranaki around Poutama. The Mōhakatino river marks the ...

(local Māori tribes) massacred the Moriori people. The Moriori were the

indigenous people Indigenous peoples are culturally distinct ethnic groups whose members are directly descended from the earliest known inhabitants of a particular geographic region and, to some extent, maintain the language and culture of those original people ...

of the

Chatham Islands The Chatham Islands ( ) (Moriori: ''Rēkohu'', 'Misty Sun'; mi, Wharekauri) are an archipelago in the Pacific Ocean about east of New Zealand's South Island. They are administered as part of New Zealand. The archipelago consists of about te ...

(''Rekohu'' in

Moriori The Moriori are the native Polynesian people of the Chatham Islands (''Rēkohu'' in Moriori; ' in Māori), New Zealand. Moriori originated from Māori settlers from the New Zealand mainland around 1500 CE. This was near the time of th ...

, ''Wharekauri'' in

Māori Māori or Maori can refer to: Relating to the Māori people * Māori people of New Zealand, or members of that group * Māori language, the language of the Māori people of New Zealand * Māori culture * Cook Islanders, the Māori people of the C ...

), east of the New Zealand

archipelago An archipelago ( ), sometimes called an island group or island chain, is a chain, cluster, or collection of islands, or sometimes a sea containing a small number of scattered islands. Examples of archipelagos include: the Indonesian Archi ...

in the Pacific Ocean. These people lived by a code of non-violence and passive resistance (see

Nunuku-whenua Nunuku-whenua was a Moriori chief who is known for being a sixteenth-century pacifist. The Moriori, a Polynesian people, migrated to the then-uninhabited Chatham Islands from mainland New Zealand around the year 1500. Following an intertribal con ...

), which led to their near-extinction at the hands of

Taranaki Taranaki is a region in the west of New Zealand's North Island. It is named after its main geographical feature, the stratovolcano of Mount Taranaki, also known as Mount Egmont. The main centre is the city of New Plymouth. The New Plymouth Dist ...

invaders in the 1830s. In 1835, some Ngāti Mutunga and Ngāti Tama from the

region of

North Island The North Island, also officially named Te Ika-a-Māui, is one of the two main islands of New Zealand, separated from the larger but much less populous South Island by the Cook Strait. The island's area is , making it the world's 14th-largest ...

invaded the Chathams. On 19 November 1835, the ''Rodney'', a European ship hired by the Māori, arrived carrying 500 Māori armed with guns, clubs, and axes, followed by another ship with 400 more warriors on 5 December 1835. They proceeded to enslave some Moriori and kill and cannibalise others. "Parties of warriors armed with muskets, clubs and tomahawks, led by their chiefs, walked through Moriori tribal territories and settlements without warning, permission or greeting. If the districts were wanted by the invaders, they curtly informed the inhabitants that their land had been taken and the Moriori living there were now vassals." A council of Moriori elders was convened at the settlement called Te Awapatiki. Despite knowing of the Māori predilection for killing and eating the conquered, and despite the admonition by some of the elder chiefs that the principle of Nunuku was not appropriate now, two chiefs—Tapata and Torea—declared that "the law of Nunuku was not a strategy for survival, to be varied as conditions changed; it was a moral imperative." A Moriori survivor recalled: "

he Maori He or HE may refer to: Language * He (pronoun), an English pronoun * He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ * He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets * He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' in ...

commenced to kill us like sheep.... ewere terrified, fled to the bush, concealed ourselves in holes underground, and in any place to escape our enemies. It was of no avail; we were discovered and killed—men, women and children indiscriminately." A Māori conqueror explained, "We took possession... in accordance with our customs and we caught all the people. Not one escaped..." After the invasion, Moriori were forbidden to marry Moriori, or to have children with each other. All became slaves of the invaders. Many Moriori women had children by their Maori masters. A small number of Moriori women eventually married either Maori or European men. Some were taken from the Chathams and never returned. Only 101 Moriori out of a population of about 2,000 were left alive by 1862. Although the last Moriori of unmixed ancestry, Tommy Solomon, died in 1933, several thousand mixed-ancestry Moriori are alive today.

Notes

References

Bibliography

* * * Braudel, Fernand, ''The Perspective of the World'', vol. III of ''Civilization and Capitalism'' 1984 (in French 1979). * * * * * * * * Cronon, William, ''Changes in the Land: Indians, Colonists, and the Ecology of New England'' 1983 * * Crosby, Alfred W., ''Ecological Imperialism: The Biological Expansion of Europe, 900–1900'', Cambridge University Press, 1986 * * * * * * * * * * *
ExcerptsChapter 1: Genocide in prehistory, antiquity, and early modernity
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Before 1490

Ancient genocides

Destruction of Carthage

Asiatic Vespers

Tencteri and Usipetes

Gallic Wars

Bar Kokhba revolt

Wu Hu and Jie

Zandaqa

Ancestral Puebloans

Kashmiri Shias

13th-century extermination of the Cathars

Mongol Empire

Tamerlane

Guanches

1490 to 1914

Africa

Atlantic Slave Trade

Congo

Ethiopia under Menelik II (1889–1913)

French conquest of Algeria

German South West Africa

Zulu Kingdom under Shaka Zulu

Americas

Argentina

Canada

=Ontario

= Newfoundland

Haiti

Mexico

= Yucatán

= Apaches

= Yaquis

Peru

United States

Asia

Afghanistan

British rule of India and elsewhere

Dutch East Indies

Dzungar genocide

Taiping Rebellion

Japanese colonization of Hokkaido

Armenians, Assyrians, Bulgarians, Greeks

Philippines

= Spanish colonial era

= American and Japanese eras

Russian Empire

Congress Poland

Siberia

Circassians

Europe

Anti-Romani sentiment (Attempted extirpations of Romani/Gypsies)

France

Persecution of Huguenots

Vendee

Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth

Ireland

= War of the Three Kingdoms

British Empire

= Great Irish Famine

= Oceania

= Australia

= New Zealand

See also

Notes

References

Bibliography

Further reading