Ethnic Cleansing and the Indian: The Crime That Should Haunt America

In his 2005 title, The Conquest of Texas: Ethnic Cleansing in the Promised Land, 1820–1875, Anderson (history, Univ. of Oklahoma) argues that it was the policy of Texas, primarily through its Texas Rangers, to use extreme violence against native peoples, both friendly and hostile, either to drive them from the region or exterminate them. Now Anderson builds upon his ethnic cleansing thesis by applying the International Court of Justice (World Court) definitions of "genocide," "crimes against humanity," and "war crimes" to the 400-plus-year history of relations between Euroamericans and American Indians. There certainly are episodes that would qualify as war crimes, most notably the Mystic massacre by Puritans during the Pequot War (1637). One could argue that the removal of native peoples to the West by President Andrew Jackson's administration also rose to the level of war crimes since it involved the appropriation of millions of acres of land. Anderson's case is less convincing at other times because the author fails to take into account the agency of native peoples that assisted Americans against other native groups because it was felt to be in their best interests.