Native Americans, as a race, have suffered from the very beginning of contact with the English colonists. They once constituted 100 percent of the population in North America, whereas today they represent 2 percent of the population. The term genocide refers to the systematic killing of a whole national or ethnic group, and the denial of the right of existence to entire human groups, as homicide is the denial of the right to live. This paper will give evidence that genocide was committed against the Native Americans by the English colonists.
At first, the colonists and the Natives for the most part kept to themselves, sometimes exchanging items with each other. The Natives would give the colonists beans, pumpkins, corn, and many other vegetables, while the colonists would give the Natives measles, small pox, and the flu. Disease accounted for most of the deaths of the Native Americans. It was not until land became an issue that hostilities had started between the colonists and Natives. The Puritans believed that the plagues spread among the Native Americans were acts of God in order to pave the way for the colonists. .
As the more colonists arrived to the New World, hostilities between the colonists and the Natives grew, later leading to the Pequot War. Unlike the Native Americans, who tried to minimize the casualties as was usual in Indian warfare, the colonists, led by Captain John Mason, planned and directed large scale massacres at many villages, basically killing anyone that moved, and later pardoning themselves based on the belief that their actions were "God's Will." The few remaining males of the Pequots were systematically executed. The women and children were to be captured and sold as slaves in the West Indies. The Pequot name was later removed from all of New England's maps so that there was no recollection of their existence .
Statistics largely support the case of genocide against the Natives.