The Illuminations

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Native & Indigineous Populations of Central & South Americas

Beyond Genocide #15, completed 200X.

“The invasion of the Americas spearheaded by Christopher Columbus in 1492 was the beginning of the end for many of the Western Hemisphere’s native peoples. Over the next several centuries, the Spaniards, the Portuguese, the English and the French built empires in their new domains and consolidated their rule from the Arctic Circle in the north to Tierra del Fuego in the south…

The native peoples of the New World were devastated by their contacts with the Europeans, and the charge of genocide is frequently leveled at the colonial powers. The scale of the Indians population decline is still being debated by scholars, but whether the losses suffered by the aboriginal population amounted to 50%, 95% or some figure in between, the catastrophic demographic impact of the European exploration and settlement of the New World on the Indian People is an undeniable fact.”

Chalk, F., Jonassohn, K. (1990). The History and Sociology of Genocide Analyses and Case Studies. Yale University Press.