This article is intended as a basic history of the colonization of the Americas since 1492, and the Indigenous resistance to this colonization continuing into 1992. The author admits to not having a full understanding of the traditions of his own people, the Kwakiutl (Kwakwaka'wakw); as such the article lacks an analysis based in an authentic Indigenous philosophy and is instead more of a historical chronology.

Numbers in brackets indicate footnotes, fully documented at the end of this article.

INTRODUCTION

Throughout the year 1992, the various states which have profited from the colonization of the Americas will be conducting lavish celebrations of the "Discovery of the Americas". Spain has spent billion of dollars for celebrations in conjunction with Expo `92 in Seville. In Columbus, Ohio, a $100 million quincentennial celebration plans on entertaining several million tourists. CELAM, the association of South America's Catholic bishops, has organized a gathering to celebrate the "fifth centenary of the evangelization of the Americas" to be presided over by the Pope. As well, there is a wide selection of museum exhibits, films, TV shows, books and many other products and activities focusing on Columbus and the "Discovery", all presenting one interpretation of the 500 years following 1492. The main thrust of this interpretation being that the colonization process -- a process of genocide -- has, with a few "bad spots", been overall a mutually beneficial process. The "greatness" of European religions and cultures was brought to the Indigenous peoples, who in return shared the lands and after "accidentally" being introduced to European disease, simply died off and whose descendants now fill the urban ghettos as alcoholics and welfare recipients. Of course, a few "remnants" of Indian cultures was retained, and there are even a few "professional" Indian politicians running around.

That was no "Discovery" -- it was an American Indian Holocaust!

Until recently, commonly accepted population levels of the indigenous peoples on the eve of 1492 were around 10-15 million. This number continues to be accepted by individuals and groups who see 1492 as a "discovery" in which only a few million Indians died -- and then mostly from diseases. More recent demographic studies place the Indigenous population at between 70 to 100 million peoples, with some 10 million in North America, 30 million in Mesoamerica, and around 50 to 70 million in South America.

Today, in spite of 500 years of a genocidal colonization, there is an estimated 40 million Indigenous peoples in the Americas. In Guatemala, the Mayan peoples make up 60.3 percent of the population, and in Bolivia Indians comprise over 70 percent of the total population. Despite this, these Indigenous peoples lack any control over their own lands and comprise the most exploited and oppressed layers of the population; characteristics that are found also in other Indigenous populations in the settler states of the Americas (and throughout the world).

THE PRE-COLUMBIAN WORLD

Before the European colonization of the Americas, in that time of life scholars refer to as "Pre-history" or "Pre-Columbian", the Western hemisphere was a densely populated land. A land with its own peoples and ways of life, as varied and diverse as any of the other lands in the world.

In fact, it was not even called "America" by those peoples. If there was any reference to the land as a whole it was as Turtle Island, or Cuscatlan, or Abya-Yala.

The First Peoples inhabited every region of the Americas, living within the diversity of the land and developing cultural lifeways dependent on the land. Their numbers approached 70-100 million peoples prior to the European colonization.

Generally, the hundreds of different nations can be summarized within the various geographical regions they lived in. The commonality of cultures within these regions is in fact a natural development of people building life-ways dependent on the land. As well, there was extensive interaction and interrelation between the people in these regions, and they all knew each other as nations.

In the Arctic region live(d) the Inuit and Aleut, whose lifeways revolve(d) around the hunting of sea mammals (Beluga whales, walruses, etc.) and caribou, supplemented by fishing and trading with the people to the south.

South of the Arctic, in the Subarctic region of what is today Alaska, the Northwest Territories, and the northern regions of the Canadian provinces, live(d) predominantly hunting and fishing peoples. The variations of these lands range from open tundra to forests and lakes, rivers, and streams. The Cree, Chipewyan, Kaska, Chilcotin, Ingalik, Beothuk, and many other nations inhabit(ed) this region, hunting bear, goats, and deer in the west, musk oxen and caribou further north, or buffalo further south in the prairies.

Altogether in the Arctic and Subarctic regions there lived perhaps as many as 100,000 people.

On the Pacific Northwest coast, stretching from the coasts of Alaska and BC down to northern California, live(d) the Tlingit, Haida, Tsimshian, Kwa-Kwa-Ka'wakw, Nuu-chah-nulth, Nuxalk, Salish, Yurok, and many others. These peoples developed a lifeway revolving around fishing. The peoples of this region numbered as many as four million.

Between the Pacific coastal mountain range and the central plains in what is today southern BC, Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana, live(d) the Sahaptin (Nez Perce), Chopunnish, Shoshone, Siksikas (Blackfeet), and others. These peoples numbered around 200,000.

To the east were people of the plains, encompassing a vast region from Texas up to parts of southern Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba, eastward to North and South Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Missouri, and Arkansas. Here, the Lakota (Sioux), Cheyenne, Arapaho, plains Cree, Siksikas (of the Blackfeet Confederacy, including the Blood and Peigan), Crow, Kiowa, Shoshone, Mandan, and many others, numbered up to one million, and the buffalo as many as 80 million before their slaughter by the Europeans.

Further east, in the lands stretching from the Great Lakes to the Atlantic coast, live(d) hunting, fishing, and farming peoples; the Kanienkehake (Mohawks), Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca (these five nations formed the Haudenosaunee -- the People of the Longhouse -- also known as the Iroquois Confederacy), Ojibway, Algonkin, Micmac, Wendat (Huron), Potowatomi, Tuscarora, and others. In this woodland region, stretching from Ontario, Quebec, and New York, down to the Carolinas, lived up to two million peoples.

South of this area, from parts of the Virginias down to Florida, west of the Gulf of Mexico including Mississippi and Louisiana, live(d) The Muskogee-speaking Choctaw, Creek, and Chikasaw, the Cherokee, Natchez, Tonkawa, Atakapa, and others. One of the most fertile agricultural belts in the world, farming was well established supplemented by hunting and fishing. These peoples numbered between two and three million.

East of this area, in the south-western United States, extending down to northern Mexico and California, live(d) agrarian and nomadic peoples; the Pueblo, Hopi, Zuni, the Yumun-speaking Hualapai, Mojave, Yuma, and Cocopa, the Uto-Aztecan speaking Pimas and Papagos, and the Athapascans consisting of the Navajo (Dine) and Apache peoples. These peoples, altogether, numbered about two million.

In the Mesoamerican region, including Mexico, Guatemala and Belize, live(d) the numerous agricultural peoples, whose primary staple was maize; the Aztecs, Texacoco, Tlacopan, and the Mayans -- in the Yucatan peninsula. Here, large city-states with stone and brick buildings and pyramids, as well as extensive agrarian waterways consisting of dams and canals were built. Written languages were published in books, and the study of astronomy and mathematics was well established. A calendar system more accurate than any in Europe during the 15th century was developed. Altogether, these peoples numbered around 30-40 million.

In the Caribbean basin, including the coastal areas of Columbia, Venezuela, Costa Rica, Honduras, and the many small islands such as Cuba, Hispaniola, Puerto Rico etc., live(d) hunting, fishing, and agrarian peoples such as the Carib, Arawak, Warao, Yukpa, Paujanos, and others. These peoples numbered around five million.

In all of South America there were as many as 40-50 million peoples.

In the Andean highlands of Peru and Chile live(d) the Inca peoples, comprised of the Quechua and Aymara. In the south of Chile live(d) the Mapuche, and in the lowland regions -- including the Amazon region -- live(d) the Yanomami, Gavioe, Txukahame, Kreen, Akarore, and others. South of the Amazon region, in Argentina, Paraguay, and Uruguay, live(d) the Ayoreo, Ache, Mataco, Guarani, and many others. In the southernmost lands live(d) the Qawasgar, Selk'nam, Onu, and others.

With a few exceptions, the First Nations were classless and communitarian societies, with strong matrilineal features. The political sphere of Indigenous life was not dominated by men, but in many cases the responsibility of women. Elders held a position of importance and honour for their knowledge. There were no prisons, for the First Nations peoples had well developed methods of resolving community problems, and there was -- from the accounts of elders -- very little in anti-social crime. Community decisions were most frequently made by consensus and discussions amongst the people.

But the First Nations were not perfect, being humans they had, and still have, their inconsistencies and practises that are not positive.

Some examples can be seen as the armed conflicts between nations throughout the Americas, and practises of slavery amongst the Pacific Northwest coast peoples and in the Mesoamerican region. However, even here the forms of warfare reflected similar developments throughout the world, and in any case never approached the genocidal methods developed, in particular, in Europe. Warfare was the practise of explicitly warrior societies. The accounts of slavery, although there is no way to explain it away, differed sharply from the Europeans in that it was not based on racism, nor was it a fundamental characteristic which formed the economic basis of these societies.

The history of the First Nations must always be analyzed critically; those who tell us that history are rarely ever of the Indigenous peoples.

THE GENOCIDE BEGINS

"Their bodies swelled with greed, and their hunger was ravenous."
- Aztec testimonial

On October 12, 1492, sailing aboard the Santa Maria under finance from the Spanish crown, Cristoforo Colombo stumbled upon the island of Guanahani (believed to be San Salvador), in the Caribbean region. Initially charting a new trade route to Asian markets, the outcome of Colombo's voyage would quickly prove far more lucrative than the opening of new trade routes, as far as Europe was concerned.

It was on Guanahani that Colombo first encountered Taino Arawaks, whom he titled `Indians', believing he had in fact reached Asia. For this initial encounter, Colombo's own log stands as testimony to his own greed:

"No sooner had we concluded the formalities of taking possession of the island than people began to come to the beach... They are friendly and well-dispositioned people who bear no arms except for small spears.

"They ought to make good and skilled servants... I think they can easily be made Christians, for they seem to have no religion. If it pleases Our Lord, I will take six of them to Your Highnesses when I depart" (from Colombo's log, October 12, 1492) [1].

True to his word, if little else, Colombo kidnapped about 9 Taino during his journey through the Bahamas, and anticipated even more kidnappings and enslavement,

"...these people are very unskilled in arms. Your Highnesses will see this for yourselves when I bring you the seven that I have taken. After they learn our languages I shall return them, unless Your Highnesses order that the entire population be taken to Castille, or held captive here. With 50 men you could subject everyone and make them do what you wished" (Colombo's log, October 14, 1492) [2].

Throughout Colombo's log of this first voyage, there is constant reference to the notion that the Taino believe the Europeans to be descended from heaven, despite the fact that [neither] Colombo nor any of his crew understood Arawak. Another consistency in Colombo's log is the obsession with gold, to which there are 16 references in the first two weeks alone, 13 in the following month, and 46 more in the next five weeks, despite the fact that Colombo found very little gold on either Guanahani or any of the other islands he landed on.

In a final reference to Colombo's log, one can also find the dual mission Colombo undertook,

"...Your Highnesses must resolve to make them (the Taino - Oh-Toh-Kin ed.) Christians. I believe that if this effort commences, in a short time a multitude of peoples will be converted to our Holy Faith, and Spain will acquire great domains and riches and all of their villages. Beyond doubt there is a very great amount of gold in this country... Also, there are precious stones and pearls, and an infinite quantity of spices" (Colombo's log, November 11, 1492) [3].

The duality of Colombo's mission, and the subsequent European invasion that followed, was the Christianization of non-Europeans and the expropriation of their lands. The two goals are not unconnected; "Christianization" was not merely a program for European religious indoctrination, it was an attack on non-European culture (one barrier to colonization) and a legally and morally sanctioned form of war for conquest. "Even his name was prophetic to the world he encountered -- Christopher Columbus translates to `Christ-bearer Colonizer'" [4].

Still on his first voyage, Colombo meandered around the Caribbean and eventually established the first Spanish settlement, `Natividad', on the island of Hispaniola (today Haiti and the Dominican Republic). Leaving about 35 men on Hispaniola, Colombo and his crew returned to Spain to gather the materials and men needed for the coming colonization, and to report to the crown on his journey.

In September, 1493, Colombo returned to Hispaniola with a fleet of 17 ships and 1,200 men. The detachment that had been left on Hispaniola had been destroyed following outrages by the Spaniards against the Taino. The resistance had already begun.

Colombo would make four voyages in all, the remaining two in 1498 and 1502. His voyages around the Caribbean brought him to what is now Trinidad, Panama, Jamaica, Venezuela, Dominica, and several other islands -- capturing Native peoples for slavery and extorting gold through a quota of a hawks bell of gold dust to be supplied by every Native over the age of 14 every 3 months. Failure to fill the quota often entailed cutting the `violators' hands off and leaving them to bleed to death. Hundreds of Carib and Arawak were shipped to Spain as slaves under Colombo's governorship, 500 alone following his second voyage. Indeed, the absence of a "great amount of gold" in the Caribbean had Colombo devising another method of financing the colonization: "The savage and cannibalistic Carib should be exchanged as slaves against livestock to be provided by merchants in Spain."

Colombo died in 1506, but following his initial voyage to the Americas, wave upon wave of first Spanish, then Portuguese, Dutch, French and British expeditions followed, carrying with them conquistadors, mercenaries, merchants, and Christian missionaries.

Hispaniola served as the first beachhead, used by the Spanish as a staging ground for armed incursions and reconnaissance missions, justified through the `Christianization' program; one year after Colombo's first voyage, Pope Alexander VI in his inter cetera divina papal bull granted Spain all the world not already possessed by Christian states, excepting the region of Brazil, which went to Portugal.

While the Spanish laid the groundwork for their colonization plans, other European nations began to send their own expeditions.

In 1497, Giovanni Caboto Motecataluna (John Cabot), financed by England, crossed the Atlantic and charted the Atlantic coast of North America. Under the commission of Henry VII to "conquer, occupy, and possess" the lands of "heathens and infidels", Cabot reconnoitered the Newfoundland coast -- kidnapping three Micmacs in the process.

At around the same time, Gaspar Corte Real, financed by Portugal, reconnoitered the Labrador and Newfoundland coasts, kidnapping 57 Beothuks to be sold as slaves to offset the cost of the expedition.

Meanwhile, Amerigo Vespucci -- for whom the Americas were named after -- and Alonso de Ojedo, on separate missions for Spain, reconnoitered the west Indies and the Pacific coast of South America. Ojedo was actively carrying out slave raids, and was killed by a warrior's poisoned arrow for his efforts.

From the papal bull of 1493 and a subsequent Treaty of Tordesillas (1494), Portugal had been given possession of Brazil. In 1500, the Portuguese admiral Pedro Alvares Cabral formally claimed the land for the Portuguese crown.

Now that the initial reconnaissance missions had been completed, the invasion intensified and expanded. In 1513, Ponce de Leon, financed by Spain, attempted to land in Florida, but was driven off by 80 Calusa war canoes.

From 1517 to 1521, the Spanish conquistador Hernando Cortes laid waste to the Aztec empire in Mexico, capturing the capital city of Tenochtitlan and killing millions in a ruthless campaign for gold.

Shortly afterwards, in 1524, Pedro de Alvarado invaded the region of El Salvador, attacking the Cuscatlan, Pipeles, and Quiche peoples. In Guatemala Alvarado conducted eight major campaigns against the Mayans, and while he and his men were burning people alive, the Catholic priests accompanying him were busy destroying Mayan historical records (that is, while they weren't busy directing massacres themselves). Alvarado's soldiers were rewarded by being allowed to enslave the survivors.

In 1531, the Spaniard Francisco Pizarro invaded the region of the Incas (now Peru). Taking advantage of an internal struggle between two Inca factions led by the brothers Huascar and Atahualpa, Pizarro succeeded in subjugating the Incas by 1533.

Ten years later, Pedro de Valdivia claimed Chile for the Spanish crown, although fierce resistance by the Mapuche nation restricted the Spanish to the northern and central regions. Valdivia was eventually killed in battle by Mapuche warriors.

During this same period, Jacques Cartier, financed by France in 1534, was reconnoitering the eastern regions of what would become Canada, and Spaniards such as Hernando de Sotos, Marcos de Niza and others began penetrating into North America, claiming the lands for their respective countries, as was their custom.

EXPANSION, EXPLOITATION, AND EXTERMINATION

"I am Smallpox... I come from far away... where the great water is and then far beyond it. I am a friend of the Big Knives who have brought me; they are my people."
- Jamake Highwater, Anpao: an Indian Odyssey

The formulative years of the colonization process were directed towards exploiting the lands and peoples to the fullest. To the Europeans, the Americas was a vast, unspoiled area suitable for economic expansion and exploitation.

The primary activity was the accumulation of gold and silver, then a form of currency among the European nations. This accumulation was first accomplished through the crudest forms of theft and plunder (ie. Colombo's and Cortes' methods). Eventually, more systematic forms were developed, including the encomiendas -- a form of taxation imposed on Indigenous communities that had been subjugated, and the use of Indigenous slaves to pan the rivers and streams. By the mid-1500s, the expropriation of gold and silver involved intensive mining. Entire cities and towns developed around the mines. Millions of Indigenous peoples died working as slaves in the mines at Guanajuato and Zacatecas in Mexico, and Potosi in Bolivia. By the end of the 1500s, Potosi was one of the largest cities in the world at 350,000 inhabitants. Peru was also another area of intensive mining. From the time of the arrival of the first European colonizers until 1650, 180-200 tons of gold -- from the Americas -- was added to the European treasury. In today's terms, that gold would be worth $2.8 billion [5]. During the same period, eight million slaves died in the Potosi mines alone.

Slavery was another major economic activity. Not only for work in the mines, but also for export to Europe. In Nicaragua alone, the first ten years of intensive slaving, beginning in 1525, saw an estimated 450,000 Miskitu and Sumu peoples shipped to Europe. Tens of thousands perished in the ships that transported them. Subsequently, the slave trade would turn to Afrika, beginning in the mid-1500s when Portuguese colonists brought Afrikan slaves to Brazil to cut cane and clear forest area for the construction of settlements and churches. An estimated 15 million Afrikan peoples would be brought as slaves to the Americas by 1800, and a further 40 million or so perished in the transatlantic crossing in the miserable conditions of the ships holds.

In areas such as the highlands of northern Chile, Peru, Guatemala, and Mexico, where the climate was more suitable, the Spanish were able to grow crops such as wheat, cauliflower, cabbage, lettuce, radish, sugar cane, and later grapes, bananas, and coffee. By the mid-1500s, using slave labour, many of these crops -- particularly wheat and sugar cane -- were large-scale exports for the European markets.

In other areas, sprawling herds of cattle were established. Herds which rarely exceeded 800 or 1,000 in Spain reached as many as 8,000 in Mexico. By 1579, some ranches in northern Mexico had up to 150,000 head of cattle [6].

The effects of extensive land-clearing for the crops and ranches and intensive mining culminated in increasing deforestation and damage to the lands. More immediately for the Indigenous peoples in the region, particularly those who lived on subsistence agriculture, was the dismantling of destruction of agrarian ways replaced by export crops.

In order to carry out this expansion and exploitation, the subjugation of the First Nations was a necessity, and the task of colonizing other peoples was one in which the Europeans had had plenty of experience.

"In a sense, the first people colonized under the profit motivation by the use of labour...were the European and English peasantry. Ireland, Bohemia and Catalonia were colonized. The Moorish nation, as well as the Judaic Sephardic nation, were physically deported by the Crown of Castille from the Iberian peninsula...All the methods for relocation, deportation and expropriation, were already practised if not perfected" [7].

Prior to Colombo's 1492 voyage, the development of a capitalist mode of production emerging from feudalism had dispossessed European peasants of independent production and subsistence agriculture. Subsequently, they were to enter into a relationship of forced dependence to land-owners and manufacturers, leading to periods of intense class struggle, particularly as the Industrial Revolution (fueled by the expropriation of materials from the Americas and Afrika) loomed ever larger.

Indeed, the majority of Europeans who emigrated to the Americas in the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries were impoverished merchants, petit-bourgeois traders, mercenaries, and Christian missionaries all hoping to build their fortunes in the `New World' and escape the deepening class stratification that was quickly developing. However, the first permanent settlements were limited, their main purpose being to facilitate and maintain areas of exploitation. During the entire 16th century, only an estimated 100,000 Europeans were permanent emigrants to the Americas.

Their effects, however, were overwhelming; in the same 100 year period, the populations of the Indigenous peoples declined from 70-100 million to around 12 million. The Aztec nation alone had been reduced from around 30 million to 3 million in one 50 year period. The only term which describes this depopulation is that of Genocide; an American Indian holocaust.

Apologists for the Genocide attribute the majority of deaths to the introduction of disease epidemics such as smallpox and measles by unknowing Europeans.

While attempting to diminish the scale and intensity of the Genocide (other forms of this diminishment are claiming the population of the Americas was a much smaller portion than generally accepted demographic numbers), such a perspective disregards the conditions in which these diseases were introduced. Conditions such as wars, massacres, slavery, scorched earth policies and the subsequent destruction of subsistence agriculture and food-stocks, and the accompanying starvation, malnutrition, and dismemberment of communally-based cultures.

These conditions were not introduced by "unknowing" Europeans; they were parts of a calculated campaign based on exploitation in which the extermination of Indigenous peoples was a crucial factor.

European diseases introduced into these conditions came as an after-effect of the initial attacks. And their effects were disastrous. Once the effects of the epidemics were realized however, the use of biological warfare was also planned in the form of infected blankets and other textiles supplied to Indigenous peoples.

THE PENETRATION OF NORTH AMERICA

While the Spanish were destroying the Caribbean and Mesoamerican region, the Portuguese were carrying out similar campaigns in Brazil. The patterns established by the Spanish would be repeated by the Portuguese during the 16th and 17th centuries in Brazil, Uruguay, and Paraguay.

By the beginning of the 17th century, the Spanish and Portuguese had penetrated virtually every region in the southern hemisphere, establishing numerous settlements facilitated with the help of Jesuit and Franciscan missionaries, as well as mines, ranches, and plantations. Despite all this, there were still large areas in which European claims to lands remained a theoretical proposition; these areas remained outside of European control with fierce Indigenous resistance. This was particularly so in the southern regions.

During this period, French, Dutch, and advance elements of the British also established settlements in the Caribbean.

In 1604, the French occupied the island of Guadaloupe, followed by the island of Martinique and various smaller islands in the West Indies. In 1635 they occupied what is now French Guiana.

Meanwhile, the Dutch occupied a coastal region that would eventually become Surinam (Dutch Guiana) as well as settlements established by the Dutch West India Company in the area of Belize (which would later become a British colony).

The Dutch, French, and British were relatively limited in their exploits in the South Americas, and it would be in North America where their main efforts would be directed.

As has already been noted, French expeditions had penetrated the north-eastern regions of what would become Quebec and the Atlantic provinces, in the 1530s. In 1562 and 1564, the French attempted to establish settlements in South Carolina and Florida, but were driven out by the Spanish (who had claimed Florida in 1539 during de Soto's perilous expedition).

In 1585 the British also attempted settlements, on Roanoke Island in North Carolina, and again in 1586. Both attempts failed when the settlers-to-be were unable to survive.

In the period up to 1600, more reconnaissance missions were conducted; in 1576 Martin Frobisher charted the Arctic coasts encountering Inuuk, and in 1578 Francis Drake charted the coast of California.

Meanwhile, the Spanish were pushing into North America from their bases in southern Mexico, encountering resistance from Pueblos and others.

In the beginning of the 1600s, as the horse spread throughout the southwest and into the plains, Samuel de Champlain expanded on Cartiers' earlier expedition, penetrating as far west as Lake Huron and Lake Ontario. his attacks on Onondago communities, using Wendat (Huron) warriors, would turn the Haudenosaunee against the French.

In 1606, the British finally succeeded in establishing their first permanent settlement in North America at Jamestown, Virginia. In 1620, Pilgrims (English Puritans) landed on the east coast also, establishing the Plymouth colony.

Meanwhile, Beothuks in Newfoundland had retaliated against a French attack in clashes that followed killed 37 French settlers. The French responded by arming Micmacs -- traditional enemies of the Beothuks -- and offering bounties for Beothuk scalps. This is believed to the origin of `scalp-taking' by Native warriors; the stereo-type of Native `savagery' was in fact introduced by the French and, later, the Dutch. The combined attacks by the French and Micmacs led to the eventual extermination of the Beothuk nation.

In 1624, the Dutch established Fort Orange (later to become Albany, New York) and claimed the area as New Netherland.

While the Atlantic coast area of North America was becoming quickly littered with British, French and Dutch settlements, substantial differences in the lands and resources forced the focus of exploitation to differ from the colonization process underway in Meso- and South America.

In the South, the large-scale expropriation of gold and silver financed much of the invasion. As well, the dense populations of the Indigenous peoples provided a large slave-labour force to work in the first mines and plantations.

In contrast, the Europeans who began colonizing North America found a lower population density and the lands, though fertile for crops and abundant in fur-bearing animals, contained little in precious metals accessible to 17th century European technology.

The exploitation of North America was to require long-term activities which could not rely on Indigenous or Afrikan slavery but in fact which required Indigenous participation. Maintaining colonies thousands of miles away from Europe and lacking the gold which financed the Spanish armada, the colonial forces in North America would have to rely on the gradual accumulation of agricultural products and the fur trade.

In this way, the initial settlements relied largely on the hospitality afforded them by the Native peoples. Earlier attempts at European settlements had failed for precisely this reason, as the Europeans found themselves almost completely ignorant of the land.

The growing European colonies quickly set about acquiring already cleared and cultivated land, and their expansionist policies led to fierce competition between the colonies. This bitter struggle for domination of land and trade frequently began and ended with attacks against Indigenous communities. One of the first of these `strategic attacks' occurred in 1622 when a force from the Plymouth colony massacred a group of Pequots. In retaliation, Pequote warriors attacked a settler village at Wessagusset, which was then abandoned and subsequently absorbed into the dominion of the Plymouth colony, which had coveted the trade and land enjoyed by the Wessagusset settlers.

By 1630, the Massachusetts Bay colony had been established, and `New England', once only a vague geographical expression came to apply in practise to the colonies of New Plymouth, Salem, Nantucket, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Haven and others.

The expansionist drives of the Massachusetts colonists consisted of massacres carried out against first the Pequot and eventually the Narragansetts between 1634 and 1648.

It was in this period that the transition between European dependence on Native peoples began to be reversed. Through the establishment and expansion of European colonies, increased contact with First Nations brought extensive trading, as well as disease epidemics and conflict.

Trade gradually served to break up Indigenous societies,

"Indian industry became less specialized and divided as it entered into closer relations of exchange with European industry. For the Indians, intersocietal commerce triumphed by subordinating and eliminating all crafts except those directly related to the European-Indian trade, while intertribal trading relations survived only insofar as they served the purposes of intersocietal trade" [9].

Thus, trade with European industry developed a relationship of growing dependence on the European colonists. The items traded to Natives -- metal pots, knives, and occasionally rifles -- were of European manufacture and supply. The trade also disrupted and changed traditional Native methods in other ways, with the introduction of alcohol and exterminationist forms of warfare -- including torture -- under the direction of the colonialists, as well as an overall escalation in warfare in the competition-driven fur trade and introduction of European rifles.

While disease epidemics began to spread throughout the Atlantic coastal area, the colonialists also relied to a large extent on exploiting and exaggerating already existing hostilities between First Nations, as the Spanish and Portuguese had also done in their campaigns,

"The grim epics of Cortes and Pizarro, not to speak of Columbus himself, testify to the military abilities of Spanish soldiery, but these need to be compared as well with the great failures of Narvaez, Coronado and de Soto... (The conquistadors) did not conquer Mexico and Peru unaided. Native allies were indispensable... North of New Spain, invasion started later, so Frenchmen, Dutchmen, and Englishmen found native communities...already reduced by epidemic from base populations that never approached the size of Mexico" [10].

It was at this time that the concept of treaty making began to take hold. In keeping with the English colonists early plans of keeping some level of peace with the Natives, as in 1606 when

"the Virginia Company of London instructed its colonists to buy a stock of corn from the `naturals' before the English intention to settle permanently should become evident. The Company's chiefs were sure that `you cannot carry yourselves so towards them but they will grow discontented with your habitation'" [11].

The initial English (and Dutch) settlers began the process of purchasing land, supplemented as always with armed force against vulnerable Indigenous nations (such as those decimated by disease or already engaged in wars with more powerful First Nations).

It remains unclear as to what the First Nations understood of the local purchasing process, but some points are clear; there was no practise of private ownership of land, nor of selling land, among or between the Peoples prior to the arrival of the colonialists; there were however agreements and pacts between First Nations in regards to access to hunting or fishing areas. This would indicate treaties were most likely understood as agreements between First Nations and settler communities over use of certain areas of land, as well as non-aggressiveness pacts. In either case, where First Nations remained powerful enough to deter initial settler outrages the treaties were of little effect if they turned out to be less than honourable, and there was enough duplicity, fraud, and theft contained in the treaties that they could not be considered binding. Practises such as orally translating one version of a treaty and signing another on paper were frequent, as was taking European proposals in negotiations and claiming that these had been agreed upon by all -- when in fact they were being negotiated. As well, violations of treaty agreements by settlers was commonplace, particularly as, for example, the Virginia colony discovered the profitability of growing tobacco (introduced to the settlers by Native peoples) and began expanding on their initial land base.

Gradually, First Nations along the Atlantic found themselves dispossessed of their lands and victims of settler depredations. One of the first conflicts that seriously threatened to drive the colonialist forces back into the sea broke out in 1622, when the Powhatan Confederacy, led by Opechancanough, attacked the Jamestown colony. Clashes continued until 1644, when Opechancanough was captured and killed.

By the mid-1600s, clashes between Natives and settlers began to increase. Tensions grew as the Europeans became more obtuse and domineering in their relationship with the First Nations. In 1655 for example, the so-called `Peach Wars' erupted between colonialists of New Netherlands and the Delaware Nation when a Dutchman killed a Delaware woman for picking a peach tree on the colonies `property'. The settler was subsequently killed and Delaware warriors attacked several Dutch settlements. The fighting along the Hudson River lasted until 1664 when the Dutch forced the Delaware nation into submission by kidnapping Delaware children as hostages.

In 1675 the Narragansetts, Nipmucs, and Wapanoags, led in part by Metacom (also known as King Philip by the Europeans) rebelled against the colonies of New England following the English arrest and execution of three Wapanoags for the alleged killing of a Christianized Native, believed to be a traitor. The war ended in 1676 after the English colonialists -- making use of Native allies and informers -- were able to defeat the rebellion. Metacom was killed, and his family and hundreds of others sold to slavers in the West Indies. The military campaign carried out by the colonial forces decimated the Narragansett, Nipmuc, and Wapanoag nations.

Meanwhile in 1680, a Pueblo uprising led in part by the Tewa Medicine man Pope succeeded in driving out the Spanish from New Mexico. By 1689, Spanish forces were able to once again subjugate the Pueblos.

By the late 1600s, the competition between European states would dominate the colonization process in North America.

THE EUROPEAN STRUGGLE FOR HEGEMONY

Although colonial wars had been fought in the past between France, Spain, The Netherlands, and England, and conflicts had erupted between their colonies in the Americas, the late 1680s and the following 100 year period was to be a time of bitter struggle between the Europeans for domination. This period of European wars was to be played out also in the Americas, "To a great extent, the battle for colonies and the wealth they produced was the ultimate battlefield for state power in Europe" [12].

Beginning in 1689 with King William's War between the French and the English, which evolved into Queen Anne's War (1702-13), to King George's War (1744-48) and culminating in the so-called `French and Indian War' (1754-63), the battles for colonial possessions in the Americas mirrored those raging across Europe in the same period, except that in North American and in the Caribbean, the European struggle for hegemony in the emerging world trade market would employ heavy concentrations of Native warriors.

While the British emerged victorious from the `Great War for Empire', and the French defeated ceding Hudson Bay, Acadia, New France and other territories in a series of treaties, those who were most affected by the European struggles were the Native peoples of the Atlantic regions. The fallout from those wars was the virtual extermination of some Indigenous peoples, including the Apalachees in Florida, the establishment of colonial military garrisons and outposts, a general militarization of the region with heavier armaments and combat veterans, and the subsequent expansion of colonial settlements, extending their frontiers and pushing many First Nations further west.

During the period of the colonial wars, Indigenous resistance did not end, nor was it limited to aiding their respective `allies'.

In 1711, the Tuscaroras attacked the English in North Carolina and fought for two years, until the English counter-insurgency campaign left hundreds dead and some 400 sold into slavery. The Tuscaroras fled north, settling among the Haudenosaunee and becoming the Sixth Nation in 1722.

In 1715, the Yamasee nation rose up against the English in South Carolina, but were virtually exterminated in a ruthless English campaign.

In 1720, the Chickasaw nation warred against French occupation, until France's capitulation to England in 1763. Similarly, Fox resistance to French colonialism continued from 1920 to around 1735.

In 1729, the Natchez nation began attacking French settlers in Louisiana after governor Sieur Chepart ordered their main village cleared for his plantations. In the ensuing battles, Chepart was killed and the French counter-insurgency campaign left the Natchez decimated, although guerrilla struggle was to continue along the Mississippi River.

In 1760 the Cherokee nation began their own guerrilla war against their `allies' the English, in Virginia and Carolina. Led by Oconostota, the Cherokee fought for two years, eventually agreeing to a peace treaty which saw partitions of their land ceded after the English colonial forces had razed Cherokee villages and crops.

In 1761, Aleuts in Alaska attacked Russian traders following depredations on Aleut communities off the coast of Alaska (the Russian colonizers eventually moved into the Pribilof and Aleutian islands in 1797, relocating Aleuts and virtually enslaving them in the seal hunt).

Against British colonization, the Ottawa leader Pontiac led an alliance of Ottawas, Algonquins, Senecas, Mingos, and Wyandots in 1763. The offensive captured nine of twelve English garrisons and laid siege to Detroit for six months. Unable to expand the insurgency or draw in promised French assistance, Pontiac eventually negotiated an end to the conflict in 1766.

Added to this period of warfare was the continuing spread of disease epidemics. In 1746 in Nova Scotia alone, 4,000 Micmacs had died of disease.

With the defeat of France, the British had acquired vast regions of formerly French territory, unbeknownst to the many First Nations who lived on those lands, and with whom the French never negotiated any land treaties nor recognized any form of Native title.

At this time,

"...the British government seized the opportunity to consolidate its imperial position by structuring formal, constitutional relations with...natives. In the Proclamation of 1763, it announced its intention of conciliating those disgruntled tribes by recognizing their land rights, by securing to them control of unceded land, and by entering into a nation-to-nation relationship" [13].

The Royal Proclamation of 1763 provided for a separate `Indian Territory' west of the Appalachians and the original Thirteen Colonies. Within this territory there was to be no purchasing of land other than by the crown. In the colonies now under British control, including Newfoundland, Labrador, Quebec, Nova Scotia, as well as the Thirteen Colonies, settlers occupying unceded Native lands were to be removed, and private purchases of lands occupied by or reserved for Natives was prohibited -- these lands could only be purchased by the crown in the presence of the First Nations.

As grand as these statements were, they were routinely violated by colonialists and rarely enforced. Indeed, one year following the proclamation, Lord Dunmore -- the governor of the Virginia colony -- had already breached the demarcation line by granting to veterans of the `French and Indian War' who had served under him lands which were part of the Shawnee nation. The Shawnee retaliation was not short in coming, but Dunmore's challenge to British control was to precipitate in form and substance another period of conflict that would see the colonization process expand westward. And that period of conflict would underline the real intent of the Royal Proclamation as a strategic document in the defense of British colonial interests in North America.

TRAGEDY: THE UNITED STATES IS CREATED

With the dominance of British power on a world scale, the European struggle for hegemony in the Americas was nearing its end. Subsequently, the 18th and 19th centuries were to be a period of wars for independence that would force the European states out of the Americas. Foremost among these wars was the independence struggle that would lead to the birth of the United States.

Emerging from the `Great War for Empire', Britain found itself victorious but also heavily in debt. To defray the cost of maintaining and defending the colonies, Britain substantially changed its colonial policies. Large portions of the financial costs of the colonies were placed directly on the colonies themselves through a series of taxes. The imposition of the taxes incited the settlers to demand taxes be imposed only with their consent. In fact, the question of taxes was part of a wider debate; who should control and profit from colonialism, the colonies or the colonial centres.

By 1775, settler protests and revolts had culminated into a general war for independence that continued until 1783, when the British capitulated and ceded large portions of its territories along the Atlantic.

That the British colonial forces did not lose more territory can be attributed much to the participation of numerous First Nations on the side of the British; the Royal Proclamation was thus a strategy to dampen Native resistance to British colonialism (as in the eruption of King George's War in 1744 when Micmacs allied themselves with the French and, following the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748, continued fighting the British, who then concluded a treaty of "Peace and Friendship" with the Micmacs), as well as a method of forming military alliances with First Nations, if not at least their neutrality in European conflicts.

As in previous European struggles, Indigenous peoples were used as expendable troops, and the extensive militarization further consolidated settler control,

"The end of the war saw thousands of Whites, United Empire Loyalists, flock to Nova Scotia. They came in such numbers and spread so widely over the Maritime region that it was considered necessary to divide Nova Scotia into three provinces to ease administrative problems; New Brunswick, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia...and Ile St.-Jean, soon to be renamed Prince Edward Island" [14].

To the south, the rebellious settlers were establishing their newly-created United States. For the First Nations in this region, the war had been particularly destructive; the colonial rebels had carried out scorched-earth campaigns against the Shawnee, Delaware, Cherokee, and the Haudenosaunee (which had suffered a split with the Oneidas and Tuscaroras allying themselves with the revolutionaries).

Here again the Royal Proclamation remained a useful tool in re-enforcing the British colonial frontier and retaining Native allies,

"Adherence to the principles of the...Proclamation...remained the basis of Britain's Indian policy for more than half a century, and explains the success of the British in maintaining the Indians as allies in Britain's wars in North America... Even when Britain lost much of its North American territory after 1781, and its Indian allies lost their traditional lands as a result of their British alliance, the Crown purchased land from the Indians living within British territory and gave it to their allies who moved north..." [15].

Having consolidated the Thirteen Colonies along the Atlantic seaboard, the independent United States quickly set about expanding westward, launching military campaigns to extend the frontiers of settlement.

One of the first of these campaigns began in 1790 under the order of President George Washington. Consisting of about 1,100 Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Kentucky militiamen led by Brigadier General Josiah Harmar, the force was quickly defeated by a confederacy of Miami, Shawnee, Ojibway, Delaware, Potawatomi, and Ottawa warriors led by the Miami chief Michikinikwa (Little Turtle). A second force was dispatched and defeated in November, 1791. Finally, in 1794, a large force led by General Anthony Wayne defeated the confederacy, now led by Turkey Foot, near the shores of Lake Erie. Warriors who survived made their way to the British Fort Miami garrison. But the British -- former allies of many of the First Nations in the confederacy during the revolutionary war -- refused them shelter, and hundreds were slaughtered at the gates by Wayne's soldiers. Although the confederacy was essentially broken, the Miami would continue armed resistance up to 1840.

The `Indian Wars' launched by the US continued for the next 100 years, following an exterminationist policy that was aimed at destroying Native nations and securing those remnants who survived in (what was then believed) barren and desolate reserves. Once the People were contained in these Bantustans, the next step was the destruction of Native culture under the auspices of then-emerging governmental agencies.

As the US moved to a higher level of war against First Nations, it also began moving against competing European powers still present in the Americas.

In 1812, using the pretext of Native raids along its northern frontier from British territories, US forces attempted to invade British North America. Here again, Britain's colonial policies proved effective; an alliance of Native nations (who had their own interests in full implementation of the 1763 Proclamation) and European settlers succeeded in repulsing the US expansion. Among those who fought against the US invasion were the Native leaders Tecumseh -- a Shawnee chief who worked to form a Native confederacy against the Europeans (and who argued that no one individual or grouping could sell the lands, as it belonged to all the Native peoples); Black Hawk -- a leader of the Sauk who would also lead future Native insurgencies; and Joseph Brant -- a leader in the Haudenosaunee who was rewarded with a large territory by the British and promptly began selling off partitions to European settlers (in history, he is regarded as a "hero" by Euro-Americans but a traitor by his people). Tecumseh was killed in battle in the Battle of Moraviantown in Ontario in 1813.

In 1815, hostilities between Britain and the US were formally ended in the Treaty of Ghent, though neither the US war on Natives, or Native resistance, subsided.

REVOLUTIONS IN THE 'NEW WORLD'

Following the American Revolution, movements for independence began breaking out in South and Central America.

Despite the seemingly monolithic appearance of Spanish or Portuguese colonialism in the first three centuries following the European invasion, and despite the genocidal policies of the conquistadors, Native resistance continued. Particula