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Argues that North American settler colonialism included episodes of genocide of Indigenous peoples as defined by the United Nations Genocide Convention.
List of contents
Introduction; 1. North American genocide denial; 2. The legal case for historical genocides: a retrospective methodology; 3. Settler colonialism and Indigenous nations; 4. A legal primer for settler colonial genocides; 5. The Beothuk (1500-1830); 6. The Powhatan Tsenacommacah (1607-1677); 7. The conventional account of genocide: from a restrictive to an expansive interpretation; 8. Toward an account of systemic genocide; Appendix A. Secretariat's draft convention; Appendix B. Ad hoc Committee Draft Convention; Appendix C. United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide; Index.
About the author
Laurelyn Whitt is Professor of Native Studies at Brandon University, Manitoba, Canada. The author of Science, Colonialism, and Indigenous Peoples (Cambridge, 2009), and co-author with Alan W. Clarke of The Bitter Fruit of American Justice: International and Domestic Resistance to the Death Penalty (2007), she has published widely in issues at the intersection of Indigenous Studies, Science Studies and Legal Studies.Alan W. Clarke is Professor of Integrated Studies at Utah Valley University, and was a fellow of the Nathanson Centre for Transnational Human Rights, Crime and Security. He is co-author, with Laurelyn Whitt, of The Bitter Fruit of American Justice: International and Domestic Resistance to the Death Penalty (2007), and is the author of Rendition to Torture (2012).
Summary
The eliminatory dynamics of settler colonialism in North America included episodes of genocide of Indigenous peoples. This book offers a legal methodology that establishes this, as well as a critique that enhances our understanding of genocide in significant ways, especially with respect to the cultural dimensions of genocide.
