Knowra Genocide of Indigenous peoples Genocide of Indigenous peoples The destruction, in whole or in part, of Indigenous groups through killings, forced displacement, cultural suppression, or other genocidal policies and acts.
Genocide Convention : The 1948 United Nations treaty defining genocide and requiring its prevention and punishment. Its definition provides a legal framework for assessing policies targeting Indigenous groups.
Trail of Tears : The forced removal of southeastern Native American nations to lands west of the Mississippi during the 1830s. The removal brought mass suffering and death while dispossessing Native nations of homelands.
Doctrine of discovery : A legal doctrine used by European powers to claim sovereignty over lands inhabited by non-Christian peoples. It supplied a rationale for colonial claims over Indigenous territories.
Intergenerational trauma : Psychological and social harms transmitted across generations through family, community, and historical experience. Violence, removal, and institutional abuse can produce lasting effects across generations.
Genocidal intent : The specific intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group as such. Proving intent remains central when classifying state actions against Indigenous peoples as genocide.
Forced assimilation : A policy of compelling a population to abandon its language, customs, or identity for another culture. Assimilation policies have targeted Indigenous identity and disrupted collective continuity.
California genocide : The mass killing and displacement of Indigenous Californians during the nineteenth century, amid settler expansion and state-backed violence. It illustrates how settler violence and government policies devastated Indigenous communities.
Manifest Destiny : The nineteenth-century belief that the United States was destined to expand across North America. Its expansionist claims helped justify dispossession and violence against Native nations.
Language revitalization : Efforts to increase the use and transmission of a language that has declined or been endangered. Revitalization counters the effects of language suppression and forced assimilation.
Cultural genocide : The destruction of a group's cultural institutions, practices, language, or collective identity. Its relationship to the narrower treaty definition of genocide remains contested.
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