1.  The following are excerpts from an article by David Michael Smith of University of Houston-Downtown under the headline "Counting the Dead: Estimating the Loss of Life in the Indigenous Holocaust, 1492-Present".

(Begin excerpts)
During the past century, researchers have learned a great deal about the nature and scope of what Russell Thornton has called the demographic collapse of the Indigenous population in the Western Hemisphere after 1492.  As David Stannard has explained, the almost inconceivable number of deaths caused by the invasion and conquest of these lands by Europeans and their descendants constitute “the worst human holocaust the world had ever witnessed.”  Scholars have long had reliable information on the size of the Indigenous population in this hemisphere and this country at its nadir around the turn of the twentieth century. And in recent decades, investigators have developed a range of estimates of the Native population in the Western Hemisphere before 1492. Researchers have also amassed considerable knowledge about the role of diseases, wars, genocidal violence, enslavement, forced relocations, the destruction of food sources, the devastation of ways of life, declining birth rates, and other factors in the Indigenous Holocaust.  This paper draws on the work of Russell Thornton, David Stannard, and other scholars in attempting to count the dead—that is, in developing informed and reasonable, if very rough, estimates of the total loss of Indigenous lives caused by colonialism in the Western Hemisphere and in what is today the United States of America. Although this analysis is inevitably grim and saddening, there is much to be gained by understanding the most sustained loss of life in human history—both for people living today and for future generations.

At the turn of the twentieth century, the total number of Native inhabitants living in the entire Western Hemisphere had declined to 4-4.5 million.  In 1800, only about 600,000 Indigenous people remained in the coterminous United States.  By 1900, the Indigenous population in this country reached its lowest point of about 237,000 people.  The size of the Indigenous population in the hemisphere and this country then began to grow again and has increased appreciably during the past century. Today about 70 million Indigenous people live in the Western Hemisphere.  There are now approximately 7.25 million American Indians, Alaska Natives, and Native Hawaiians in the U.S.  In view of the historically unprecedented and unspeakably tragic depopulation that unfolded after 1492, the survival of Indigenous people is truly extraordinary. However, even today the legacy of invasion, conquest, and colonialism continues to exact a terrible human toll.

Serious scholarly investigations into the size of the Indigenous population in the Western Hemisphere before 1492 began early in the twentieth century. In 1924, Paul Rivet estimated that between 40 and 50 million people lived in the hemisphere before the Indigenous Holocaust began.  That same year, Karl Sapper also estimated the Indigenous population in the hemisphere to be between 40 and 50 million.  Both Rivet and Sapper later revised their estimates downward to about 15.5 million and 31 million respectively.  In 1939, Alfred Kroeber developed a much lower estimate of only 8.4 million for the entire hemisphere.  In 1964, Woodrow Borah announced a much larger estimate of “upwards of 100 million” Native inhabitants.  Two years later, Henry Dobyns estimated the Indigenous population of the hemisphere to be between 90 million and 112.5 million.  In 1976, William Denevan estimated the Indigenous population at between 43 and 72 million, the mid-point of which is more than 57 million.  In 1987, Thornton provided an estimate of about 75 million.  The following year, Dobyns revised his estimate significantly upward to 145 million.  In 1992, Stannard estimated the original population of the hemisphere at about 100 million....

The deaths of Native people that have occurred in the U.S. since 1900 because of the legacy of colonialism and contemporary institutionalized racism must also be counted.....A far greater number of deaths have been caused by the harsh economic and health conditions experienced by many Indigenous people. The dearth of statistical information on Indigenous births, deaths, and mortality for much of the twentieth century makes it impossible to precisely estimate the total number of excess deaths. But an estimate of about 200,000 total Indigenous deaths attributable to the legacy of colonialism and institutionalized racism since 1900 may be conservative.

In sum, for the entire present-day United States from 1492 to the present, the total number of Indigenous deaths includes the 12 million estimated by Thornton; the additional approximately 790,000 deaths that occurred in Hawaii, Alaska, in Puerto Rico; and about 200,000 excess deaths since 1900. Thus, the Indigenous Holocaust in this country appears to have taken around 13 million lives. Signally, this horrific number of deaths was only a very small portion of the mind-numbing Holocaust throughout the Western Hemisphere.  When Thornton’s estimated hemispheric population decline of 70 million is multiplied by 2.5, the total number of Indigenous deaths throughout the Western Hemisphere between 1492 and 1900 appears to be about 175 million.67 And the number of Indigenous people who have died in the hemisphere because of war, repression, racism, and harsh conditions of life since 1900 surely runs into the millions.

By any reckoning, the Indigenous Holocaust in the Western Hemisphere was, as Stannard has pointed out, “the worst human holocaust the world had ever witnessed.” No words or numbers can adequately convey the scale of the horror and tragedy involved in the greatest sustained loss of human life in history. Still, it seems to this researcher that understanding the scope and dimensions of the Indigenous Holocaust is an important first step toward collective political action which addresses the needs, interests, and aspirations of Indigenous people today—and which ensures that such a holocaust will never happen again.  (End excerpts)

Source:  sedotedu

2.  Instead of blinking, or worse, closing his eyes to reality, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken should look squarely at the truth of America's genocide of Red Indians and urge his master and ruling party to address the issue immediately.  Then there may a blink of light for the American natives who are now as rare as bald eagles driven to the brink of extinction.

Uncle Sam seems to have a strong aversion to taking a long hard look at the mirror because he sees a devil staring back menacingly at him.  It is laughable for the US to propagate human rights to other countries -- just like a mafia boss preaching with a bible in one hand and a sword in the other.