Thread by @bookdellector

Europeans love to deny genocides.

Mostly because they make them look bad.

So, I thought I’ll compile a continuous list because I’m kinda all for it when Europeans are remembered for who they really are: pale monsters.

Let’s go.

NATIVE AMERICAN GENOCIDE

Between 1491 and 1691 Europeans deliberately caused the death of about 130 Million Native Americans.

Did you know, that they actually murdered so many that the earths climate changed, which ironically in return caused famines in Europe.

BRITISH COLONIALISM ON THE SUBCONTINENT

Did you know the Brits looooved to kill Millions by deliberately causing famines?

Only between 1880 and 1920 the British empire caused an excess mortality on the Indian subcontinent of 165 Million deaths.

LEOPOLD II IN CONGO

Among the shortest but also among the most brutal colonial endeavors was Leopold II’s rape of the Congo.

He turned the entire country into a labor camp with draconian punishment and caused the death of 10-15 Millions Congolese in less than 25 years.

PERSIAN FAMINE OF 1917-1919

Quite similar to its policies in India, Britain also caused a brutal famine in then formally Qajar-ruled Iran and blamed it on the Ottomans & Russians.

Still largely under-researched, estimates range from 2M-9M, i.e. 40% of total population.

GENOCIDE OF ABORIGINALS & TORRES STRAITS ISLANDERS

Pre-colonial Australia was a heaven-like place of diverse landscapes to which Aboriginals had perfectly adapted & which they masterfully maintained.

Population before arrival of Europeans was 1-1.5M - 90% were killed.

BRITISH GENOCIDE IN KENYA

What we now know as Kenya was a region of many diverse tribes who lived together largely in peace for Millennia.

After the infamous 1885 Berlin conference, GB drew indiscriminate borders to form what is Kenya and turning it into a slave labor camp.

The British ran Concentration Camps with up to 1.5M Kenyans held, 10Ks murdered and invented gruesome torture methods for the Mau Mau uprising until Kenya liberated itself in 1963.

TRANS-ATLANTIC SLAVE TRADE

The sheer volume and barbarity of the TA slave trade is near impossible to capture in any format incl. this.

12M+ Africans were trafficked, 12s of Millions enslaved over the centuries, Millions brutally murdered, 12s Millions sadistically tortured, raped, dehumanized. Trauma of sheer unimaginable inter generational dimensions.

Of course, the TA slave trade breaks all frameworks, incl. that of genocide because of how multidimensional death, erasure, displacement and pain were inflicted.

I can recommend Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates.

THE DUTCH IN INDONESIA

The Dutch colonized Indonesia in the 17th century, ruled over it for 350 years and solidified their brutal control through countless atrocities, forced labor (cultuurstelsel) and massacres.

The Banda “Spice” Islands were an early example wherein which, the Dutch massacred, depopulated and enslaved a string of Islands to exploit its riches.

In 1825-1830 the Dutch brutally quelled the Java rebellion killing 250000 Javanese - 90%+ of which civilians.

After losing their colony to the Japanese, the Dutch even tried to reestablish control over Indonesia between 1945-1949 during Indonesias War of Independence again killing 100Ks until giving up.

Thanks to @AntiLondo45 for helping with this one 🖤🤲🏽🖤

FRENCH COLONIAL ALGERIA

The French viciously ruled over Algeria for 132 years after invading in 1830.

A third of Algeria’s previously 3M inhabitants were killed by 1875 due to wars, disease and starvations.

Rapes and massacres were ubiquitous under French rule, who also settled Millions of French and other Europeans.

It took the FNL 8 years to liberate Algeria - a period within which the French caused the deaths of 1M-1.5M of the indigenous Amazigh and Arab population.

As always, I’m sending my undying love to my Algerian siblings 🖤🫶🏽🖤

GERMAN GENOCIDE OF HERERO AND NAMAQUA

This is one of the saddest and most horrific among many instances of European brutality wrought.

In 1884, Germans colonized what is now Namibia. Many different indigenous tribes with distinct cultures and languages inhabited the region.

German colonial policies caused wide-spread suffering, displacement and exploitation.

A series of rebellions and resistance against German rule culminated in the 1904-1908 Herero & Namaqua genocide in which Germans exterminated up to 90% of the prior and half of the latter by death marches, concentration camps and systematic deprivation of water.

Most notoriously, Gen. Lothar v. Trotha, who had served in the violent quelling of the Boxer uprising in China gave below extermination order.

Germany offered an insincere no-policy in 2021.

POST 9/11 US IMPERIALISM IN MUSLIM MAJORITY COUNTRIES

This one is personal. Many of my Iraqi family (all civilians) suffered and died after the 2003 illegal invasion of Iraq but also well before that under 50 years of US imperialism in the region (i.a. embargo in the 90s).

In Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Libya, Syria and Yemen an estimated 5.8M+ deaths were caused either directly or indirectly through US aggression. I’m certain this will go down as one of the genocides in this century.

Legitimized with religious fervor and talk of crusades, the US empire renewed itself through extreme torture, butchering, war crimes and massacres of mostly Muslims but also non-Muslims in these countries, and plunged all these countries in bloody chaos to this day.

Consult the Brown University “Cost of War” project for more info.

ITALIAN INVASION IN ETHIOPIA

After it’s first unsuccessful attempt to colonize Ethiopia in 1896 failed, fascist Italy under Mussolini invaded the country with 200000 soldiers stationed in neighboring colonized Italian-Eritrea in 1935 and occupied it until 1941.

The invasion was marked by intense brutality especially through aerial bombardments with mustard gas, concentration camps and massacres.

Almost half a million Ethiopians were murdered in this short period, 30000 of which during the February 1937 massacre in Addis Abbaba, i.e. 20% of the city’s total population.

THE NAKBA (ONGOING)

After first Zionist settlements were established in 1887, British and other European colonialists violently intensified the land theft and settlement of historic Palestine.

This culminated in the first Nakba, which began several months before the foundation of Israel - the crown jewel of bloody European colonialism: 400K+ Palestinians were already either massacred or displaced before 15 May 1948, hundreds of towns violently depopulated and more than that would follow in the months after.

Countless massacres, death marches and other atrocities were instigated to make place for Israeli settlers and cities: Tantura, Deir Yassin, Lydda…

Drowned in more than a century of revisionist lies, the Nakba painfully lasts to this day. Israel keeps Palestinians either in concentration camps or bantustans and regularly enacts its annihilative state doctrine on them massacring thousands each time.

6M+ Palestinian refugees are disenfranchised from their right to return while we currently see a genocide in Gaza unfold with almost 20K killed already.

Viva Palestina 🖤🇵🇸🖤

SOUTH AFRICA

The history of South Africa is intrinsically connected with European “exploration” (=exploitation) not only due to its resources but also its unique geographical position.

The Dutch established first settlements in the 1600s and began mass trafficking slaves from other colonies (Indonesia, Malaysia, East Africa, Madagascar) but also forced local Khoikoi and San people to labor.

Ultimately Dutch violence/exploitation brought both peoples to the brink of extinction.

Similarly, the Xhosa people suffered under land dispossession and European violence.

After 1795, the British took control of the region and pushed indigenous groups into reserves and enacted apartheid policies that culminated in Apartheid-South Africa as we know it.

EUROPEAN OPIUM WARS, BOXER REBELLION AND THE CHINESE CENTURY OF HUMILIATION

19th Century China saw perhaps some of the bloodiest upheavals in which 12s of Millions died, all either under European meddling or direct violent participation.

To balance trade in their favor and open China for the Christian church, European powers fought two bloody Opium wars in the mid-1800s.

This plunged China in debilitating rifts, a mass epidemic of addiction and led to a civil war that cost Millions their lives.

Eventually this led to the Boxer uprising - i.e. the “Righteous and Harmonious Fists”. The rebellion was quelled by an alliance of virtually all Western powers and the rebels brutally executed, 100-200K civilians were killed. China was ordered to pay huge sums to colonial powers and was partitioned thereafter.

FRENCH UNION OF INDOCHINA

In the mid-to-late 1800s, France brutally colonized Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia killing 10Ks in the process (i.a. Tonkin Campaign).

France exploited the regions resources (rice, rubber, minerals), extracted harsh taxes, dispossessed large swaths of agric. land, trafficked women and enforced prostitution - all of which led to massive social disruptions, famines and overall hardship.

Insurgencies existed throughout France’s colonial rule but were violently quelled - notably Cần Vương movement - with dead again running in the 10Ks.

In 1946 (after brief Japanese occupation) the Viet Minh under Hồ Chí Minh rose to struggle for independence. France brutally responded, used mass rape, torture and decapitations against the civilian population of which 100Ks were massacred. In 1954 France withdrew and Vietnam was divided.

US IMPERIALISM IN THE PHILIPPINES

After the 1898 U.S.-Spanish war, the U.S. annexed the Philippines and opened a particularly brutal chapter in history with up to 1M killed, i.e. 20% of the total population.

Philippine resistance began immediately as it had resisted its Spanish oppressors before that and was met with utmost violence.

Villages and towns were burned and looted, civilians summarily executed. Rape and torture (“water curing”) were ubiquitously used as weapons against resisting fighters and civilians alike. Famine and cholera broke out.
300000 Philippines were moved to concentration camps with mortality rates of up to 20%.
99% of the Moro people (Muslim Filipinos) were massacred.

Especially infamous was Gen. Smiths order “to kill everyone above ten and make the island a howling wilderness” claiming that guerrilla fighters used women and children as human shields.

The entire population was christianized and forced to speak english. In 1946 after brief Japanese occupation, the Philippines were granted independence.

GENOCIDE OF THE PALAWA PEOPLE

Europeans began settling so called Tasmania in the early 1800s and directly began oppressing the indigenous Palawa people. By 1888 they were - falsely - considered extinct.

Settlers introduced diseases, stole land, perpetrated massacres, hunted Palawa for sport and uprooted them into reserves.

Especially violent was the period of the “Black War” at the end of which the remaining indigenous people were relocated away from their ancestral mainland to Wybalenna island, where all but 47 of them died.

100 years after that their descendants were still fighting to have the graves of their ancestors recognized and not routinely trampled.

The 47 reminaing Palawa from Wybalenna were then again removed to Oyster Cove. All indigenous language families are lost. Several thousand (self-identified) descendants live today and struggle for recognition of their ancestor’s way of life.

U.S. COLONIZATION OF HAWAI’I

This one is especially painful.

Imagine you live in literal paradise as your ancestors have for thousands of years before you. You rightfully consider your ancestral home sacred and have a deep spiritual bond to it or ʻāina as native Hawaiians say. Then the evil empire arrives, kidnaps your queen and turns your island into an army base from which it wreaks death and destruction.

After early contact with European “explorers” foreign diseases began decimating the island population. White-oligarch run sugar plantations exploited Hawaiians for capitalist profit.
In 1893, the U.S. military overthrew the last reigning monarch of Hawai’i queen Lili'uokalani and fully annexed the islands in 1898.

Military bases, large corporate industry (the infamous Dole Corporation), tourism, and religion, colonial powers essentially wiped out most of indigenous Hawaiian culture.

The land is degraded, water resources polluted by army activities (jet fuel leaks). Commercial real estate operations further ghettoized native Kānaka Maoli as became especially apparent in the aftermath of the recent 2023 wildfires. Native Hawaiians have the highest rate of incarceration in the US, and the lowest healthy life expectancy.

Follow @SilverSpookGuy for more in depth information.

@TarsieroRosanna added herero and namaqua 🫶🏽❤️‍🔥🫶🏽

@CoutingB added it 🫶🏽❤️‍🔥🫶🏽

@egolegerergosum added it sibling, lmk what you think ❤️‍🔥

@warmesthue added it sibling, lmk what you think 🫶🏽❤️‍🔥🫶🏽