Erased

No Savage Shall Inherit the Land

Clouds come out when we die, and when we die the wind blows dust because it means to blow away our tracks...For if our tracks were visible then it would seem as if we still lived (/Xam cited Phillips, 2022, p.24).

The making of pariahs is so deeply embedded in human history that it edges towards a state of nature, a norm that carries the profoundly depressing implication that tolerance is deviant. Jesus's injunction that "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself" (Matthew 22:39, KJV) takes on the status of radical idealism, at odds with the bleak realities of global histories. Instead, the repeated pattern is that the powerful construct the weak as lesser forms of humanity to be marginalized, excluded, and at worst, subject to destruction.

I want to focus here on an extreme form of annihilation wherein physical eradication is combined with amnesia. Largely forgotten peoples have been subject to theft of land, torment, torture, not for what they have done, but for who and where they were. A recurrent scenario is of settler intrusion into lands occupied by indigenous peoples. However, as South African historian Mohamed Adhikari argues, "settlers are actually invaders"; the euphemism, "settler": "a measure of the degree to which these victors have been able to determine the terms on which their histories have been written and the extent to which voices of the vanquished have been silenced" (Adhikari, 2020, p.145).

A dominant narrative emerges in which it is clear and inevitable that the interests of the settlers will displace indigenous peoples; stories tell of an inexorable path towards a destiny that is manifest. From the late 1400s for over 200 years, European nations, empowered by improvements in the technologies of shipbuilding, extended their known world to land masses in the Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian oceans. The discovery and exploration of territories inhabited by indigenous people preceded the creation of settlements, cities, societies, and nations: the foundation of much of the modern world.

The concept of manifest destiny, in one form or another, represents a critical ideology that shaped global histories:

Manifest Destiny, a phrase coined in 1845, is the idea that the United States is destined - by God, its advocates believed - to expand its dominion and spread democracy and capitalism across the entire North American continent. The philosophy drove 19th-century U.S. territorial expansion and was used to justify the forced removal of Native Americans and other groups from their homes (Manifest Destiny, 2010).

The ideological impact reaches far beyond the borders of the US. The implication is that social and economic progress is dependent upon the actions of groups who are superior to others by race, religion, development, innate intelligence, power, and some combination of these. They are, therefore, endowed with a God-given right to remove "obstacles" to expansion. Land ownership, essential to capital acquisition, leads to inevitable collisions with lifestyles of indigenous residents. That this represents "destiny" suggests that these developments align with a greater, predetermined plan of divine, natural, or historical order. The pseudoscience of social Darwinism, in which the fitter will inevitably prosper over the weaker, combined with a sense of divine will, is used to justify elimination and inhumane cruelty.

There is a necessary dehumanization of those conceived as barriers to progress. A bifurcation between "primitive "and "civilized" value systems emerges. Thus, notions of progress and development, allied with myths of manifest destiny, create an ideological environment in which "primitive" peoples, a lower form of humanity, stand in the way of modernity.

The significance of land is at the center of this collision. For indigenous peoples, the land is frequently the focus of social and spiritual tradition. These words, attributed to Chief Seattle (c.1786-June 7, 1866) of the Suquamish and Duwamish tribes, eloquently encapsulate that sense of connection:

Every part of the earth is sacred to my people. Every shining pine needle, every sandy shore, every mist in the dark woods, every meadow, every humming insect. All are holy in the memory and experience of my people. We know the sap which courses through the trees as we know the blood that courses through our veins. We are part of the earth, and it is part of us (1854).

In contrast, for the settler, land is predominantly a commodity, to be owned, bought, sold, enclosed, and exploited as a source of wealth. The relationship is based upon commercial values, only rarely with spiritual or emotional connections.

The interests of settlers are validated by alignment with modernity, civilization, development, and, over time, national interest. The implications of such an ideology were succinctly expressed by Major General Braddock in the French and Indian War in America (1754-1763) in response to Chief Shingas's efforts to retain Delaware land: "No savage shall inherit the land" (Adhikari, 2020, p.143).

The wider implications of manifest destiny are used to validate colonialism, slavery, and genocidal atrocities that litter global histories. Some of these histories have impacted curricula revisions and alterations in education abroad; the persistent consequences of colonialism may, for example, be integrated into what students observe and analyze. This is not just a matter of integrating the impact of enslavement into studies in Africa, or in broadening curricula in so-called nontraditional locations. International educators can modify the ways in which students perceive the great cities of Europe, exposing what lies beneath archetypal versions of those urban spaces. The celebrated cathedrals of Spain, for example, are enriched by stolen gold. Many cities of England became rich through the exploitation of resources that belonged to others. Those realities are accessible through a shift of perspective, unearthing what is often obscured by superficial representations: a form of archeology that reveals hidden histories.

Among those histories, there are, though, those who are no longer visible except in frequently obscure, specialist studies. They are victims of two profound injustices: eradication and erasure, genocide and obliteration from memory. Southern African history in the 18th and 19th centuries is marked by such processes. In the Karoo, the /Xam (sic"” / indicates a click of the tongue) were systematically destroyed by the Trekboers to whom "they were dogs or vermin to be enslaved or shot" (Philips, 2022, p.24).

The San people were similarly obliterated. The largely forgotten Herero and Namaqua tribes in Southwest Africa were victims of German genocide between 1904 and 1908.

These peoples, and there are many other possible examples, have become the most strange of strangers. What happened to them no longer belongs to history. The Selk'nam of Tierra Del Fuego exemplify those who barely exist in past, present, or future. There are no permanent memorials; they exist only in fragile fragments. These forgotten dead demand attention. This is dedicated to those lost in shadow.

The Selk'nam

The Selk'nam were a marginal, obscure people living on the island of Tierra del Fuego for thousands of years. The island, divided between Argentina and Chile in 1881, attracted European settlers from the late 1880s with the prospect of land for sheep farming. Estimates of the Selk'nam population when the settlers first arrived are around 4,000; in 1919, 297; by 1930, 100. There was nothing accidental about this catastrophic decline. It was a product of a genocidal policy, by almost all the measures defined by the United Nations.

The story is entirely familiar. The Selk'nam were quasi-nomadic hunter-gatherers who lost access to their land through settler enclosure of what had been communal space. They also had no concept of private property and viewed the sheep and livestock of the farmers as game which they duly hunted for food. The outcome was enacted and reenacted in many parts of the world; land ownership and demand for profit were conceived of as modernization, progress, development.

The consequences are summarized here:

Settlers began to chase the Selk'nam off the lands they had claimed, but soon began an extermination campaign with the support of the Argentine and Chilean governments. In addition to hunting the Selk'nam, settlers also poisoned their food. Large companies offered a reward of one pound sterling per Selk'nam dead. This was confirmed by a pair of hands, ears or a skull...Some Selk'nam who were captured were sent to European "human zoos" to be displayed. Few survived the trip and fewer were returned to their homeland. Remaining Selk'nam were forced into reservations near established missions on the island. There, European diseases spread rapidly through the population (Beck, 2017).

The Selk'nam were subject to genocide, hunted as animals; a few survivors were displayed as exotic creatures in European freak shows for the entertainment of curious audiences. ^[1]

The collision between the Selk'nam and the settlers in Tierra del Fuego is a commonplace story with inevitable outcomes: "The meeting between European farmers and hunter-gatherers meant the death sentence of the latter" (Pimenta and Fanta, 2021). Descendants of the Selk'Nam are engaged in efforts to regain a sense of community, ^[2] but of those murdered, there survive only fragments.

There is nothing special about this. Other tribal names could replace Selk'nam without alteration in the underlying meaning of the story. Why then tell it?

Some Implications

Beyond the issue of extending consciousness of justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion issues, there are contemporary parallels, and implications for environmental issues. On August 29, 2022, it was reported by BBC News that the body of the last surviving member of an anonymous tribe had been found in the Amazon:

The man was the last of an indigenous group whose other remaining six members were killed in 1995. The group lived in the Tanaru indigenous area in the state of Rondônia, which borders Bolivia. The majority of his tribe were thought to have been killed as early as the 1970s by ranchers wanting to expand their land.

The survivor had been known only as Man of the Hole for the last 26 years which he spent in complete isolation. Both the man and the tribe were nameless, an ultimate form of erasure.

There are an estimated 240 indigenous tribes in the Amazon threatened by the encroachment of illegal miners, loggers, and farmers. The right-wing Brazilian government of Jair Bolsonaro is aligned with the interests of developers making the plight of these tribes ever more perilous. There are human tragedies in progress, inexorable eradication, and erasure, which reenact atrocities of history. Windy rhetoric is unlikely to protect these fragile communities, hidden in jungles, hidden from the conscience of humanity.

However, there are other implications that go beyond the fate of indigenous peoples. As well as local and regional damage, the destruction of their living spaces has profound implications for the global environment:

Land clearance is turning the Amazon region from climate friend to climate foe. A study published in Nature reveals forest burning now produces about three times more CO2 than the remaining vegetation is able to absorb. This accelerates global heating. Global market forces are partly responsible. Deforestation tends to rise when the prices of soy, beef and gold are high. ^[3]

The unholy trinity of "development," genocide, and capitalism realign in contemporary reality to obscure empathy and threaten global environments, to undermine the moral and physical world.

Conclusion: Hidden Histories

Unearthing hidden histories is one of the obligations of education abroad. Taking students out of parochial landscapes physically and intellectually is at the heart of our work. That principle should also apply to the manner in which we engage with questions of justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion. The significance of this agenda in the US should be balanced with consciousness of global and historical injustices. Without such perspectives, we reenact the parochialism we seek to undermine.

Another consequence of historical amnesia is that myths of modernity do not become subject to analytical skepticism. The story of the Selk'Nam is just one example of many that reveal the cost of "progress": repeatedly the blood of the dispossessed. When value is measured only in terms of financial benefit, the consequences are destructive of natural environments and those who value them. It has become the destiny of dominant peoples to develop and modernize but to claim this as a God-given manifest gift is blasphemous, immoral, and intellectually perverse.

Histories of eradicated peoples are relevant to the ways in which we reconsider our own. The origins of western development have been told through the lens of the powerful. Thus, the epic journeys of Lewis and Clark, the frontier mythologies of early America, the discoveries of Christopher Columbus and Vasco de Gama, the heralded explorations of Walter Raleigh and Francis Drake"”heroic stories of bravery told to children obscure hidden and darker realities.

Justice demands that the forgotten be remembered; equity that the unjust suffering of persecuted peoples across the world be recognized; diversity that we seek to hear silenced voices, not only the loudest; inclusion that we endeavor to widen the borders of consciousness.

Erased peoples are invisible, the missing dead; free from memory they no longer live in the past, present, or future. There are no memorials. As international educators, and more to the point as human beings, we owe it to those eradicated to make an effort to remember, as best we can. Amnesia is the ultimate injustice.

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Endnotes

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Works Cited

Mohamed Adhikari. "We will utterly destroy them... and we will go in and possess the land': reflections on the role of civilian-driven violence in the making of settler genocide". Acta Academica. August 2020 52(1): 142-164

Erik Beck. "Facts about the Selk'nam Genocide". The Borgen Project. 2 November 2, 2017. https://borgenproject.org/10-facts-about-the-selknam-genocide/

Barnaby Phillips, "Recording Their Own Extinction", Times Literary Supplement, June 26, 2022: 24.

"Manifest Destiny", editors, History, 5 April 2010. https://www.history.com/topics/westward-expansion/manifest-destiny#:~:text=Manifest%20Destiny%2C%20a%20phrase%20coined,the%20entire%20North%20American%20continent

Marcio Pimenta and Nina Radovic Fanta, "Clash of civilizations. The true history of the Selk'nam people", Radar Magazine, 3 December 2021. https://www.radarmagazine.net/clash-of-civilizations-selknam/