page_title: Genocide of indigenous peoples
section_title: Genocide debate
hierarchical_section_title: Genocide of indigenous peoples / Genocide debate
caption_attribution_description: English: A scene of the Chinese (Qing dynasty) Campaign against the Miao (Hunan) 1795 中文（简体）‎: 平定苗疆，攻克兰草坪滚牛坡
context_page_description: The genocide of indigenous peoples is the mass destruction of entire communities of indigenous peoples. Indigenous peoples are understood to be people whose historical and current territory has become occupied by colonial expansion, or the formation of a state by a dominant group such as a colonial power.
  While the concept of genocide was formulated by Raphael Lemkin in the mid-20th century, the expansion of various European colonial powers such as the British and Spanish empires and the subsequent establishment of colonies on indigenous territory frequently involved acts of genocidal violence against indigenous groups in the Americas, Australia, Africa and Asia. According to Lemkin, colonization was in itself "intrinsically genocidal". He saw this genocide as a two-stage process, the first being the destruction of the indigenous population's way of life. In the second stage, the newcomers impose their way of life on the indigenous group.
context_section_description: The concept of genocide was defined in 1944 by Raphael Lemkin. After World War II, it was adopted by the United Nations in 1948. For Lemkin, genocide was broadly defined and included all attempts to destroy a specific ethnic group, whether strictly physical through mass killings, or cultural or psychological through oppression and destruction of indigenous ways of life.
  The UN definition, which is used in international law, is narrower than Lemkin's, and states that genocide is: 
  "any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group," as such:
  (a) "Killing members of the group;"
  (b) "Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;"
  (c) "Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;"
  (d) "Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;"
  (e) "Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group."
  
  The determination of whether a historical event should be considered genocide can be a matter of scholarly debate. Historians often draw on broader definitions such as Lemkin's, which sees colonialist violence against indigenous peoples as inherently genocidal. For example, in the case of the colonization of the Americas, where the indigenous people of the Americas declined by up to 90% in the first centuries of European colonization, it can be debatable whether genocide occurs when disease is considered the main cause of this decline since the introduction of disease was mostly unintentional. Some genocide scholars separate the population declines due to disease from the genocidal aggression of one group toward another. Some scholars argue that intent of genocide is not necessary, since genocide may be the cumulative result of minor conflicts in which settlers, or colonial or state agents, perpetrate violence against minority groups. Others argue that the dire consequences of European diseases among many New World populations were exacerbated by different forms of genocidal violence, and that intentional and unintentional deaths cannot easily be separated. Some scholars regard the colonization of the Americas as genocide, since they argue it was largely achieved through systematically exploiting, removing and destroying specific ethnic groups, even when most deaths were caused by disease and not direct violence from colonizers. In this view, the concept of "manifest destiny" in the westward expansion from the eastern United States can be seen as contributing to genocide. From historical researchers Pereira & Seabrook, Global Parasites:
  It still is common practice for [the descendants of colonizers] to blame disease alone for the decimation of Native populations, thus exonerating themselves [and lineage] of any moral blame. However, such deaths were seen, by the Puritans particularly, as the Lord having "cleared our title to what we possess.
caption: A scene depicting the (Qing Dynasty's) genocidal campaign against the Miao people in Lancaoping in 1795
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