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- Title
Colonialismo, genocidio y reeducación como elementos de la guerra irregular en la conquista del Oeste Norteamericano.
- Authors
Madueño Álvarez, Miguel
- Abstract
This text analyses the direct confrontation between an ordinary US army and native tribal warriors in the context of irregular warfare. On this basis, it is hypothesized that the successive White House governments during much of the 19th century carried out a subjugation of the native peoples of North America by resorting to colonialism, genocide and re-education programs, concepts that would later be embellished by presenting a scenario of struggle between progress and barbarism. The history of the United States of America has been built on traumatic episodes such as the conquest of the West, a notion that raises a series of questions about legitimacy and rights, which has exempted Washington from responding to concerns regarding concepts such as colonialism and genocide. The perception of millions of people, thanks to mass media elements such as television and Western films, has been anchored to a sugar-coated vision of this conquest, according to which American settlers forged their destiny through tenacity and hard work. But before such a mainstream household appliance existed, the American Government had already laid out a plan to present a clear episode of colonialism and subjugation as a mere necessity derived from the progress and development of modern society. The US found itself entangled in a serious contradiction, since its position vis-à-vis other great powers had begun with its own independence and in the years to come it would present itself as the champion of freedom and democracy. Thus, successive governments and their presidents strove to demonstrate that expansionism towards the West was not the result of colonialism as it was attributed to European metropolises and that its consequences could not be labelled as genocide. To this end, they exalted the idea of manifest destiny and enveloped their cause in a divine component as well as in the defence of modernity. In another sense, by virtue of those concepts so opportunely used or denied by the Oval Office cabinet, what took place in the north of the continent was an irregular war between the army of a budding world power and the native American nations, devoid of technological elements or the use of modern warfare tactics.
- Subjects
NORTH America; IRREGULAR warfare; GREAT powers (International relations); INDIGENOUS peoples; WESTERN films; UNITED States history; UNITED States. Executive Office of the President; RWANDAN Genocide, 1994; PROGRESS
- Publication
Revista Universitaria de Historia Militar (RUHM), 2022, Vol 11, Issue 23, p40
- ISSN
2254-6111
- Publication type
Article