This year, the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States, will see an ugly torrent of red-white-and-blue celebrations of America as a “great country”—spearheaded by Donald “Make America Great Again” Trump. This is a celebration of America now led by fascists. But the truth is that America was NEVER “great,” whoever was heading up the government. 

As revolutionary leader Bob Avakian said, if people are stung by that truth about America, they need to look at reality:

This “Republic” to which we are supposed to pledge allegiance was founded on slavery and genocidal robbery: keeping millions of Black people in chains for generations... killing off huge numbers of Native Americans and stealing their land... waging a war that ripped off half of Mexico, greatly expanding slavery.

So, was this a great country all during that time—when millions of people were enslaved—owned by bloodsuckers who constantly whipped the slaves to make them work harder under horrific conditions, slave-owners who raped masses of enslaved women? Was this country great then?!

Was it great when, for generations after slavery was formally ended, Black people as a whole were segregated, discriminated against, and continually terrorized, with repeated massacres of Black people and thousands of Black people lynched? Was it great when, all during that time, LGBT people were “illegal,” when women were legally treated as inferior to men—and men could legally rape their wives? Was it a great country then?!

Or is it great, now, when people are everyday denied basic rights? When the police kill a thousand people every year, especially people of color, and in the 60 years since Civil Rights Acts were passed, segregation and discrimination has remained as bad, or worse, as it ever was, and thousands of Black people have been killed by police—even greater numbers than all those who were lynched during all the years of Ku Klux Klan terror after the Civil War!

Has this country ever been great, when, right from the beginning and down to today, the whole thing has literally been built on the broken bodies, the blood and bones, of millions and now billions of people, worldwide—cruelly exploited, used and abused, by this system—with all this backed up by murder on a massive scale carried out by the police and the armed forces of this country?

No, this country has never been great. It has always been a horror for masses of people. 

(from social media message REVOLUTION #2: When has the U.S. been a “great country”?)

It’s way past time for this system—capitalism-imperialism—that rules in this country, dominates the world and now has spawned fascist rule, to be thoroughly abolished, through an actual revolution.

Below is Part 20 of a series that highlights aspects of how 250 years of America has been nothing but a horror for the masses of people, here and around the world. We call on our readers to send in your contributions to this series—articles, video, audio, artwork, social media posts. Email revolution.reports@yahoo.com or message @therevcoms via social media.

See previous parts >>

Part 20: American Crime: 400 Years of Crimes Against the Native Peoples in the U.S.

Christopher Columbus and his crew were met by the friendly indigenous Arawaks. They immediately took several Arawaks captive and demanded that they take them to the source of the gold they wore. (American Crime Case #77)

So began the conquest of the Americas.

 “When Christopher Columbus reached the Americas in 1492, ten million indigenous people lived in what is now the United States. By 1900, there were less than 300,000.” (“Forced Removal of Native Americans,” Equal Justice Initiative.)

This was the beginning of a 400-year history of genocide achieved through the theft of the Native peoples’ lands and “forced removal,” through war and massacre after massacre, through the spread of disease, and the destruction of Native cultures. It is a history of brutal and deadly oppression with Native peoples enslaved and deemed inferior and sub-human. 

Witness this:

** “In June 1779, heavily armed caravans of more than 6,200 American soldiers headed north from Pennsylvania and west from a town near Albany, New York. These forces, under the command of General John Sullivan, of the Continental Army ordered by Washington himself then in a war for independence from England. ” Only 5,000 Native people were left alive and able to flee to Canada. In what became known as the “Winter of Hunger” whole families froze to death on their trek to Canada. (American Crime Case #90) This mass murder was only the beginning. 

** “It is estimated that 95 percent of the indigenous populations in the Americas [[meaning all of the Americas, North and South]] were killed by infectious diseases during the years following European colonization, amounting to an estimated 20 million people.” These diseases included smallpox, bubonic plague, and measles. (“A Historical Perspective of Healthcare Disparity and Infectious Disease in the Native American Population,” Jamie E. Ehrenpreis, National Library of Medicine.)

** As the U.S was established, and then when the Civil War broke out in 1860 and continuing in its aftermath, the theft of the Native lands and accompanying ethnic cleansing continued. Native peoples were driven out of their lands to make room for the expansion of slavery, capitalism, the mining of gold in California, and the coming of the railroad and the white settlers frantically going west. A case in point: “In 1830 Andrew Jackson informed Congress of the progress of the Indian Removal east of the Mississippi River… By the end of Jackson’s Presidency, his administration had negotiated almost 70 removal treaties. These led to the relocation of nearly 50,000 eastern Indians to the Indian Territory—what later became eastern Oklahoma. It opened up 25 million acres of eastern land to white settlement and, since the bulk of the land was in the American south, to the expansion of slavery.” (“President Andrew Jackson’s Message to Congress ‘On Indian Removal’ (1830),” Milestone Documents, National Archives.)

** Kill the Indian, save the man--the slogan raised by the rulers as thousands of children were kidnapped and forced into boarding schools. From the moment of their arrival at boarding school the children were stripped of their indigenous identity, and simultaneously indoctrinated to view their own heritage—and themselves— as something to be despised, and eradicated. The boys’ heads were shaved; all the children’s clothes were taken, replaced with uniforms. Their real names were changed to European names to both “civilize” and “Christianize” them. They were taught English and forbidden to speak their Native languages—even to each other—and they were forced to abandon their Native beliefs and take up Christianity. All of this contributed to a sense that they had lost themselves. (American Crime Case #40)

A word on the treaties the U.S. signed with the Native American peoples

Throughout the history of the U.S., the government continually signed treaties with different peoples, but once signed they were quickly broken, ignored, or altered when new resources were discovered, such as gold in the Black Hills in South Dakota (held as sacred to the Native Americans) and California. Native American peoples were massacred again, raped and mutilated by the American Cavalry, settlers and “American heroes” like Daniel Boon, Kit Carson, and others who led the way along with the U.S Cavalry. The rest of the people were pushed further and further and further west than Jackson’s “Indian Territory” of Oklahoma.” (See “Broken Treaties”.)

Go here for only a few of the crimes committed by the rulers of the U.S. in this 400 year history, but they viscerally testify to the conclusion that “America was never great.” It was established to enrich and empower both the slave masters and the growing capitalist class in their insatiable drive to dominate and take all the land, resources and dehumanize human beings as slaves and producers of wealth, only to continue their plunder beyond the Continental U.S. and become the most powerful super-power that has replayed this shameful history in Latin America, Africa, and now in Gaza and the Middle East today, bringing us closer to world war and ecological existential threats to humanity which should not be celebrated on the 4th of July or any other day.

See also: 

• Part 1: American Crime Case #98: 1953 CIA Coup in Iran: Torture and Repression–Made in the U.S.A.
• Part 2: American Crime Case #12: The 1921 Tulsa Massacre and the Destruction of Black Wall Street
• Part 3: Emmett Till and Lynchings, Past and Present—An excerpt from Revolution: Why It’s Necessary, Why It’s Possible, What It’s All About by Bob Avakian
• Part 4: American Crime Case #6: Lynching in America—The Torture, Mutilation and Murder of Thousands of Black People and the Terrorizing of Millions More, 1865-1950
• Part 5: American Crime Case #57: The 1973 CIA Coup In Chile
• Part 6: American Crime Case #94: November 2004—War Crime Fallujah
• Part 7: American Crime Case #96: Vietnam, March 16, 1968—The My Lai Massacre
• Part 8: American Crime Case #95: Reagan’s Butcher Carries Out Genocide in Guatemala
• Part 9: American Crime Case #59: The U.S. Invasion, Occupation, Domination, and Plunder of Cuba: 1898 to 1959
• Part 10: American Crime Case #97: August 6 and 9, 1945—The Nuclear Incineration of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
• Part 11: American Crime Case #91: School of the Americas—Training Ground for Mass Murderers and Torturers, 1946-Present
• Part 12: American Crime Case #99: May 13, 1985: The MOVE Massacre
• Part 13: American Crime Case #16: “La Matanza”: A Decade of Lynching & Terrorizing Mexican People in South Texas, 1910–1920
• Part 14: American Crime Case #70: "Operation Iraqi Freedom," 2003
• Part 15: American Crime Case #39: The Palmer Raids of 1919-1920
• Part 16: American Crime Case #92: Ronald Reagan Condemns 180,000 Gay Men and Others to Demonization, and Death by AIDS
• Part 17: American Crime, Case #89: 120,000 People of Japanese Descent Put in U.S. Concentration Camps During World War 2
• Part 18: American Crime Case #78: "Operation Wetback"—1954-56
• Part 19: American Crime Case #71: The Colfax Massacre of 1873... and the Supreme Court Stamp of Approval for Racist Terror