How many successful attempts at genocide have occurred in history, that we know about? I suspect there are many that we don’t, but which ones are we aware of, that actually succeeded in totally eliminating an ethnic group/religion/etc.?
First one to come to mind is the Tasmanian genocide. It’s the only one I can think of that was 100% successful. There are people of mixed Tasmanian descent, but of the true original inhabitants, without mixing in European ancestors…none.
Perhaps:
The Sioux expansion into the Midwest, where they conquered the neighboring tibes
What the Assyrians did
Whatever happened in Mohenjo-daro, where there are mass graves of people huddles together with weapon wounds
The general Western removal of indigenous American (North and South) peoples, which was mostly aided by diseases
Very few, if any, get 100% of the people/culture
There aren’t a lot of Cathars around nowadays.
Which is equally true for the whole of North America as far as anyone can tell. Nothing terribly special about Tasmania except for the speed at which it happened.
I imagine some island people genocides were pretty effective. I can’t remember the tribe names now, but in Guns, Germs and Steel there’s a story about a tribe of native New Zealand people who lived on one island that obtained access to European firearms. Pretty much the first thing they did is took a boat over to another island where there was another tribe they had known about, and basically massacred them and took their land. Due to the relative small size of both tribes it was fairly easy for the genocide to essentially be a complete one.
I would not be surprised if such massacres have happened at least occasionally when you have warring island tribes, as the geography is well set up for that sort of outcome I believe.
Ah, that’s them. Interesting too that the Moriori had a pacifist ideology that played some part in it as well. It sounds like their fate is similar to the native Tasmanians–none survive today that are of unmixed ancestry. But even without intentional genocide I think that’s going to be a common thing anytime two peoples inhabit a given geographical area for long enough.
Even if for some reason Europeans had never done any violence against native North Americans but had just peacefully cosettled, after disease wiped out most of them I would expect interbreeding would leave things in a similar ancestral state to what it is today.
There are lots of cults and heresies that were wiped out through history, especially dualist/gnostic faiths. Catharism and Manichaeism come to mind. Zoroastrianism authorities slaughtered the Mazdakism cult (I think, I’ve seen hippie types call them the first socialists and the man had to put them down for spreading peace and free love, or something like that). Zurvanism didn’t survive the Islam conquest.
There’s still a small amount of Zoroastrians, but does anyone know how far they fell compared to their peak? They were the majority religion in a lot of countries before the Islam conquest and persecution but I’ve never seen a population estimate. They went from being a major religion to a trivia question. I don’t think most people are aware of them or their beliefs, at least not people I know.
What’s the old joke? The Cathars believed the devil made the world and the Catholics were happy to prove it to them.
The Maori genocide of the Moriori people was nearly 100% successful.
ETA - I was beaten to this by others while I was checking on this.
Growing up in Persian culture, I have to say, culturally, the Persians are really still Zoroastrian. My Grandfather would recite poems about vegetables and flowers and stuff, not about Mohammed and Allah. And The upper classes aren’t that religious in Islam, if my family is any indication
There’s not too many Amalekites around these days.
That hasn’t been my experience, though it’s probably a bit more limited than your’s.
Were they people who fled after the Revolution?
If so, and this isn’t meant as a knock, but those associated with the Shah’s regime aren’t exactly representative. If nothing else, the fact that so many Iranian-Americans are Persians and make a point if identifying as such is telling. My father and I are the only ones I’ve ever met who aren’t 100% Persian and our decision to identify as Iranian as opposed to Persian is certainly unusual.
The above isn’t btw meant as a knock on your family or Iranian-Americans.
Incidentally, there are still significant numbers of Zoroastrians in Iran and they’re guaranteed a seat in the Iranian Parliament and are probably better off than the vast majority of Middle Eastern minorities, particularly religious minorities.
The Guanches of Canary Islands?
Also, if it counts, the Scandinavian colony on Greenland went extinct sometime in the 15th century (perhaps as a result of disease or climate change rather than warfare, though).
Yes, the cultures in the region are very different. The Persians believe it or not are very civilized, much more so than the Arabs (or it would seem, from what I see Arabs are frequently up to on the news).
My father has told me about how at one point the country needed laborers/workers, so the Shah government brought in Afghanis, and after they came the people (the Persians) were mortified how quickly these mountain people would just chop off someone’s head. It made sensational news.
I’m fascinated by the Cathars and similar religions, but I’d never heard that witticism. thanks for introducing me to it!
Is this certain? I thought there were a good number of pure Hopi, Dine (Navajo,) Ute, and others to this day. Terrible things did happen to them, no doubt: the Navajo experience in the forced removal to the Bosque Redondo was hellish. But it didn’t wipe them out to the last individual. Enough families were left to establish a new population.
(I hate to use language like “full-blooded” but I don’t know what the delicate way is of referring to family lines that don’t depend on intermarriage – or rape – from outsiders.)
Suggestions in the Wikipedia Genocides in History article:
The Neanderthals by the Cro-Magnons, possibly.
Carthage by the Romans
The Anasazi
The Tata Mongols and Kankalis by Genghis Khan
I’m probably way behind the times, but weren’t the Anasazi wiped out by ecosystem collapse, crop failures, drought and the like, rather than genocided by anyone? Or is this old anthropology and newer science says they died at enemy hands?
“In a 2010 paper, JM Potter and JP Chuipka argued that evidence at Sacred Ridge Site, near Durango, Colorado, is best interpreted as ethnic cleansing.” (Perimortem mutilation of human remains in an early village in the American Southwest: A case for ethnic violence. J. Anthropol. Archaeol. (2010), doi:10.1016/j.jaa.2010.08.001)