Resisting the Conquest: The Continuing Struggle Against
Genocide and Land Theft in the Americas

Tracy Turner

Columbus Through Native Eyes

Although the incursion of European colonists and Indigenous peoples across the Americas has shown remarkable resilience, the arrival of Christopher Columbus in 1492 was not a discovery but an invasion. From the frozen tundras of the Inuit in the north to the fire-lit camps of the Yaghan in Tierra del Fuego, the European presence launched an unyielding onslaught of death, displacement, and cultural effacement. To Native communities, Columbus is not a figure of curiosity or celebration; he is the harbinger of a genocidal era marked by massacres, enslavement, and the forced imposition of alien systems designed to sever their deep-rooted connections to land and tradition.

European colonization unraveled the vibrant societies that had flourished across the Americas for millennia. The 1493 Papal Bull Inter Caetera gave Spain dominion over lands inhabited by millions and provided the theological ground for the theft of entire continents. By the time the Wounded Knee Massacre occurred in 1890, colonization had devastated Indigenous nations, leaving many extinguished and others fighting for their lives. This pattern continued well into the 20th century, as was shown by the U.S. federal government's attacks on the American Indian Movement, a grassroots effort formed to protect Indigenous sovereignty and rights. AIM's struggles bring to light the structurally embedded violence that characterizes colonization and present another story that refuses to be gagged. Indiginuous struggles, whether in Gaza or domestically, are ignored by the Mainstream Press.

Centuries of Land Theft and Resource Grabs

To Indigenous nations, the land is not just a place but a living relative and spiritual anchor. However, since the time of Columbus, this sacred relationship has been in a state of systematic desecration. Settler colonialists introduced exploitative economies dependent upon disrupted ecological balance and profit over stewardship. An insatiable drive for wealth set in motion practices that continue to destroy Native habitats and further historical injustices.

The same can be said about logging, mining, and cattle ranching, which destroy forests in the Amazon Basin, threatening biodiversity and Indigenous ways of life. Pipeline projects, such as the Dakota Access Pipeline in the United States, are destroying sacred sites and threatening water supplies crucial to the Standing Rock Sioux tribe. Tar sands development similarly threatens the prairies of Canada. Chile's Mapuche people resist industrial logging, turning their ancestral forests into sterile monoculture plantations. These acts of dispossession eerily rhyme with colonial patterns wherein conquest morphs into corporate subjugation of ecosystems and communities.

Genocide: From Historical Policies to Present-Day Realities

The genocide against Native peoples is not a relic of history; it is a persistent and evolving reality. The violence of settler colonialism through massacres, forced relocations, and residential schools designed to strip children of their cultures has morphed into contemporary forms of erasure. One of the most harrowing examples is the ongoing crisis of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW), which spans the Americas, from Canada's First Nations to the Quechua in Peru.

The struggle for Indigenous sovereignty and justice is not confined to history; it is an ongoing battle against the relentless encroachment of government policies and corporate exploitation. From the uranium mines of the Navajo Nation in the United States-which have left a toxic legacy of contaminated water and health crises, to the gold mines devastating the Amazon rainforest in Brazil, extractive industries continue to desecrate Indigenous lands. These are not just environmental disasters but also desecrations of the sacred connections Indigenous peoples have with their lands. In Siberia, oil drilling and logging on the lands of the Evenki and other Indigenous peoples have resulted in biodiversity loss and cultural erasure as part of a continuing process of colonial domination and profit-driven destruction.

Even fishing industries are implicated in perpetuating this cycle of abuse. For example, overfishing off the coasts in Chile and Peru reduces vital marine ecosystems for the livelihoods of Indigenous Peoples. At the same time, the industrial-scale operations of foreign fleets threaten local resources' sustainability. Corporations boast of economic gains, yet the profits rarely reach the Indigenous communities where the impacts are felt; all that is left for them is environmental scarring and disrupted food systems. The mega-dams planned across pristine rivers in Patagonia threaten Mapuche territory, undermining their sovereignty and way of life. These are often done in complicity with governments that grant legal permissions without prior consultation with Indigenous peoples and in violation of their rights under international law.

In Canada, tar sands development has not only polluted the air and water of First Nation communities, but it has also displaced families and destroyed sacred sites. Similarly, across Tierra del Fuego, various Indigenous groups have suffered from the exploitation of their ancestral lands for logging, depleted forests, and a very vulnerable cultural heritage. Lack of adequate legal protection and actual enforcement allows corporations to act with impunity and further marginalize those already vulnerable.

However, within these continuing lines of injustice, Indigenous peoples are defiant in resistance. Through direct action, courts of law, and grassroots movements, their struggles create counters to the unbridled powers of corporations and governments alike. Resilience stories from the Evenki defending tundras in Siberia to the Mapuche recovering their forests emphasize the urgent need for global solidarity and a change system. It is a question of care for the environment and deep recognition of Indigenous nations' sovereignty and humanity.

These abuses continue to remind us that the legacy of conquest is not over but has transformed into new forms of exploitation. Confronting these truths, amplifying Indigenous voices, and upholding their rights—not as a symbolic gesture but as a cornerstone of equitable and ecological governance—will be required in a future of justice and sustainability.

Native Journalism and Literature: Amplifying Indigenous Voices

Indigenous journalism and literature are crucial in documenting these struggles and amplifying Native perspectives. Publications like Indian Country Today and grassroots media initiatives are challenging mainstream narratives and creating platforms for Indigenous-led storytelling and advocacy.

Hidden Histories and Present Crises: AI-Driven Insights

Artificial intelligence offers new opportunities to support Indigenous advocacy in uncovering hidden histories and illuminating injustices that continue today. By mining data, AI can:

• Expose systemic patterns.

• Recover suppressed narratives.

• Support environmental monitoring.

• Advocate for justice.

• Empower education.

 

Toward a Future of Justice and Sovereignty

The struggles of the Indigenous peoples—from Columbus's arrival to the present—are inextricably linked with the history and the future of the Americas. Their resistance against genocide, land theft, and ecological destruction embodies a deep commitment to their cultures, their communities, and the planet.

Indigenous people have been murdered or have disappeared without a trace between 2010 and 2025, though murder and disappearance data of Indigenous peoples can be incomplete, underreported, or incoherent across various countries and regions. But even without this ideal, there are some general trends and striking statistics that give a sense of what the situation is for countries counting high Indigenous populations: Mexico, Canada, the United States, Brazil, and other nations from Latin America.

Latin American Violence: Land disputes, organized crime, and conflicts with extractive industries are some of the factors attributed to violence within the indigenous communities in countries like Mexico, Colombia, Brazil, and Guatemala. In such a scenario, the threat, abduction, or killing of indigenous people can take place if they struggle for rights over land or fight against environmental degradation. Most of the time, such incidents go unreported or unsolved.

The disappearance crisis is ravaging Mexico. Official statistics report over 100,000 disappeared persons since 2006, and a disproportionate number were of Indigenous descent. Many of these disappearances are linked to organized crime, state violence, or corruption. The most vulnerable people happen to be the Indigenous citizens, mostly the rural ones, as very many of the cases stand unreported, maybe unsolved.

Amazonia Brasileira and Ecological Activism: In recent years, Indigenous leaders and ecological activists in Brazil have faced increasing targeting in their work to defend the Amazon rainforest and their lands against illegal logging, mining, and agribusiness interests. In the last decade, dozens of Indigenous leaders have been killed or disappeared-most of them in the Amazon. It is a situation that has continued to deteriorate since 2019, coinciding with policies advocated by former President Jair Bolsonaro, which critics argue have emboldened illegal activities within Indigenous territories.

United States and Canada: Both nations have also suffered from high levels of missing and murdered Indigenous women. In Canada, such violence was described by the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls as recently as 2019 as a "genocide," with thousands of Indigenous women and girls having disappeared or been killed over several decades. This crisis, even though the data represents a broad time frame, has run well into the 2010s and 2020s.

The missing and murdered cases of Indigenous peoples, especially women, have also recently come into sharper focus in the United States. Because the U.S. government does not consistently track Indigenous disappearances as it would the general population, getting an accurate count is difficult. According to several advocacy groups, Indigenous women are more than twice as likely to be murdered compared to non-Indigenous women.

Global Advocacy and Reports: Indeed, there has been an international outcry, and various reports by international bodies like the United Nations and Human Rights Watch have captured the violence, displacement, and disappearances among Indigenous peoples. Because of underreporting, the remoteness of many Indigenous communities, and the lack of data tracking, it is impossible to know exactly how many Indigenous people are being murdered or going missing.

Estimated Numbers:

That is, thousands in Mexico are from indigenous communities and disappeared, figures impossible to enumerate but presumably into the tens of thousands since the drug war started during the mid-2000s.

Hundreds of Indigenous people have been killed in Brazil, most of them land defenders and activists. The murders all relate to some kind of conflict over land rights or to environmental activism. Of course, specific statistics related to this context are impossible to come by, but dozens are estimated to have been killed since 2010.

More than 1,000 Indigenous women and girls were reported to have gone missing or been murdered in Canada between 1980 and 2012; the number most probably continued to grow into the 2020s, but concrete evidence is limited for that year.

In the United States alone, more than 5,000 Indigenous peoples-mostly women-were reported to have gone missing between 2010 and 2020. That number may be low because some communities do not always report cases, and other records may be incomplete.

Challenges in Data Collection: Besides the central reasons mentioned above, the major obstacles in the compilation of correct statistics regarding Indigenous disappearances and murders include:

Poor investigation and reporting: Very few countries have made the investigations of law enforcement cases involving Indigenous victims a priority, especially in remote or rural areas.

Lack of accountability and impunity: Throughout many countries, crimes perpetrated against Indigenous people often go unexamined or are not prosecuted-most of them arising because of land conflict or environmental advocacy.

Underreporting: The indigenous communities may either not have confidence in authorities investigating the crime or may not be able to report disappearances, especially in far-flung areas.

Though harder to define because the numbers are hard to discern in many instances, indigenous peoples still are victims disproportionately of murder, disappearance, and other violent crimes due to high levels of criminality, state neglect, and land conflict. These atrocities continue-most probably into the thousands internationally-but largely go underreported, with many of them remaining unsolved.

 

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