ACKNOWLEDGING AND RECTIFYING THE GENOCIDE OF AMERICAN INDIANS: “WHY IS IT THAT THEY CARRY THEIR LIVES ON THEIR FINGERNAILS?”

Although genocide—a coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves—remains a sickeningly frequent phenomenon in the twenty‐first century, it is not an immutable aspect of the human condition. Genocide is a choice, and the civilized world must choose its demise. The unique experience of American Indians—a group subjected to genocide in the process of the creation and expansion of the United States—presents a logical heuristic through which to assess more broadly the requirements of redress for historical episodes of genocide and, even more important, the means to prevent its recurrence.