GO rD hIll 500 Years of Indigenous resistance
Lee Brightman, United Native Americans President, estimates
that of the Native population of 800,000 (in the U.S.), as many as
42% of the women of childbearing age and 10% of the men...have
been sterilized... The first official inquiry into the sterilization of
Native women...by Dr. Connie Uri...reported that 25,000 Indian
women had been permanently sterilized within Indian Health
Services facilities alone through 1975... According to a 1970
fertilization study, 20% of married Black women had been steril-
ized, almost three times the percentage of white married women.
There was a 180% rise in the number of sterilizations performed
during 1972–73 in New York City municipal hospitals which
serve predominantly Puerto Rican neighbourhoods.^49
Similar results were found in Inuit communities in the Northwest Ter-
ritories. Clearly, “overpopulation” is not an issue in North America, nor
is it in South or Central America. Rather, it is a method for reducing
specific portions of the population who would organize against their op-
pression and who have no place in the schemes of capital. In other words,
“It is more effective to kill guerrillas in the womb”.
Of all the South American countries that underwent massive indus-
trialization after World War II, Brazil is probably the most well known.
Following a 1964 coup backed by the U.S., IMF and multinationals, for-
eign investment rose steadily. Between 1964–71, over $4 billion had been
pumped into Brazil through the World Bank, AID, IDB, and others.^50
Between 1900–57, the Indigenous population of Brazil had declined
from over 1 million to less than 200,000^51 through the rubber boom,
ranching, and mining industries. Following the 1964 coup and the rise
in foreign investment, the penetration of the Amazon region in particu-
lar was increased. As these industries invaded even more Indian lands,
a renewed campaign of extermination accompanied them. Indians were
hunted down by death squads, their communities bombed and massa-
cred, and disease epidemics purposely spread through injections and in-
fected blankets. In the 1960s alone,
Of the 19,000 Monducurus believed to have existed in the 30s,
only 1200 were left. The strength of the Guaranis had been
reduced from 5,000 to 300. There were 400 Carajas left out of- Ibid, pg. 29.
- Supysaua: A Documentary Report on the Conditions of Indian Peoples in
Brazil, Indigena Inc. and American Friends of Brazil, Nov. 1974, pg. 48. - Ibid, pg. 6.
- Norman Lewis, “Genocide”, Supysaua op. cit., pg. 9.