Oh What a Slaughter: Massacres in the American West: 1846-1890 - Larry McMurtry
McMurtry sheds light on "the several massacres that occurred in the American West during the several decades when the native tribes of our plains and deserts were being displaced from their traditional territories by a vast influx of white immigrants" (2). Though the massacres he writes about occured in the 19th century, they continue throughout history. The twentieth century opened and closed with massacres - the million-plus massacre of the Armenians by the Turks and the massacre of 800,000 Tutsis in Rwanda. Unlike natural disasters, massacres require human volition, and are almost always preemptive. They are different from battles in that the overwhelming amount of fatalities consist of women and children. Though many perpetrators escaped legal retribution, they rarely escape the trauma that followed on the terror they inflicted. At many of the massacre sites, a palpable taint still lingers that continues to affect locals. The victims were often bedeviled by whites, making it easier to slaughter them without remorse. "During the Gold Rush particularly, exterminationists were think on the ground. Indians were killed as casually as rabbits" (56). McMurtry continues, "I have reported elsewhere about a young vigilante who came to have qualms about killing Indian children with his rifle: the big bullets tore the small bodies so! The man was soon able to squre his conscience by killing only adults with his rilfe; the children he dispatched with his pistol" (56). The descriptions of the "meat mountains" left after the slaughter, and the grotesque ways that human body parts were used afterwards is repulsive, highlighting once again the abominable capacity that humans have to inflict inhumanity on others.