Hmmmm....
As Hans Koning says in The Conquest of America: How The Indian Nations Lost Their Continent says:
“From the beginning, the Spaniards saw the native Americans as natural slaves, beasts of burden, part of the loot. When working them to death was more economical than treating them somewhat humanely, they worked them to death.
“The English, on the other hand, had no use for the native peoples. They saw them as devil worshippers, savages who were beyond salvation by the church, and exterminating them increasingly became accepted policy.” [6, pg.14]
The British arrived in Jamestown in 1607. By 1610 the intentional extermination of the native population was well along. As David E. Stannard has written:
“Hundreds of Indians were killed in skirmish after skirmish. Other hundreds were killed in successful plots of mass poisoning. They were hunted down by dogs, ‘blood-Hounds to draw after them, and Mastives [mastiffs] to seize them.’
“Their canoes and fishing weirs were smashed, their villages and agricultural fields burned to the ground. Indian peace offers were accepted by the English only until their prisoners were returned; then, having lulled the natives into false security, the colonists returned to the attack.
“It was the colonists’ expressed desire that the Indians be exterminated, rooted ‘out from being longer a people upon the face of the Earth.’ In a single raid the settlers destroyed corn sufficient to feed four thousand people for a year.
“Starvation and the massacre of non-combatants was becoming the preferred British approach to dealing with the natives.” [3, pg.106]
In Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Jersey extermination was officially promoted by a “scalp bounty” on dead Indians.
“Indeed, in many areas it [murdering Indians] became an outright business,” writes historian Ward Churchill (A Little Matter of Genocide: Holocaust and Denial in the Americas, 1492 to the Present[5, pg.182])
Indians were defined as subhumans, lower than animals.
George Washington compared them to wolves, “beasts of prey” and called for their total destruction. (Koning[3, pgs.119-120])
Andrew Jackson — whose [innocent-looking] portrait appears on the U.S. $20 bill today — in 1814 said:
“supervised the mutilation of 800 or more Creek Indian corpses — the bodies of men, women and children that [his troops] had massacred — cutting off their noses to count and preserve a record of the dead, slicing long strips of flesh from their bodies to tan and turn into bridle reins.” (Koning [5, pg.186] )
The English policy of extermination — another name for genocide — grew more insistent as settlers pushed westward:
• In 1851 the Governor of California officially called for the extermination of the Indians in his state. (Koning[3, pg.144])
• On March 24, 1863, the Rocky Mountain News in Denver ran an editorial titled, “Exterminate Them.”
• On April 2, 1863, the Santa Fe New Mexican advocated “extermination of the Indians.” (Koning[5, pg.228])
• In 1867, General William Tecumseh Sherman said:
“We must act with vindictive earnestness against the [Lakotas, known to whites as the Sioux] even to their extermination, men, women and children.” (Koning[5, pg.240])
In 1891, L. Frank Baum (gentle author of “The Wizard Of Oz”) wrote in the Aberdeen Saturday Pioneer (Kansas) that the army should “finish the job” by the “total annihilation” of the few remaining Indians.
The U.S. did not follow through on Baum’s macabre demand, for there really was no need. By then the native population had been reduced to 2.5% of its original numbers and 97.5% of the aboriginal land base had been expropriated and renamed “The land of the free and the home of the brave.” Today we can see the remnant cultural arrogance of Christopher Columbus and Captain John Smith shadowed in the cult of the “global free market” which aims to eradicate indigenous cultures and traditions world-wide, to force all peoples to adopt the ways of the U.S.
While Koning did make mention of the English system of exterminating entire bands via an early form of biological warfare, he failed to adequately make mention of such policies as:
Relocation – Entire tribes/cultures were forcibly removed from their traditional and familiar lands and ways of life to completely foreign lands (the Indian Territory) and there were “dropped” to more or less fend for themselves not to mention the thousands (some 2500 or more on the Trail of Tears alone) that perished in the process. And even once they were established there, the whites were allowed into the territories. Several plains Indian tribes depended almost exclusively on the bison for food, clothing, shelter and even the droppings provided fuel for their fires – little, if anything went to waste. Once the white man discovered this wonderful creature, they hunted it to the verge of extinction and almost everything was left to waste…
Assimilation – “Let’s just make ‘em ‘White’”. Countless numbers of Indian children were uprooted from family and home and sent to boarding schools where they would learn to be “white.”
Termination – This was the 1950s and 60s policy of the government’s merely declaring that some tribes just merely ceased to have status as tribes and the tribal members no longer had status as Indians.
And just to mention the Indian Wars where, when one is engaged in pitched battle, the goal at the time is to exterminate the enemy at hand though driving him from the battlefield or achieving a total surrender is acceptible. It is interesting to note that in the wars in AZ alone more Medals of Honor were awarded than there were on D-Day in 1944! Those Indian War troopers weren’t doing their utmost to annihilate the enemy?
Through all of the above, “Hundreds upon hundreds of native tribes with unique languages, learning, customs, and cultures had simply been erased from the face of the earth, most often without even the pretense of justice or law.” (Koning)
If that’s not extermination, I don’t know what is.
The Spanish did look on the Natives as potential slaves. It created a moral examination back home. The Crown declared a three year moratorium on slavery while they decided the issue of whether or not the Indians had souls and whether they were entitled to the full rights of man. The answer was yes to both questions. It was not always followed but it was another major crack in the foundations of slavery.
In the broad scope of English colonization there was comerce and coexistance with Indians and there were conflicts. The calls for extermination were a frequent response to Indian outrages. The English were as quick to ally themselves with Indians as they were to fight them. The "bilogical warfare" charge hangs on a slim thread, based exclusively on two letters, one from and one to Lord Amherst. It may or may not have happened. These people didn't know what a germ was. If it happened it was a singular incident.
But that was the colonial period. From the constitution's ratification in 1786 is what we are responsible for. George Washington's attitude can be seen in his fifth State of the Union address:
After they shall have provided for the present emergency, it will merit their most serious labors to render tranquillity with the savages permanent by creating ties of interest. Next to a rigorous execution of justice on the violators of peace, the establishment of commerce with the Indian nations in behalf of the United States is most likely to conciliate their attachment. But it ought to be conducted without fraud, without extortion, with constant and plentiful supplies, with a ready market for the commodities of the Indians and a stated price for what they give in payment and receive in exchange.
The U.S. sought peace but those that committed barbarous acts would be hunted down and killed.
Jackson comes closest to your preconception but even he sought expulsion, not extermination. The Supreme Court ruled that his actions were illegal and unconstitutional but had no power to enforce the decision. The long term benefit was that subsequent actions by the executve would be held to judicial review but that did not save the Cherokee.
During the conflicts in Arizona the MOH was generally regarded as a good conduct award. Often they were given for general bravery over a period of time. At that time they were given out rather freely, in fact so freely that later close to 1000 would be rescinded by Congress. I think that about 10 or 12 were awarded to Apache scouts.
The majority of Indian engagements were light skirmishes or ambushes involving few combatants. At the time Indian depradations were so numerous that it was said that there was no white in Arizona that had not had a friend or relative killed by Apaches. To stop the murders the army declared that the reservations (Camp Verde, San Carlos and Fort Apache) were refuges but that any Apache caught off the reservations would be presumed to be hostile. The army held the bulk of the Apaches on the reservations and could have killed them at will. Even known hostiles and murderers were safe on the reservations.
Around Denver in 1863 there were hundreds of murders of innocent whites. At one time the city was completely cut off and no one could enter or leave. This was the prelude to the Sand Creek Massacre. Black Kettle's band was not innocent although it was the innocents that would eventually pay. There were few men in the camp and at the same time there were dozens of murders up and down the eastern slope. The men from that camp weren't down at the sports bar.
In Arizona there were calls for the extermination of the Indians. The murders were so frequent and so numerous that it is quite understandable that the people were calling for revenge. But the extermination never happened. Even Geronimo, when he was captured in 1886, had to be whisked to Holbrook and put on a train to keep him out of the hands of the Pima County sheriff, who had an indictment for the murder of a man and his eight year old son. The old drunk should have hanged.