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The Selknam Genocide

The document summarizes the genocide of the Selknam people in Tierra del Fuego by European settlers. It describes how contact began when sailors exploited sea lion colonies, leading to brutal conflict over land and resources as settlers carried out massacres and drove the Selknam from their ancestral lands. Entire families were captured and displayed in "human zoos" as the indigenous population faced diseases, violence, and starvation, gradually becoming extinct due to the destruction of their way of life and natural balance with their environment at the hands of foreign invaders. The memory of the Selknam people must be preserved through education to honor their legacy.

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Felipe Kldrn
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135 views9 pages

The Selknam Genocide

The document summarizes the genocide of the Selknam people in Tierra del Fuego by European settlers. It describes how contact began when sailors exploited sea lion colonies, leading to brutal conflict over land and resources as settlers carried out massacres and drove the Selknam from their ancestral lands. Entire families were captured and displayed in "human zoos" as the indigenous population faced diseases, violence, and starvation, gradually becoming extinct due to the destruction of their way of life and natural balance with their environment at the hands of foreign invaders. The memory of the Selknam people must be preserved through education to honor their legacy.

Uploaded by

Felipe Kldrn
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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THE SELKNAM

GENOCIDE
A MANHUNT

When north american sailors began to exploit the


sea lion colonies located in Tierra del Fuego, the
contact between the white man and the indigenous
people began, and will evolve to the point of
becoming one of the most brutal genocides that
occurred in Chile. In the photo, Julius Popper, one
of the most recognized characters involved in the
massacre and extermination of the Selknam
people, while he was executing one of the
manhunts.
HAVE WE FOUND A GOOD REASON
FOR KILLING YET?

The develompment in sheep farming turned the


existing indigenous population and their outdoors
way of life a problem to erradicate for the
foreigners invaders. This leads to the murder of the
captured selknams and forcibly expele them out
from their ancestral lands.
(...)in Tierra del Fuego,
in a place called "Punta
María", a gang of
HAVE WE hunters, composed of
three austrians and one

CROSSED italian, intercepted a


selknam family(...)From
there and with arrow
THE LINE hits, a weak weapon
and almost useless

ALREADY? against the precision


carabines of their
persecutors, they
defended themselves for
a timelapse of twenty
four hours until they
retired back,
disappearing(...)
HAVE
WE EVER (...)It was a war stratagem. Haressed by starving

KNOWN and pushed by thirsty, the poor indians left their


refuges and when the other ones won their
rearguard, they started to hunt them down
THE randomly, not finishing their bestial labor until give
them end to almost every one of them(...)

LIMITS?
HAVE YOU SEEN
THE "HUMAN
ZOO" YET?

An entire family - a total of


eleven people including
men, women, and children -
were ripped from their
home territory to be taken
on a whaling ship to France,
and displayed in an iron
cage as "cannibalistic, man-
eating Indians" in the Paris
Universal Exhibition of 1889.
HAVE WE KILLED
THEM ALL EVER
SINCE?

The massacre, added to the previously unknown contagious


diseases, and to the fights between the same aboriginal groups
for disputes of the few territories free of foreign domination,
completely destroyed the natural balance that the Selknam had
long established with their environment, leading to the gradual
extinction of its population.
WHAT CAN WE
STAND FOR?

Memory can be a powerful tool. Despite all


the horrors, and the helplessness it that may
bring, keeping the selknam's memory alive is
the best way to honor them. Saving their
legacy from vanishing, through cultural
education that we can gift to the new
generations, we'll keep the selknam's spirit
burning bright.
REFERENCES

Informe de la Comisión Verdad Histórica y


Nuevo Trato con los Pueblos Indígenas
Edited by the Presidential Commissioner for Indigenous
Affairs. Santiago of Chile, October of 2008.

Memorial Selknam
Proyect Title 2017 by Luis Pérez Huenupi. Universidad de
Chile,Santiago of Chile.

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