Le Massacre de Scio ("The Chios massacre") a painting (1824) by Eugène Delacroix depicting the massacre of Greeks on the island of Chios by Ottoman troops during the Greek War of Independence in 1822.
Amassacre is an event of killing people who are not engaged in hostilities or are defenseless.[1] It is generally used to describe a targeted killing of civiliansen masse by an armed group or person.
Massacre derives from late 16th century Middle French word macacre meaning "slaughterhouse" or "butchery". Further origins are dubious, though may be related to Latin macellum "provisions store, butcher shop".[4][5][6]
The Middle French word macecr "butchery, carnage" is first recorded in the late 11th century. Its primary use remained the context of animal slaughter (in hunting terminology referring to the head of a stag) well into the 18th century.
The use of macecre "butchery" of the mass killing of people dates to the 12th century, implying people being "slaughtered like animals".[7]
The term did not necessarily imply a multitude of victims, e.g. FéneloninDialogue des Morts (1712) uses l'horride massacre de Blois ("the horrid massacre at [the chateau of] Blois") of the assassination of Henry I, Duke of Guise (1588), while Boileau, Satires XI (1698) has L'Europe fut un champ de massacre et d'horreur "Europe was a field of massacre and horror" of the European wars of religion.
An early use in the propagandistic portrayal of current events was the "Boston Massacre" of 1770, which was employed to build support for the American Revolution. A pamphlet with the title A short narrative of the horrid massacre in Boston, perpetrated in the evening of the fifth day of March, 1770, by soldiers of the 29th regiment was printed in Boston still in 1770.[a]
The term massacre began to see inflationary use in journalism in the first half of the 20th century. By the 1970s, it could also be used purely metaphorically,
of events that do not involve deaths, such as the Saturday Night Massacre—the dismissals and resignations of political appointees during Richard Nixon's Watergate scandal.
Robert Melson (1982) in the context of the "Hamidian massacres" used a "basic working definition" of "by massacre we shall mean the intentional killing by political actors of a significant number of relatively defenseless people... the motives for massacre need not be rational in order for the killings to be intentional... Mass killings can be carried out for various reasons, including a response to false rumors... political massacre... should be distinguished from criminal or pathological mass killings... as political bodies we of course include the state and its agencies, but also nonstate actors..."[11]
Similarly, Levene (1999) attempts an objective classification of "massacres" throughout history, taking the term to refer to killings carried out by groups using overwhelming force against defenseless victims. He is excepting certain cases of mass executions, requiring that massacres must have the quality of being morally unacceptable.[b]
The term "fractal massacre" has been given to two different phenomena, the first being the fracturing of Aboriginal tribes by killing more than 30% of the tribe on one of their hunting missions,[12] and the second being given to the phenomenon of many small killings adding up to a larger genocide.[13]
^The shortened name "Boston massacre" was in use by the early 1800s(Austin 1803, p. 314) The term "Massacre Day" for the annual remembrance held during 1771–1783 dates to the late 19th century.(De Grasse Stevens 1888, p. 126) The 1772 "Massacre Day of Oration" by Joseph Warren was originally titled An Oration Delivered March 5th, 1772. At the Request of the Inhabitants of the Town of Boston; to Commemorate the Bloody Tragedy of the Fifth of March, 1770.
^"Although it is not possible to set unalterable rules about when multiple murders become massacres. Equally important is the fact that massacres are not carried out by individuals, instead they are carried out by groups... the use of superior, even overwhelming force..." Levene excludes "legal, or even some quasi-legal, mass executions". He also points out that it is "...most often ... when the act is outside the normal moral bounds of the society witnessing it... In any war ... this killing is often acceptable."(Levene & Roberts 1999, p. 90)
^Melson, Robert (July 1982). "Theoretical Inquiry into the Armenian Massacres of 1894–1896". Comparative Studies in Society and History. 24 (3): 482–3. doi:10.1017/s0010417500010100. S2CID144670829.
^"Definition". Colonial Frontier Massacres in Australia, 1788-1930. Centre For 21st Century Humanities. Retrieved August 1, 2022.
