The Gateway Arch is a St. Louis landmark. "The great Arch has been the region's international symbol since it opened in 1965 to honor President Thomas Jefferson and the Louisiana Purchase" which houses the Museum of Westward expansion.
The Native people had already been pushed West by the settlers on the East Coast when Jefferson "bought" the West from France. Now the new United States felt it had a license to take the land and bring a final solution to the indigenous population. Most of the wars the United States fought were against Indians, but we don't talk about that in school.
Overcoming colonialism through faith and action.
Nice point to remember, Clyde. Thanks.
Of course it's a symbol of other things too, and I'm sure our own "famous UU" TJ didn't have genocide in mind when he bought Louisiana or commissioned Lewis and Clark, but the fact remains that in the way things came to pass, genocide became an integral element of the whole package. Like the Arch, the American self-image is grandiose, but unlike the Arch, the reality of American identity is not pristine.
Which is something we need to be reminded of every time some wahoo politician trots out John Winthrop's "City on a Hill" sermon to celebrate America's supposedly God-given primacy. Winthrop wasn't crowing that "We're Number One" or commissioning America to be King of the Hill, to stomp out everyone who got in our way, but rather, calling upon us always to care for one another:
"Now the only way €¦ to provide for our posterity is to follow the counsel of Micah, to do justly, to love mercy, to walk humbly with our God. For this end, €¦ we must entertain each other in brotherly affection; we must be willing to abridge ourselves of our superfluities for the supply of others' necessities; we must uphold a familiar commerce together in all meekness, gentleness, patience and liberality; we must delight in each other, make others' conditions our own, rejoice together, mourn together, labor and suffer together; always having before our eyes our commission and community in the work, our community as members of the same body. So shall we keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace. €¦ For we must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us, so that if we shall deal falsely ... in this work we have undertaken €¦ we shall shame the faces of many of God's worthy servants, and cause their prayers to be turned into curses upon us till we be consumed out of the good land whither we are going. €¦ If our hearts shall turn away so that we €¦ shall be seduced and worship €¦ our pleasures, and profits, and serve them, €¦ we shall surely perish out of the good land whither we pass over this vast sea to possess it. €¦"