Results tagged “Genocide” from People So Bold!

Unitarian Universalists love to claim that they emerged from the Puritan tradition, and have a long history as liberal Christians.  Understanding Christianity then would seem to me to be a necessary part of understanding Unitarianism and Universalism.  Our religious forebears were participated in the conquest of North America, and sent missionaries among Native American Indians.  We should know something of this history lest we become participants in the denial that characterizes dominant culture response to the American genocide.

George Tinker is an ordained Lutheran minister and on the faculty at Iliff School of Theology in Denver, but he no considers himself a Christian.  He found that he could no longer associate himself with a Church that was so involved in the colonial enterprise of conquest of the Native American Indian peoplles.  Tinker states that 'perhaps the most fearful aspect of the church's complicity in the conquest of the native peoples in the latter sense is that it always happened with the best of intentions.'

Missionary Conquest; the Gospel and Native American Cultural Genocide is Tinker's full length treatment of the role of Christian missionaries in the destruction of America's indigenous peoples.  He studeies  four missionaries;  John Eliot, Junipero Serra, Pierre-Jean De Smet, and Henry Benjamin Whipple.  These men are held up to this day as cultural heros for white America.  But the results speak for a different interpretation, what they did was destructive for communities they impacted, what ever the sentiments they proclaimed. 

Tinker examines the policies and the results of those policies and shows how the Christian Church contributed to genocide.

John Eliot, a prominent Puritan, was a full of colonial arrogance, viewing the indigenous culture as inferior to his own, and seeing the Natives as under the influence of the Devil. Junipero Serra's California missions were in an integral part with the oppressive Spanish colonial efforts to enrich Spain.  The French man Pierre-Jean De Smet, a Jesuit, who was so self involved in his rational, Catholic theology that he thought nothing of mocking the rituals and practices of the indigenous people who he encountered. . Henry Benjamin Whipple, the first Episcopal bishop of Minnesota, worked to take the land from the Indians in the northern plains so that they would be forced to adopt the European way of life. 

And I Remember

Recently this country marked the second
anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the
Twin Towers and the Pentagon. I keep
hearing that this was the worst terrorist
attack to happen in this country.

Today we say WADO, WOPILA, Thank You!

But while my heart goes out to the dead,
their families and those who are forever
scarred by these events, there have been
millions of people murdered in this country
by terrorists.

It would be impossible for me to list all
of the acts of terror our People have faced,
but I want to mention a few of them
because our People are also
worthy of remembrance.

You won't find many monuments to these,
the unquiet dead. But their bones and blood
make up the soil where your shopping
centers and highways now stand.

Where is their memorial?
It is in the hearts of those who remember.

Today I remember:

The thousands of Cherokee,
Creek, Choctaw, Iroquois, Ojibway,
Pottawatami, Seminole, Sioux & Chickasaw
(and many others) who suffered untold agony
during the forced removal from their
homelands in the 1830s.

Innocent men, women and little children
perished in concentration camps or froze
and starved to death on the
Trail Where They Cried.

The 90 women and children who died in the
Bear River Massacre in southeastern Idaho.

The 200 Cheyenne men, women and children
who were slain at Sand Creek in eastern
Colorado by the US Cavalry led by Col.
John Chivington, a Methodist minister who
ordered his men to "Kill and scalp all,
big and little; nits make lice."

The 200 murdered Blackfeet women and
children who died at Maries River in
northern Montana and the other 140 People
who were left to freeze to death
in the January cold.

The 103 Cheyenne women and children
who were butchered on the Washita River
in western Oklahoma.

The 200 to 300 Sioux who were slaughtered
under a flag of truce at Wounded Knee,
South Dakota.

The 500 Sauk and Fox Indians led by
Black Hawk who were massacred by
militia forces while trying to negotiate
a surrender.

The Yuki's and other tribes of Indians in
California whose populations declined from
11,000 to less than 1000 because white men
wanted the land to search for gold.
Organized Indian hunts were held on
Sundays and our People were killed
for sport.

The little children who were kidnapped
from their homes and forced to attend
BIA schools. Many of them died alone and
lie in unmarked graves.

From the small pox, measles, typhoid,
cholera, diphtheria, TB, and VD
epidemics brought to us by the white
invaders to the continued genocide
still being waged against us, we know about
terrorism.

And I remember.

The End.... Or is it the End of The Suffering
of the Many Nations.........

Author Unknown

It is a three day weekend.

And in response to the "Columbus Day" holiday, we did Native American Sunday. I spoke of genocide and the power that comes from being honest about our history. I also told a children's story "why the Osage honor the spider."

This choir did wonderful work with its own presentation of "1492" and Singer of Life. The congregation for the most part joined in the spirit of the celebration, hearing the Columbian - American who witnessed at Joys and Sorrows that he felt that this, the Story of Conquest was a story he knew well but had felt was never mentioned in Los Angeles. One good Unitarian told me she loved the sermon and felt guilty, and I gave her the little talk about the point of knowing the Story was not to feel guilty, rather the point was to "feel native." She was puzzled.

For me, it is not complex. Black Elk put it this way,
When I was standing on the highest mountain of them all.
and round beneath me was the whole hoop of the world.
And while I stood there, I saw more than I can tell.
And I understood more than I saw.
For I was seeing in the sacred manner the shape of all things of the spirit
And the shapes as they must live together like one being.
And I saw the sacred hoop of my people
was one of many hoopsthat make one circle
wide as daylight and starlight,

And the center grew one mighty flowering tree
To shelter all the children of one mother and one father.
And I saw that it was holy.

On June 30, I posted details about Thomas Jefferson who authored the long standing U.S.policy toward Native people known as "Move or Die."  I included this quote: "If we are to wage a campaign against these Indians the end proposed should be their extermination, or their removal beyond the lakes of the Illinois River. The same world would scarcely do for them and us."

I was asked which Indians was Jefferson referring to when he made that quote.

My instinct is to say "all Indians" and leave it like that,  the Europeans ravished this continent by dividing and conquering.  But the truth is it was all Indians that were left, some had already been exterminated. 

The Shawnee were the major nation resisting Virginia's murderous invasion in 1780 just as the Cherokee were resisting North Carolina's and Georgia's invaders.  But it would have been "first they came for the Shawnee, and then they came for the rest."  By 1780 Virginia had already wiped out several nations.  Jefferson was a national leader,  the author of the Declaration of Independence, the former ambassador to France, when he spoke as Governor of Virginia he was not referring to a local  state problem.  The Illinois River was a long way from Williamsburg.

I have been able to compile a short list of known victims of this policy which was continued until the indigenous people were no longer in possession of any ancestral land, continued even after Wounded Knee, continued even after the people had been humiliated and reduced to dependency.  Jefferson's policy affected these Indians.

Abenakis,  Accochannock,  Alabama Coushatta,  Abanki, Alaska Natives, Apache,*  Arapaho,  Arikara,  Assiniboine Sioux,  Blackfeet,* Caddo,  Carrier, Catawba, Cayuga ,  Cheyenne,  Chickasaw,  Chicora,  Chilcotin, Chippewa,  Chippewa Cree,  Chitimacha,
Chocataw,  Cherokee*,  Chumash,  Coharie, Comanche,* Costanoan,  Cowlitz, Cree,  Creek,  Crow, Dakota, Delaware,  Dene,  Edisto, Essellen, Goshute , Gros Ventree, Gwitch'In , Haida, Haliwa-Sponi, Hidatsa, Ho Chunk , Hohokam, Hopi,Houma, Hupa, Huron,  Illinois, Innu, Inuit, Inupiaq, Iowa, Iroquois, Kalispel, Kaw, Kiowa,  Klallam, Klamath, Kootenai, Lakota, Lumbee, Maidu, Makah, Mandan, Mattaponi, Meherrin, Menominee, Metis, Miami, Mingo, Miwok, Mohawk, Mohegan, Monacan, Montaucketts, Munsee Delaware, Nansemond, Navaho *, Nez Perce, Nisga'a, Nootka,  Ohlone, Ojibwe, Omaha, Oneida, Onondaga, Osage, Ottawa,  Paiute, Pamunkey,  Pawnee, Peoria, Pequot, Pima,  Potawatomi, Powhatan, Pueblo, Quapaw,  Quinault,  Ramapough, Sac and Fox , Salish, Saponi, Secwepemc, Seminole,
Seneca,  Shawnee, Shinnecock, Shoshone, Shuswap, Siletz, Sioux, Spokane, Steilacoom, Suquamish, Susquehanna  Tlingit, Tonkawa, Tsilhqot'In, Tuscarora,  Umatilla,  Umpqua,  Ute,* Wabanaki, Waccamaw-Sioun, Wampanoag, Warm Springs Indians, Washoe, Wea,
Wendat, Wichita, Wiyot, Wyandot.

I am sure there are some I couldn't find.  Some of the peoples on the above list have been reduced to populations smaller than one of our average sized congregations, they were hundreds of thousands in 1491.

Was the removal policy an alternative to Genocide?  In other words if the Indians choose to move, rather than die, isn't it true that there was only the threat of genocide, not the reality of genocide?

If individuals are moved from a land where they ancestors lived, if their children are forcefully removed and sent to English Christian schools, if the land they are resettled on is incapable of sustaining them agriculturally and they are put on the dole they have been destroyed as a people.  When armed men keep them in their "reserve," they are in concentration camps.    Genocide is when a people's culture and way of life has been destroyed.  The native people were destroyed as an indigenous people and turned into the underclass known as Indians.  The survivors are victims of genocide just as much as those who ended up in a mass grave.

Ask the Armenians.  Ask the Jews.  One doesn't have to get every last individual for a genocide to have taken place.  Genocide is the destruction of a particular community of people, survivors of transported Indians were able to recreate some community, but Oklahoma isn't the Great Smocky Mountains.

Native people are resurgent,  more and more individuals are learning their language and working with others to overcome shame and become autonomous and self determining.  But native people live with the awareness of holocaust.  To heal this nation the children of the conquerors must share that awareness.

I wrote about the St. Louis arch celebrating Westward expansion and the Louisiana Purchase as a "symbol of genocide."  In a comment to that same piece Fausto writes "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."

When governor of Virginia, Thomas Jefferson stated: "If we are to wage a campaign against these Indians the end proposed should be their extermination, or their removal beyond the lakes of the Illinois River. The same world would scarcely do for them and us." When he became President he had a standing army to wage his campaign of extermination and during his administration many of the nations were eliminated on the Atlantic side of the Eastern Mountains.  His administration then waged war against the people indigenous to the "near West" beyond the Appalachians.  Then he "bought" the West from France (whose claim to the land was based on the theology of the Christians Crusades (non Christians have no rights a Christian is bound to recognize.)

Did Jefferson mean it?  His whole life reveals an Enlightenment gentleman, curious about the new science, opinionated about the project of a propertied persons' democratic republic, who was openly racist, genocidal,  grandiose, and patriarchal.  The Louisiana Purchase was intended as a way to provide opportunities to his people (White People) and "extermination" of the same final solution to the native people west of the Illinois River.  The word genocide didn't exist in his vocabulary, but his "extermination" policy was very real, very intentional, and very calculated.  The West he envisioned would include slavery.  His writings make this clear, and when the senators and representatives in congress representing the Northern states tried to restrict slavery in the West he was alarmed and spoke of dissolving the United States.

Did Jefferson mean genocide?  He didn't consider Africans and Native Americans to be fully human, so enslaving them and exterminating them did not bother his conscience.  At least he does not share any self criticism for his words or actions in his writings, or any agonizing that as a result of his policies and practices hundreds of thousands of people were burned to death, shoot to death and starved to death, and hundreds of thousands were held in degrading slavery with their families ripped from them and all the fruits of their labor taken for the enrichment of generations of white people.

Unitarian Universalists speak of our continuing work against our own institutionalized racism.  We insist that racism is not just bad attitudes held by bigots (who are of course are not Unitarian Universalists) but built into the way this nation was built on conquest, plunder, and slavery and has subsequently evolved its institutional arrangements of power.  We see an example of this in our own practice.  Jefferson is sanitized and served up as a "famous UU" by Unitarian Universalist religious educators and clergy rather than presented as a morally questionable and politically contradictory example of Unitarian origins in the Enlightenment elite.  By doing this and allowing this to be done in our name we are perpetuating racism and contributing to holocaust denial.

Here is an example of what we must do more often.

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.

The Long Walk of the Navajo, also called the Long Walk to Bosque Redondo, was an Indian removal effort of the United States government in 1863 and 1864. The plan called deporting all Navajo from their native lands, which were called, in the Navajo language, Dinetah. (Dinetah included land from northeastern Arizona through western New Mexico, and north into Utah and Colorado.) The Navajo cultivated crops on the fertile floors of canyons, including Canyon de Chelly, home to the ancient Anasazi people.  The first contingents began arriving March 13 and 14, 1964.

(Banner from Navaho, info and banner were hat tipped from Peace Buttons.)

Robert Williams writes:
At the dawn of Renaissance Europe's discoveries in the New World and conquest of the American Indian, Europeans already enjoyed the singular advantage of possessing a systematically elaborated legal discourse on colonialism. This discourse, first successfully deployed during the medieval Crusades to the Holy Land [and , I should add, eventually to the English colonization of Ireland] unquestioningly asserted that normatively divergent non-Christian peoples could rightfully be conquered, and their lands could be lawfully confiscated by Christian Europeans, enforcing their particular vision of a universally binding natural law. This is to say that for centuries our churches have been involved in the colonization and conquest of the world on behalf of Europe.

Contemporary religious liberals too often disparage systematic thinking, rationalizing their retreat from the task of articulating their values to the vagaries of post modernism. But as Lakoff and others have pointed out unless those who hope for a more open, and humane society begin to articulate where they stand on moral and ethical questions, those who advocate authoritarian. sectarian and corporate values will win the battle of "framing" the big questions of the day. The moral value expressed above, a.k.a. Christian triumphalism is alive and well in our country today. What is the religious liberal response?

The churches of New England preached the rationalization that Williams cited above to justify the genocide of the Natives that the Pilgrims and Puritans encountered. These Christians saw themselves as the children of God coming into the Promised Land, and the indigenous people of what they called the New English colonies as "Canaanites." Such is the first chapter in the history of the "free church" in America.

Williams quote is from his The American Indian in Western Legal Thought; The Discourse of Conquest (Oxford University Press, 1990) and can be found on p.1. I followed a foot by George Tinker, whose article in Soul Work: anti-racist theologies in dialogue refers to Williams.

Another document from the movement of Native Americans and European American supporters to revisit the meaning of the Columbus Day celebration. Native peoples in both North and South America are increasingly regarding the second monday in October as a day to remember what might have been, and to remember the horror of five centuries of genocide. Unfortunately it focused only on the 1992 -500th Anniversary- but it is provides a model for study, reflection and local resolutions.

A Faithful Response
to the 500th Anniversary of the Arrival of Christopher Columbus

As adopted by the Governing Board
May 17, 1990
A Resolution of the
National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA

As U.S. Christians approach public observances marking the 500th anniversary of Christopher Columbus's first landing in the Western hemisphere, we are called to review our full history, reflect upon it, and act as people of faith mindful of the significance of 1492. The people in our churches and communities now look at the significance of the event in different ways. What represented newness of freedom, hope and opportunity for some was the occasion for oppression, degradation and genocide for others. For the Church this is not a time for celebration but a time for a committed plan of action insuring that this "kairos" moment in history not continue to cosmetically coat the painful aspects of the American history of racism.

1. In 1992, celebrations of the 500th anniversary of the arrival of Christopher Columbus in the "New World" will be held. For the descendants of the survivors of the subsequent invasion, genocide, slavery, "ecocide", and exploitation of the wealth of the land, a celebration is not an appropriate observation of this anniversary.

* For the indigenous people of the Caribbean islands, Christopher Columbus's invasion marked the beginning of slavery and their eventual genocide.

* For the indigenous people of Central America, the result was slavery, genocide and exploitation leading to the present struggle for liberation.

* For the indigenous people of South America, the result was slavery, genocide, and the exploitation of their mineral and natural resources, fostering the early accumulation of capital by the European countries.

* For the indigenous people of Mexico, the result was slavery, genocide, rape of mineral as well as natural resources and a decline of their civilization.

* For the peoples of modern Puerto Rico, Hawaii and the Philippines the result was the eventual grabbing of the land, genocide and the present economic captivity.

* For the indigenous peoples of North America, it brought slavery, genocide, and theft and exploitation of the land which has led to their descendants' impoverished lives.

* For the peoples of the African Diaspora, the result was slavery, an evil and immoral system steeped in racism, economic exploitation, rape of mineral as well as human resources and national divisiveness along the lines of the colonizing nations.

* For the peoples from Asia brought to work the land, torn from their families and culture by false promises of economic prosperity, the result was labor camps, discrimination and today's victimization of the descendants facing anti-Asian racism.

* For the descendants of the European conquerors the subsequent legacy has been the perpetuation of paternalism and racism into our cultures and times.

2. The Church, with few exceptions, accompanied and legitimized this conquest and exploitation. Theological justifications for destroying native religious beliefs while forcing conversion to European forms of Christianity demanded a submission from the newly converted that facilitated their total conquest and exploitation.

3. Therefore, it is appropriate for the church to reflect on its role in that historical tragedy and, in pursuing a healing process, to move forward in our witness for justice and peace.
Towards that end, we are called to:

a. reflect seriously on the complexities and complicities of the missionary efforts during this period of colonization and subjugation that resulted in the destruction of cultures and religions, the desecration of religious sites, and other crimes against the spirituality of indigenous peoples;

b. review and reflect on the degree to which current missiologies tend to promote lifestyles that perpetuate the exploitation of the descendants of the indigenous people, and that stand in the way of enabling their self-determination;

c. identify and celebrate the significant voices within the church that have consistently advocated the rights and dignities of indigenous peoples;

d. recognize that what some historians have termed a "discovery" in reality was an invasion and colonization with legalized occupation, genocide, economic exploitation and a deep level of institutional racism and moral decadence;

e. reflect seriously on how the Church should and might ac- complish its task of witness and service to and with those of other faiths, recognizing their integrity as children of God, and not contributing to new bondages.

4. Therefore, the Governing Board of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA:

a. Declares 1992 to be a year of reflection and repentance, and calls upon its member communions to enter into theological and missional reflection, study and prayer as a faithful obser- vance of that year;

b. Commits itself to be involved in activities that bring forward the silenced interpretation of the 1492 event including:

* taking action to influence how governments or other institutions plan to celebrate the "discovery" of America;

* using its TV, radio and print media resources to educate the Church and its constituency about the factual histories of indigenous people, the colonization of their lands and the effects today of colonization, including the loss of land, lives and cultures; and

* advocating the inclusion of the accurate factual history of indigenous people, including African Americans, in textbooks to be used in public and parochial education systems in the United States; and

* cooperating with other hemispheric interfaith bodies in a gathering in the Caribbean islands to analyze the effects of the European invasion and colonization of the Americas from the perspective of their descendants;

c. Calls upon its member communions to join in affirming and implementing this resolution in dialogue with indigenous people of the Americas;

d. Requests that the Division of Church and Society (or its legal successor) in cooperation with the Division of Overseas Ministries (or its legal successor) develop programmatic materials for the speedy implementation of this resolution;

e. Requests appropriate units to explore convening a gathering of representatives of traditional tribes, urban Indian and tribal governments to discuss ways to strengthen Indian ministries;

f. Supports the endeavors of theological schools and seminaries to help open alternative understandings of 1492/1992;

g. Declares this resolution to be our humble and faithful first step contribution towards a deep understanding among peoples of our country. It is our hope that in a new spirit of reconciliation, we move forward together into a shared future as God's creatures honoring the plurality of our cultural heritage.

This document also quotes, in its footnotes, documents from other church bodies such as the Final Document of the European Ecumenical Assembly "Peace With Justice for the Whole Creation", May 1989, Basel, Switzerland, issued by the Conference of European Churches and the Council of European Bishops' Conference, June 2, 1989, which states that "1992 will moreover mark the 500th anniversary of the beginning of a period of European expansion to the detriment of other peoples." In the Basel document, European churchpersons acknowledge having "failed to challenge with sufficient consistency political and economic systems which misuse power and wealth, exploit resources for their self-interest and perpetuate poverty and marginalisation...We commit ourselves to struggle against all violations of human rights and the social structures which favor them."
Another footnote quotes "A Public Declaration to the Tribal Councils and Traditional Spiritual Leaders of the Indian and Eskimo Peoples of the Pacific Northwest", Bishop Thomas L. Blevins, Pacific Northwest Synod, Lutheran Church in America, and eight Bishops and leaders of other denominations, August, 1987. This statement speaks of "unconscious and insensitive" attitudes and actions by the church which reflect "the rampant racism and prejudice of the dominant culture with which we too willingly identified." The footnote also mentions a speech to the Indian Leaders of the Northwest Territories by Pope John Paul II in September 1987, in which the Pope assured the Native people that the Roman Catholic Church "extols the equal human dignity of all peoples and defends their right to uphold their own cultural character, with its distinct traditions and customs."

Finally, the U.S. Council of Churches document includes a biblio- graphy of materials which it recommends be used in education. Some of these entries may surprise you, especially if you've read any of them:
1. Bartolome de las Casas, "Historia de los indios (ca. 1550), "Tears of the Indians (ca. 1550), "In Defense of the Indians" (ca. 1550)
2. Deloria, Vine, Jr., "Custer Died For Your Sins", 1970; "God Is Red", 1983
3. Galeano, Eduardo, "Memory of Fire: Genesis", NY:Pantheon, 1985
4. Jackson, Helen Hunt, "A Century of Dishonor", 1881
5. Jennings, Francis, "The Invasion of America: Indians, Colonialism and the Cant of Conquest", Chapel Hill, 1975
6. Jordan, Winthrop, "White Over Black: American Attitudes Toward the Negro 1550-1812", Baltimore: Penguin, 1968
7. Limerick, Patricia Nelson, "The Legacy of Conquest: The Unbroken Past of the American West", New York: W.W. Norton, 1987
Clearly, it is no longer the "official" position of the Church to convert Native Americans. A quick look at the Vatican II Documents' "Declaration on the Relationship of the Church to Non-Christian Religions" (1965) also plainly states that the Catholic Church supposedly now recognizes that there can be salvation outside the Church, and rejects the oppression of other religions as "foreign to the mind of Christ". Any missionary who says otherwise is guilty of ignorance at best and hypocrisy at worst; I offer the above documents in order to educate the former group! As for the latter, there's not much we can do for them other than point out that they can hardly call themselves Christians.