The following is a slightly modified version of an
Anti-Racism Lecture that I gave on March 22, 2011, at Saint Mary’s
University, Halifax, Nova Scotia,
By Mi’kmaq Elder Dr. Daniel N. Paul, C.M., O.N.S.
NOTE: In this paper the term American
Indian is applicable to all of the Indigenous Peoples of the
Americas.
The main topic of my commentary today will be about
the Hidden History of the Americas, and the Conspiracy of Silence that
keeps it out of Eurocentric Education Systems, and hidden safely away in
the Archives of Canada, the United States, the Vatican, France, Great
Britain, Spain, Portugal, and far to many other countries to mention
here.
Yesterday, March 21st, was the date that the
United
Nations set aside in 1966 to remind humanity each year thereafter
that we have a moral obligation to work diligently for the Elimination
of Racism around the world. Today, I’ll provide you with some of the
highlights of the true histories of the invasion and colonizing of the
Americas by Europeans, which I hope will provide a small forward step in
that direction. My presentation is designed to put on the table for
discussion a long denied fact; the dispossessing of the Indigenous
Peoples of the Americas by Europeans, and the near extermination of them
in the process, is the greatest inhuman barbarity that this World has
ever known.
The following are some of the major tragic
consequences that stem from the European invasion. First and foremost
the suffering that it caused American Indians over the centuries is
beyond measurement, and the number that perished because of it is so
immense that uncountable millions is the only reasonable estimate that
can be given! Besides out and out
Genocide,
starvation, which was caused by the deliberate destruction of Indigenous
trading patterns and food supplies, took a heavy toll (“The buffalo
hunters have done more to settle the vexed Indian question than the
entire regular army! For the sake of lasting peace, let them kill, skin
and sell until the buffalos are exterminated!” - General Phil Sheridan -
US Army.) Another item that took a heavy toll was malnutrition. It
started shortly after the invasion's onset and slowly became universally
widespread among the Indigenous Peoples of the two Continents and
continued until recent times. Initially, it was caused by food supply
destruction, but later the major cause was the near starvation rations
passed out to them by Caucasian governments - in a weakened state even
common illnesses were very often deadly. People sold into
slavery was also a huge factor. Then we must not forget the hundreds
of thousands of American Indians who died at the hands of brutal
Caucasian governments during the 1900s, in such places as
Guatemala, where they were the
majority population fighting
the minority for representation. Notable, is the fact that Caucasian
Canadian and American politicians turned a blind eye to the atrocities
that their peers were committing in these countries, probably justifying
their non-interference by labelling the rebellions communist inspired.
Before laying out some facts to support my previous
statement I’ll provide a sampling of pre-Columbian American Indian
statistics and accomplishments.
In 1492, when the European invasion of the Americas
was instigated by a human error that saw
Christopher Columbus get lost at sea, while trying to reach the
Indies, and making landfall instead in the Americas, the two Continents
were not, as some would have us believe, two vast and vacant land masses
that were created by the Great Spirit for the specific purpose of
enriching Europeans. In fact, both Continents were widely populated by
humans who were citizens of hundreds of well established
diverse civilizations - a statement of fact that may not set well
with those who buy into the White Supremacist belief that the
inhabitants of the two Continents were not civilized human beings but
savage animals.
Unfortunately, because of the lack of reliable
statistics the number of humans that were residents of the Americas in
1492 can only be estimated. Thus, over the eons, using various methods,
experts have made estimates that vary widely - a few million to a
hundred million. However, I believe, due to the fact that the vast land
mass was populated from the Arctic to the tip of South America,
including deserts, islands, swamps, Jungles, and mountains, that a total
population estimate of 100 million would not be far of.
The citizens of these Nations spoke hundreds of
different languages and resided in societies that covered the spectrum -
hunter gatherer to sophisticated city dwellers. Farms that fed thousands
of citizens of these Nations existed, and many cities had large
populations. The norms of human interaction such as marriage, divorce,
social assistance, etc., were in place. Such disciplines as engineering,
astrology, medicine, etc., were available for educational pursuit in
many societies. Calendars, suspension bridges, and record keeping, etc.,
were also part of the fabric of many societies. Trading patterns between
most Nations were developed and well established.
Politics ranged from democratic to autocratic. For
instance the Aztecs, Inca and Maya lived under emperors, while most of
the North American Nations were democratic. In fact, shortly after the
invasion started, the democratic ideals of these Nations soon gave rise
to the democratic aspirations of long oppressed Europeans. Proof of it
lies in the fact that both the Constitution and Bill of Rights of the
United States of America were modeled to a large extent after the
democratic ideals and laws of Indigenous American Nations, in particular
an Iroquoian law entitled “The
Great Law of Peace”. The before mentioned adoption of American
Indian democratic values and ideals was officially acknowledged for the
first time by Caucasians when the US Congress did it by Resolution in
November1988.
Over ten thousand years ago American Indian
horticulturists engineered a plant they christened Maize, commonly known
today as corn. In modern times the harvest of corn provides
approximately 21 percent of human nutrition across the Globe.
Interestingly, it took until 2010 before modern science could finally
figure out how they did it. Further, American Indians were very
ingenious in domesticating
food
sources; including corn, they domesticated nine of the most
important food crops that feed and sustain the modern world’s
population.
Another long ignored fact to ponder. Over five
thousand years ago the Indigenous People of California, utilizing a
process they had perfected to take the bitterness out of
Acorns , were milling flour out of them. To assure a reliable supply
of acorns they grew and groomed large orchards of Oak trees. This was at
a time when many Europeans were still hanging out in caves.
The before-mentioned items are just a tiny example of
some of the positive societal information that is readily available
about the Nations of the pre-Columbian Americas, but, of course, it is
not taught in schools or widely publicized. Thus, due to the lack of
teaching and publicizing, I venture to state without hesitation that
just about everybody attending this session, until I mentioned them, did
not know any of the facts just relayed. Which begs the question; in view
of the fact that the information just mentioned is readily available to
educate, why is it excluded? The answer will be revealed by the time I
finish.
QUESTION: Why does the racism that degrades American
Indians continue to blatantly exist within the fabric of the modern
Nations of the Americas? The answer is simple; most of the modern
Nations of the Americas, due to their Eurocentric founding, will not
willingly do what good conscience and justice demands; teach the truth
about the European invasion and colonization of the two Continents. This
course of action, no matter how demeaning to the European founders of
their societies it is, is a moral obligation that these modern Nations,
if they ascribe to being civilized societies, should no longer ignore
and resist!
In his discourse, "Lessons at the Halfway Point,"
Michael Levine accurately identifies with this gem of wisdom why
intolerance exists: "If you don't personally get to know people from
other racial, religious or cultural groups, its very easy to believe
ugly things about them and make them frightening in your mind."
A sound piece of wisdom. If after 1492, instead of
illegally appropriating and colonizing the territories of the sovereign
Indigenous Nations of the Americas, Europeans had followed the advice it
contains, and had gotten to know and had accepted Indigenous Americans
as equals, a peaceful interaction between American Indians and Europeans
would have occurred. However, instead of civilized interaction they
adopted White supremacist racist beliefs that led them to depict
American Indians, and later the Africans they imported into the Americas
from Africa to be their slaves, as bloodthirsty inhuman savages - false
depictions of both Peoples that have continuously been passed along from
Caucasian generation to generation for the better part of five
centuries. If white supremacists attitudes had not prevailed, both
peoples of colour would not have suffered the indescribable hells that
they suffered throughout the Americas until recent times and, in far too
many cases, still suffer.
However, if at that time in history, Europeans had
been civilized enough to accept all fellow human beings as equals, as
did American Indians, they wouldn’t have in the first place been
occupied with “discovering” and stealing the properties that belonged to
other sovereign Nations. And, without apparent conscience, while in the
process of illegally appropriating, barbarously decimating their
populations.
But, with racial superiority notions prevailing, the
European invaders utilized two very effective white supremacist
creations to justify their invasion of the generally peaceful Nations of
the Americas, and the pillaging of them. Without conscience,
demonizing propaganda (Example) was created and used to dehumanize
American Indians, and the
Doctrine
of Discovery, a Papal document that stated that non-Christians could
not own land, was used to give a smidgeon of legality and a Christian
blessing to the stealing of American Indian National territories, and
the carnage that the invaders visited upon the citizens of the land they
stole.
Therefore, in view of the onslaught that they were
facing, it should come as no surprise that the citizens of the American
Nations, who were being butchered, robbed and dispossessed by invaders
that were armed to the teeth with lethal weaponry, fought back
heroically to preserve their freedom and countries. The twisted result
of the before mentioned, in view of white supremacist attitudes
prevailing, does not surprise either, but it does defy logical rational
reasoning. Because American Indians fought the brutal European invaders
to preserve the territory and freedom that the Great Spirit had given
them, the American Indian resisters were, and still are depicted by many
as the villains. Thus, when a logical and reasonable person, with
honesty contemplates the result, he/she cannot help but conclude that it
is incredible in the extreme to find that in the overall scheme of
things the American Indian victims are the villains, while the European
bandits are the heros. Such an outcome makes as much sense as would a
murder victim’s family being ostracized and victimized because they
caused discomfort for the murderer.
Related to the prevalent white supremacist attitudes
that predominated among Caucasians during colonial times, it was rare
indeed to find a prominent colonial official who had the humanity to
see, and the courage to discuss openly, the justification of American
Indians fighting tooth and nail to keep their Nations intact and to
preserve their freedom. In fact, the only written statement that I’ve
come across during my reading of hundreds of thousands of pages of
history books, colonial documents etc., which acknowledges the right and
the justice of the American Indian’s fight for their land and for their
freedom, was the following made in 1867 by Nova Scotia’s
Honourable Joseph Howe.
“The Indians (Mi’kmaq) who fought your forefathers
were open enemies, and had good reason for what they did. They were
fighting for their country, which they loved, as we have loved it in
these latter years. It was a wilderness. There was perhaps not a square
mile of cultivation, or a road or a bridge anywhere. But it was their
home, and what God in His bounty had given them they defended like brave
and true men. They fought the old pioneers of our civilization for a
hundred and thirty years, and during all that time they were true to
each other and to their country, wilderness though it was....”
Greed was the main motivation for the horrors that
were visited upon the Peoples of the Americas by the European invaders.
Their thirst and craving for power and riches were insatiable; the more
acquired the more wanted.
Sioux Chief Sitting Bull aptly described it: “The love of
possessions is a disease with them. They take tithes from the poor and
weak to support the rich who rule. They claim this mother of ours, the
Earth, for their own and fence their neighbours away. If (North) America
had been twice the size it is, there still would not have been enough;
the Indian would still have been dispossessed."
The only modern comparison I can think of, without
the carnage of course, is the Wall Street bankers, who almost brought
the world economy down in 2008 by the irresponsible fiscal actions they
took to enrich themselves over the prior decade or so. During that
period, in careless disregard of their financial responsibilities to
society, they designed and implemented schemes that were geared almost
entirely towards trying to satisfy their blind senseless greedy desire
to accumulate more wealth that they didn't need. The human suffering
from it has been tremendous worldwide, massive unemployment, tens of
thousands have lost their homes, and in 2011, millions are still
unemployed.
Conversion to
Christianity did not help American Indians survive. In fact, the
atrocious treatment that they suffered at the hands of Caucasians before
conversion continued unabated after conversion. For instance, the
Mi’kmaq began to convert in 1610, but, during the 1700s, their land was
still being taken without their consent and without compensation, and
they were subjected to attempts to exterminate them. Within the records
of the modern Nations of the Americas rests many accounts of some of the
gruesome methods utilized by Christian stalwarts to convert the
“Pagans”.
Montezuma's death provides a good example of colonial Christian
thinking at work. His jailors, after holding him prisoner for several
years, tried to use him to quell a Mexican uprising against Spanish
rule, at which event he was wounded and died a few days later. Quoted
from Access Genealogy:
“As a last resort, the great king himself, decked in
his robes of state, was taken to the tower from which he had before
succeeded in quieting the angry populace. The multitude listened with
deferential awe, but when they heard again the palpable falsehood that
he staid among the Spaniards by his own free will, reverence gave way to
contempt and indignation. Revilings and reproaches were followed by a
shower of stones and arrows. The attendant soldiers in vain interposed
their shields to protect the emperor: he fell, severely wounded upon the
head by a stone. The crowd now retired appalled at the sacrilege that
they had committed. But the work was done: the miserable Montezuma,
overcome with rage, mortification, and despair, would accept of no
assistance, either surgical or spiritual, from the Spaniards. In three
days, says de Soils, "lie surrendered up to the devil the eternal
possession of his soul, employing the latest moments of his breath in
impious thoughts of sacrificing his enemies to his fury and revenge."
There are several stories about how Montezuma
actually died. A hideous account is that Cortez, growing fed up with the
Emperor's complete control and influence over his people, arranged to
have him executed by having a red hot iron rod inserted into his rectum.
Germ Warfare was used by the colonials to try to
exterminate American Indian populations, the preferred method was Small
Pox infection. The following quotes are extracted from exchanges between
the Commander-in-Chief of British forces in North America,
General Jeffrey Amherst , and Colonel Henry Bouquet, which were
traded between them during July 1763. They give an excellent example of
inhuman racist mentality in action.
Amherst: "Could it not be contrived to send the
Smallpox among the disaffected Tribes of Indians?"
Bouquet: "I will try to inoculate the Indians with
some blankets that may fall into their hands, and take care not to get
the disease myself."
Amherst: "You will do well to try to inoculate the
Indians by means of blankets."
Amherst’s favourite degrading label for American
Indians was that they were an execrable race. In spite of the
before-mentioned, and the fact that after they exchange their memos,
many citizens of American Indian Nations were dying from the disease,
Amherst defenders state it is only circumstantial evidence.
Before I get to the Mi’kmaq experience, I want to
provide a few examples of other atrocities suffered by American Indians.
The Trail of Tears: The Cherokee of Georgia were rounded up in 1838,
and during the winter months herded to Oklahoma. En route, out of a
starting number of approximately 15,000, over five thousand perished.
Many Nations were exterminated by the invaders, for instance the Beothuk
and the Taino. So many disappeared that
Shawnee
Chief Tecumseh observed: "Where are the.... many other once powerful
tribes of our people? They have vanished before the avarice and the
oppression of the white man, as snow before a summer sun." A
comprehensive list of the barbarities visited upon the Indigenous
Peoples of the Americas, which would also include many horrors that
occurred during the more enlightened 1900s, and short descriptions of
them, would require several works of encyclopedic proportions!
This statement "The Indians' disappearance from the
human family will be no great loss to the world. I do not think them, as
a race, worth preserving" by
Henry Clay, American Secretary of State, 1825/29, a man idolized by
Abraham Lincoln, and a strong believer in National Socialism and a
complete racist in all references to the American Indian, further
demonstrates the predominate White supremacist genocidal mentality that
the Indigenous Peoples of the Americas have had to contend with over the
centuries since 1492.
Canada, is country that was created by the British by
dispossessing thirty four American Indian Tribes of their territories,
it is also a land that has genocidal efforts in it’s history. For
instance, in efforts to try to exterminate the Mi'kmaq, there were two
proclamations issued by British colonial authorities that set monetary
bounties for harvesting their scalps. The first, issued by Massachuetts
Bay Colonial Governor
William Shirley, in 1744, included bounties for the scalps of men,
women, and children. The second, issued by Nova Scotia Colonial Governor
Edward Cornwallis , also included bounties for women and children.
Gorham's Rangers was the British Militia that was given prime rights to
be the foremost harvester of the scalps of mostly innocent Mi'kmaw,
barbarous to say the least! A third, issued in 1756, by Governor
Charles Lawrence, was for men only, however, it is not too far
fetched to state that many bounty hunters would have still believed that
the all inclusive bounties for Mi'kmaq scalps were still in effect.
Also, by 1829, the
Beothuk were exterminated.
I'll use the Mi'kmaq experience of life under
Caucasian rule to demonstrate how American Indians suffered from neglect
and declined in numbers because of it.
On June 25, 1761, a Burying of the Hatchet Ceremony
was held at the Governor's farm in Halifax, the British representative
was Governor Jonathan Belcher, the Mi’kmaq were represented by several
Chiefs. As the Ceremony progressed, several Peace and Friendship
treaties were signed between the parties. It did not spell relief and
prosperity for the Mi’kmaq. From this point to the late 1940s, they
lived in a state of near starvation, malnutrition was rampant. The
following are a few examples of the extent of the suffering of the
People under British rule, which are quoted from reports that widely
respected Caucasian Indian Superintendents submitted to Colonial
Governments.
In 1774, "a Bill to prevent the destruction of moose,
beaver, and muskrat in the Indian hunting ground was introduced in the
legislature, but was defeated." The majority of legislators did not want
to provide the Mi'kmaq with even this small measure of comfort. However,
White settlers in many instances did supply some relief to the destitute
and starving People. While they did so the government disregarded
petitions and reports coming in from across the province that depicted
the horrifying state of affairs that existed. Even reports of people
living in wigwams completely naked and without sustenance in winter
brought no relief.
George Monk, Superintendent of Indian Affairs at the
time, had forwarded many petitions from settlers that begged the
government to help the Mi'kmaq. The government responded by providing
only minimal rations from a budget of £100 per year. One settler
described in a petition of January 1794 just how desperate the situation
was: "A great many Micmac have died for want of victual ...
notwithstanding the little they get from the Superintendent ... if they
have not some more general relief they and their wives and children must
in a few years all perish with cold and hunger in their own country."
Joseph Howe, who was Indian Superintendent in 1843,
said of the Mi’kmaq plight in a report he made to the Nova Scotia
colonial government:
“At this rate (of population decline) the whole Race
would be extinct in 40 years, and half a Century hence the very
existence of the Tribe would be as a dream and a tradition to our
Grandchildren, who would find it difficult to imagine the features or
dwelling of a Micmac, as we do to realize those of an Ancient Breton....
Assuming the statistics of 1838 as a basis of a calculation, and
deducting 10 percent, your Lordship will perceive that there must be at
least 1,300 Souls still in this Province, appealing to the sympathies of
every honourable mind by the contrast of their misfortunes with our
prosperity, their fading numbers with our numerical advancement, their
ignorance and destitution with the wealth and civilization which
surrounds and presses upon them from every side.”
The Superintendent of Indian Affairs in 1848, Abraham
Gesner, was condemnatory of the meagerness of government assistence
offered to the Mi'kmaq in the reports he sent to the British colonial
government about the population decline of the Mi’kmaq. Gesner,
1797-1864, was a medical doctor, a fellow of the Geological Society, a
scientist, inventor and author. His most famous output was the
development of kerosene, which laid the foundation for our modern
petrochemical industry. The following are excerpts from his reports:
“Unless the progress of their annihilation is soon
arrested, the time is close at hand, when ... the last of their race, to
use their own idea, "will sleep with the bones of their fathers." Unless
the vices and diseases of civilization are speedily arrested, the
Indians ... will soon be as the Red Men of Newfoundland, or other Tribes
of the West, whose existence is forever blotted out from the face of the
Earth.
"It might be supposed that after their wars . . . and
encounters with the whites had terminated, the Aborigines would
multiply, yet experience has proved exactly the reverse. . . . Exposed
to the inclemency of the weather, and destitute of the proper diet and
treatment required for contagious diseases, numbers are swept off
annually by complaint unknown to them in their state. . . .
"From the clearing and occupation of the forests, the
wild domain of the moose and caribou has been narrowed. Being hunted by
the dogs of the back settlers, these animals have become scarce - thus
the Indian has been deprived of his principal subsistence, as well as
the warm furs that in olden times lined his wigwam. Indigenous roots
once highly prized for food have been destroyed by domestic animals. . .
. These united causes have operated fearfully, and have reduced the
whole tribe to the extreme of misery and wretchedness. . . .
"Almost the whole Micmac population are now vagrants,
who wander from place to place, and door to door, seeking alms. The aged
and infirm are supplied with written briefs upon which they place much
reliance. They are clad in filthy rags. Necessity often compels them to
consume putrid and unwholesome food. The offal of the slaughter-house is
their portion. Their camps or wigwams are seldom comfortable, and in
winter, at places where they are not permitted to cut wood, they suffer
from the cold. The sufferings of the sick and infirm surpass
description, and from the lack of a humble degree of accommodation,
almost every case of disease proves fatal. . .
“During my inquiries into the actual state of these
people in June last, I found four orphan children who were unable to
rise for the want of food - whole families were subsisting upon wild
roots and eels, and the withered features of others told too plainly to
be misunderstood that they had nearly approached starvation. . . ."
The Mi'kmaq population of Nova Scotia remained almost
stationary, approximately 1400, until the Canadian government starting
providing more nutritious diets and better medical care in the
mid-1940s. As a result, the population in 2011 is around 15,000.
NOTE: Most of the historical facts that were verbally
provided to the attendees from memory about the Mi'kmaq Nation, during
my discourse, can be found at the following URLs. (Links to other URLs
describing British barbarities are included in the United Nations URL)
United Nations Genocide Convention
Mi'kmaq Culture
The following historical data reveals that American
Indians were the victims of the two largest so-called “legal” mass
executions in Canadian and American history.
United States: On December 26, 1862, thirty eight
Sioux, who had been fighting the US army for survival, were, at the
order of
President Abraham Lincoln, simultaneously executed by hanging.
Canada: Eight Cree, members of a Cree First Nation
that was suffering from starvation, were executed on November 27, 1885,
for fighting for survival. That the Canadian executions also had
political approval is borne out by what Canadian Prime Minister
Sir John A. Macdonald wrote in a white supremacist letter that he
sent on November 20, 1885 to the commissioner of Indian Affairs, which
was penned a week prior to the executions: "The executions of the
Indians ought to convince the Red Man that the White Man governs."
American Indian Invisibility
This statement, “....the greatest danger of
oppression lies where bias is so pervasive as to be invisible...,”
coined by Dalhousie University Professor Susan Sherwin, concisely
identifies the type of racism that American Indians are contending with
in modern times. Her short concise statement is by far the best I’ve
ever read on the subject.
In a nutshell, the pervasive invisible bias that
still victimizes American Indians with the unwarranted designation
“savage heritage,” a designation originating from the demonizing
propaganda of European colonial times, has been so deeply imbedded in
the sub-conscious of succeeding generations of Caucasians by word of
mouth, Eurocentric history books, movies, etc., as the correct depiction
of American Indians, that it is almost impossible to get Caucasian
society to recognize, and accept that the systemic racism which
victimizes First Nations Peoples today actually exists. In plain
English, the unwarranted racist European savage designation that we
suffer from, because of it’s centuries old passage from generation to
generation, is subconsciously considered by many as the true depiction
of American Indians.
The before-mentioned assertion of Caucasian denial of
American Indian civility, and of Caucasians having little awareness of
American Indian history, is a fact highlighted by the following examples
of American Indian invisibility - these incidents occurred in Nova
Scotia while I was Executive Director of the
Confederacy of Mainland Mi'kmaq . However, it should be kept in mind
that if one were to transcribe all similar types of incidents that have
occurred over the ages in and around the Americas it would take volumes
to do it.
Signs stating, “Annapolis Royal, established 1605,
Canada's oldest settlement,” were placed at exits from a newly
constructed by-pass express highway of the village of Annapolis Royal.
The message did not recognize this fact; Canada had First Nation
settlements for uncountable centuries before Europeans began to
establish their settlements after 1492.
After hearing about it, and viewing it, I contacted
the mayor of the Town of Annapolis Royal, the Warden of Annapolis
County, and the Department of Transportation, and voiced my outrage. To
their credit, after they were reminded about First Nation existence, the
Mayor and Warden were shocked that they had supported the wording of the
sign, and that they had not even briefly considered the existence of
American Indian Civilizations. Within a few days of my intervention the
signs were removed, and I was invited to a joint meeting of the
Councils, where both formally apologised for the systemic racist based
oversight.
The sign now reads: “Annapolis Royal, established
1605, Stroll Through the Centuries.”
Signs on highway 102, stated: “Bedford, a Stopping
Place Since 1503," which ignored the fact that the Mi'kmaq had been
using the Bedford location as a stopping place for tens of centuries
before Europeans did. The sign wording was recommended for adoption by
the Town Council of Bedford by author Elsie Tolson.
To find out why Elsie had not acknowledged Mi’kmaq
usage when she coined the phrase, I met with her and pointed out the
erroneous message that it portrayed. She was appalled by the fact that
she had not taken into consideration the existence of our ancestors.
With her cooperation, and the progressive attitude of Bedford’s Town
Council, the sign now reads, “Bedford, a Traditional Stopping Place.”
In the 1990s I attended a business persons meeting at
the Holiday Inn in Dartmouth. The keynote speaker was an internationally
respected CEO from the States. He started off his presentation with a
statement that came across something like this: “When our ancestors
first arrived in the Americas they found two vast and vacant Continents,
loaded with immeasurable wealth for the taking.”
Taking exception to the insulting erroneous
statement, I immediately rose to my feet and pointed out the error of
his ways. He responded by turning red, apologizing profusely for his
systemic racist statement, and later he correctly placed the blame for
his ignorance where it so rightly belongs, the white supremacist
education systems of the Americas, which all but ignore the existence of
the robust civilizations that prospered and flourished in the Americas
prior to the European invasion.
To have Eurocentric education systems still in place
in the Americas in 2011, which by and large ignore the real history of
American Indians, is the result of wilful ignorance! I state such
because teaching the truth of what transpired during colonial times
would not bode well for the reputations of the European colonials, who
brutally dispossessed the original inhabitants of the two Continents of
their properties and civilizations, and in many cases, their very
existence. It should be noted that the destruction was universally
successful, of the hundreds of robust civilizations that existed in the
Americas in 1492, not one survives intact today.
In 1993 I wrote the first of three editions of a book
entitled
"We Were Not the Savages," the latest edition was published in 2006.
The title, which I used with slight variations for the three editions,
poses a question that someday has to be truthfully answered by
Caucasians, which is: If not they, who then were the savages? I think
the truthful answer is very unspeakable and painful for a great many
Caucasians to contemplate and acknowledge.
The continued degrading of American Indian civility
that ensues from not teaching the history of the Americas as it
transpired, and journeying on with the Eurocentric lies that have passed
to-date for history, is unacceptable in societies that proclaim
themselves democratic and just. Such an indefensible course only
reinforces the systemic racism that was created by colonial propaganda,
which will continue to victimize the victims into eternity if not
refuted and discarded!
If you wish to test the veracity of what I’ve
relayed, I suggest that you journey down Barrington Street to the site
where Governor Edward Cornwallis’s statue is located in Cornwallis Park,
across from the Westin Hotel, and contemplate and honestly answer the
following question (For those from other areas of the Americas do the
same with statues of such barbarians as Columbus, Cortez, Colonel John
Chivington, General George Armstrong Custer, et al):
If the victims of the Governor’s self admitted
attempt to exterminate their race had been from a white race, and not
American Indian, a People of colour, would the statue erected in his
honour be there? I believe that Caucasians of good conscience would come
up with the same answer that I did when I pondered it several decades
ago; it would not be there! In my opinion, no nation that self-describes
itself as civilized can honor such a man. Honoring him, in view of what
he tried to do to the Mi’kmaq, signifies that racism is alive and well
in Nova Scotia. The same can be said for jurisdictions across the
Americas that honor colonial barbarians.
The following is a prime example of how systemic
racism degrades the dignity of American Indians. Quoted from a Denver
Post opinion piece:
"Geronimo" for bin Laden offensive
By Simon Moya-Smith
Posted: May 6, 2011
"American Indians expect to be belittled and
dehumanized at every turn. We expect to attend schools where the mascot
is an Indian named Savage. We expect cutting cultural appropriation by
wannabe Indians. But what I, a Lakota, couldn't have anticipated was the
ignorance and naivete of President Barack Obama, his administration and
the U.S. military.
CNN this week revealed that the military code name
for Osama bin Laden was Geronimo, a highly revered historical figure in
the American Indian community.
"We've ID'd Geronimo," said a Navy SEAL. A short time
later, President Obama and his cohorts nestled in the situation room
received confirmation that "Geronimo" was, in fact, dead.
Take a look, folks. This is the face of ignorance.
"This is blatant racism," said Ray Ramirez of the
Native American Rights Fund in Boulder. Ramirez added that although the
connection made between bin Laden and the honored Apache warrior is
brazen, it's nothing new.
"When insurgents leave an area, [the military] will
say 'He's gone off the reservation,' " he said. "I really don't know
what it's going to take to change things."
What other races of people would sit idly by as such
an audacious affront debased one of their honored and respected
ancestors? Would the black community have objected if Osama's code name
were "Malcolm X"? Would the Hispanic community have taken to the streets
if bin Laden was called "Caesar Chavez"? Would whites have protested had
Thomas Jefferson been the code name for bin Laden?
I suppose, though, since American Indians make up
only 1 percent of the population, there was no real concern that we'd
revolt...."
I’ll end with this truism, modern Caucasian citizens
of the Americas cannot be held responsible for what their colonial
ancestors did in the past, however, they have a responsibility to right
the wrongs of history, especially when millions are still negatively
affected from the pain and suffering that their ancestors inflicted.
When the time arrives where the descendants of the colonials insist that
the unvarnished truth about the brutality associated with the European
invasion be taught in education systems, and governments comply, then,
and only then, will justice finally be done for the Indigenous Peoples
of the Americas!
An editied version of the before-mentioned article
was published in Settler Colonial Studies
Vol 1, No 2 (2011), A Contemporary Phenomenon
The following titles are a few of the positive works
available about the Indigenous civilizations of the Americas:
Stolen Continents -
By Ronald Wright
We Were Not the Savages -
By Daniel N. Paul
1491 -
By Charles C. Mann
