A TRAIL OF BEAUTY AND OF TEARS
Rev. Kit Ketcham, January 19, 2014
A
couple of years ago, I spoke to my Whidbey congregation on the topic of current
civil rights issues in America, mentioning several different groups needing
expanded civil rights, particularly our
gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgender/intersex friends and neighbors. I felt pretty good about what Unitarian
Universalists have historically done to support civil rights for oppressed
groups.
After
the service, a member came to me and said something like, “you listed a lot of
groups that need expanded civil rights, but you left out Native Americans. What about Native peoples?”
I
confess I was embarrassed, because it simply hadn’t occurred to me to include
Native Americans, First Nations peoples, in the litany of those whose human
rights have been neglected by our country and other countries. As we talked, she shared some of her
story and I apologized, probably feebly, for my oversight. And I promised that I would speak about
the issues of indigenous peoples.
I did so then and now I would like to offer those thoughts to you,
updated to reflect my new, more recent insights.
It’s
not as though I didn’t believe that native peoples have any problems. It’s more that the needs of native
peoples had become invisible to me.
I had not been as conscious of the oppression they’ve endured, even
though I’ve had native friends who lived on reservations, whose family members
have died of alcohol related disease, who’ve been accused of being “dirty
Indians” because of reservation conditions and genetic disposition to some
diseases and addiction.
My
own white privilege had kept me from acknowledging my complicity in the
conditions which affect native peoples, not only here in America but across the
globe.
For
indigenous peoples have gotten a raw deal in virtually every country invaded by
foreign explorers centuries ago and policies enacted in those times continue to
oppress native peoples to this day.
In
speaking about this, I realized I was taking on a big topic, one which affects
many areas of our comfortable lives and is related to historical policies and
acts of our U.S. government, whether the party in power was Republican or
Democrat.
Author
Steve Newcomb is a
Native American of Shawnee & Lenape ancestry. For several years, he has
studied the origins of United States federal Indian law and international law
dating back to the early days of Christendom. He has written a book on his
findings entitled, Pagans In the Promised Land: Religion, Law, and the American
Indian.
In an essay entitled “Five Hundred Years of
Injustice”, he writes this:
When Christopher Columbus
first set foot on the white sands of Guanahani island, he performed a ceremony
to "take possession" of the land for the king and queen of Spain,
acting under the international laws of Western Christendom. Although the story
of Columbus' "discovery" has taken on mythological proportions in
most of the Western world, few people are aware that his act of
"possession" was based on a religious doctrine now known in history
as the Doctrine of Discovery. Even fewer people realize that today - five
centuries later - the United States government still uses this archaic
Judeo-Christian doctrine to deny the rights of Native American Indians.
Newcomb
goes on to explain the origins of the Doctrine of Discovery. In the year 1452, 40 years before
Columbus made his journey to the Americas, a statement, or papal bull, was
issued by the reigning Catholic pope, Pope Nicholas, declaring war against all
non Christians, sanctioning and promoting conquest, colonization, and
exploitation of non-Christian nations and territories. He goes on:
“Under various theological and
legal doctrines formulated during and after the Crusades, non-Christians were
considered enemies of the Catholic faith and, as such, less than human.
Accordingly, in the bull of 1452, Pope Nicholas directed King Alfonso to
‘capture, vanquish, and subdue the saracens, pagans, and other enemies of
Christ,’ to ‘put them into perpetual slavery," and "to take all their
possessions and property.’”
This action was taken to expand and
strengthen the so-called Christian Empire. And it affects, even today, the actions of the United States
government toward Native Americans, including Mexican immigrants, and the
resources of the lands native peoples occupied at the time of conquest and
which they occupy today.
We’ve
all watched the immigration battles along the US/Mexico border and the
crackdowns on so-called illegal border crossings that have displaced dual-citizenship
families, have punished US born children for the efforts of their non-US-born
parents to give their children a better life, and have painted an ugly picture
of the governments of those states.
But
it has seemed like a problem that didn’t affect our area much so far, even
though the problem of Mexican citizens crossing the border without permission
has surfaced in the Pacific Northwest.
But
consider this: Centuries ago, the
United States was the homeland of native peoples who roamed freely throughout
the continent. Borders were fluid
and even nonexistent---until European conquerors moved in, using the Doctrine
of Discovery to claim the native lands of those indigenous peoples and to
subjugate them, to Christianize those who were willing to convert, and to kill
or enslave those who were not willing to leave their indigenous religion and
embrace Christianity.
Guess
what happened because of this religious enactment in the 15th
century? Again from Newcomb’s
essay:
In 1823, the Christian Doctrine
of Discovery was quietly adopted into U.S. law by the Supreme Court in the
celebrated case, Johnson v. McIntosh (8 Wheat., 543). Writing for a
unanimous court, Chief Justice John Marshall observed that Christian European
nations had assumed "ultimate dominion" over the lands of America
during the Age of Discovery, and that - upon "discovery" - the
Indians had lost "their rights to complete sovereignty, as independent
nations," and only retained a right of "occupancy" in their
lands. In other words, Indian nations were subject to the ultimate authority of
the first nation of Christendom to claim possession of a given region of Indian lands.
Yes,
that’s right. U.S. law concerning
native American rights to peaceful existence in this, their native land, is based
on a 500 year old religious dictum which authorized capture, conversion,
killing, enslavement, and displacement of peoples whose misfortune it was to
have been here first.
Since
that enactment of U.S. law by the Supreme Court nearly 200 years ago, native
peoples have been herded onto reservations, forced to sign treaties to maintain
some semblance of existence, massacred if they dared to oppose this treatment,
caricatured by popular culture, and robbed of sacred rituals and practices
which have been misappropriated by the dominant culture and used for commercial
gain.
The
concept which came to be known as Manifest Destiny has been a hallmark of U.S.
policy toward the expansion of European-born peoples across the Americas,
upheld by politicians of every stripe, ostensibly to promote democracy across
the continent and to declare it a moral law that superseded all other law.
In
other words, it was considered the destiny of American democracy to eradicate
and subdue, in this country, non-democratic forms of government. Historian William E. Weeks has noted
that three key themes were usually touched upon by advocates of Manifest
Destiny:
1. the virtue
of the American people and their institutions;
2. the mission
to spread these institutions, thereby redeeming and remaking the world in the
image of the U.S.; and
3. the destiny
under God to do this work.
Since that time,
many of us have come to understand what terrible wrongs have been committed
against indigenous peoples, both here and abroad, and slowly the tide has
turned, our thinking has evolved, and there is a growing undercurrent of
support to repeal laws which fly in the face of the Declaration on the Rights
of Indigenous People, proclaimed and published by the United Nations in
September of 2007.
The Doctrine of
Discovery was used to justify the conquest of Africa, Asia, Australia, New
Zealand, and the Americas. It was
the justification for the appropriation of lands and resources and the
domination of native nations and usurpation of their sovereignty. It formed the basis for the slave
trade, the partition and colonization of the Near East, the colonization of the
Americas, and the genocides of the indigenous peoples of Africa and the
Americas.
The Doctrine of
Discovery codified, put into law, made legal the oppression of others and it
may be the invisible attitude that gives tacit permission to all the bullying
behavior we see in society, from the playground to the boardroom and
marketplace, and ultimately to the battlefield.
As a consequence of
my recent inquiry into my own ethnic roots, I have learned that I may have
blood ties to the indigenous peoples of northern Scandinavia----once called
Laplanders and now known by their own name: the Saami.
The Saami have
occupied the northern tier of Scandinavia, up into the Arctic Circle, for many
centuries, and with changes in the political boundaries of the Scandinavian
countries (Norway, Sweden, and Finland, particularly), the fortunes of the
Saami have depended on the benevolence of the governments of these nations.
These indigenous
people have not always been treated well by the ruling nation. Though Scandinavia is considered to be
a bulwark of egalitarianism, the truth is that the Saami have always been
considered outsiders and as primitive peoples, they were considered “less fit”,
both emotionally and intellectually.
Over the centuries,
my Scandinavian forebears treated the Saami people differently and enacted
policies that had racist overtones and outcomes. I’ve had to consider what it means that my ancestral kin may
have both been treated badly OR
have treated indigenous peoples
badly.
Here’s what I’ve
been thinking, as I’ve researched and considered the implications of this
challenging information: First of
all, DUH! How could I miss this? How can native peoples have been
subjected to this without my recognizing it? How could they become invisible to me?
Just knowing that I
may have Saami blood kin eliminates my ability to overlook this miscarriage of
justice. And since we are ALL
related, according to what science is learning about how ancient humans
traveled from continent to continent, we cannot, in conscience, turn a blind
eye. I may never know for sure
whether I am part Saami, but it has changed me to know of this connection.
When I think of my
high school friends, Joyce and Belva Hoptowit, who lived on the nearby Umatilla
reservation and went to my high school, I remember that they were both
beautiful, both of them were honored as Indian princesses in the Happy Canyon
show that was part of the Pendleton RoundUp every year.
Their pictures were
in our high school yearbook---on horseback, dressed in white deerskin, feathers
in their hair, looking regal.
There were two boys,
Peter and Paul Quaempts, who were basketball stars at St. Joseph’s Academy in
Pendleton. We all had crushes on
these two guys. I even wrote them
an anonymous note one time, at the height of my starry-eyed phase. What became of these beautiful young
men and women?
Sadly, as I
researched the names of these friends and admired ones, I found death notice
after death notice----all of these four had died too young, between ages 50 and
60. Why? I couldn’t find out why, but knowing the bleak history of
health vulnerabilities among indigenous peoples who have been overrun by
European conquerors, I could hazard a guess.
Was it alcoholism
taking advantage of the genetic make-up of Native Americans? Or their high susceptibility to heart
disease, diabetes, cancer, and obesity?
Did poverty and depression contribute to their deaths?
These are questions
I had never before thought to ask.
Has the treatment of Native peoples by their conquerors over the
centuries resulted in such poor living conditions that their emotional and
physical health has been damaged?
That their history from the day Europeans set foot on their lands has
been one of death and displacement?
My answer to these questions is Yes.
And my next question
is, logically, what---500 years later---can we do about any of this?
As Kate and I talked
about this service, we had to face the questions that were raised by this
issue: why do we not think of the
rights of native people? Why do we
still treat them as the invisible inconvenience of white colonialism? What is it about human nature that
allows us to dehumanize others of our species to the extent that we have?
We acknowledge that
we have within each of us the capacity for both good and evil. Why do we so often choose hurtful
behavior over compassion? How do
we begin to examine our own tendencies to dominate and to oppress? How do we change our sense of
entitlement so that it no longer impinges on the rights of others?
Native peoples in
this country and others have contributed hugely to our arts and cultural
heritage. We in return have often
misappropriated their art, spiritual practices, music, and other contributions,
using them for our own material gain.
We do so without understanding their history, the heritage that they
represent, and we may even callously adapt those rituals and items to better
meet our needs, not caring or even knowing that their originators might feel
resentful and hurt. The beauty
they have offered----in art, in music, in ritual, in culture---has often been
stolen and misused for financial gain.
Native lands are
always under the gun. Awhile back,
I received notices about proposed mining in Alaska that threatens native
fishing rights and a deal in North
Dakota that sold the Fort Berthold Indian reservation’s oil and gas
rights. Large corporations were
behind both these acquisitions.
In addition, a
recent story in the Oregonian revealed that $32 million dollars are owed to
Native Americans, the result of negligence on the part of the Interior
Department to pay for the many leases of Native lands for mining, grazing and other
uses, by both corporations and individuals. Royalties were to be placed into accounts set up for tribal
members. Mismanagement of these
funds has resulted in this large non-payment. So it is still happening to our Native friends and
neighbors.
Clearly, we must
act. What can we do? The Unitarian Universalist Peace
Ministry Network repudiates the Doctrine of Discovery and in 2012, brought a
resolution to the floor of our General Assembly in Phoenix, when the related issue of immigration
laws were also a focus of attention.
The resolution
states: BE IT RESOLVED that we,
the delegates of the 2012 General Assembly of the Unitarian Universalist
Association, repudiate the Doctrine of Discovery as a relic of colonialism,
feudalism, and religious, cultural, and racial biases having no place in the
modern day treatment of indigenous peoples. It was passed by a strong
margin and is part of our Actions of Social Justice work, authorizing
congregations to take action.
Other religious
traditions are also speaking out in favor of repeal of laws which are based on
the Doctrine of Discovery and I would like to suggest that we as individuals
and as a congregation study the issue deeply and align with other concerned
congregations and humanitarian groups, including the Unitarian Universalist
Service Committee.
Perhaps other congregations in our area
are concerned as well and might join with us in educating ourselves and taking
a stand for justice for indigenous peoples.
In addition, we can
strongly oppose legislation and corporate actions which impinge upon native
lands. We can educate ourselves
and others. We can reach out in
friendship to those affected by these ancient policies and, instead of just
feeling helpless and looking away, let’s seek truth, let’s question what we’ve
always done, and let’s practice compassion and seek reconciliation. We can protest the commercialization of
native images and practices and refuse to participate in supporting them.
Let’s do something
together as a congregation and let’s turn our individual efforts into action to
bring about repeal of unjust laws.
And let’s recognize the dangers of of our own privileged status and take
steps to keep it from harming others.
Let’s pause for a
time of silent reflection and prayer.
#318, We Would Be One
BENEDICTION: Our worship service, our time of
shaping worth together, is ended, but our service to the world begins again as
we leave this place. Let us go in
peace, but thinking hard about how our lives have been shaped by the oppressive
policies of the past. May we
dedicate ourselves to doing our part to change the laws which hurt others and
may we never forget that our privileged lives are, to some degree, bought by
the pain of others. We pray for
strength to understand and the courage to change. Amen, Shalom, Salaam, and Blessed Be.
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