CANADA: True Patriot Love Foundation launches Highway of Heroes concert tour : #INDIGENOUS –#Women- #Canada, #Australia #NewZealand, #USA #Mexico- the #AmericanIndian Genocide – stories and links #GETLOUD #mentalhealth #familyviolence #racism #Ibelieveyou

CANADA MILITARY NEWS: P3Feb 15-betrayal of our Aboriginal North Americans, Australia etc.-Redemption and renwal and healing is needed globally

http://www.myspace.com/nova0000scotia/blog/546711794

Bell's return heralds renewed Metis pride

Sask. ceremony to unveil artifact

By: Staff Writer

Posted: 07/20/2013 1:00 AM | Comments: 1

A Saskatchewan community will be the site this weekend of the return of the Bell of Batoche after 128 years.

Enlarge Image

A Saskatchewan community will be the site this weekend of the return of the Bell of Batoche after 128 years. (CP)

BATOCHE, Sask. -- People from across Canada are expected to visit a small Saskatchewan community this weekend to witness the return home of a significant piece of M©tis history after 128 years.

It's also hoped the unveiling of the church bell of Batoche will kick-start a resurgence in M©tis pride.

The bell is to be presented to the local bishop today as part of a reconciliation ceremony during the Back to Batoche Days festival.

"It's going to be a huge moment in M©tis and Canadian history," said John Lagimodiere, chairman of the Batoche Historic Site and a descendant of M©tis leader Louis Riel. "This symbol of the community has been gone and held for so long by various people, that maybe the time is right to bring it home and start over."

“

'It's going to be a huge moment in M©tis and Canadian history. This symbol of the community has been gone and held for so long by various people, that maybe the time is right to bring it home and start over'

-- John Lagimodiere, chairman of the Batoche Historic Site

The bell hung in the Saskatchewan community of the same name when the M©tis were defeated during the Northwest Rebellion in 1885. Federal troops took the bell to eastern Canada as a trophy.

It found a home in a fire hall bell tower in Millbrook, Ont., until that building burned to the ground. The bell cracked in the flames. It eventually made its way to the Millbrook Royal Canadian Legion hall, where it was displayed.

In 1991, the legion was broken into and the bell removed. It hasn't been viewed publicly since.

While some say the bell was essentially held hostage by those who took it and wanted to sell it to the highest bidder, others have hailed whoever took it as heroes for helping repatriate an important M©tis artifact.

The Union nationale metisse Saint-Joseph du Manitoba negotiated for the bell's return -- on condition of anonymity for whoever had it -- and is to oversee its care following the ceremony in Batoche.

It is expected to be taken to schools as an educational tool and otherwise be on display at the St. Boniface Museum in Winnipeg.

"This is a time for people to start talking about the M©tis story more than we have in the past. As M©tis people, we've often been the third cousin in the aboriginal community," Lagimodiere said. "This will help elevate the conversation for a while and help talk about our Canadian history that's been so poorly taught in our schools."

Claire Belanger-Parker, event manager of Back to Batoche Days, said rumours of the bell's return have swirled for years. Now, she said, history is finally being made.

Many are expected to be on hand to witness the return. The festival has exceeded a record for campsite bookings set in 2010 when 22,000 people attended the event.

Robert Doucette said he will be among those watching the bell's return. The president of the M©tis Nation of Saskatchewan said the bell once symbolized the struggle between the M©tis and federal government. Now, he said, it is a symbol of reconciliation and pride. "It's a symbol of hope, faith and belief in ourselves," Doucette said. "Our struggles were not in vain."

-- The Canadian Press

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/canada/bells-return-heralds-renewed-mtis-pride-216260471.html

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IDLE NO MORE- NOVA SCOTIA

Change comes slowly, Mi’kmaq elder says

Knockwood recalls ‘torture’ of residential school life

By SELENA ROSS Staff Reporter

Doug Knockwood said a prayer for people eating lunch at the Indian Brook community centre Sunday, many of whom had just walked for two hours from the old site of the Shubenacadie residential school. Knockwood, 83, is a Mi’kmaq elder, originally from Cumberland County. He went to the Shubenacadie school for two years, eventually spent 30 years working as a drug and alcohol counsellor, and now lives in Indian Brook.

Knockwood explained how things have changed in his lifetime and what he wants from the future.

Q:Can you tell me a bit about the prayer you said today and why you were chosen to say it?

A: First of all, when I went to the residential school. I lost my language. I was forced to speak English, and I didn’t have very good English skills. The prayer, it was asking for help for myself and in order for me to carry out the duties of an elder. I learned to say that prayer in the last, probably, 20 years. When I’m in a situation where they call for an elder to do an opening prayer and grace before meals, they pick an elder, whoever’s around.

Q:What was Mi’kmaq Nova Scotia life like when you were a child?

A: See, I never lived on a reservation. We owned our own property, only a little ways from the reserve. My grandfather had the presence of mind to buy this property. But my uncle lived on the reserve all his life. He never spoke English. So we sort of had that connection.

(It was) totally different. Because we lived off the land, and everything that was made was brought from the woods or from the land, planting. My uncle lived in the bush; he never came out. You know, he came out for his food. And, someday, when he went to buy clothes, he went to Parrsboro. He never travelled very much.

We had a cabin. His was a log cabin, and, of course, ours was a house. We built a house. And I went to school after I came out of the residential school. I was taught in the English language, and I had to go to the curriculum that they used. In those days, we were only just a little ways from a grocery store, so we ate the same thing as everybody else — candy, when we had money! My parents used to hunt, my uncle. There was always wild meat. A big lake was down just across the road — go fishing, and in the wintertime, go trapping.

In the wintertime, we coasted, and we used to make what we called ‘tabagan,’ and we’d see who could make the fastest one, and we’d race. Sometimes it was dangerous, but we used to go across the road, and traffic would come by.

Q:This movement seems to be led mostly by women. Why do you think that is?

A: I don’t know if I can answer that!

Q:Why did you come today?

A: Because I was a resident of a residential school. All the things that you hear are true. All the torture and the harsh concentration-camp behaviour — it’s true. You know, the white people were very severe in their punishment to us, and as a result, we wound up following the same type of behaviour. To the point, sometimes, where it became very serious. You know, you’re going to get beaten up, you try to defend yourself. But then, after you get of age where you can handle yourself, you came from being a delinquent child to a crook. There was no happy medium in there. It was always, constantly, (indigenous people were) looked at as troublemakers and that whole thing. If anything happened, it was always the Indian, the aboriginal people, that was blamed for those things.

The behaviour today is just the same as it was, but it’s in bigger proportions. You’ve got the judges, and the lawyers, and the doctors and all of those people getting into all kinds of trouble — you know, taking all kinds of money. They don’t go to jail, right? But if I stole a package of gum, they’d (have) put me in reform school.

Q:If you could change a concrete thing and have it happen tomorrow, what would it be?

A: Myself (laughs). Because it’s important. I would hope that my people would get a stronger education so that we’re able to compete in the government that’s looking after our system. Because the system, there’s two systems, right? One for the white, one for the black. One for the Indian, one for the white. And it’s always been that way. It’s unfortunate, but slowly . . . we’re getting little bits and pieces here. There’s a lot of our people that are going into law, and my daughter’s a lawyer.

(sross@herald.ca)

photo

Doug Knockwood, 83, is a Mi’kmaq elder in Indian Brook. He spent two years at the nearby Shubenacadie residential school. (CHRISTIAN LAFORCE / Staff)

AND

IDLE NO MORE NOVA SCOTIA

Protester: Uprising not about the chiefs

‘Poor people’ driving force of Idle No More

By SELENA ROSS Staff Reporter

Chief Theresa Spence’s nowended hunger strike was never at the heart of the Idle No More movement, and the bigger campaign continues at full speed, said Mi’kmaqs who gathered Sunday near Shubenacadie.

“We supported her, but this Idle No More . . . it’s not about Chief Spence," said a young mother warming up with her toddler in a car before walking several kilometres with him to Indian Brook.

“It’s not about the band councils, not about the chiefs, not about Chief Spence," said her driver, Corinna Smiley, who lives in Millbrook.

“This, I believe, is an uprising of poor people and those that support them."

Spence, chief of the Attawapiskat First Nation in northern Ontario, ended her hunger strike Thursday after 42 days, but Idle No More began even earlier, said the two. Spence “jumped" on the movement and added to its momentum, they said.

About 35 people walked nearly 10 kilometres Sunday morning on the quiet road leading away from the old Shubenacadie residential school site, taking up a lane with the help of RCMP officers.

The walk was meant partly to remember those who attended the notorious school, said organizer Shelley Young, but it had other meanings, depending on who you asked.

Young also wanted to show support for a two-month, 1,100-kilometre trek that six young people and a guide from the Whapmagoostui First Nation are making from northern Quebec to Ottawa as another part of Idle No More.

On Mill Village Road, as walkers hunched their shoulders into hoods and balaclavas, Young walked through the crowd, talking to people about the Quebec walk and likening it to Terry Fox’s dogged trek across Canada.

She said temperatures in that part of Quebec have been bitterly cold.

“You feel for those kids. We’re trying to take some of the pain from them because they’re walking for us." The Shubenacadie school, which operated from 1923 to 1967, holds memories for nearly all local Mi’kmaq families. But a more recent experience at the site added symbolism to Sunday’s route, said Isabelle Knockwood.

The procession first made its way to the rail station in Shubenacadie to commemorate the many children who were delivered to the school by train. Most people then turned right and walked about two more hours to Indian Brook.

A small group lingered at the train station to talk about the last time they were there, said Knockwood.

In 2008, when Prime Minister Stephen Harper made the first formal apology by a prime minister to former students of residential schools, the local Mi’kmaq community brought Shubenacadie survivors back to the school and train station, she said.

The group sang, danced and prayed in a “letting go" ceremony to rid themselves of bad memories — but perhaps that was premature, Knockwood said.

“Five years later, they turn around and we’re doing these marches."

The march ended with a bigger event at the community centre, where dozens of people ate lunch and watched and listened to singers, drummers, spoken prayers and speeches. Children showed off songs they had learned, including a Mi’kmaq version of O Canada.

On the way there, an Indian Brook woman named Virginia walked behind her 11-year-old daughter and the daughter’s best friend, periodically asking if they were warm enough.

“It’s very important to do this walk, because it’s only a fiveminute drive to Indian Brook, and how many (residential school students) wanted to take that walk, to walk home," she said, starting to cry.

“So it’s important for us to walk home for them. And also to let Canada know that this is everybody’s problem, what’s happening today. I am proud to be Mi’kmaq, and nobody is never, ever going to take that away from me."

The remembrance continues today at 10 a.m. with a procession from the Angus L. Macdonald Bridge to Citadel Hill and the Halifax Commons.

(sross@herald.ca)

photo

About 35 Mi’kmaq people walked 10 kilometres from the former residential school in Shubenacadie to Indian Brook on Sunday morning to remember those who attended the notorious school.

(CHRISTIAN LAFORCE / Staff)

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Band seeks $1-million claim after audit data

By MICHAEL GORMAN Truro Bureau

INDIAN BROOK — The Shubenacadie Band council has filed an insurance claim for $1 million following an update on the progress of an ongoing forensic audit.

The previous band council ordered the forensic audit last May after the regular consolidated statement revealed financial irregularities, including at least $525,000 missing from the band’s tobacco store.

At the time, the revelation raised concerns about improper record keeping, a lack of training for band staff and possible improprieties by some members of the band council of the day. An auditor’s report recommended that the operation no longer deal with cash, keep regular count of tobacco products as they come in and out, and called for the production of weekly statements.

On Thursday, the current band council met with the team conducting the forensic audit for an update.

Investigators have looked at certain financial transactions from 2009 to 2012, said Chief Rufus Copage. It was based on those transaction reviews that the band was able to submit its insurance claim.

“We are insured for thefts," said Copage.

Copage said band council signed an agreement not to discuss the contents of the forensic audit until it is completed sometime this spring. At that time, he said, band council would decide what the next move would be and deliver a full report to the community.

“We’ve told (investigators) to continue working on what they’ve got to do," said Copage. “We can’t talk about something that they’re still working on."

Any questions about charges or legal action would be handled by the appropriate authorities at the conclusion of the audit, said Copage. Until then, band council continues to operate as normal.

There are members of the present band council who were on band council during the years included in the forensic audit. Copage, who was elected in November, said he has no concerns about current band operations involving people from the years being investigated because of stronger day-today operations enacted by the sitting band council.

The band will hold a community meeting on Feb. 12 to discuss its most recent regular consolidated statement. Everyone will get a copy of the document as they arrive at the meeting.

“It’s all a part of accountability," said Copage. “Chief and council want to make sure that our members are quite aware of what is going on."

(mgorman@herald.ca)

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The Spiritual Backstory of the Crown-First Nations Gathering

By ICTMN Staff February 20, 2012 RSS

Tommy AllenAnishnabe Elder Dave Courchene urged Crown-First Nations Gathering participants to have "the courage to do the right thing."

As aboriginals wait to see what actions or changes, if any, will come out of the Crown-First Nations Gathering that took place on January 24, their leaders have upped the pressure to let the federal government know that they are not going away.

The root of this sentiment is the unshakeable knowledge that underlies their insistence: The matter, for First Nations, is as much spiritual as political.

At the meeting itself the leaders of Canada's First Nations and the head of the Canadian government discussed face-to-face the issues dragging down the country's aboriginal peoples, and by extension, Canada. Politics aside, the underlying theme, at least for the First Nations, was the notion of maintaining their cultural integrity and making it part of the national landscape.

The gathering started out on a spiritual note that set the tone for the cooperation and communication to follow. An honor song and ceremony launched the proceedings and were later explained by Anishnabe Elder Dave Courchene, winner of the 2012 National Aboriginal Achievement Award for spirituality and the founder of Turtle Lodge, a center for learning that envisions all the races coming together in the lighting of the eighth fire foretold by the elders. The honor song and ceremony symbolized the establishment of a new relationship, he said, an attempt to find a new way forward for First Nations peoples and the Canadian government, as well as all Canadians. (Photos and other follow-up information about the Gathering is on the Turtle Lodge's Facebook page.)

"It is said by our elders-the wisdom keepers and the visionaries of our people-that we have entered a very special time. And it is a time of great opportunity. It is a time that we are witnessing changes happening around the world," Courchene said in his speech and prayer explaining the spiritual nature of the gathering and its relevance to the material world.

"Our people foresaw all of these things," he said. "We consider today very historical to be able to come together and to reflect on the original instructions that we were all given as human beings. And that was to bring peace and love into this world."

The sentiment was acknowledged privately, before the opening ceremony, when Prime Minister Stephen Harper presented the three elders-Courchene, Bertha Commanda and Barney Williams Jr.-with tobacco. Then on behalf of the three dlders, Courchene presented him with a scroll, while Barney presented one to Assembly of First Nations National Chief Shawn A-in-chut Atleo. The scroll highlights Ogitchi Tibakonigaywin-the Great Binding Law of the Kizhay Manito (the Creator) and the Seven Teachings.

Later, in his speech and opening prayer, Courchene emphasized the importance of putting children and mothers back into the center of our lives, calling on participants to remember the "original instructions" that all were given by the Higher Power to bring peace and love into the world. He emphasized everyone's connection to Mother Earth.

"As independent and free peoples, we come together," Courchene said, urging a spirit of cooperation for the meeting. "We gather reflecting the spirit of our hearts and belief as a people. We must find that courage to be able to do the right thing."

A traditional ceremony opened the event, after which Governor General David Johnston, Harper and Atleo ceremonially launched the sessions on how to improve the relationship between the Crown and First Nations people, as well as how to strengthen First Nations economies. A drumming circle accompanied the procession for the grand entry, led by a Canadian flag and the Assembly of First Nations flag. An elder smudged the leaders with sweet grass and a feather before the traditional gift exchange.

Atleo presented Johnston with a Covenant Chain belt to represent one of the earliest treaties between the Crown and First Nations peoples.

The belt shows that the Crown is linked by a chain to the First Nations peoples of this land, according to the AFN's description. The three links of the chain represent a covenant of friendship, good minds and peace. The silver it is made of symbolizes the occasional polishing the relationship will require to keep it from tarnishing.

Johnston gave Atleo a reproduction of a painting of the Battle of Queenstown Heights, depicting the cooperation of aboriginal and non-aboriginal soldiers in the War of 1812. Then the real work began.

"I call upon the drum to call us to order," Courchene said, explaining to the various cultures assembled that the drum represents the heartbeat.

"I call upon the drum to carry these words that the elders continue to speak about, that we will find that courage to be able to do the right thing," he said. "There are many many ways to do the wrong things. But there's only one way to do the right thing. And it's written in our hearts. All we need to do is find the courage to listen to the voice of the heart that speaks to all of us. Because we are all within the human family."

Read more:http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2012/02/20/the-spiritual-backstory-of-the-crown-first-nations-gathering-98971 http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2012/02/20/the-spiritual-backstory-of-the-crown-first-nations-gathering-98971#ixzz1mwsJ6gRZ

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DO U REMEMBER

New Northern Adult Basic Education Program

February 23, 2012

Iqaluit, Nunavut

The Government of Canada is committed to helping build strong,

prosperous and healthy communities throughout Canada's North and

ensuring Northern Canadians have improved access to training and are

better positioned to participate in the labour market.

To this end, Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced on February 23,

2012 that the Government of Canada, through the Canadian Northern

Economic Development Agency (CanNor), is investing $27 million over five

years to expand adult basic education in the territories, fulfilling a

2011 Speech from the Throne commitment to increase education and

employment levels in the North. This targeted support seeks to expand

the immediate capacity in the territories to respond to the needs of

working Northerners, and leave a legacy of increased capacity for the

longer term.

The new Northern Adult Basic Education Program (NABEP) helps address the

unique challenges faced by Northerners, especially in remote

communities. A significant number of Northerners are unable to

participate in the expanding labour market or take part in job-specific

training due to a lack of basic education skills. Skills deficits are

most pronounced among Aboriginal Northerners and those living in small

or remote communities.

The NABEP will improve access to basic skills upgrades, including

improved literacy and numeracy, so working age adults are better

positioned to participate in the labour market. This program will ensure

that more Northerners can benefit from local employment opportunities by

helping prepare them to either enter the workforce directly, or take

vocational training.

Programming will be delivered through the territorial colleges: Aurora

College, Yukon College and Nunavut Arctic College. The colleges, which

already offer a spectrum of courses across many remote northern

communities, will use the federal investments to improve their adult

basic education (ABE) services and to leverage investments made under

other federal programs. Colleges can use the funding to build capacity

by hiring and training more instructors, improving educational

materials, improving student placement tests, and increasing the number,

frequency and locations of course offerings. Expanded services in adult

basic education are expected to begin over the coming year.

The Government of Canada support is being distributed based on each

territory's adult basic education needs, and calculated according to

each territory's share of working age Northerners lacking a grade 12

education. Initial funding to support projects and activities for each

territorial college is being distributed as follows:

Nunavut Arctic College

CanNor funding: $11,112,750 (2011-16)

Nunavut Arctic College will receive more than $11 million over five

years to carry out a number of program enhancement initiatives including

capacity building through additional adult educators and resources,

curriculum development, assessment tools for literacy, pan-territorial

planning and monitoring, and a career experience program linked to local

labour market and opportunities.

The College will continue to work in partnership with key stakeholders

in Nunavut and pan-territorial post-secondary partners, including the

Government of Nunavut Department of Education and the Nunavut Literacy

Council, to ensure project outcomes meet labour market needs for job or

training readiness.

Yukon College

CanNor funding: $308,000 (2011-12)

Yukon College will receive over $300,000 in 2011-12 to develop strategic

priorities and a four year work plan for adult basic education (ABE) in

the territory. Yukon College will work in partnership with Yukon First

Nation governments, relevant service providers and employers to

introduce programming to improve the literacy and employability

successes of Yukoners, with a strong emphasis on rural initiatives to

respond to unique regional social and economic realities.

Additionally, the ABE program will focus on training opportunities for

faculty and instructors, placing Yukon College's ABE teaching materials

for instructors on-line, and developing and piloting a series of ABE

programming initiatives to significantly improve literacy, numeracy and

computer skill levels. New programming initiatives through the ABE

program at Yukon College include a Skills for Employment Plumber's

Helper program in Pelly Crossing and a Skills for Employment Cooking

program at the Whitehorse Correctional Centre.

Aurora College

CanNor funding: $621,780 (2011-12)

Aurora College funding: $59,000 (in kind)

Aurora College will receive support of more than $600,000 to improve the

delivery of ABE programming for residents of the Northwest Territories.

The College will use this first year of funding to focus on preparatory

work to facilitate program delivery over the subsequent four years.

Aurora College, in collaboration with NWT Aboriginal governments,

partners, stakeholders and other education delivery agents, will develop

a four year Community and Extensions Strategic Plan, to address gaps in

basic education, increase job and literacy skills, develop instructor

capacity, boost high school graduation rates, and improve community

access to educational resources. The College will work in partnership

with the Government of Northwest Territories and other stakeholders to

ensure project outcomes meet labour market needs for job or training

readiness.

The Government of Canada is committed to making tangible improvements to

the quality of life of Northerners, including Aboriginal people, in

support of its objectives under the Northern Strategy. CanNor will also

work with partners to share successful ABE approaches, so that they can

be applied in other regions.

---------------

DO U REMEMBER

The Spiritual Backstory of the Crown-First Nations Gathering

By ICTMN Staff February 20, 2012 RSS

Tommy AllenAnishnabe Elder Dave Courchene urged Crown-First Nations Gathering participants to have "the courage to do the right thing."

The root of this sentiment is the unshakeable knowledge that underlies their insistence: The matter, for First Nations, is as much spiritual as political.

Atleo presented Johnston with a Covenant Chain belt to represent one of the earliest treaties between the Crown and First Nations peoples.

"I call upon the drum to call us to order," Courchene said, explaining to the various cultures assembled that the drum represents the heartbeat.

--------------------

NOVA SCOTIA- Dexter wows kids, announces funding for First Nations

By MARY ELLEN MacINTYRE Cape Breton Bureau

MEMBERTOU — Premier Darrell Dexter might not have been a star on ice but he was certainly a hit with kids skating around an outdoor rink in this First Nation community Friday afternoon.

Skating around in his Montreal Canadiens sweater, the premier looked the picture of contentment in the bright sunshine.

“Good way to spend a day," he hollered to an observer.

Dexter joined the group of skaters prior to announcing that his government is contributing $125,000 each to five Mi’kmaq communities for physical activity leadership programs.

The $225,000 programs — each community will also contribute $100,000 — are designed to encourage healthier lifestyles.

“We want to have long, healthy and active lives, but today there are too many people who are not physically active and it’s leading to health issues such as Type 2 diabetes," said Terry Paul, chief of Membertou First Nation.

“I believe this agreement will help us reverse that trend and help make Membertou an even better place to live."

The programs in Annapolis Valley, Glooscap, Eskasoni, Millbrook and Paq’tnkek First Nations will allow the communities to hire full-time staff to develop and initiate five-year physical activity plans.

Earlier in the day, Dexter spoke to a lunch gathering of the Sydney and Area Chamber of Commerce.

“In 2009, Nova Scotia was stuck in a rut. ERs were closing, the province’s finances were in a mess, jobs were disappearing and families were struggling," he told the gathering.

“Nova Scotians felt the status quo was no longer working and they responded by electing a government that would listen to them."

Following his speech, during which he listed what he called the major accomplishments of his government, Dexter was asked if he was in election mode.

“We’re always in election mode, right from the first day you walk into office," he said.

As for the possibility of an election in the near future, Dexter wouldn’t say but hinted it wouldn’t be too soon.

“I’m respectful of the fact people of the province gave us a mandate and we should use it," he said.

On Friday, the government also announced a new home for the province’s maintenance enforcement unit has been found in New Waterford. Thirty-five workers will work from the former Signature Styles call centre building owned by Enterprise Cape Breton Corp.

The government agency tasked with enforcing child support payments was moved to New Waterford as part of Dexter’s government plan to decentralize government jobs from Halifax to rural communities.

(mmacintyre@herald.ca)

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Man faces charges of child pornography

MONCTON, N.B. (CP) — The RCMP in New Brunswick have charged a Moncton man with making and possessing child pornography for incidents alleged to have occurred at a daycare.

The Mounties say a 32-year-old man was charged today following an investigation into a complaint about incidents alleged to have happened in February 2012.

Police say they have identified two alleged victims and are notifying the families of children who were at the daycare in the past year.

Investigators have seized computers and data storage equipment as part of their investigation.

Jeffery Adam Amos has been charged with two counts of making child pornography, one count of possession of child pornography and two counts of voyeurism.

He has been remanded and is scheduled to return to provincial court in Moncton on Monday.

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IDLE NO MORE CANADA- ENVIRONMENT MATTERS 2 ALL CANADIANS

Sick fish economics: Sea change needed

Open-pen salmon farming in Nova Scotia is barely set up, and already it’s a billowing disaster.

The infectious salmon anemia (ISA) virus has hit — here as in many other places — and reputable scientists are saying it may not be possible to grow salmon in open pens in these waters without the affliction.

The official solution is hardly convincing and somewhat startling. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency has declared ISA fish fit for human consumption for the first time, and they’re being processed and marketed. But the Americans don’t want them crossing the border, and reputable grocery chains and restaurants don’t want them either. Even if they are harmless to humans (if not necessarily to other fish), “eat sick fish" is hardly a winning ad line.

In the process of pumping millions into an open-pen network, the Dexter government has a committee reviewing the matter as well as an inquiry to advance the rural economy. I’ll presume it’s going to fix this, but with an election on the horizon, it doesn’t have much time. Meanwhile, let’s ask if there’s anything useful to be learned from the economics and politics of the debacle.

The real failure here is to have pushed a dirty, polluting version of salmon farming just as it was becoming obvious worldwide that this is unsustainable, and as there’s a push to grow them (and other fish as well) in contained pens, either on land or at sea. A number of these exist in Nova Scotia for various species. I have a news story from Scotland where the world’s largest on-land salmon farm is being built (3.5 acres) outside Perth by a large salmon farming company called FishFrom. Andrew Robertson, the director, explained that “impacts on the environment and wildlife are unacceptably high" with open-pen systems. “We know it can’t continue as it is."

It’s not as though we’re too backward to do it right in Nova Scotia. After all, we have a clutch of world-scale seafood companies now (High Liner, Ocean Nutrition, Clearwater, Acadian Seaplants), not to mention world-reknowned ocean research capacity. So how did it happen?

There’s Premier Darrell Dexter’s jobs obsession, which brooks no second thoughts once his head is down and he’s charging; but it’s more than that. A few years ago, Cooke Aquaculture head Glenn Cooke took Fisheries Minister Sterling Belliveau and the Liberal and Conservative fisheries critics to Chile, which has a huge industry, to show them how it’s done. They all came back gaga. Since the Liberals are ahead in the polls, it’s only fair to mention that their critic, Junior Theriault from Digby, now retired, was arguably the most gaga of all. They had all seen the future through Cooke’s eyes and it worked.

The fact that the Chilean industry, the world’s second largest (after Norway), worth $2 billion, got ISA and collapsed between 2007 and 2009 didn’t seem to matter. Why were we so backward, with all those beautiful bays doing nothing? Just ignore the squawking environmentalists and let a proper Maritime multinational do its work.

But it’s more than that too.

Since the advent of the Harper government, something we could call “pollution economics" has arisen. The only thing that counts is the resource industry, from the tarsands on down, the bigger and dirtier the more meritorious. Anyone who pushes back is an enemy of the state.

Even manufacturing is of no account, except the auto industry. And anyone who flinches when it comes to fracking, quarrying, open-pit mining and anything else — like open-pen salmon — that extracts economic value from environmental destruction is not up to scratch.

That’s the Maritimes, apparently. Meanwhile an unrepentant Glenn Cooke is on trial in New Brunswick on multiple counts of dumping toxic substances into the ocean; in pollution economics, this is proof of his economic prowess.

The surprising — and to many New Democrats in particular, infuriating — thing is the extent to which, in this case, the NDP government bought into it, putting up no defence to the first story laid out by a promoter, and no sense of the larger reality, which even a scan via Google could have provided. The moral of the story is not that these jobs and an expansion of the salmon farming industry should not be pursued; it’s that pursuing them at the price of polluting the commons is the wrong way of going at it, and may end up as an expensive liability and actually retard job creation.

In other words, nature has snapped back — a practical illustration of the fact that if jobs are not environmentally sustainable, in the long run they’re no good.

Surely there’s a lesson to be learned here, and with regard to more than fish farms. And for the government, there’s the political headache of reversing course, which it must now surely do.

Ralph Surette is a veteran freelance journalist living in Yarmouth County.

(rsurette@herald.ca)

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American Indian Marine Was Part of Iwo Jima, But Kept Out of Spotlight

Jack McNeel

November 07, 2011

The stirring photograph of the U.S. flag being raised at Iwo Jima by U.S. Marines is one of the most reproduced images of all time. What many people don't know is that it was not the first American flag raised in that epic World War II battle.

Two American Indians played big parts in both flag-raisings on Iwo Jima's Mount Suribachi. Louis Charles Charlo, from the Bitterroot Salish Tribe of Montana, helped with the first flag. Ira Hayes, a Pima from Arizona, is in the famous photograph taken later that same day of another flag being raised. Why Ira Hayes is an internationally known hero and Louis Charlo has been lost to history is a story that traces back to the fog of war, the shrewd manipulations of public relations and a ruthlessly efficient bit of mythmaking.

The battle for Iwo Jima, one of the Japanese home islands, featured some of the fiercest fighting in the Pacific campaign. The island was fortified with hidden artillery positions, land mines, camouflaged machine gun positions and 11 miles of tunnels. There were 22,000 Japanese on the island when the battle started on February 19, 1945. When it ended, 35 days later, 216 Japanese were taken prisoner and the rest were either missing or presumed dead. The toll was even higher for the invading U.S. forces: more than 26,000 casualties and 6,800 deaths.

On the fourth day of the campaign, two patrols of U.S. Marines were sent on reconnoitering missions to reach the summit of Mount Suribachi, which had already been bombarded with 16-inch shells from U.S. warships, and bombed by planes in an effort to collapse the tunnels and knock out fortifications. Even so, it wasn't known how many Japanese still held out in its caves and tunnels, and there was only one way to find out. "I thought I was sending them to their deaths," Captain Dave Severance said later.

Jack Gladstone, Blackfeet poet, musician and historian, who has spent many hours over many years interviewing Marines who served on Iwo Jima and their families, describes Mount Suribachi as, "the most fortified mountain on the most fortified island in human military history."

There have been many books written about the Battle of Iwo Jima. James Bradley's Flags of Our Fathers, published in 2000, has a short but powerful account of the ascents of Mount Suribachi. "Tensely, grabbing at roots and rocks for balance, braced for ambush at every step, [Wilson] Watson's patrol felt its way upward amid the smoking rubble." Bradley lists Charlo as one of the men in Watson's patrol.

The first flag raised over Iwo Jima ...

Only one group of Marines—the one that included Charlo—made it to the top that morning; the other group took a route that proved to be impassable and had to return to the bottom. A photo of that ascent shows the men at the summit; Charlo can be seen holding a rifle. Historical documents indicate that the Marines took a quick look around, and returned to their platoon near the base of the mountain.

Shortly after Charlo and the rest of his group returned, a second group of about 40 men, also including Charlo, climbed back to the summit, found a 20-foot length of pipe and secured a small U.S. flag from the USS Missoula to it. The flag was small, just 54 inches by 28 inches.

Raymond Jacobs was the radioman on that mission. In 2004, nearly 60 years after the war, Jacobs told the website World War II Stories—In Their Own Words. "Moments after the flag was raised we heard a roar from down below on the island. Marines on the ground, still engaged in combat, raised a spontaneous yell when they saw the flag. Screaming and cheering so loud and prolonged that we could hear it quite clearly on top of Suribachi. The boats on the beach and the ships at sea joined in blowing horns and whistles. It was a highly emotional, strongly patriotic moment for all of us."

Sgt. Louis Lowery, a photographer for the Marines' Leatherneck magazine, was taking photos when enemy soldiers started emerging from caves, shooting and throwing grenades. Ray Coll Jr., a Marine who arrived at Iwo Jima on the battleship USS Tennessee, was to write, "Charlie, the Indian, and his companion coolly picked them off." No U.S. troops were killed. Lowery's camera

American Marines replacing small America

... was replaced by a larger one ...

was destroyed but the film that he shot was saved.

When the battle subsided a Catholic chaplain arrived, set up a portable altar and celebrated Mass at the summit. One photo shows Charlo kneeling in prayer.

The date was February 23, 1945.

In the last letter Charlo wrote to his parents, sometime during that following week, he wrote, "I was part of the fracas atop Suribachi."

Louis Charlo died less than a week later, killed as he was attempting to rescue Private Ed McLaughlin, a wounded buddy stranded in an area of the Iwo Jima battlefield known as the Meat Grinder. Charlo was carrying McLaughlin on his back and both were killed just a few feet from safety, according to Ray Whelan, Charlo's platoon leader.

Dan Jackson, commander of the Veterans Warrior Society on the Flathead Reservation, says the Warrior Society is still working to get a Medal of Honor awarded posthumously to Charlo. Charlo was originally awarded a Bronze Star for his heroics on Iwo Jima. Many think that's not enough recognition.

It's ironic that the first flag-raising has received so little attention. In addition to being first, it was the one involving the greater danger and the one that had the greater impact on the U.S. troops. The second flag-raising, which took place later that same day, was simply to replace the first flag

PFC Ira Hamilton Hayes

... a few hours later by Hayes (pictured) and five other Marines.

with a larger one. At the time, it wasn't treated as a momentous occasion, or much of an occasion at all—in Flags of Our Fathers, Bradley writes that "no one else on the summit paid much attention to what was going on." Yet the photograph taken that afternoon by Joe Rosenthal attracted worldwide attention, and was used by the military, the U.S. government and other organizations to raise money for the war effort.

As soon as that photograph was chosen to be the inspirational image for the fund-raising, Hayes was ordered to leave his buddies in Easy Company and return to the States to be presented as a hero of Iwo Jima on a kind of barnstorming tour. It was something he didn't want to do, and the intense pressures he felt reportedly led him to drinking heavily. It became so bad he was removed from the tour after just 48 days and shipped back to Easy Company in Hawaii. He was discharged in 1945 after three overseas tours and returned to the reservation, where his drinking continued and led to his death in 1955.

Gladstone says that because of the iconic power of that photograph, "The [true] story was smothered. In a way, we're still sorting it out."

The confusion over the two flag-raisings even took a bizarre twist as, years later, Charlo's story was conflated with that of Ira Hayes. Dan Jackson remembers that as a youngster growing up in Arlee, Montana on the reservation, teachers told him that Charlo had returned home with a congressional Medal of Honor, which he sold for a bottle of wine and froze to death in a ditch outside of town. That, alas, was the story of Ira Hayes. Jackson says that when he heard Charlo's true story as an adult he wanted to do what he could to help honor the memory of this hero.

"I got the Charlo family together and they gave me everything they had; pictures, clippings from other newspapers, and I compiled a capsule," Jackson says. "We're trying to get Louis a congressional Medal of Honor. Senator Mike Mansfield, then a U.S. Representative, traveled to Iwo Jima in 1948 and escorted his body back to the reservation. Two years ago Senator Max Baucus got [Charlo's] Bronze Medal upgraded to a Silver [Star]. All we need is to get him awarded a Navy Cross, and it could be made into a congressional Medal of Honor."

A beautiful veterans' memorial now stands in Pablo, Montana adjoining tribal office buildings. Massive wooden lodge poles stretch over an inner circle of highly polished black stone. Engravings in the stone depict an eagle, a buffalo, Indians on horseback, and one shows the likeness of Louis Charles Charlo with a brief story of his military duty, including the first flag-raising on Iwo Jima.

Charlo was born September 26, 1926, the son of Mary and Antoine Charlo. His great grandfather was Chief Charlo, the head chief of the Bitterroot Salish from 1870-1910. He is also in the lineage of Chief Three Eagles, who met Lewis and Clark in the Bitterroot Valley in September of 1805. During that encounter they shared what little food they had with the white men. Louis would have been the hereditary chief had he not died at such a young age. Despite his few short years, he continues to have an impact on others. Bud Moran, the present tribal chairman, was a first cousin of Louis Charlo. "My real reason for joining the Marine Corps was for him, in remembrance of my cousin Chuck, " he said. (Family and friends called Louis "Chuck.") "His mom and my mom were sisters. It was devastating to the family when he died."

Louis Charlo's bravery and death "has been a very important part of our family," his sister, Mary Jane Charlo says. "I don't think parents ever get over losing their first-born son. About 20 years ago, when my dad was still alive, they had a veterans' dance at the Arlee pow wow. The announcer asked my father to come out and dance for his boy. Everybody knew who that was. [My father] got very emotional and had tears in his eyes. That was almost 50 years later." She adds, "I think the greatest way to honor the parents is to honor the child. This would have been so important to Mom and Dad."

Louis Charlo is now buried at the Saint Ignatius Old Catholic Cemetery, Lake County, Montana.

Read more at http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/article/american-indian-marine-was-part-of-iwo-jima,-but-kept-out-of-spotlight-60406

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Canadian PM reflects on country's racist past toward Chinese

1 Comment(s)Print E-mail Xinhua, February 9, 2013

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Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper has reflected on discriminatory practices toward early Chinese settlers and called for stronger ties with China for the economic benefit of both countries.

Speaking at the Canada-China Chamber of Industry and Commerce's Chinese New Year celebration in Vancouver Friday, the Canadian leader told the gathering of more than 400 people in suburban Burnaby that Canada "cannot change the past, but we can learn from it and build a better future together."

"When I think about the Canadian-Chinese community and how successful it is, how vibrant, how integral to Canadian life, it's hard to imagine just how difficult things were within the span of a lifetime," Harper said.

"I'm referring to the head tax and the exclusion of Chinese immigrants, shameful acts that produced extreme hardship and divided families. That's why in our first mandate, our government issued a full apology to the living victims of those misdeeds, along with symbolic compensation."

Starting in 1885, Chinese, under the so-called "guest worker policy," had to pay a 50 Canadian dollar head tax to be in the country, a levy not issued against any other nationality. The tax was eventually increased to 500 Canadian dollars.

In 1923, Canada enacted the Chinese Exclusion Act, effectively stopping Chinese immigration and preventing families from reuniting.

In 1947, the discriminatory practices were repealed and, with the enactment of the citizenship act, Chinese were given full Canadian citizenship.

After years of the Chinese-Canadian community seeking redress, in June 2006, Harper's ruling Conservative government formally apologized to the estimated 95,000 Chinese who had paid the tax and made a 20,000-Canadian-dollar payment to each of the survivors or their surviving spouse.

Harper, who was welcomed to the stage by Mark Roswell, the Canadian personality better known in China as Dashan, noted it was just over a year ago that he was last in China when almost two dozen business agreements were signed between Canadian and Chinese companies worth almost 3 billion Canadian dollars.

According to the economic section of the Canadian Embassy in Beijing, bilateral trade between the two countries reached a record 65 billion Canadian dollars in 2011, the most recent figures available.

"Let me just say that Asia looms large in Canada's economic future," Harper said. "It's why I made my second trip to China just a year ago ... and why our government works hard to forge deeper ties with that economy, which is already one of our largest trading partners." (1.0037 Canadian dollars = 1 U.S. dollar)

http://www.china.org.cn/world/2013-02/09/content_27930934.htm

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Trudeau, Harper and China

By: Pat Murphy

Posted: 02/24/2012 1:00 AM | Comments: 3 (including replies)

0 0 0ShareNewPrint E-mail Report Error Reading about Stephen Harper's recent trip to China brought Pierre Trudeau to mind. Harper often does that to me. It's a function of the contrasts and similarities between the two men, the ways in which the world has changed over the past 40 years, and the different standards to which they are held.

China was very much a signature issue for Trudeau. He'd been there before entering politics and had even co-authored a book about his adventures (Two Innocents in Red China).

As his friendly biographer John English notes: "That country and its communist experiment had long fascinated Trudeau."

Consequently, when he changed two decades of Canadian policy by formally recognizing the People's Republic of China in 1970, it came as no surprise to anyone who had been paying attention. Indeed, it was no more than the fulfilment of a campaign promise.

It was a popular move. The Canadian left was thrilled to bits. Both the media and the general public were also on board, hailing it as a recognition of reality and a manifestation of an independent foreign policy. And the fact that it seemed to poke the Americans in the eye was a bonus.

Mind you, completely separate from what Canada was doing and below the general public's radar, the Americans were playing the same game.

In an October 1967 article in the magazine Foreign Affairs, aspiring presidential candidate Richard Nixon had written about the need to bring China into "the family of nations." Campaigning a year later, Nixon was even blunter about his intentions, privately telling Harrison Salisbury of the New York Times about his plans for an opening to China.

For Trudeau, the obvious next step was an official prime ministerial visit, which duly happened in October 1973. It was considered to be a great success.

Trudeau had what biographer English describes as "a rare and long audience" with Mao, but was most taken with Premier Chou En Lai. Subsequently, he noted Chou was the most impressive leader he had ever met.

There was also a trade agreement. It wasn't the first such event -- John Diefenbaker's 1961 deal had led to the export of $362 million worth of Canadian grain to China.

Ron Collister, the CBC's man-on-the-spot, quoted a Canadian official to the effect of it covering "everything but the kitchen sink."

Strangely, although the China of Trudeau's day -- Mao's China -- was particularly bloody and repressive, human rights didn't figure on the agenda. Neither Trudeau, the Canadian media nor the Canadian public seemed to care.

Several decades later, Stephen Harper came at it from a different ideological perspective. Unlike Trudeau, he wasn't fascinated with the communist experiment. Antipathy would be a more apt description of his mindset.

Taking the position that human rights were not to be trumped by pursuit of the "almighty dollar," Harper made a number of moves that risked chilling rather than enhancing the relationship.

Among them were such things as the decisions to award honorary Canadian citizenship to the Dalai Lama and to shun the opening ceremonies at the Beijing Olympics.

It didn't work. China wasn't moved, and the policy was criticized in Canada for its ineptness. Meanwhile, global economic turbulence enhanced the significance of the Chinese market.

So Harper changed course. The friendlier tone, however, also engendered domestic detraction, this time for its alleged neglect of human rights.

It all begs an interesting question. Why is Harper criticized for being either ineffectual or inconsistent on the subject of Chinese human rights when Trudeau, who showed no interest in the topic, was applauded for his China policy?

To understand this contradiction, it helps to recall the radical chic that infected portions of western, including Canadian, opinion in the 1960s and 1970s.

Despotic figures like Mao and Castro were invested with a certain romantic cachet. And bizarre as it may sound, people of an intellectual bent were particularly susceptible.

Indeed, Trudeau himself was not immune. Biographer English describes him as "intrigued by strong leaders, even dictators, and especially those on the left."

No doubt, times change and expectations change with them. Still, it's a funny old world.

Troy Media columnist Pat Murphy is a history and economics graduate from University College Dublin, Ireland.

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CANADA PRISIONERS OF WW II

Reliving prison camp horror

By COLIN MYLES STANDISH, The Gazette February 25, 2012

In tiny Stanley village, past the Repulse Bay Hotel, where young Canadians were bayonetted and thrown off steep cliffs, I stood in a Commonwealth military cemetery. All told, 20 Canadians are buried on this small bluff that served as the last stand for the Canadian Forces stationed here in the Second World War. And this was where my grandfather, Company Quartermaster Sgt. Colin Alden Standish, was captured on Christmas Day, 1941.

My grandfather was a young man from rural Quebec when he enlisted in the Royal Rifles Regiment in 1940. He received the Distinguished Conduct Medal for his bravery under fire but then spent 1,377 days (three years, eight months) as a prisoner of war in Japanese concentration camps. I went to Hong Kong to track down Canadian war sites and try to understand what he went through.

On Dec. 8, 1941, the Japanese army swarmed the border of Hong Kong's New Territories. I could still see the remains of the concrete trench system, the Gin Drinkers' Line, which stretches across the entire Hong Kong peninsula. Many parts are easily accessible, but some sections are filled with mud.

A sign reading "Piccadilly" adorns one of the tunnels, which were all named after landmarks in London. Today, the tunnels are guarded by roving bands of monkeys.

Sweating in the 30-plus heat, I hiked the steep peaks of Hong Kong Island. The fighting was heaviest in the area known as the strategic Wong Nai Chung Gap, which overlooks a main pass between the mountains. All the pillboxes and bunkers remain as they were in the 1940s. I had a hard time imagining Japanese and Canadian bayonet charges up the steep mountainsides.

On Dec. 18, the Japanese army on Kowloon crossed the Lye Mun Gap to Hong Kong Island under the cover of darkness.

My grandfather and other young Quebecers in the Royal Rifles came under fire that night, before being forced to retreat to Tai Tam Reservoir in the Wong Nai Chung Gap and then to Stanley village. The rubble of the Canadian barracks still stand inside the fort, their bullet-scarred walls bearing witness to the ferocious battle.

My grandfather supplied the men in the fort until it was no longer possible to defend it. Then he organized and executed a co-ordinated relief effort under heavy fire.

Most of the 290 Canadians killed in the battle for Hong Kong are buried at Sai Wan Cemetery. In all, more than 1,500 Commonwealth graves dot the rolling grounds of the military graveyard. I tried to ask the Chinese groundskeeper where the Canadians are buried. He didn't understand.

As I turned away, maple leaves jumped out from the tombstones in front of me. My back and shoulders tingled. The rows of white headstones look out over a concrete jungle below. Among 30-storey high-rises, this resting place seems very far away from home for these men. Sham Shui Po was the concentration camp for Canadian PoWs. Today, Sham Shui Po is a park where children play on swings and the elderly play chess.

I am disappointed to not find any official Canadian markers among the trees. The only remnants I found of the camp are the 1940s-era razor-wire fences.

Sham Shui Po is where my grandfather was imprisoned before he left Hong Kong for Japan in December 1943. There, he learned to build trains, memorize his concentration camp number, niku-go (25), eat rotten rice and insects (grasshoppers were his favourite), and avoid beatings. A slave labourer, he was starved and prodded into working 14-hour days in dangerous factories. At 6-foot-2, he weighed 95 pounds when he was freed in August 1945.

Of the 1,975 Canadians who went to Hong Kong in 1941, 1,050 were injured and 560 never returned home. Another 87 came home legally blind, and 200 died before reaching 50.

My grandfather's story had a happier ending. He returned home a decorated soldier, married my grandmother and joined in running a thriving family business, but his experiences in the PoW camps always haunted him. He died at age 74 and is buried in Rougemont, the Hong Kong veterans' symbol, HK, engraved on his tombstone.

Back in Canada, I think about the sacrifice made by men my age and even younger. I think of the devastation their deaths and injuries had on rural Canada. My grandfather once wrote to his family: "When I come home, my wandering days are over."

Though I am not sure if Hong Kong has put to rest my wandering days, I feel I better understand the man whose name I proudly share.

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UNITED STATES - ABUSE OF ABORIGINAL WOMEN IS SYSTEMIC IN NORTH AMERICA....

Domestic Violence in American Indian Women

Crime victimization rates in the American Indian community are significantly higher than in the general U.S. population. As a result of these high rates of violence, American Indian women are at high risk of homicide, including domestic violence. Homicide is the 3rd leading cause of death for Native women. Of Native American women murdered, over 75% were killed by a family member, an acquaintance, or someone they knew.

The frequency of battering in Indian Country is believed to be much higher than the national norm. American Indians, in general, experience per capita rates of violence that are more than twice those of the resident population.

American Indian women experience the highest rate of violence of any group in the United States.

American Indian women stand a high risk of losing their children in instances of physical and sexual abuse.

Three-fourths of American Indian women have experienced some type of sexual assault in their lives.

Abusive relationships are based on the mistaken belief that one person has the right to control another.

When the non violent methods of control fail to work, the person in power moves on to actual physical and sexual violence. The relationship is based on the exercise of power to gain and maintain control.

47% of women will be raped in their lifetime.

50% of women will be battered by their spouse/partner.

40% of women in prison for felonies are there because they killed an abusive partner/spouse.

Women of color are 64% of the female prison population and serve longer sentences for the same crime as do white women or men of color.

In the 1970s, it is estimated that 30% of all Puerto Rican women, and 25-40% of American Indian women were sterilized without their informed consent.

Two-thirds of college men report they would consider raping a woman if they thought they would get away with it.

Around 50,000 women per year are illegally trafficked into the US, where they end up in sex industries, domestic work, and sweatshops.

The life expectancy of Native women in the US is 47 years.

The International Human Rights Association of American Minorities has documented that more than 50,000 Native children have been killed in Indian residential schools.

Domestic Violence is not:

genetically inherited

caused by illness

caused by alcohol or drugs

the result of stress or anger

due to “a bad temper”

due to the behavior of the victim, children or a problem in the relationship

Domestic Violence is:

a learned behavior

Batterers learn from observations of other people, including family and friends

Physical abuse: This includes acts in which physical force is used to coerce the victim. This might include pushing, shoving, or being held against her will; slapped, kicked, bit, choked or punched. He may throw objects, locked her out or the house, abandon her in a dangerous place or force her into a dangerous situation. There may be threats or use of weapons and rape.

Sexual Abuse: Sexual abuse is most often thought of as rape or forced sexual actions. It can also include forced undressing or watching of sexual acts. Forced sex when in danger, sick or after a beating are also forms of sexual abuse. Sexual abuse might also include anti-woman or demeaning jokes or name-calling (frigid, whore) intended to degrade the victim. A woman might be treated as a sexual object and be made to dress in a sexual manner with which she is not comfortable. There may be jealous accusations regarding sex or the abuser may minimize his partner’s feelings about sex.

Emotional/ Mental Abuse: In emotional or mental abuse the victim’s feelings may be ignored and minimized while excessive attention is demanded to the abusers needs. He may ridicule the victim or women as a group with the intent to degrade her. He may also ridicule her beliefs, values, religion, class, heritage or race. As punishment there may be withholding of approval or name calling. He may isolate her by driving away friends and /or family. She may be kept from working or be forced to work. He may demand complete control of money and refuse to share the workload. He may threaten to take the children or abuse her pets. Manipulation with lies and contradictions is abusive behavior, as are threats of violence, suicide, and homicide.

Native American Resources

Following are some resources available to the Native American woman and her children who are victims of domestic violence:

Sacred Circle

605-455-2244

877-733-7623 (toll free)

Box 638 722 St. Joseph Street

Kyle, SD 57752 Rapid City, SD 57701

Sacred Circle is a project of Cangleska, Inc., a private, non-profit, tribally-chartered organization. Cangleska, Inc. is a nationally recognized organization providing domestic violence and sexual assault prevention/intervention services.

Mending the Sacred Circle

202 East Superior Street

Duluth, MN 55802

888-305-1650 (toll free)

Northern Plains Tribal Judicial Institute

701-777-6176

Legal Referrals

American Indian Law Center, Inc.

P.O. Box 4456, Station A

Albuquerque, NM 87196

505-277-5462

Legal Referrals

Source: ICADV Legal Information, Violence Against Native Women and The Color of Violence Against Women

http://aihc1998.tripod.com/violence.html

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CANADA- HIGHWAY OF TEARS..... BEAUTIFUL ABORIGINALS GIRLS AND WOMEN- ABUSED-MURDERED

Anonymous/Google Maps

Anonymous has compiled public information, to bring further attention to violence against aboriginal women with the creation of this map marking cases across Turtle Island.

Anonymous Creates Map of Turtle Island's Missing and Murdered Aboriginal Women

ICTMN Staff

February 06, 2013

The online hacker group Anonymous has turned its attention to Canada’s missing and murdered women, compiling a map from police reports and online public input that designates each case across Turtle Island for the past 10 years with a glaring red circle.

Special attention is given to Thunder Bay, Ontario, CBC News said. There, police are investigating the kidnapping and assault of an indigenous woman as a possible hate crime. A 19-year-old Oji-Cree youth has come forward to bear witness to the grabbing of the woman in the December 27 attack, according to CBC News, and to the fact that the perpetrators hurled racial epithets and pelted him with various objects from their vehicle as he walked along the road.

The murder and disappearance of hundreds of aboriginal women over the past two decades has caused an international outcry and sparked demands from indigenous leaders for a national inquiry into why many of these crimes go unsolved. The map was released on February 5.

Read more at http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2013/02/06/anonymous-creates-map-turtle-islands-missing-and-murdered-aboriginal-women-147502

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AUSTRALIA

Aborigines want more than apology- they want redemption and renewal and healing

Australia Apologizes to Aborigines

By Bridget Johnson, About.com Guide

"Australia Apologizes to Aborigines" (Photo by Andrew Sheargold/Getty Images)

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A historic moment happened in Australia on Feb. 12, 2008, when the government issued a formal apology -- broadcast across the nation -- for the treatment of the country's Aboriginal people.

There are about 450,000 Aborigines now in Australia, and they suffer from a poor standard of living, lower life expectancy, lower literacy rates, etc. Starting in 1910 and continuing for decades, the government had taken Aboriginal children from their families in a forced-integration program. Traumatized by the tearing apart of families and cultural damage, some had demanded an apology and reparations from the government. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd opted for an apology and no compensation, but a vow to better the lives of Aborigines.

Here's part of the apology (full text here):

"The time has now come for the nation to turn a new page in Australia's history by righting the wrongs of the past and so moving forward with confidence to the future.

We apologise for the laws and policies of successive Parliaments and governments that have inflicted profound grief, suffering and loss on these our fellow Australians.

We apologise especially for the removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families, their communities and their country.

For the pain, suffering and hurt of these stolen generations, their descendants and for their families left behind, we say sorry.

To the mothers and the fathers, the brothers and the sisters, for the breaking up of families and communities, we say sorry.

And for the indignity and degradation thus inflicted on a proud people and a proud culture, we say sorry.

We the Parliament of Australia respectfully request that this apology be received in the spirit in which it is offered as part of the healing of the nation."

Indigenous leader Noel Pearson wrote in The Australian that an apology isn't enough:

"...Who will be able to move on after tomorrow's apology? Most white Australians will be able to move on (with the warm inner glow that will come from having said sorry), but I doubt indigenous Australians will. Those people stolen from their families who feel entitled to compensation will never be able to move on.

...There is a political angle to this week's apology. For the Rudd Government, the apology will work politically provided there is no issue of compensation.

If compensation had been part of the deal, electoral support for the gesture would have unravelled. For this reason there is no conceivable way Rudd will revisit the issue of compensation, no matter what the hopes of indigenous leaders."

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WHERE IS THE REDEMPTION AND RENEWAL???

USA: Native American Genocide

The American Indian Holocaust, known as the “500 year war” and the “World’s Longest Holocaust In The History Of Mankind And Loss Of Human Lives.”

http://espressostalinist.wordpress.com/genocide/native-american-genocide/

Genocide and Denying It: Why We Are Not Taught that the Natives of the United States and Canada were Exterminated

Death Toll: 95,000,000 to 114,000,000

American Holocaust: D. Stannard (Oxford Press, 1992) - “over 100 million killed” “[Christopher] Columbus personally murdered half a million Natives”

“Hitler’s concept of concentration camps as well as the practicality of genocide owed much, so he claimed, to his studies of English and United States history. He admired the camps for Boer prisoners in South Africa and for the Indians in the wild west; and often praised to his inner circle the efficiency of America’s extermination – by starvation and uneven combat – of the red savages who could not be tamed by captivity.”

– P. 202, “Adolph Hitler” by John Toland

Native Americans have the highest mortality rate of any U.S. minority because of U.S. action and policy. The biggest killers though were smallpox, measles, influenza, whooping cough, diphtheria, typhus, bubonic plague, cholera, and scarlet fever. All imported by the Europeans colonists.

Smallpox was instrumental in killing the American Indians

GENOCIDE OF NATIVE AMERICANS: A SOCIOLOGICAL VIEW

The term Genocide derives from the Latin (genos=race, tribe; cide=killing) and means literally the killing or murder of an entire tribe or people. The Oxford English Dictionary defines genocide as “the deliberate and systematic extermination of an ethnic or national group” and cites the first usage of the term as R. Lemkin, Axis Rule in Occupied Europe, (1944) p.79. “By ‘genocide’ we mean the destruction of a nation or an ethnic group.”

The U.N. General Assembly adopted this term and defended it in 1946 as “….a denial of the right of existence of entire human groups.” Most people tend to associate genocide with wholesale slaughter of a specific people. However, “the 1994 U.N. Convention on the Punishment and Prevention of the Crime of Genocide, describes genocide beyond outright murder of people as the destruction and extermination of culture.” Article II of the convention lists five categories of activity as genocidal when directed against a specific “national, ethnic, racial, or religious group.”

These categories are:

¦Killing members of the group;

¦Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of group;

¦Deliberately infliction on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;

¦Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;

¦Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

Genocide or the deliberate extermination of one ethnic group by another is not new, for example in 1937 the Pequot Indians were exterminated by the Colonists when they burned their villages in Mystic, Connecticut, and then shot all the other people — including women and children — who tried to escape. The United States Government has refused to ratify the U.N. convention on genocide. There are many facets of genocide which have been implemented upon indigenous peoples of North America. The list of American genocidal policies includes: Mass-execution, Biological warfare, Forced Removal from homelands, Incarceration, Indoctrination of non-indigenous values, forced surgical sterilization of native women, Prevention of religious practices, just to name a few.

By mass-execution prior to the arrival of Columbus the land defined as the 48 contiguous states of America numbered in excess of 12 million. Four centuries later, it had been reduced by 95% (237 thousand). How? When Columbus returned in 1493 he brought a force of 17 ships. He began to implement slavery and mass-extermination of the Taino population of the Caribbean. Within three years five million were dead. Fifty years later the Spanish census recorded only 200 living! Las Casas, the primary historian of the Columbian era, writes of numerous accounts of the horrendous acts that the Spanish colonists inflicted upon the indigenous people, which included hanging them en masse, roasting them on spits, hacking their children into pieces to be used as dog food, and the list continues.

This did not end with Columbus’ departure, the European colonies and the newly declared United States continued similar conquests. Massacres occurred across the land such as the Wounded Knee Massacre. Not only was the method of massacre used, other methods for “Indian Removal” and “clearing” included military slaughter of tribal villages, bounties on native scalps, and biological warfare. British agents intentionally gave Tribes blankets that were intentionally contaminated with smallpox. Over 100 thousand died among the Mingo, Delaware, Shawnee and other Ohio River nations. The U.S. army followed suit and used the same method on the Plains tribal populations with similar success.

FORCED REMOVAL FROM HOMELANDS

For a brief periods after the American Revolution, the United States adopted a policy toward American Indians known as the “conquest” theory. In the Treaty of Fort Stansix of 1784, the Iroquois had to cede lands in western New York and Pennsylvania. Those Iroquois living in the United States (many had gone to Canada where the English gave them refuge) rapidly degenerated as a nation during the last decades of the eighteenth century, losing most of their remaining lands and much of their ability to cope. The Shawnees, Miamis, Delawaresm, Ottawans, Wyandots, and Potawatomis watching the decline of the Iroquois formed their own confederacy and informed the United states that the Ohio river was the boundary between their lands and those of the settlers. It was just a matter of time before further hostilities ensued.

"Indian Boarding School" - Cultural Genocide

FORCED ASSIMILATION

The Europeans saw themselves as the superior culture bringing civilization to an inferior culture. The colonial world view split reality into popular parts: good and evil, body and spirit, man and nature, head and hear, European and primitive. American Indians spirituality lacks these dualism’s; language expresses the oneness of all things. God is not the transcendent Father but the Mother Earth, the Corn Mother, the Great Spirit who nourishes all It is polytheistic, believing in many gods and many levels of deity. “At the basis of most American Native beliefs is the supernatural was a profound conviction that an invisible force, a powerful spirit, permeated the entire universe and ordered the cycles of birth and death for all living things.” Beyond this belief in a universal spirit, most American Indians attached supernatural qualities to animals, heavenly bodies, the seasons, dead ancestors, the elements, and geologic formations. Their world was infused with the divine – The Sacred Hoop. This was not at all a personal being presiding ominpotently over the salvation or damnation of individual people as the Europeans believed.

For the Europeans such beliefs were pagan. Thus, the conquest was rationalized as a necessary evil that would bestow upon the heathen “Indians” a moral consciousness that would redeem their amorality. The world view which converted bare economic self interest into noble, even moral, motives was a notion of Christianity as the one redemptive religion which demands fealty from all cultures. In this remaking of the American Indians the impetus which drove the conquistador’s invading wars not exploration, but the drive to expand an empire, not discovery of new land, but the drive to accumulate treasure, land and cheap labor.

CULTURE

Culture is the expression of a people’s creativity — everything they make which is distinctively theirs: language, music, art, religion, healing, agriculture, cooking style, the institutions governing social life. To suppress culture is to aim a cannonball at the people’s heart and spirit. Such a conquest is more accomplished than a massacre. “We have seen the colonization materially kills the colonized. It must be added that it kills him spiritually. Colonization distorts relationships, destroys and petrifies institutions, and corrupts….both colonizers and the colonized.”

Strategies of targeting American Indian children for assimilation began with violence. Forts were erected by Jesuits, in which indigenous youths were incarcerated, indoctrinated with non-indigenous Christian values, and forced into manual labor. Schooling provided a crucial tool in changing not only the language but the culture of impressionable young people. In boarding schools students could be immersed in a 24 hours bath of assimilation. “The founder of the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania , Capt. Richard H. Pratt, observed in 1892 that Carlisle has always planted treason to the tribe and loyalty to the nation at large. More crudely put, the Carlisle philosophy was, “Kill the Indian to save the man.” At the boarding schools children were forbidden to speak their native languages, forced to shed familiar clothing for uniforms, cut their hair and subjected to harsh discipline. Children who had seldom heard an unkind word spoken to them were all too often verbally and physically abused by their white teachers. In short, “there was a full-scale attempt at deracination — the uprooting or destruction of a race and its culture.” A few American Indian children were able to run away, others died of illness and some died of homesickness.

The children, forcibly separated from their parents by soldiers often never saw their families until later in their adulthood, after their value-system and knowledge had been supplanted with colonial thinking. When these children returned from boarding schools they no longer knew their native language, they were strangers in their own world, there was a loss, a void of not belonging in the native world, nor the white man’s world. In the movie “Lakota Women,” these children are referred to as “Apple Children [red on the outside, white on the inside]” they do not know where they fit in, they were unable to assimilate into either culture. This confusion and loss of cultural identity, leads to suicide, drinking and violence. The most destructive aspect of alienation is the loss of power, of control over one’s destiny, over one’s memories, through relationships — past and future.

Jose Noriega’s well-documented historical account of the forced indoctrination of colonial thought into the minds of American Indian children as a means of disrupting the generational transmission of cultural values, clearly demonstrates the cultural genocide employed by the U.S. government as a means of separating the American Indians from their land.

FORCED REMOVAL

The “Indian Removal” policy was implemented to “clear” land for white settlers. Removal was more than another assault on American Indians’ land titles. Insatiable greed for land remained a primary consideration, but many people now believed that the removal was the only way of saving American Indians from extermination. As long as the American Indians lived in close proximity to non-Native American communities, they would be decimated by disease, alcohol, and poverty. The Indian Removal Act began in 1830. Forced marches at bayonet-point to relocation settlements resulted in high mortality rates. The infamous removal of the Five Civilized Tribes — the Choctaws, Creeks, Chickasaws, Cherokees, and Seminoles — is a dismal page in United States history. By the 1820's the Cherokees, who had established a written constitution modeled after the United States Constitution, a newspaper, schools, and industries in their settlements, resisted removal. In 1938 the federal troops evicted the Cherokees. Approximately four thousand Cherokees died during the removal process because of poor planning by the United States Government. This exodus to Indian Territory is known as the Trail of Tears. More than one hundred thousand American Indians eventually crossed the Mississippi River under the authority of the Indian Removal Act.

STERILIZATION

Article II of United Nations General Assembly resolution, 1946: In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group, as such: (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group. In the mid-1970s a Choctaw-Tsalagi Indian Health Services doctor was approached by a 26-year-old American Indian woman who desired a “wonb transplant.” She had been sterilized when she was 20 at the Indian Health Service hospital in Claremont, Oklahoma. It was discoverd that 75 percent of the Claremont sterilizations were non-therapeutic, that women American Indians were being prompted to sign sterilization forms they didn’t understand, that they were being told the operations were reversible, and that some women were even being asked to sign sterilization papers while they had yet to come out of birthing sedation.

Common Sense magazine reported that the Indian Health Service “was sterilizing 3,000 Indian women per year, 4 to 6 percent of the child bearing population…Dr. R. T. Ravenholt, [then] director of the federal government’s Office of Population, later confirmed that ‘surgical sterilization has become increasingly important in recent years as one of the advanced methods of fertility management’.” Ravenholt’s response to these inquires “told the population Association of America in St. Louis that the critics were ‘a really radical extremist group lashing out at a responsible program so that revolution would occur’.”

From the beginning of European control there has been an unrelenting drive to commit genocide over another culture. The American Indians were a majority so the Europeans called them an enemy. One of the major facts the United States Government has failed to understand is that the spiritual aspect of life is inseparable from the economic and the political aspects. The loss of tradition and memory will be the loss of positive sense of self. Those reared in traditional American Native societies are inclined to relate events and experiences to one another, they do not organize perceptions or external events in terms of dualities or priorities. This egalitarianism is reflected in the structure of American Indian literature, which does not rely on conflict, crises, and resolution for organization.

INTELLECTUAL RICHES

American Indians felt comfortable with the environment, close to the moods and rhythms of nature, in time with the living planet. Europeans were quite different, viewing the earth itself as lifeless and inorganic, subject to any kind of manipulation or alteration. Europeans tended to be alienated from nature and came to the New World to use the wilderness, to conquer and exploit its natural wealth for private gain.

But for American Indians, the environment was sacred, possessing a cosmic significance equal to its material riches. The earth was sacred — a haven for all forms of life — and it had to be protected, nourished, and even worshipped. Chief Smoholla of the Wanapun tribe illustrated American Native reverence for the earth when he said in 1885:

“God said he was the father of and earth was the mankind; that nature was the law; that the animals, and fish and plants beyond nature, and that man only was sinful.

You ask me to plow the ground! Shall I take a knife and tear my mother’s bosom?

Then when I die she will not take me to her bosom to rest.

You ask me to dig for stone! Shall I dig under her skin for her bones?

Then When I die I cannot enter her body to be born again.

You ask me to cut grass And make hay and sell it, and be rich like white men!

But how dare I cut off my mother’s hair?

American Indians’ agricultural and medical wisdom had been ignored by the European invaders. In their rush to control the land and people much has passed them by and much has been destroyed. Sadly, what seems to have been almost totally ignored is the American Indians’ knowledge that the Earth is their mother. Because their mother continues to give us life we must care for and respect her. This was a ecological view of the earth.

“There are tens of millions of people around the world who, within only the last few centuries — and some cases only the last few years — have seen their successful societies brutally assaulted by ugly destructive forces. Some American Indian societies have been obliterated. Some peoples have suffered separation from the source of their survival, wisdom, power, and identity: their lands. Some have fallen from the pressure, compromised, moved to urban landscapes, and disappeared, but millions of American Indians, including tens of thousands here in the United States, have gained strength in the face of all their adversity. Their strength is rooted in the earth and deserves to succeed.”

Books used for references and internet addresses:

1.Mander, Jerry, In the Absence of the Sacred: The Failure of Technology and the Survival of the Indian Nations,” Sierra Club Books, San Francisco, 1992: 349.

2.Mankiller, Wilma and Wallis, M., A Chief and Her People, St. Martin’s Press, New York, 1993: 8.

3.Memi, Albert, The Colonizer and the Colonized, Boston: Beacon Press, 1965: 151.

4.Olson, James and Wilson, R., Native American, In the Twentieth Century, University Press, 1988, 11.

5.The Reader’s Digest Association, Inc., Through Indian Eyes, Pleasantville, New York/Montreal, 1995: 338.

6.Susan Brill, Bradley U. (brill@bradley.edu) Discussion group regarding the genocide of Native peoples.

7.http://www.igc.apc.org/toxic/

8.http://conbio.bio.uci.edu/nae/knudsen.html

9.Federal Indian Policy http://mercury.sfsu.edu.cypher.genocide.html.#children

10.Trail of Tears http://ngeorgia.com/history/nghisttt.html

[...] The National Council of Churches adopted a resolution branding this event [the landing of Columbus] “an invasion” that resulted in the “slavery and genocide of native people.” In a widely read book, The Conquest of Paradise (1990), Kirkpatrick Sale charged the English and their American successors with pursuing a policy of extermination that had continued unabated for four centuries. Later works have followed suit. In the 1999 Encyclopedia of Genocide, edited by the scholar Israel Charny, an article by Ward Churchill argues that extermination was the “express objective” of the U.S. government. To the Cambodia expert Ben Kiernan, similarly, genocide is the “only appropriate way” to describe how white settlers treated the Indians. (Source)

The North American Indian Holocaust

Kahentinetha Horn

The “final solution” of the North American Indian problem was the model for the subsequent Jewish holocaust and South African apartheid

Why is the biggest holocaust in all humanity being hidden from history? Is it because it lasted so long that it has become a habit? It’s been well documented that the killing of Indigenous people in the Western Hemisphere since the beginning of colonization has been estimated at 120 million. Yet nobody wants to speak about it.

Today historians, anthropologists and archaeologists are revealing that information on this holocaust is being deliberately eliminated from the knowledge base and consciousness of North Americans and the world. A completely false picture is being painted of our people as suffering from social ills of our own making.

It could be argued that the loss of 120 million from 1500 to 1800 isn’t the same as the loss of 6 million people during World War II. Can 6 million in 1945 be compared to 1 million in 1500?

School children are still being taught that large areas of North America are uninhabited as if this land belongs to no one and never did. The role of our ancestors as caretakers is constantly and habitually overlooked by colonial society.

Before the arrival of Europeans, cities and towns here were flourishing. Mexico City had a larger population than any city in Europe. The people were healthy and well-fed. The first Europeans were amazed. The agricultural products developed by the Indigenous people transformed human nutrition internationally.

The North American Indian holocaust was studied by South Africa for their apartheid program and by Hitler for his genocide of the Jews during World War II. Hitler commented that he admired the great job Americans had done in taking care of the Indian problem. The policies used to kill us off was so successful that people today generally assume that our population was low. Hitler told a past US President when he remarked about their maltreatment of the Jewish people, he mind your own business. You’re the worst.

Where are the monuments? Where are the memorial ceremonies? Why is it being concealed? The survivors of the WWII holocaust have not yet died and already there is a movement afoot to forget what happened.

Unlike post-war Germany, North Americans refuse to acknowledge this genocide. Almost one and a quarter million Kanien’ke:haka (Mohawk) were killed off leaving us only a few thousand survivors.

North Americans do not want to reveal that there was and still is a systematic plan to destroy most of the native people by outright murder by bounty hunters and land grabbers, disease through distributing small pox infested blankets, relocation, theft of children who were placed in concentration camps called “residential schools” and assimilation.

As with the Jews, they could not have accomplished this without their collaborators who they trained to serve their genocidal system through their “re-education camps”.

The policy changed from outright slaughter to killing the Indian inside. Governments, army, police, church, corporations, doctors, judges and common people were complicit in this killing machine. An elaborate campaign has covered up this genocide which was engineered at the highest levels of power in the United States and Canada. This cover up continues to this day. When they killed off all the Indians, they brought in Blacks to be their labourers.

In the residential schools many eye witnesses have recently come forward to describe the atrocities. They called these places “death camps” where, according to government records, nearly half of all these innocent Indigenous children died or disappeared as if they never existed. In the 1920's when Dr. Bryce was alarmed by the high death rate of children in residential schools, his report was suppressed.

"Indian boarding school" - cultural genocide

The term “Final Solution” was not coined by the Nazis. It was Indian Affairs Superintendent, Duncan Campbell Scott, Canada’s Adolph Eichmann, who in April 1910 plotted out the planned murder to take care of the “Indian problem”.

“It is readily acknowledged that Indian children lose their natural resistance to illness by habitating so closely in these schools, and that they die at a much higher rate than in their villages. But this alone does not justify a change in the policy of this Department, which is geared towards the final solution of our Indian Problem”. (DIA Archives, RG 10 series).

In the 1930's he brought German doctors over here to do medical experiments on our children. According to the study the majority of the lives of these children was extinguished. School children are taught his poetry with no mention of his role as the butcher of the Indian people.

Those who carried out this annihilation of our people were protected so they could declare full-scale war on us. North Americans as heirs of the fruits of this murderous system have blood on their hands. If people are sincere about preventing holocausts they must remember it. History must be told as it really happened in all its tragic details.

It’s not good enough to just remember the holocaust that took place during the lifetime of some of the survivors. We have to remember the larger holocaust. Isn’t it time to uncover the truth and make the perpetrators face up to this?

In the west there are a whole series of Eichmanns. General Amherst ordered the distribution of small pox infested blankets to kill of our people. But his name is shamelessly preserved in the names of towns and streets. George Washington is called the “village burner” in Mohawk because of all the villages he ordered burnt. Villages would be surrounded. As the people came running out, they would be shot, stabbed, women, children and elders alike. In one campaign alone “hundreds of thousand died, from New York across Pennsylvania, West Virgina and into Ohio”. His name graces the capital of the United States.

The smell of death in their own backyard does not seem to bother North Americans. This is obscene.

By Kahentinetha Horn, MNN Mohawk Nation News, kahentinetha2@yahoo.com

First published in Akwesasne Phoenix, Jan. 30, 2005 issue

"Indian Boarding School"

Excerpted from Rachel’s Environment & Health Weekly newsletter, #671, “Columbus Day, 1999,” by Peter Montague (National Writers Union UAW Local 1981/AFL-CIO), with added section titles and notes where indicated.

The Beginnings of the Native Genocide

Columbus made four voyages to the New World. [1] The initial voyage reveals several important things about the man. First, he had genuine courage because few ship’s captains had ever pointed their prow toward the open ocean, the complete unknown. Secondly, from numerous of his letters and reports we learn that his overarching goal was to seize wealth that belonged to others, even his own men, by whatever means necessary.

Columbus’s Spanish royal sponsors (Ferdinand and Isabella) had promised a lifetime pension to the first man who sighted land. A few hours after midnight on October 12, 1492, Juan Rodriguez Bermeo, a lookout on the Pinta, cried out — in the bright moonlight, he had spied land ahead. Most likely Bermeo was seeing the white beaches of Watling Island in the Bahamas.

As they waited impatiently for dawn, Columbus let it be known that he had spotted land several hours before Bermeo. According to Columbus’s journal of that voyage, his ships were, at the time, traveling 10 miles per hour. To have spotted land several hours before Bermeo, Columbus would have had to see more than 30 miles over the horizon, a physical impossibility. Nevertheless Columbus took the lifetime pension for himself. [1,2]

Columbus installed himself as Governor of the Caribbean islands, with headquarters on Hispaniola (the large island now shared by Haiti and the Dominican Republic). He described the people, the Arawaks (called by some the Tainos) this way:

“The people of this island and of all the other islands which I have found and seen, or have not seen, all go naked, men and women, as their mothers bore them, except that some women cover one place only with the leaf of a plant or with a net of cotton which they make for that purpose.

“They have no iron or steel or weapons, nor are they capable of using them, although they are well-built people of handsome stature, because they are wondrous timid…. [T]hey are so artless and free with all they possess, that no one would believe it without having seen it.

“Of anything they have, if you ask them for it, they never say no; rather they invite the person to share it, and show as much love as if they were giving their hearts; and whether the thing be of value or of small price, at once they are content with whatever little thing of whatever kind may be given to them.” [3, pg.63; 1, pg.118]

Added note:

In an ominous foreshadowing of the horrors to come, Columbus also wrote in his journal:

“I could conquer the whole of them with fifty men, and govern them as I pleased.”

After Columbus had surveyed the Caribbean region, he returned to Spain to prepare his invasion of the Americas. From accounts of his second voyage, we can begin to understand what the New World represented to Columbus and his men — it offered them life without limits, unbridled freedom.

Columbus took the title “Admiral of the Ocean Sea” and proceeded to unleash a reign of terror unlike anything seen before or since. When he was finished, eight million Arawaks — virtually the entire native population of Hispaniola — had been exterminated by torture, murder, forced labor, starvation, disease and despair. [3, pg.x]

A Spanish missionary, Bartolome de las Casas, described first-hand how the Spaniards terrorized the natives. [4] Las Casas gives numerous eye-witness accounts of repeated mass murder and routine sadistic torture.

As Barry Lopez has accurately summarized it,

“One day, in front of Las Casas, the Spanish dismembered, beheaded, or raped 3000 people.

‘Such inhumanities and barbarisms were committed in my sight,’ he says, ‘as no age can parallel….’

“The Spanish cut off the legs of children who ran from them. They poured people full of boiling soap. They made bets as to who, with one sweep of his sword, could cut a person in half. They loosed dogs that ‘devoured an Indian like a hog, at first sight, in less than a moment.’ They used nursing infants for dog food.” [2, pg.4]

This was not occasional violence — it was a systematic, prolonged campaign of brutality and sadism, a policy of torture, mass murder, slavery and forced labor that continued for CENTURIES.

“The destruction of the Indians of the Americas was, far and away, the most massive act of genocide in the history of the world,” writes historian David E. Stannard. [3, pg.x]

Eventually more than 100 million natives fell under European rule. Their extermination would follow. As the natives died out, they were replaced by slaves brought from Africa.

To make a long story short, Columbus established a pattern that held for five centuries — a “ruthless, angry search for wealth,” as Barry Lopez describes it.

“It set a tone in the Americas. The quest for personal possessions was to be, from the outset, a series of raids, irresponsible and criminal, a spree, in which an end to it — the slaves, the timber, the pearls, the fur, the precious ores, and, later, arable land, coal, oil, and iron ore — was never visible, in which an end to it had no meaning.”

Indeed, there WAS no end to it, no limit.

As Hans Koning has observed,

“There was no real ending to the conquest of Latin America. It continued in remote forests and on far mountainsides. It is still going on in our day when miners and ranchers invade land belonging to the Amazon Indians and armed thugs occupy Indian villages in the backwoods of Central America.” [6, pg.46]

In the 1980s, under Presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush, the U.S. government knowingly gave direct aid to genocidal campaigns that murdered tens of thousands Mayan Indian people in Guatemala, El Salvador and elsewhere. [7]

The pattern holds.

Added note:

And still, in 2003, the genocide continues in Colombia, El Salvador and Guatemala.

Continuing the gruesome tradition of the 1980s, which also terrorized the people of Nicaragua, U.S. government-funded fascist paramilitaries mass-murder Indians in Central and South America to this day. The bestial carnage committed by Uncle Sham’s proxy armies includes countless disappearances, epidemic rape and torture. The Colombian paramilitaries have even made their own gruesome addition to the list of horrors: public beheadings.

This latest stage of the American Indian holocaust is enthusiastically supported by the cocaine-smuggling CIA, the Pentagon and all the rest of the United States Corporate Mafia Government.

The English/American Genocide

Unfortunately, Columbus and the Spaniards were not unique. They conquered Mexico and what is now the Southwestern U.S., with forays into Florida, the Carolinas, even into Virginia. From Virginia northward, the land had been taken by the English who, if anything, had even less tolerance for the indigenous people.

As Hans Koning says,

“From the beginning, the Spaniards saw the native Americans as natural slaves, beasts of burden, part of the loot. When working them to death was more economical than treating them somewhat humanely, they worked them to death.

“The English, on the other hand, had no use for the native peoples. They saw them as devil worshippers, savages who were beyond salvation by the church, and exterminating them increasingly became accepted policy.” [6, pg.14]

The British arrived in Jamestown in 1607. By 1610 the intentional extermination of the native population was well along. As David E. Stannard has written,

“Hundreds of Indians were killed in skirmish after skirmish. Other hundreds were killed in successful plots of mass poisoning. They were hunted down by dogs, ‘blood-Hounds to draw after them, and Mastives [mastiffs] to seize them.’

“Their canoes and fishing weirs were smashed, their villages and agricultural fields burned to the ground. Indian peace offers were accepted by the English only until their prisoners were returned; then, having lulled the natives into false security, the colonists returned to the attack.

“It was the colonists’ expressed desire that the Indians be exterminated, rooted ‘out from being longer a people upon the face of the Earth.’ In a single raid the settlers destroyed corn sufficient to feed four thousand people for a year.

“Starvation and the massacre of non-combatants was becoming the preferred British approach to dealing with the natives.” [3, pg.106]

In Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Jersey extermination was officially promoted by a “scalp bounty” on dead Indians.

“Indeed, in many areas it [murdering Indians] became an outright business,” writes historian Ward Churchill. [5, pg.182]

Indians were defined as subhumans, lower than animals. George Washington compared them to wolves, “beasts of prey” and called for their total destruction. [3, pgs.119-120]

Andrew Jackson — whose [innocent-looking] portrait appears on the U.S. $20 bill today — in 1814:

“supervised the mutilation of 800 or more Creek Indian corpses — the bodies of men, women and children that [his troops] had massacred — cutting off their noses to count and preserve a record of the dead, slicing long strips of flesh from their bodies to tan and turn into bridle reins.” [5, pg.186]

The English policy of extermination — another name for genocide — grew more insistent as settlers pushed westward:

In 1851 the Governor of California officially called for the extermination of the Indians in his state. [3, pg.144]

On March 24, 1863, the Rocky Mountain News in Denver ran an editorial titled, “Exterminate Them.”

On April 2, 1863, the Santa Fe New Mexican advocated “extermination of the Indians.” [5, pg.228]

In 1867, General William Tecumseh Sherman said:

“We must act with vindictive earnestness against the [Lakotas, known to whites as the Sioux] even to their extermination, men, women and children.” [5, pg.240]

In 1891, Frank L. Baum (gentle author of “The Wizard Of Oz”) wrote in the Aberdeen Saturday Pioneer (Kansas) that the army should “finish the job” by the “total annihilation” of the few remaining Indians.

The U.S. did not follow through on Baum’s macabre demand, for there really was no need. By then the native population had been reduced to 2.5% of its original numbers and 97.5% of the aboriginal land base had been expropriated and renamed “The land of the free and the home of the brave.”

Hundreds upon hundreds of native tribes with unique languages, learning, customs, and cultures had simply been erased from the face of the earth, most often without even the pretense of justice or law.

Today we can see the remnant cultural arrogance of Christopher Columbus and Captain John Smith shadowed in the cult of the “global free market” which aims to eradicate indigenous cultures and traditions world-wide, to force all peoples to adopt the ways of the U.S.

Today’s globalist “Free Trade” is merely yesterday’s “Manifest Destiny” writ large.

But as Barry Lopez says,

“This violent corruption needn’t define us…. We can say, yes, this happened, and we are ashamed. We repudiate the greed. We recognize and condemn the evil. And we see how the harm has been perpetuated. But, five hundred years later, we intend to mean something else in the world.”

If we chose, we could set limits on ourselves for once. We could declare enough is enough.

Notes

1. J.M. Cohen, editor, The Four Voyages of Christopher Columbus

London: Penguin Books, 1969; ISBN 0-14-044217-0

2. Barry Lopez, The Rediscovery of North America

Lexington, Kentucky: University Press of Kentucky, 1990; ISBN 0-8131-1742-9

3. David E. Stannard, American Holocaust: Columbus and the Conquest of the New World

New York: Oxford University Press, 1992; ISBN 0-19-507581-1

4. Bartolome de las Casas, The Devastation of the Indies: A Brief Account

translated by Herma Briffault

Baltimore, Maryland: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992; ISBN 0-8018-4430-4

5. Ward Churchill, A Little Matter of Genocide: Holocaust and Denial in the Americas, 1492 to the Present

San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1997; ISBN 0-87286-323-9

6. Hans Koning, The Conquest of America: How The Indian Nations Lost Their Continent

New York: Monthly Review Press, 1993, pg. 46.; ISBN 0-85345-876-6

7. For example, see Mireya Navarro, “Guatemalan Army Waged ‘Genocide,’ New Report Finds,”

NEW YORK TIMES, February 26, 1999, pg. unknown.

The NY Times described “torture, kidnapping and execution of thousands of civilians” — most of them Mayan Indians — a campaign to which the U.S. government contributed “money and training.”

SOURCE OF THIS ARTICLE

The following narrative is by Arthur Barlowe (1584, p.108), describing American Indians.

‘We found the people most gentle loving and faithful, void of all guile and treason, and such as lived after the manner of the Golden Age,…, a more kind and loving people there can not be found in the world.’

His description well fits our categories of Eastern cognitive styles: affiliative, personal, understanding, non-discursive. With predominance of the affective-cognitive belief system making one to marry for love, as contrasted with the cognitive-affective system typical of mental calculations prior to bestowing affection on the ‘loved one.’ Closeness associated with the tactile contact mode. Suspended critical appraisal and present time orientation, acting as limiting factors in carrying hatred ‘beyond the grave.’

General Philip H. Sheridan was the commander of the United States forces [...] he had plans of exterminating the buffalo. He thought this would kill the Plains Indians. “Kill the buffalo and you kill the Indians” he said.

David Stannard in his scholarly American Holocaust (1992, p. 232) writes:

From the earliest days of settlement, British men in the colonies from the Carolinas to New England rarely engaged in sexual relations with the Indians, even during those times when there were few if any English women available. Such encounters were viewed as a “horrid crime” and legislation was passed that “banished forever” such mixed race couples, referring to their offspring in animalistic terms.

The estimates of the number of victims of the American Holocaust differ. However, these differences show remarkable similarity with the controversy surrounding the Holocaust deniers who do not deny that Holocaust occurred, but try to diminish its extent. Thus, for instance, R. J. Rummel in his 1994 book Death by Government estimates the number of victims of the centuries of European colonization as low as 2 million.

Among the contemporary Holocaust deniers is also Gary North, who in his Political Polytheism (1989, pp. 257-258) asserts:

Liberals have adopted the phrase “native Americans” in recent years. They never, ever say “American natives,” since this is only one step away from “American savages,” which is precisely what most of those demon-worshipping, land-polluting people were. This was one of the great sins in American life, they say: “the stealing of Indian lands”. That a million savages had a legitimate legal claim on the whole of North America north of Mexico is the unstated assumption of such critics. They never ask the most pertinent question:

Was the advent of the Europeans in North America a righteous historical judgment of God against the Indians?

The European colonization of the Americas forever changed the lives and cultures of the Native Americans. In the 15th to 19th centuries, their populations were ravaged, by the privations of displacement, by disease, and in many cases by warfare with European groups and enslavement by them. The first Native American group encountered by Columbus, the 250,000 Arawaks of Haiti, were enslaved. Only 500 survived by the year 1550, and the group was extinct before 1650.

Europeans also brought diseases against which the Native Americans had no immunity. Chicken pox and measles, though common and rarely fatal among Europeans, often proved fatal to Native Americans, and more dangerous diseases such as smallpox were especially deadly to Native American populations. It is difficult to estimate the total percentage of the Native American population killed by these diseases.

Epidemics often immediately followed European exploration, sometimes destroying entire villages. Some historians estimate that up to 80% of some Native populations may have died due to European diseases.

Wounded Knee Massacre

Sacheen Littlefeather

On March 27, 1973, a young woman took the stage at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles, California, to decline Marlon Brando’s Best Actor Oscar. She said that Marlon Brando cannot accept this award because of the treatment of American Indians by the film industry and the recent happenings at Wounded Knee.

Brando had written a fifteen-page speech to be given at the awards by Cruz, but when the producer met her backstage, he threatened to physically remove her or have her arrested if she spoke on stage for more than 45 seconds. The speech she read contained the lines:

Hello. My name is Sasheen Littlefeather. I’m Apache and I am president of the National Native American Affirmative Image Committee.

I’m representing Marlon Brando this evening, and he has asked me to tell you in a very long speech which I cannot share with you presently, because of time, but I will be glad to share with the press afterwards, that he very regretfully cannot accept this very generous award.

[...]

What kind of moral schizophrenia is it that allows us to shout at the top of our national voice for all the world to hear that we live up to our commitment when every page of history and when all the thirsty, starving, humiliating days and nights of the last 100 years in the lives of the American Indian contradict that voice?

In his autobiography Songs my Mother Told Me (1994, pp. 380-402) Marlon Brando, devotes several pages to the genocide of the American Indians, excerpted as follows:

After their lands were stolen from them, the ragged survivors were herded onto reservations and the government sent out missionaries who tried to force the Indians to become Christians. After I became interested in American Indians, I discovered that many people don’t even regard them as human beings. It has been that way since the beginning.

Cotton Mather compared them to Satan and called it God’s work – and God’s will – to slaughter the heathen savages who stood in the way of Christianity.

As he aimed his howitzers on an encampment of unarmed Indians at Sand Creek, Colorado, in 1864, an army colonel named John Chivington, who had once said that thelives of Indian children should not be spared because “nits make lice,” told his officers: “I have come to kill Indians, and believe it is right and honorable to use any means under God’s heaven to kill Indians.” Hundreds of Indian women, children, and old men were slaughtered in the Sand Creek massacre. One officer who was present said later, “Women and children were killed and scalped, children shot at their mother’s breasts, and all the bodies mutilated in the most horrible manner. The dead bodies of females were profaned in such a manner that the recital is sickening.

The troopers cut off the vulvas of Indian women, stretched them over their saddle horns, then decorated their hatbands with them; some used the skin of brave’s scrotums and the breasts of Indian women as tobacco pouches, then showed off these trophies, together with the noses and ears of some of the Indians they had massacred, at the Denver Opera House.

Alcohol-Attributable Deaths and Years of Potential Life Lost Among American Indians and Alaska Natives — United States, 2001–2005

Excessive alcohol consumption is a leading preventable cause of death in the United States (1) and has substantial public health impact on American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) populations (2). To estimate the average annual number of alcohol-attributable deaths (AADs) and years of potential life lost (YPLLs) among AI/ANs in the United States, CDC analyzed 2001–2005 data (the most recent data available), using death certificate data and CDC Alcohol-Related Disease Impact (ARDI) software.* This report summarizes the results of that analysis, which indicated that AADs accounted for 11.7% of all AI/AN deaths, that the age-adjusted AAD rate for AI/ANs was approximately twice that of the U.S. general population, and that AI/ANs lose 6.4 more years of potential life per AAD compared with persons in the U.S. general population (36.3 versus 29.9 years). These findings underscore the importance of implementing effective population-based interventions to prevent excessive alcohol consumption and to reduce alcohol-attributable morbidity and mortality among AI/ANs.

ARDI estimates AADs and YPLLs resulting from excessive alcohol consumption by using multiple data sources and methods.† AADs are generated by multiplying the number of sex- and cause-specific deaths (e.g., liver cancer) by the sex- and cause-specific alcohol-attributable fraction (AAF) (i.e., the proportion of deaths attributable to excessive alcohol consumption). For deaths that are, by definition, 100% attributable to excessive alcohol consumption (e.g., alcoholic liver disease), the total number of AADs equals the total number of deaths. For deaths that are <100% attributable to alcohol, ARDI uses either direct or indirect AAF estimates to generate the total number of AADs. Direct AAF estimates typically come from studies that have assessed the proportion of persons dying from a particular condition (e.g., injuries) at or above a specified blood alcohol concentration (e.g., 0.10 g/dL) or from follow-up studies that have assessed alcohol use of the decedents, based on medical record review and interviews with next-of-kin. Indirect AAF estimates are calculated from pooled risk estimates obtained from meta-analyses of mostly chronic conditions, examining the relationship between various alcohol-related health outcomes (e.g., liver cancer) and the population-based prevalence of alcohol use at consumption levels (i.e., low, medium, or high).

For this analysis, death certificate data for 2001–2005 were used to determine the average annual number of deaths from alcohol-related causes for all AI/ANs in the United States and for the U.S. population as a whole. Population-specific, direct AAF estimates for motor vehicle traffic crashes were obtained from the Fatality Analysis and Reporting System§ by averaging 2001–2005 data for AI/ANs and the U.S. population. Population-based prevalence estimates of alcohol consumption were obtained by averaging 2001–2005 data from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System¶ and were used to calculate all indirect AAFs. AADs were analyzed by cause and stratified by sex and by age, using standard 5-year age groupings. YPLLs were generated by multiplying the age- and sex-specific AADs by the corresponding life expectancies. Death and life expectancy data were obtained from the National Vital Statistics System.** Death records missing data on decedent age or sex were excluded from this analysis. Bridged-race population estimates from the U.S. Census were used to calculate death rates. Death rates were directly age adjusted to the standard 2000 U.S. population using the age groups 0–19, 20–34, 35–49, 50–64, and >65 years.

During 2001–2005, an average of 1,514 AADs occurred annually among AI/ANs, accounting for 11.7% of all deaths in this population (Table). Overall, 771 (50.9%) of average annual AADs resulted from acute causes, and 743 (49.1%) from chronic causes. The leading acute cause of death was motor-vehicle traffic crashes (417 AADs), and the leading chronic cause was alcoholic liver disease (381). The crude AAD rate among AI/ANs was 49.1 per 100,000 population (25.0 for acute causes and 24.1 for chronic causes). Of all YPLLs, 60.3% resulted from acute conditions, and 39.7% resulted from chronic conditions. The leading acute cause of YPLLs was motor-vehicle traffic crashes (34.4% of YPLLs), and the leading chronic cause was alcoholic liver disease (21.2%).

Overall, 68.3% of AAD decedents among AI/ANs were men, and more AADs occurred among men than women in all age groups (Figure 1); 65.9% of AADs were among persons aged <50 years, and 6.9% were among persons aged <20 years. Of the YPLLs, 68.3% were among those aged 20–49 years.

By Indian Health Service statistical region, the greatest number of AADs occurred in the Northern Plains (497 AADs), South West (315), and Pacific Coast (230) regions, and the fewest AADs occurred in Alaska (86) (Figure 2). Age-adjusted AAD rates were highest in the Northern Plains (95.2; 95% confidence interval [CI] = 86.5–103.9), Alaska (92.6; CI = 72.4–112.8), and the South West (80.2; CI = 70.8–89.6), and were approximately four to five times higher than the rate in the East (19.2; CI = 15.8–22.6).

Age-adjusted AAD rates and the relative contributions of AADs to total deaths and total YPLLs were substantially higher for AI/ANs compared with the U.S. general population. The age-adjusted AAD rate per 100,000 for AI/ANs was 55.0 (CI = 52.1–57.9) versus 26.9 (CI = 26.7–27.1) for the U.S. general population. Furthermore, AADs accounted for 11.7% of total deaths among AI/AN versus 3.3% for the U.S. general population, and alcohol-attributable YPLLs accounted for 17.3% of total YPLLs for AI/ANs and 6.3% of total YPLLs for the U.S. general population. The average number of YPLLs per AAD also was higher for AI/ANs compared with the U.S. general population (36.3 years versus 29.9 years, respectively).

Reported by: TS Naimi, MD, Zuni Public Health Svc Hospital; N Cobb, MD, Div of Epidemiology; D Boyd, MDCM, National Trauma Systems, Indian Health Svc. DW Jarman, DVM, Preventive Medicine Residency and Fellowship Program; R Brewer, MD, DE Nelson, MD, J Holt, PhD, Div of Adult and Community Health, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion; D Espey, MD, Div of Cancer Prevention and Control, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion; P Snesrud, Office of Minority Health and Health Disparities; P Chavez, PhD, EIS Officer, CDC.

Editorial Note:

This is the first national report of AADs and YPLLs among AI/ANs; the results demonstrate that excessive alcohol consumption is a leading cause of preventable death and years of lost life in this population. During 2001–2005, AI/ANs were more than twice as likely to die from alcohol-related causes, compared with the U.S. general population; 11.7% of AI/AN deaths were attributed to alcohol. These findings are consistent with those of previous studies (4,5) and might help account for the high rates of injury-related death (e.g., motor-vehicle traffic crashes) that have been observed in this population. The finding that AAD rates vary by region demonstrates that alcohol does not impact all AI/AN communities to the same extent. AI/ANs in specific regions (e.g., Northern Plains) have lower life expectancies; this is likely attributable, in part, to deaths from alcohol-attributable conditions (6).

To further address alcohol-attributable mortality among AI/ANs will require concerted action by multiple organizations and groups, including AI/AN communities, towns on nonreservation lands within and surrounding AI/AN communities, and national, state, and local health agencies. Bans on the sale and possession of alcoholic beverages on certain Indian reservations have been shown to reduce consumption and related harms (5), although the efficacy of such policies is influenced by access to alcohol in surrounding communities (7). Culturally appropriate clinical interventions for reducing excessive drinking (e.g., screening and counseling for excessive alcohol consumption and treatment for alcohol dependence) should be widely implemented among AI/ANs (7). In addition, tribal court systems, which deal with large numbers of alcohol-related crimes, should be better integrated with the health-care system and substance-abuse treatment programs.

The findings in this report are subject to at least four limitations. First, some AI/ANs might have been misclassified by race on death certificates, which would underestimate the total number of AI/AN deaths (8). In a 1996 Indian Health Service study, racial misclassification on death certificates of American Indians ranged from 1.2% in Arizona to 28.0% in Oklahoma and 30.4% in California (8). Second, this study did not use race-specific AAFs for most conditions, which might result in AAD underestimates for certain conditions (e.g., homicide and suicide) for which the AAFs are thought to be higher among AI/ANs (4). Third, ARDI does not estimate AADs for several conditions (e.g., tuberculosis, pneumonia, hepatitis C, and colon cancer) for which alcohol is believed to be an important risk factor but for which suitable pooled risk estimates are not available. Finally, bridged-race census estimates used in this report are based on multiple race categories; use of denominators based on other race categorization methods (e.g., 2000 U.S. Census data or tribal census data) would result in higher rates than reported.

Indian Health Service has initiated an alcohol screening and brief counseling intervention program to help reduce excessive alcohol consumption and related harms among AI/ANs in trauma settings. In addition, effective population-based interventions should be implemented to reduce excessive alcohol consumption in AI/AN populations. These include reducing alcohol availability by limiting outlet density, enforcing 21 years as the minimum legal drinking age (9), increasing alcohol excise taxes, and enforcing laws prohibiting sales to underage or already intoxicated persons, particularly in communities bordering reservations (10). Future efforts should explore regional differences in AADs and evaluate other intervention strategies for reducing alcohol-attributable mortality among AI/AN populations.

Acknowledgments

This report is based, in part, on data contributed by T Lindsey, National Center for Statistics and Analysis, National Highway Traffic Safety Admin, US Dept of Transportation; M Zack, Div of Adult and Community Health, National Center for Chronic Disease and Public Health Promotion; and C Rothwell and D Hoyert, National Center for Health Statistics, CDC.

References

1) Mokdad AH, Marks JS, Stroup DF, Gerberding JL. Actual causes of death in the United States, 2000. JAMA 2004;291:1238–45.

2) May AP. The epidemiology of alcohol abuse among American Indians: the mythical and real properties. The IHS Primary Care Provider 1995;20:37–56.

3) Smith GS, Branas CC, Miller TR. Fatal nontraffic injuries involving alcohol: a metaanalysis. Ann Emerg Med 1999;33:659–68.

4) May PA, Van Winkle NW, Williams MB, McFeeley PJ, DeBruyn LM, Serna P. Alcohol and suicide death among American Indians of New Mexico: 1980–1998. Suicide Life Threat Behav 2002;32:240–55.

5) Landen MG, Beller M, Funk E, Propst M, Middaugh J, Moolenaar RL. Alcohol-related injury death and alcohol availability in remote Alaska. JAMA 1997;278:1755–8.

6) Murray CJ, Kulkarni SC, Michaud C, et al. Eight Americas: investigating mortality disparities across races, counties, and race-counties in the United States. PLoS Med 2006;3:e260.

7) Guthrie P. Gallup, New Mexico: on the road to recovery. In: Streicker J, ed. Case histories in alcohol policy. San Francisco, CA: Trauma Foundation; 2000.

8) Indian Health Service. Adjusting for miscoding of Indian race on state death certificates. Rockville, MD: US Department of Health and Human Services, Public Health Service, Indian Health Service; 1996.

9) Task Force on Community Preventive Services. Excessive alcohol consumption. Atlanta, GA: US Department of Health and Human Services, CDC. Available at http://www.thecommunityguide.org/alcohol/default.htm.

10) Babor T, Caetano R, Casswell S, et al. Alcohol: no ordinary commodity. A summary of the book. Addiction 2003;98:1343–50.

* Available at http://apps.nccd.cdc.gov/ardi.

† Available at http://apps.nccd.cdc.gov/ardi/aboutardimethods.htm#aafs.

§ Available at http://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/main/index.aspx.

¶ Available at http://www.cdc.gov/brfss/index.htm.

** Available at http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss.htm.

Figure 1

Figure 2

Table

Native Resistance Chronology

Top left to bottom right: Crazy Horse, Emiliano Zapata, Geronimo, Chief Pontiac, Tecumseh, Túpac Amaru, Enriquillo, Chief Joseph, Túpac Amaru II, Quanah Parker, Cuauhtémoc, Sitting Bull

“One does not sell the earth upon which the people walk.” – Tashunka Witko (Crazy Horse)

Indigenous Resistance, 1960s-Present

Since the invasion of our territories began in 1492 our people have had to mobilize to defend our sovereignty. Indigenous Resistance has taken on many forms, and has revealed itself through the Pontiac Rebellion, Battle of Little Bighorn,The Ghost Dance, Riel Rebellion, American Indian Movement, Oka Crisis, the Zapitista Movement, Native Youth Movement etc.

However, when most settlers think back to the conquest of the territory that now makes the United States and Canada, most of them think that the end of the so-called “Indian Wars” as the cap of it, officially happening sometime around 1890. In that year some 300 unarmed Lakota men, women & children were massacred at Wounded Knee, South Dakota by the armed forces of the United States.

From this period until the 1950s, Native peoples were largely pacified & controlled by the colonial settler states. Native children were stolen from their families and thrown in schools in an act of genocide. Their cultures, languages and spiritual practices were annihilated by the white supremacist schooling in an effort to, by any and all means, assimilate Natives into white settler society.

Resistance by our people, and militant police action by the colonial state to suppress our resistance, did continue though. In 1924 Canada violently suppressed the traditional government of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, one of the few remaining traditional Native governments in the wake of the Indian Act.

For the most part however the protests of Natives consisted of lobbying the government for better treatment. In the 1950s things began to change. Largely inspired by the Black Civil Rights struggle in the U.S., Natives in both Canada and the U.S. also began organizing. In the south west, Native students began organizing, while in the Northwest, coastal Natives began asserting their treaty rights to fish. The Prairies and the Kanien’kehaka, or Mohawks, of Québec, Ontario and the U.S. lead the charge in this new militancy.

This movement was the first to occur outside the official sactioned band & tribal council system set up by both U.S. & Canadian governments (Native compradors). This early movement established a the basis for a grassroots network of conscious Natives opposed to colonization, and who were committed to maintaining their traditional culture & values, much of which had been lost in the forced schooling of Native children. This informal network formed the basis for the next phase of resistance which took off in the 1960s.

Its no historical mystery that the 1960s was a period marked by rebellion and a revolution on a global scale. Taking inspiration from the fierce resistance of the Vietnamese people against U.S. invasion & occupation, the Cultural Revolution in People’s China and the widespread revolt of students and workers in Europe, new social movements emerged, including the Black Panthers, and the women’s, students, queer liberation and anti-war movement.

It is from this period that the current Native resistance movement more or less emerged. In the 1980s things began to quiet down, but then Oka in 1990 exploded, reviving the movement for the last 20 years. This last 35-year period therefore forms an important part of our history as a movement.

A Timeline of Brown and Red Native Unity

I am of the firm belief that Chicanos/Mexicanos, who are a people representing both full blooded Natives as well as people of mixed Native and European, as well as African, descent should be rightly seen as Native people to North America alongside Indians, Metis and Inuit. They have had their cultures, their languages and their histories twice assaulted: first by the Spanish invaders of Mexico and the American south west, and second by the U.S. gringos following the seizure of northern Mexico. Many have lost their once organic relationship to their indigenous past, but their have always been pockets of resistance, and remembrance. During the height of the Red Power and Chicano Power movements there were many examples of powerful working relationships between brown and red Natives, and today that relationship continues on.

It is not the various names, logo’s, flags, patches, initiation ceremonies or individual groups we organize under that defines us. These things are not important. It is the institution of Indigenous Resistance that unifies us, brown and red, all into one Movement. In recognition of this I have included on this time line not just those actions and events by people called Native by the colonial state, but also those of our brown brothers and sisters.

Mexica Tiahui! Hoka Key!

1954

The U.S. Congress passed the Menominee Termination Act, ending the special relationship between the Menominee tribe of Wisconsin and the federal government. Following the termination of the Menominee the Klamath tribe in Oregon was terminated under the Klamath Termination Act. Finally The Western Oregon Indian Termination Act was enacted west of the cascade mountains. This termination was unique because of the number of tribes it affected. In all, 61 tribes in western Oregon were terminated. This total of tribes numbered more than the total of those terminated under all other individual acts.

1958

The U.S. Congress passed the California Rancheria Termination Act. Rancherias are unique Californian institutions referring to Indian settlements established by the U.S. government. The act terminates 41 of these settlements.

1964

An amendment to the California Rancheria Termination Act was enacted, terminating additional rancheria lands.

1967

The first Brown Beret unit is organized in December in East Los Angeles, California.

1968

At Kahnawake (ga-na-WAH-gay), a traditional Kanien’kehaka Singing Society is formed, which would later become the Mohawk Warrior Society. They begin to take part in protests & re-occupations of land. As well, a protest & blockade of the Seaway International Bridge (demanding recognition of Jay Treaty), at Akwesasne, ends with police attack & arrests of scores of Mohawks.

The American Indian Movement, a Warrior Society of urban Indians, is formed in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Inspired by the traditional Warrior Societies of nations like the Mohawk, and taking cues from the serve the people programmes of the Black Panthers, AIM establishes a community centre, and provides help to Indians in finding work, housing and legal aid. It also helps to organize early protests, and establishes a copwatch patrol. Although the most well known, AIM was just one part of a broad Native resistance movement that emerged at this time (sometimes referred to as Red Power). Other important groups to emerge out of this period are United Native Americans and United American Indians of New England.

The Brown Berets organized chapters throughout the states of California, Arizona, Texas, Colorado, New Mexico and as far away as Milwaukee, Chicago, Detroit, Minnesota, Ohio, Oregon, and Indiana, becoming a national organization.

1969

The event that really kicked things off for the Red Power Movement, the occupation of Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay. The occupation was largely in response to the U.S. Federal Government’s policy of Termination, which eliminated tribal status. The two guinea pigs for the policy, the Menominee of Wisconsin and the Klamath of Oregon, suffered terrible social and economic consequences. The action would last 19 months and be the first Indian protest to receive national & international media coverage. Thousands of Indians participated in the action, most coming from urban areas and searching for their identity.

In March, in Denver, Colorado the Crusade for Justice, a Chicano organization, organized the first National Chicano Youth Liberation Conference that drafted the basic premises for the Chicana/Chicano Movement in El Plan de Aztlán. The following month over 100 Chicanas/Chicanos came together at University of California, Santa Barbara to formulate a plan for higher education: El Plan de Santa Barbara. With this document they were successful in the development of two very important contributions to the Chicano Movement: Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán (MEChA) and Chicano Studies.

1970

AIM protests disrupt the re-enactment of Mayflower landing at Plymouth Rock, Massachusetts, gains national attention & helps AIM to expand. United American Indians of New England declared US Thanksgiving Day a National Day of Mourning. It becomes an annual protest.

The San Diego Brown Berets occupy the land that was to be a California Highway Patrol station in LoganHeights under the Coronado Bridge, forming Chicano Park.

1971

In Pennsylvania, unknown persons break into FBI office and take many classified documents. These revealed the existence of the Bureau’s Counter-Intelligence Program. COINTELPRO, as it was known, set up surveillance and organized repression against progressive social movements in U.S. The program initially targeted the African Liberation Movement, especially the Black Panthers, but would later also turn its eyes on the Red Power and Chicano Movements. It used imprisonment, assaults and lethal force to enforce the established order.

The Brown Berets marched one thousand miles from Calexico to Sacramento in “La Marcha de laReconquista” to protest statewide against racial and institutionalized discrimination, police brutality, andthe high number of Chicano casualties in Vietnam. The Brown Berets then embarc on a yearlong nationwide expedition in “La Caravana de la Reconquista” toorganize La Raza on a national scale to secure rights and self-determination for La Raza.

After much struggle by both the Chicano and the Indian communities (though not without some disagreement), D–Q University is founded. The two year college is path breaking in the way it openly treats Chicanos as tribal Native people. The school becomes home to members of the American Indian Movement, as well as a meeting place for MEChA.

1972

AIM and many other native groups organize the Trail of Broken Treaties. The TBT is a caravan that travelled from the west coast to Washington, D.C. When the caravan of several thousand activists arrived in Washington, government officials refused to meet with them. In response The Bureau of Indian Affairs headquarters is occupied for 6 days. Extensive damage is done to the property and thousands of files taken.

In February of that year Raymond Yellow Thunder is killed by settlers in Gordon, Nebraska. His murderers are only charged with manslaughter, and were then released without bail. AIM organized several days of protests and boycotts, and succeeded in having actual murder charges laid against the settlers. The police chief fired. Yellow Thunder is from Pine Ridge, and this incident helps build a stronger relationship between AIM and traditional Lakotas on the reserve.

The Brown Berets reclaimed Isla de Santa Catalina in order to bring attention of the illegal occupation of theislands by the U.S. and to claim it on behalf of the Chicano people and to bring attention to the shortage ofhousing for the Chicano community. The U.S. has illegally occupied this and the other Archipelago Islandsknown as the Channel Islands since 1848 when they signed the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.

Brown Berets were infiltrated by sellouts and subversives working for outside organizations including butnot limited to the FBI, LAPD, CWP, ATF, and other “law enforcement” agencies and organizations workingto co-opt the Movimiento Chicano to serve their own agendas. The Brown Berets were disbanded by thethen Prime Minister David Sanchez in order to circumvent any violence the members of the organizationwhich was being promoted by those infiltrators mentioned above.

1973

Another Indian, Wesley Bad Heart Bull, is killed by another racist settler, this time in South Dakota. Again the perpetrator is only charged with manslaughter. On February 6, an AIM again protests against this kind of injustice. In Custer, SD, the protests cause the courthouse erupts into riot. Police cars and buildings are set on fire. 30 people arrested.

On the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, large numbers of police and US Marshals are deployed to counter the activities of AIM and traditionalist Lakotas opposed to the corrupt tribal president Dick Wilson. With the aid of U.S. government funing Wilson established a paramilitary force known as the Guardians of the Oglala Nation, called GOONs by AIM and its allies.

In a period beginning in this year and ending in 1976, some 69 members or associates of AIM were killed by the GOONs, BIA police and FBI agents in and around Pine Ridge.

Angered by the ongoing repression and violence, some 200 AIM memebers, supporters and traditionalist Lakota warriors begin an occupation of Wounded Knee on February 27. The government responds with a 71-day siege during which two Natives were shot and killed (Buddy Lamont & Frank Clearwater). The siege ends on May 9.

At Kahnawake in September, the Mohawk Warrior Society evicts non-Natives from the over-crowded reserve. This leads to armed confrontation with Québec police in October. Warriors begin to search for land to re-possess.

1974

A group of traditionalist Mohawks, along with veterans of the Wounded Knee occupation, begin an occupation of Ganienkeh in New York state. The warriors retake land and engage in an armed standoff with state police. Eventually, negotiations result in Mohawks taking a parcel of land in upstate NY (in 1977). Ganienkeh, a community run in accordance with ancient Six Nations tradition, continues to exist today.

In Canada, the Native People’s Caravan, modelled after Trail of Broken Treaties takes place form September 14 to 30, and heads from Vancouver, British Colombia to Ottawa. It ends with riot police attacking 1,000 Indian activists at Parliament Building.

Armed roadblocks and occupations occur at Cache Creek, British Colombia, and Kenora, Ontario.

1975

Perhaps the most famous incident of the period: the shootout at Oglala. At Oglala, on the Pine Ridge reservation, the FBI botched a raid on an AIM camp. The failed operation ends with 2 agents killed along with 1 Native defender (Joe Stuntz-Killsright). The FBI launched one of the largest man hunts in US history for AIM suspects afterwords.

Elsewhere, in Wisconsin, the Menominee Warrior Society occupied the abandoned Alexian Brothers novitiate building in Gresham, Wisconsin. The occupation lasted thirty four days and, when it ended, many leaders of the occupation faced criminal indictments and trials.

1976

In February, the body of Anna Mae Pictou-Aquash, a Mik’maq from Nova Scotia, Canada, and member of AIM, is found on the Pine Ridge reservation. Aquash was one of the most well known female members of AIM, a veteran of the BIA occupation and Wounded Knee. Despite an initial cover-up by the FBI, an independent autopsy finds that Aquash had been executed with a bullet in the back of the head. The FBI or GOONs are primary suspects. To this day no one knows for sure who killed Anna Mae, and her death has been used to tear the movement apart, with some fingering others within AIM, and others the government.

Two suspects in the FBI deaths at Oglala (Dino Butler & Bob Robideau) are found not guilty on grounds of self-defense. A third suspect, Leonard Peltier, is captured in Canada. Using false evidence, the FBI have Peltier illegally extradited to South Dakota.

1977

The trial of Leonard Peltier ends with his conviction of murder and imprisonment for 2 life terms. His conviction is based on FBI fabrication and withholding of evidence. Peltier remains in prison to this day, one of the longest held Prisoners of War in the U.S.

1981

On June 11, some 550 Québec Provincial Police raid Restigouche, a Mik’maq reserve of 1,700. Riot police carry out assaults and search homes for evidence of ‘illegal’ fishing. This is in response to complaints by white fishermen that the Mi’kmaq take more than their fair share of fish. This is despite the fact that the white fishermen take order of magnitude more fish than the Indians.

Unión del Barrio is formed. UdB is a Marxist-Leninist and revolutionary nationalist organization Raza organization. UdB expands the usual definition of La Raza to include the indigenous people of North America, making Brown and Red native unity part of its program.

1988

Over 200 Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), including riot & Emergency Response Teams, raided the Mohawk territory of Kahnawake. They claimed they are searching for illegal cigarettes. In response Warriors seized the Mercier Bridge, a vital commuter link into Montreal, part of which runs through the Kahnawake reserve.

In northern Alberta, the Lubicon Cree began road-blocks against logging and oil companies devastating their territory & way of life. A logging camp and vehicles are damaged by Molotov attacks. The struggle of the Lubicon continues to this day, now with the added threat of even greater ecological destruction and health effects at the hands of the Canadian Oil Sands.

In Labrador, Innu activists began protesting NATO fighter-bomber training at a Canadian military base. Many Innu were arrested during the blockade of runways.

1990

The Oka Crisis. Over 100 heavily-armed Québec provincial police raided a Mohawk blockade at Kanesatake/Oka on June 11. In an initial fire-fight, one cop is shot & killed. Following a 77-day armed standoff began. Eventually it came to involve 2,000 police and 4,500 Canadian soldiers, deployed against both Kanesatake & Kahnawake. The Oka Crisis inspired solidarity actions across country, including road and rail blockades and sabotage of bridges and electrical pylons.

1992

During protests against the 500-year anniversary of Columbus’ invasion of the Americas in October, dozens were arrested in Denver, Colorado. In San Francisco, riot cops fought running battles with protesters, who set 1 police car on fire and disrupted an official Columbus Day parade and re-enactment of his landing.

1993

Brown Berets are re-activated under the old Charter and Provisions as laid out by the previous BrownBeret National Organization.

1994

The Zapatista Rebellion begins. In Chiapas, Mexico, armed rebels of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation launched their New Year’s Day offensive, capturing 6 towns and cities. Comprised of Indigenous peoples, the EZLN declare war on the Mexican state and the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). In response, the government deployed 15,000 soldiers and killed several hundred civilians in attacks. Since 1994, the Zapatistas have continued to gain widespread support and sympathy throughout Mexico and the world. Along with Oka, the Zapatista uprising helps to inspire and drive 20 years of resurgence in the Indian movement in North America.

1995

Two major events took place this year in Canada. The first is in Ipperwash, Ontario, were an unarmed protest and re-occupation ended with Ontario police opening fire on the protesters. They kill one Indian, Dudley George, on September 6. The re-occupation had begun in 1993. The land, originally the Stoney Point reserve, was taken by the government during the second world war for use as a temporary army base. After the killing of Dudley George, the government admitted the peoples claims were justified. The second incident is the month-long siege that occured at Gustafsen Lake in the south-central Interior of British Colombia. It began after a settler attempted to evict Secwepemc sundancers from their traditional ceremonial grounds. Some 450 heavily-armed RCMP ERT, with armoured personnel carriers from the Canadian military, surround the rebel camp.

1997

The Native Youth Movement, a militant grouping of largely urban Indians inspired by the original AIM, founded a chapter in Vancouver, British Colombia. It was inspired by the year-long trial of Gustafsen Lake defenders, held near Vancouver. NYM soon began attending conferences, organizing protests, distributing information, etc. In April, NYM carried out 2-day occupation of BC Treaty Commission offices.

1998

The NYM branch in Vancouver carried out 5-day occupation of BCTC offices in April, and a 2-day occupation of Westbank band offices in Okanagan territory. Both of these are actions against treaty process.

1999

The NYM branch in Vancouver helped members of Cheam band, located near Chilliwack British Colombia, assert their right to fish on the Fraser River. NYM Warriors wear masks and camouflage uniforms. They also carry batons to deter Fisheries officers, who routinely harassed Cheam fishers. As a result of this the NYM forms security force. This later took on a life of its on and became the Westcoast Warrior Society.

2000

In May, members of the St’at’imc nation established Sutikalh camp near Mt. Currie, British Colombia, to stop a massive ski resort from being built on an untouched alpine mountain area.

At Burnt Church, New Brunswick, Mi’kmaq fishermen again attempted to assert their treaty rights to fish lobster in September & October. They were again met with repression from hundreds of police and fisheries officers. Members of Westcoast Warrior Society participated in defensive operations.

In October, Secwepemc established the first Skwelkwekwelt Protection Center to stop expansion of Sun Peaks ski resort, near Kamloops, British Colombia. Over the years, some 70 people are arrested and charged as a result of protests, roadblocks & re-occupation camps.

After decades of the struggle by the Indian community and its allies, the San Francisco Peaks are designated a Traditional Cultural Property, which allows it to be eligible for consideration as an official National Historic Register site.

2001

In May, a Secwepemc NYM chapter was established. A 2-day occupation of government office in Kamloops occured to protest selling of Native land.

In July, over 60 RCMP with ERT raided Sutikalh after a 10-day blockade of all commercial trucking on Highway 97. Seven persons are arrested.

2002

In December, Annishinabe in the northern Ontario community of Grassy Narrows began to blockade logging companies from destroying their traditional territory. The blockade becomes one of the longest in recent history, continuing through to the present, and directed primarily against Weyerhaeuser and Abitibi corporations.

In September, RCMP, including Emergency Response Teams and Integrated National Security Enforcement Team (INSET), raided the homes of West Coast Warrior Society members on Vancouver Island. They were allegedly searching for weapons.

2003

In April, homes of NYM members were again raided, this time in Bella Coola and Neskonlith, by RCMP including ERT. This time the cops took computers, address books & propaganda.

2004

In January, Mohawk warriors surrounded the Kanesatake police station after band chief brings in outside police forces to crackdown on political opposition. Over 60 police were barricaded inside station. Chief’s house and car are burned.

In June, RCMP INSET, along with Vancouver police ERT, arrested members of West Coast Warriors Society, for making legal purchase of firearms. Rifles and ammunition were seized in the bust. Shortly after, the West Coast Warrior Society was disbanded by its members. They cited the ongoing repression of them by the police.

2005

In January, members of the Tahltan in northern ‘British Columbia’ occupied the band office in Telegraph Creek in opposition to band’s involvement with mining and oil & gas corporations. In July they began blockading roads being used by construction machinery, and in September fifteen Tahltans including elders were arrested by the RCMP. The Tahltan continued their campaign, including blockades, through 2006 and 2007.

2006

On April 20, over 150 Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) attempted to forcibly remove a blockade at the Six Nations reserve territory near Caledonia, in southern Ontario. They violently arrest 16 Indians, using physical assaults, pepper spray & tasers. The Ontario Provincial Police are forced to withdraw however, as hundreds of Six Nations members converge on the site. More blockades were erected in the area, including on Highway 6, which consisted of burning tires, vehicles and dismantled electrical pylons, and mounds of gravel. A train bridge was also burned down. The next day on the Tyendinaga reserve, a Canadian National Railway line was blocked, cutting off a major freight and passenger line. The Six Nations members originally began their blockade to stop a housing development on land they claimed belongs to them. The blockades and land reclamation continue for over a year, with numerous conflicts with settlers and police occurring, as well as sabotage.

In July, Grassy Narrows Annishinabe protesters, along with members of the Rainforest action Network, blockaded the Trans-Canada Highway. Several persons were arrested.

This year also saw the founding the Wasasé Movement. Wasáse said about itself that it was “an intellectual and political movement whose ideology is rooted in sacred wisdom. It is motivated and guided by indigenous spiritual and ethical teachings, and dedicated to the transformation of indigenous people in the midst of the severe decline of our nations and the crises threatening our existence. It exists to enable indigenous people to live authentic, free and healthy lives in our homelands.” It is largely based on the thought and strategies for change laid in the book of the same name by University of Victoria professor Taiaiake Alfred, a Mohawk from Kahnawake. They are quite Gandhian in their outlook and approach, and due to its academic orientation, many warriors & grassroots organizers remained unexposed to the movement’s philosophy. The movement only last a few years before self-dissolving.

2007

On March 6, a massive Olympic flag that was being flown at the Vancouver City Hall was stolen just as a delegation from the International Olympic Committee arrived to inspect the city’s preparations for the 2010 Winter Olympics. A few days later, as the IOC tour ended, the Native Warrior Society released a communiqué claiming responsibility for taking the flag, including a photograph of three masked members standing in front of the Olympic flag and holding a Warrior flag. The group claimed the action in honour of Harriet Nahanee, a Native elder who passed away after being sentenced to two weeks imprisonment for taking part in a 2006 blockade of construction on the Sea-to-Sky highway in preparation for 2010.

This year also saw the attempt by a group of Lakota leaders to move for the unilateral withdrawal of the Lakota from the Treaties of 1851 and 1868 as permitted under the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, of which, the United States is a signatory. Their proposed independent nation is called the Republic of Lakotah.

On the June 29 a Day of Action was called by the Assembly of First Nations (AFN), the the national organization of the Indian Act band council chiefs across Canada. The AFN claimed the event as a huge success , with over 100,000 people participating, however most of the people participating in the actions, protests, and rallies were non-native, which speaks to the AFN’s inability to mobilize their people despite all the resources they have. In fact, many militant Native organizations, such as the Native Youth Movement, called a boycott of the Day of Action. These organizations, rightly, stated that the AFN does not represent our people and that, when they talk about solutions, their long-term goal is actually assimilation.

In December members of the Chaco Rio Indian community in New Mexico established a blockade to prevent preliminary work for proposed development of a massive coal-fired power plant.

2008

Across Canada the so-called Olympic “Spirit Train” was met with disruptions and protests at its stops by Native warriors and their non-Native allies. Across Canada other preparations for the 2010 Winter Olympics, set to take place on unceded Indian land, were disrupted by protesters.

The Mohawk Nation branch of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy at Kahnawake filed a formal complaint about the construction of Super Highway 30.

2009

The land reclamation effort at Caledonia by the Six Nations Haudenosaunee Confederacy entered its third year with the warriors showing no signs of backing down. It continues to be ongoing to this day.

Warriors of the Mohawk Nation branch of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy at Akwesasne – which straddles Ontario, Québec and New York State – expelled Canadian border guards at a crossing with the United States which passes through their territory, seizing control of the border station.

Native warrior, American Indian Movement leader and political prisoner Leonard Peltier is again denied parole by the colonial government in the United States. His next parol hearing will not be until the year 2024.

2010

In February Native warriors gathered with anti-capitalists/anti-imperialists, feminists, environmentalists and other social justice advocates to fight back against the Vancouver Winter Olympics which took place on unceded Coast Salish territory.

In July people in Oka and the nearby Mohawk community gathered to remember the resistance at Oka and to protest the ongoing attempts to marginalize the Mohawk people and take their land.

The Canadian Federal Government used an obscure part of the 1900 Indian Act to forcibly strip the Barrie Lake Algonquin of their traditional government, and replace it with a Band Council subservient to Ottawa. The Barrie Lake people met this imperialist-colonialist move with stiff resistance.

John Graham, a Native of the Yukon, and a former member of the American Indian Movement, is convicted of the murder of his former AIM comrade Anna Mae Pictou Aquash. As noted earlier, much of the evidence in the case points to Anna Mae’s death having been at the hands of the FBI.

2011

In June 500 agents of the colonial state invade sovereign Mohawk communities in Quebec. On paper they are looking for marijuana, but it much more likely that this is state terror tactics against some of the most firmly sovereigntist Native communities on the continent.

64 Responses to Native American Genocide

Amber | July 7, 2011 at 6:33 am | Reply

This is sooo sad there is no words to explain it. I am part cherokee, my great great grandmother was full, and i wish i could say that. Native Indians are beautiful, smart and strong people, the world needs more of them and there culture. It really makes me sick to hear that America was “free for the takeing” when they sailed here. This place belongs to Gods people, the ones that knew how to save the land and live off it. The only thing I can do is play the cards Ive been delt, have pride in the only roots I care about and try to give the world more peace!

Kiki | March 20, 2012 at 7:35 pm | Reply

I’m sorry to know that your family has suffered. It is quite similar for us Slavs in many regions around the world. But never to the extent in number as Native Americans. I think the best thing we can do is honor our ancestors, preserve our culture and traditions, learn everything possible and write it down. Save it and spread the knowledge. Group with others and combine this knowledge and make sure it never dies. This is how we honor those before us. This is how we pay respect for their suffering. Embrace your heritage and wear it proudly. Never let anyone take it from you. And fight them if they try. Never back down. Never surrender.

Laryssa Louise Mourish | November 28, 2012 at 9:07 pm | Reply

Hi I’ve just finished reading your open letter that is featured on the “Native American” genocide page. It is so wonderful that you are a proud native american woman who is not afraid to tell the world about your awesome race. I myself am a Indigenous Aboriginal woman from Perth WA who is really interested in your race and your culture. I also find that both our races have been wronged by the white man and it’s still happening to this day in my country. We have a saying in my family about the white man that they “befriend, deceive, and disposess”.

Fumi | October 11, 2011 at 2:20 am | Reply

hello, i checked out the website and found the picture that has many of the native american faces (above the title “The English/American Genocide”). I like this picture alot, but i found the vertical line in the middle of the picture, probably from the folding the original paper… so I photoshopped it and took out the line from the picture. I hope you could reuse it. I uploaded it here, so you can download. cus I wanted to help.

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=PDZVZYZQ

admin | October 14, 2011 at 2:53 pm | Reply

Thank you very much for your continued readership and support, comrade! I much appreciate your efforts to help me. I’ll replace the old picture right away.

Hugues Obiang Poitevin | November 25, 2011 at 1:23 pm | Reply

THANK YOU FOR PUBLISHING, AT LAST, THIS HORRIBLE TRUTH !

THAT IS WHY WESTERN WORLD IS CURSED !

VOILà POURQUOI L’OCCIDENT EST MAUDIT

+ BLACK SLAVERY and JEWS HOLOCAUST !

PITIFUL mAN !

Toni | November 26, 2011 at 9:13 pm | Reply

that’s right. Everything that has been said on this website, really took place. It is a great pity that most non-native people today don’t even know a fraction of what happened to American Indians. It is time to awaken the collective consciousness to what was done, if we want any real change in the lives of American Indians. Only that acknowledgment will heal the wound.

Toni (Bismarck, ND)

Hunwi | November 29, 2011 at 1:14 pm | Reply

Yes much Gratitude for the Sad but True Story,

Its OUR COLLECTIVE story and it is still continuing today. It is the Same here for the AUSTRALIAN Aboriginals.

4 Years ago these People and their lands were placed under military intervention and this Australian government under a British Constitution along with AMERICA have organized to mine; from 120 mines the uranium that their land rests upon. Please help these people acknowledge this pain and this crazy disconnection and connect with the Thrive organisation as well as the Arnhem land aboriginals / yolongu peoples http://www.ourgeneration.org.au peace and blessings to all with a conscious heart

fred coulis | December 9, 2011 at 11:23 pm | Reply

Why hasn’t anyone looked into who orchestrated the conspiracy to kill off the natives all over the world? Why are records sealed in canada, and probably the other country’s to. Why hasn’t a list of the 50,000/60,000 children who died as a result of being infected with tuburculosis, or simply vanished. Why isn’t anyone attem,pting to check out the mass graves they are finding at some of the “schools” they are tearing down. Why don’t all the Chiefs have a summit meeting and discuss ALL OF THEIR PROBLEMS on their reserves. You must know, that there is not a single gov’t official at any level, is going to help any native to improve themselves. (Except for natives who have been appleized.) I have looked at ‘Hidden from History’ and have told people about about this genocide, but no one cares. They must have seen the propaganda movies about the atrocities committed by these savage “Injuns”.. Maybe the people who made these movies are part of the conspiracy??

jimmy | December 11, 2011 at 1:23 am | Reply

It is very interesting to learn the history of how the indian civilization was destroyed.. as a living proof i have very little knowlegde of how and why we are considered to be uncivilized… I must thank the authors of this publications for a very thorough and informative piece.

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pamela miller | January 11, 2012 at 4:02 am | Reply

i was doing research on how the native indians in michigan lived and live today i just stubbled on this site and well guess i got me a bit of history that i will not be able to share in school thank you for this bit of insight i will remember this through my life and look at american indians in a diffrent way seems sad to know the truth and not be able to share i would probley get a bad grade if i made a report on this

Jon | January 14, 2012 at 1:19 am | Reply

I really love this blog, first time on it. I hope more people read this and understand, this blog really shares the details into who are the real suffers here in this land and also that all these people that are here are complaining about immigration and there the ones who don’t belong here. WAKE UP!!!! I’d hate to be the bearer of bad news but most of us including me, we are all immigrants, the people who should leave are the ones complaining. All native people who live in there own land are living in a damn 3rd world community, stop complaining. Also Mexicans use to own and live in the western United States, so technically they were forcibly removed from there own land and we are arrogant enough to deny what we did, even though it was a long time ago. Think about it………Sorry for the rant but i needed to get that off my chest. I dont even know if i have Native ancestry here, i hope i do, i love this land and there people. I’m only 19, but one thing i want to do in my life is become a leader or influential figure for a tribes of America, that’s my dream. Thanks again to the publisher of this blog and site.

Courtney | January 22, 2012 at 4:39 pm | Reply

When I stumbled upon this site I was looking for more information regarding the slaughter of native Americans. What I found angered me, empowered me and simultaniously disgusted me. I wish I could go back in time and tell the natives to never trust them! I am sad and forlorn. I feel as if the spirits of those taken in such a violent manner are reaching out– demanding justice for their lives, their culture and the way of life that my ancestors stripped from them. I am full of shame to be white. How could a civil human do those things? We were truly the savages. You cannot take something that doesn’t have a price. This Land belongs to the natives. There is no way we could ever make it up to them. In the last 500 years we have undone thousands of years of their prosperity and life. We are such hypocrites, full of greed and lust for what anyone else has.

I apologize to those of you who are of native descent, nothing will ever make it right. You own this land. You deserve the right to live how you were meant to. I am disgusted that we worship politics and “heroes” who murdered other humans, a crime punishable by death here in Texas for only one life; much less hundreds, thousands or millions.

I wish you all peace and prosperity.

Angel | January 31, 2012 at 11:35 am | Reply

Please, publish this information in a video or create more blogs with similar information. It would be quite worth it. I think if the mainstream public are aware of this information, it can be incredibly influence how history in presented in the United State with the American Indians perspective finally present!

Levi Wyaco | March 7, 2012 at 12:20 am | Reply

As a proud Full Blooded Navajo, i am thankful that some of the madness is uncovered and brought to attention for all to learn. I am sad that my ancestors endured such hatred and also very mad for all the blood that stains this land that i walk to this day………..

Kiki | March 20, 2012 at 7:28 pm | Reply

None of my ancestors were in the US really at the times most of these atrocities were committed. However, I’d still like to say I’m deeply sorry for what your ancestors endured but applaud you on still keeping your head high and proud of your heritage. There is nothing worse than losing who you were and are and becoming a puppet to the world. May life continue to bless you!

Kiki | March 20, 2012 at 7:25 pm | Reply

Very long but still so short compared to what happened. I grew up with Native Americans in both Lumberton, North Carolina and a dear Cherokee that lived in Memphis, TN. He was like a dad to me since mine didn’t live with me. He even gave me a Cherokee name. I have always loved Native Americans, their traditions, their culture and it always saddens me to think of their story. And to think this kind of behavior is STILL going on to this day.

THANK YOU for posting this. I’ve shared this on FB among my friends. I would love to quote parts of this, in a post on one of blogs, also. No worries, I’d link back to you giving full create. I don’t steal. I wanted to ask permission first, though.

Thanks again.

With love from Serbia,

Kiki

Reneta Yuliy | March 26, 2012 at 4:27 pm | Reply

I remain without words in front of such horrible cruelty towards the Native Americans.. I always think about this like the worst crime ever committed in the world!!!!!

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austin kennedy | May 17, 2012 at 11:26 pm | Reply

I dont understand how anyone could be so cruel to such a peaceful people. I have told some of my friends about this website people need to know the story of us the true first americans

Joe | June 7, 2012 at 12:19 am | Reply

My people have suffered much in the last 520 years. Besides the intial attacks the white man has done to us they also tried to erase us from history. ” Save the man kill the Indian” was they way they tried. We were not a perfect people, are ways and beliefs were strange to them and so that apparently mean that we all were ungodly heathens. Sometimes we would do horrible things to ourselves, but we didn’t deserve this much brutality. I am just learning my native tongue, something I should have known all of my life. I however am glad that we put up a fight till we finally had to stop. I am proud to call my self an Indian and that’s something you will never take from me.

Kim | June 9, 2012 at 1:22 am | Reply

God bless the Native American Indians! I am proud that my grandpa was a full blooded Native American Indian!

Colton | June 25, 2012 at 7:48 am | Reply

Keep the fight alive brothers and sisters. I’m only a quarter Creek but I still feel the pain and suffering for the natives then and now. Fight for your rights and we can all pull together to gain what was rightfully yours. Overthrow the corrupt U.S. government and restore peace to the land, no more war or pointless restrictions on our basic rights as human beings. Peace and love from Georgia.

Claudia Araujo | July 4, 2012 at 7:15 am | Reply

I am a school Principal in Rosarito Beach Mexico and personally a Hawaiian-Mexican descendent. Have lots of cousins and other relatives of different American Tribes, so my interest in the matter is genuine. I am organizing an Summer Camp; this year theme will be Native Americans, including background information of Red as well as Brown tribes, part of our curriculum will cover the truth of the Nations that is easilly hidden to our children in schools. Thanks for sharing such wonderful information. It is our keen interest to tell the truth.

Manuel | July 13, 2012 at 10:00 pm | Reply

Well done for your job. I get angry when I see these people making memorial for the Jews every year when in fact who deserve it should the whole American Indian. I would like to make people aware of this sad story, because we do not learn it in school.Thats why I volunteer myself to help you in any other future project you have about the American Indian. God bless you.

dar | August 6, 2012 at 12:25 pm | Reply

Disgusted! But Karma doesn’t expire. They are or will pay in this life or their next lives, That is if such people are allowed to be rebirthed into mother earth. And still today there exists Idiots uncivilized and full of self centeredness that are racial and discriminate again people that are not White American/European. I can only wish that one day all of the world’s race would be simply a mixed of all….Together…..No just one, but that all humans were a melting pot of all the races put together. Do they no know or understand that it is proven that within our own DNA we will always be Native and African descendants… at least 1% of their DNA will be Native/African decendant blood lines.

Gulag | August 7, 2012 at 5:10 am | Reply

I wish First Peoples (U.S. and Canada) would stop identifying themselves by degree. It’s not necessary and it’s NOT TRADITIONAL. If you’re a descendant, you’re Indian. The ‘measuring cup’ is a perpetuation of First Peoples genocide. We’re doing it to ourselves now, without even realizing it.

It’s a construction of Bureaus of Indian Affairs. Stop doing it.

Trent Burhenn | August 9, 2012 at 12:32 pm | Reply

A sad truth to read, this piece of history has been so easily overlooked thanks to the intelligent handling of the world from powerful governments. It is good to see it being brought forth somewhere so we all can realize what this “nation” has been founded on. If there is ever any assistance in need, feel free to contact the provided email. I am tired of feeling the need to take back time and wish to realistically adjust the future towards better times.

Earth’s blessings

Desirée | August 20, 2012 at 10:44 pm | Reply

Thank you for making the public aware. I always knew the bullshit they fed us in school was just that: bullshit. Colombus and Washington being “great men”. Let us give our children the TRUTH (as they already know it in their hearts) so that they will never make the mistakes our ancestors did to fellow humans. I am ashamed my family was part of the extermination and removal of the Native people of Turtle Island. It breaks my heart. The only thing I can do is teach my son the Red Path because I KNOW, the wisdom of the Red Road will heal humanity of its insanity. Peace, Blessings, Love.

victoria | September 3, 2012 at 10:57 am | Reply

I remeber being in school and learning about this new land. The only thing I would look at was the indain. I would feel it and was sadden but didnt know way. My spirit knew. Being native indian/ mexican/ spain myself I could feel there was more to the story then they where saying only hidden in the spirits of my ancestors I would feel like the spirits where really trying to tell me something. The lies the gov. can say what can and can not go in text books is bullshit. I want my sons to know how and what happen. My husband is Irish and he agrees that if anyone should call themself american is us. We where here 1st not them. I will keep this sit to saw my three sons.

Thank you

Doglol | September 7, 2012 at 4:11 pm | Reply

Just a small point. I think the line :

“for example in 1937 the Pequot Indians were exterminated by the Colonists when they burned their villages in Mystic,..”

Should have the date 1637 in place of 1937.

A simple error but should be fixed.

Lori | September 7, 2012 at 8:19 pm | Reply

I stumbled on this site through Pinterest. I first found out about how many people and tribes were in north america before the genocide through time/life books that my father bought around 37 years ago. It’s amazing how this information has been hidden in plain sight. The information is there, maybe the internet will be the great equalizer for the native americans as it has been for middle eastern people whose plight has recently been brought to light. Bad things are still happening, but we have to continue to hope and share the information to raise the consciousness of everyone.

R | September 12, 2012 at 10:56 am | Reply

I am suprised Chief Oseola of the Seminole nation is not shown? The Seminoles launched three wars in Florida against the white man(the three Seminole wars) hence names like Fort Lauderdale and Fort Myers.

Other important Indian uprises in the Americas: The war of the castes in Yucatan,the massacre of 1932 in El Salvador,the conquest of th desert in Patagonia,Argentina.

If interested in genocides like what happened to the Caribbean and North American natives,read how the Selk’nam of Tierra Del Fuego were virtually exterminated,their way of life changed ,the bounty hunts similar to North American Indians,the loss of their language.

Also read about the fate of the Aleutian Islanders in Alaska how they commited mass sucides throwing themselves off cliffs rather than in to the “white man”

Also of interest how President Profirio Diaz of Mexico wanted to “whiten” Northern Mexico relocating the Northen Mexican Indians to work on plantations in the Yucatan and encouraging “white” European migration to settled in Northern Mexico,on the same boat President Maximiliano Hernadez of El Salvador 1932 “retribution” on the Pipil people of Western El Salvador and how after that they were ashamed of their language,did not want to wear traditional clothing,etc. and his encouragement of “white” European migration.

R | September 12, 2012 at 11:00 am | Reply

http://upsidedownworld.org/main/el-salvador-archives-74/2338-indigenous-peoples-in-el-salvador-commemorate-1932-massacre-

R | September 12, 2012 at 11:32 am | Reply

many natives were taken to Europe and paraded around in a circus like manner in so called expocisions:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/28123904@N02/2650320820

R | September 12, 2012 at 11:39 am | Reply

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selknam_Genocide

R | September 12, 2012 at 11:40 am | Reply

http://intercontinentalcry.org/genocide-in-chile-a-monument-is-not-enough/

R | September 12, 2012 at 11:51 am | Reply

Similar to the Christian boarding schools,many Indians,specially nomadic Native Americans from the Californias(both Alta and Baja including the Indians from the Channel Islands of California who were transported to the mainland missions) to Florida ,from Hispanola throughout Mexico and Central America to Missiones in Northern Argentina ,Amerindians were settled into these missions to work for the missionaries,many died of diseases such as smallpox in the missions.From the first Spanish contact when Spaniards were given large tracts of land called encomiendas; which included the Indians on those lands,the Indians were being used as labor sometimes in very harsh conditions such as in the case of mining. Later came the missions; many places still bear the name of this past such as the Domincan Republic on Hispanola or Missiones a province in Northern Argentina where the ruins of old missions still stand hence the name.

R | September 12, 2012 at 12:20 pm | Reply

The Spaniards not only depleated the native Taino and Arawak populations of the major Antilles Islands:first Hispanola ,but later the same was done on Cuba,Puerto Rico and Jamaica;but after the population was dwingling before bringing African slaves;they did slave raids in the Bahamas depleating the Bahama native Lucayo population and later taking the last of the native Tequestas and Calusas of southern Florida to Cuba.It has been documented that on Hispanola there were workers and household servants from Indian tribes as far north as the Carolinas.

In the Guanacaste peninsula of Cosat Rica as cattle ranchers expanded ,the last of the native Chorotega indians were taken to Peru to be given as hosuehold servants.

My point is yes,natuves have been stripped of their native heritage and forcefully relocated not only the natives of the Americas,but other indigenous people as well,for example Spaniards would bring Filipinos and Guamanians to Mexico;Filipinos and Mexicans to Guam(interbreeded with the local populations to produce today’s Chammorros) and Mexicans to the Philliipines.So the native Mexicans ended up in such far away lands such as the Phillipines.

The Spanish were not the only Europeans guilty of relocating native people,for example the Black Caribs(natives that had largely mixed with Maroons,runaway African slaves.) of St Vincent were finally captured by the British after several Carib wars;they were relocated to the island of Roatan in the Bay Islands now part of present day Honduras ;later from there moved to the mainland Honduran coast and Belize and today they are known as Garifuna.For example Belize is not just home to their native Mayans,but the also home to the Garifunas ;Mayans who escaped the Caste Wars of the Yucatan and later on in the 1980's Mayans who escaped the armed conflicts in Guatemala.So as you can see we natives have been going up and down everywhere and even today you find large numbers of Mexican and Guatemalan natives in the USA: from California to Texas to Mississippi to Florida.For example I did not know there is a town in Louisiana where they speak Mexican Nahuatl.

Xavier | September 13, 2012 at 5:37 pm | Reply

When you say, “500 year war”, what are the dates exactly that this would represent. My thanks in advance.

Chris | September 14, 2012 at 3:07 pm | Reply

I was doing a project and I saw all this… Is this still happening??? I think the UN need to be waken up a little. Have the Native’s tried that yet? If there’s enough support, I’m sure something will happen. Surly the US should fund these ‘reservations’ (if I’m right in saying some still live in those). Or have yanks just given up… I’m surprised there’s been no up-rise yet. What a bloody shame.

Onowakohton | January 13, 2013 at 3:49 am | Reply

Idle No More movement has begun … look it up on youtube. :)

Joan Robinson | September 16, 2012 at 2:31 am | Reply

The world should remember…we are constantly reminded of the terrors inflicted upon some while others are quietly swept under the rug….

ianjames@gmail.com | September 19, 2012 at 1:24 pm | Reply

because it is still happening. now they call it “child protection” when they steal and abuse our children. “Assimilation”.

This is called terrorism…using violence and intimidation for political purposes…

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Langundo Kajika | September 25, 2012 at 3:21 pm | Reply

There are no words to describe what white people have been doing to the Native Americans. Reading this article, tears just flow on their own. I also read quite a few books regarding the Native Americans and all of this is true but I fear that the number of people killed is much greater than presented here. For me as a caucasian it is an unspeakable shame what others have been doing in the name of ill-religion, so called “equality” and other pseudo-reasons. Although I’m from Poland I can really feel like being with You my Native American Friends. I know that the loss of many generations of great and peaceful people is a catastrophe, mankind has never seen in its existence. Personally, I would love to have Native American Friends to talk to here in Poland but it’s rather impossible as there are very few. I’m greatly interested in Your wisdom, way of life revering nature and the teachings about the Great Spirit.

Onowakohton | January 13, 2013 at 3:48 am | Reply

I am native american and I would love to talk with you. We have come a long way and one thing that cannot be beaten out of us ….is our love for life and mother earth.

Duston | October 7, 2012 at 4:37 pm | Reply

I cried the whole time I read this.

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Jesse | November 1, 2012 at 10:34 am | Reply

Thank you for putting this website together. It’s disheartening how many people today don’t even know the real history of our people. I’ll be sharing this website with alot of people. Hopefully some will start to wake up.

cari1212 | November 4, 2012 at 5:50 am | Reply

Wow wow wow wow, I am a white american whose ancestors are probably among the evil ones who devised to exterminate the Natives & I CAN NOT STAND for a country that was built on lies & deaths of countless natives. I am ashamed of my country & my ancestors & I would willingly give my life for the loss of those who did not deserve the selfish injustices that were bestowed upon them & in the name of GOD no less. This is awful, I was aware of the truth but I had no idea just how terrible the truth really is. I could not continue to read all the horrible things that took place as they are too painful. The children is what pains me the most. Innocent beautiful children. FUCK this shit. We know who the real savages beasts were. Last year I denounced & renounced christianity, NOT GOD as well as thanksgiving. I can no longer celebrate a day that is based on false information or misinformation. To me I would be celebrating death of natives & that I just can not do. NO I CAN NOT & WILL NOT> I AM PISSSSED & THIS HAS SPARKED A FIRE WITHIN & IT IS MY GOAL TO HELP SPREAD AWARENESS. it is the least I can do for the men, women & CHILDREN that have suffered & continue to suffer among the tribes of this nation. GOD help me in my quest to spread awareness to this naive planet. God give me the tools & the direction needed to open the eyes of the people. Thank you for writing this & posting this amazing research on the web, whoever you are. May you & your family be blessed ten times over & over & over.

with deepest respect and sorrow | November 19, 2012 at 6:00 am | Reply

I have never really been into history, but have just taken my first course in college. The course does not cover directly most of this information, but rather a search on revolutionary war information led me here. I am speechless, and ashamed to be “white”. I am married to a Mexican woman who I love dearly– and see beyond color other than I find it attractive. Words cannot express how this webpage has made me feel. I would be happy to help in whatever manner I may, in humble service and respect. Feel free to contact me. I believe men are made, and not born. My life has made me a decent person, and I have made difficult choices. Thank you for sharing this information. I hope to hear from the writers and supporters.

Tian D Andrianirina-Rose | November 23, 2012 at 2:32 am | Reply

The white man projected himself saying others are the savage. When the rest of the world regarded Europeans as barbarians and had lttle to no dealings with them. The white man got sicker and unwittingly developed illness which they shared I know we shouldn’t use the term “white man” I mean the idealology. I’m half white and grew up with a sense of shame strangely I’m proud to feel the shame as it makes me a better person but we should all feel shame collectively as one people of this plannet not segregate ourselves because that leads to conflicts let’s share love like what the native Americans knew taught in the beginning peace among men

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StrongWolf | December 4, 2012 at 2:50 pm | Reply

They killed to many of us as is now they try to kill our culture & I have my real name on here since I can’t use it in school

Victoria Holden | December 20, 2012 at 7:16 am | Reply

My son is 9 and they had to learn about a native Indian an write a report. I did not check out books from the Library because a lot of them don’t tell the truth about anything. So I told him and now he knows. Being native myself i wanted my son understands what really happen and he shared it with his whole class. Playing native flute in the background. Love it!!!

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Student | December 16, 2012 at 12:19 pm | Reply

This is horrifying. As a middle school student in Canada, I haven’t heard a breath of this in our history classes. If it weren’t for my own curiosity about cultures, I would never have found that such a terrible event even existed. What is going on with our education systems? Maybe it’s just me, but when I find that our government, our entire education, has been lying to us, falsified, fudged and played around with… It’s frustrating, enraging. How is this still happening? How can our country claim to be “multi-cultural” when we are committing genocide, and unable to admit it. After some digging around on other sites, there is evidence that this is still happening today. Why aren’t we taught this in schools? I just don’t know anymore.The worst part is, people aren’t even willing to admit this crime. Not to offend any religions, but are these claims to be working for the will of god even worth listening to? Perhaps some will argue that this is an event in the past. But are we willing to admit it happened. I think I shall be sharing this with my class. No one even knows about this, how, how, how! What is wrong with this world?!?

Liz W | December 18, 2012 at 10:31 pm | Reply

The enormity of the Holocaust that was perpetrated by Euro-Americans never fails to break my heart, but the more we learn and the more people who spread the knowledge the better. As a Native woman I am astonished time and time again by the lies in history books and the myths that still flourish in the USA. Facts are, USA was built on genocide, lies, and theft. Hypocrisy and racism are at the very heart of America. All indigenous peoples can come together and share our tragic histories and form a united front against tyranny and corruption.

Ethan | January 3, 2013 at 10:13 am | Reply

I have always feltbad about what went on there has been much hate in this world i am of mixed ancestry, i am english,scottish,irish,german,swedish,finnish,norman french,choctaw,african and jewish…i am not ashamed of who i am…most people seem to forget everybody was once tribal we werent meant to live like we do now but hopefully one day everyone wakes up an we can all live in peace…i am not racist i believe people of all colors an nationalities can be evil wether your black white red brown yellow blue purple green…but i am against the way soscieity is now ..it is not what it should be…it is sickening and i hope that it stops eventually…i dont care for labeling myself but my maternal grandfather was half choctaw my maternal 4th great grandmother was african an my paternal great grandmother was a jew…i have encounteredlots of racism in my life mainly cause im mixed but i myself am not ashamed i am the way the great spirit intended me to be i just hope i can do all that i can to show that i am a true human being….we all at one time came from the same place so actually we are all brothers and sisters which is why we should think before saying or doin mean things to one another…just reading this hurts me

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