“Until
the Lion has his historian, the hunter will always be the hero”
(Unknown.) The Lion today will be the American Indian, and on his behalf
I will present an American Indian perspective about the European
Invasion of the Americas, and the consequent near fatal disastrous
results it had for our civilizations.
The
following is a slightly modified version of an Anti-Racism Lecture that
I gave on March 22, 2011, at Saint Mary’s University, Halifax, Nova
Scotia,
By Mi’kmaw Elder Dr. Daniel N. Paul, C.M., O.N.S.
NOTE: In this paper the term American Indian is applicable to all of the Indigenous Peoples of the Americas.
The
main topic of my commentary today will be about the Hidden History of
the Americas, and the Conspiracy of Silence that keeps it out of
Eurocentric Education Systems, and hidden safely away in the Archives of
Canada, the United States, the Vatican, France, Great Britain, Spain,
Portugal, and far to many other countries to mention here.
Yesterday, March 21st, was the date that the United Nations
set aside in 1966 to remind humanity each year thereafter that we have
a moral obligation to work diligently for the Elimination of Racism
around the world. Today, I’ll provide you with some of the highlights of
the true histories of the invasion and colonizing of the Americas by
Europeans, which I hope will provide a small forward step in that
direction. My presentation is designed to put on the table for
discussion a long denied fact; the dispossessing of the Indigenous
Peoples of the Americas by Europeans, and the near extermination of them
in the process, is the greatest inhuman barbarity that this World has
ever known.
The
following are some of the major tragic consequences that stem from the
European invasion. First and foremost the suffering that it caused
American Indians over the centuries is beyond measurement, and the
number that perished because of it is so immense that uncountable
millions is the only reasonable estimate that can be given! Besides out
and out Genocide,
starvation, which was caused by the deliberate destruction of
Indigenous trading patterns and food supplies, took a heavy toll (“The
buffalo hunters have done more to settle the vexed Indian question than
the entire regular army! For the sake of lasting peace, let them kill,
skin and sell until the buffalos are exterminated!” - General Phil
Sheridan - US Army.) Another item that took a heavy toll was
malnutrition. It started shortly after the invasion's onset and slowly
became universally widespread among the Indigenous Peoples of the two
Continents and continued until recent times. Initially, it was caused by
food supply destruction, but later the major cause was the near
starvation rations passed out to them by Caucasian governments - in a
weakened state even common illnesses were very often deadly. People sold
into slavery
was also a hugh factor. Then we must not forget the hundreds of
thousands of American Indians who died at the hands of brutal Caucasian
governments during the 1900s, in such places as Guatemala, where they were the majority population
fighting the minority for representation. Notable, is the fact that
Caucasian Canadian and American politicians turned a blind eye to the
atrocities that their peers were committing in these countries, probably
justifying their non-interference by labelling the rebellions communist
inspired.
Before
laying out some facts to support my previous statement I’ll provide a
sampling of pre-Columbian American Indian statistics and
accomplishments.
In 1492, when the European invasion of the Americas was instigated by a human error that saw Christopher Columbus
get lost at sea, while trying to reach the Indies, and making landfall
instead in the Americas, the two Continents were not, as some would have
us believe, two vast and vacant land masses that were created by the
Great Spirit for the specific purpose of enriching Europeans. In fact,
both Continents were widely populated by humans who were citizens of
hundreds of well established diverse civilizations
- a statement of fact that may not set well with those who buy into the
White Supremacist belief that the inhabitants of the two Continents
were not civilized human beings but savage animals.
Unfortunately,
because of the lack of reliable statistics the number of humans that
were residents of the Americas in 1492 can only be estimated. Thus, over
the eons, using various methods, experts have made estimates that vary
widely - a few million to a hundred million. However, I believe, due to
the fact that the vast land mass was populated from the Arctic to the
tip of South America, including deserts, islands, swamps, Jungles, and
mountains, that a total population estimate of 100 million would not be
far of.
The
citizens of these Nations spoke hundreds of different languages and
resided in societies that covered the spectrum - hunter gatherer to
sophisticated city dwellers. Farms that fed thousands of citizens of
these Nations existed, and many cities had large populations. The norms
of human interaction such as marriage, divorce, social assistance,
etc., were in place. Such disciplines as engineering, astrology,
medicine, etc., were available for educational pursuit in many
societies. Calendars, suspension bridges, and record keeping, etc., were
also part of the fabric of many societies. Trading patterns between
most Nations were developed and well established.
Politics
ranged from democratic to autocratic. For instance the Aztecs, Inca and
Maya lived under emperors, while most of the North American Nations
were democratic. In fact, shortly after the invasion started, the
democratic ideals of these Nations soon gave rise to the democratic
aspirations of long oppressed Europeans. Proof of it lies in the fact
that both the Constitution and Bill of Rights of the United States of
America were modeled to a large extent after the democratic ideals and
laws of Indigenous American Nations, in particular an Iroquoian law
entitled “The Great Law of Peace”.
The before mentioned adoption of American Indian democratic values and
ideals was officially acknowledged for the first time by Caucasians when
the US Congress did it by Resolution in November1988.
Over
ten thousand years ago American Indian horticulturists engineered a
plant they christened Maize, commonly known today as corn. In modern
times the harvest of corn provides approximately 21 percent of human
nutrition across the Globe. Interestingly, it took until 2010 before
modern science could finally figure out how they did it. Further,
American Indians were very ingenious in domesticating food sources; including corn, they domesticated nine of the most important food crops that feed and sustain the modern world’s population.
Another
long ignored fact to ponder. Over five thousand years ago the
Indigenous People of California, utilizing a process they had perfected
to take the bitterness out of Acorns ,
were milling flour out of them. To assure a reliable supply of acorns
they grew and groomed large orchards of Oak trees. This was at a time
when many Europeans were still hanging out in caves.
The
before-mentioned items are just a tiny example of some of the positive
societal information that is readily available about the Nations of the
pre-Columbian Americas, but, of course, it is not taught in schools or
widely publicized. Thus, due to the lack of teaching and publicizing, I
venture to state without hesitation that just about everybody attending
this session, until I mentioned them, did not know any of the facts just
relayed. Which begs the question; in view of the fact that the
information just mentioned is readily available to educate, why is it
excluded? The answer will be revealed by the time I finish.
QUESTION:
Why does the racism that degrades American Indians continue to
blatantly exist within the fabric of the modern Nations of the Americas?
The answer is simple; most of the modern Nations of the Americas, due
to their Eurocentric founding, will not willingly do what good
conscience and justice demands; teach the truth about the European
invasion and colonization of the two Continents. This course of action,
no matter how demeaning to the European founders of their societies it
is, is a moral obligation that these modern Nations, if they ascribe to
being civilized societies, should no longer ignore and resist!
In
his discourse, "Lessons at the Halfway Point," Michael Levine
accurately identifies with this gem of wisdom why intolerance exists:
"If you don't personally get to know people from other racial, religious
or cultural groups, its very easy to believe ugly things about them and
make them frightening in your mind."
A
sound piece of wisdom. If after 1492, instead of illegally
appropriating and colonizing the territories of the sovereign Indigenous
Nations of the Americas, Europeans had followed the advice it contains,
and had gotten to know and had accepted Indigenous Americans as equals,
a peaceful interaction between American Indians and Europeans would
have occurred. However, instead of civilized interaction they adopted
White supremacist racist beliefs that led them to depict American
Indians, and later the Africans they imported into the Americas from
Africa to be their slaves, as bloodthirsty inhuman savages - false
depictions of both Peoples that have continuously been passed along from
Caucasian generation to generation for the better part of five
centuries. If white supremacists attitudes had not prevailed, both
peoples of colour would not have suffered the indescribable hells that
they suffered throughout the Americas until recent times and, in far too
many cases, still suffer.
However,
if at that time in history, Europeans had been civilized enough to
accept all fellow human beings as equals, as did American Indians, they
wouldn’t have in the first place been occupied with “discovering” and
stealing the properties that belonged to other sovereign Nations. And,
without apparent conscience, while in the process of illegally
appropriating, barbarously decimating their populations.
But,
with racial superiority notions prevailing, the European invaders
utilized two very effective white supremacist creations to justify their
invasion of the generally peaceful Nations of the Americas, and the
pillaging of them. Without conscience, demonizing propaganda (Example) was created and used to dehumanize American Indians, and the Doctrine of Discovery,
a Papal document that stated that non-Christians could not own land,
was used to give a smidgeon of legality and a Christian blessing to the
stealing of American Indian National territories, and the carnage that
the invaders visited upon the citizens of the land they stole.
Therefore,
in view of the onslaught that they were facing, it should come as no
surprise that the citizens of the American Nations, who were being
butchered, robbed and dispossessed by invaders that were armed to the
teeth with lethal weaponry, fought back heroically to preserve their
freedom and countries. The twisted result of the before mentioned, in
view of white supremacist attitudes prevailing, does not surprise
either, but it does defy logical rational reasoning. Because American
Indians fought the brutal European invaders to preserve the territory
and freedom that the Great Spirit had given them, the American Indian
resisters were, and still are depicted by many as the villains. Thus,
when a logical and reasonable person, with honesty contemplates the
result, he/she cannot help but conclude that it is incredible in the
extreme to find that in the overall scheme of things the American Indian
victims are the villains, while the European bandits are the heros.
Such an outcome makes as much sense as would a murder victim’s family
being ostracized and victimized because they caused discomfort for the
murderer.
Related
to the prevalent white supremacist attitudes that predominated among
Caucasians during colonial times, it was rare indeed to find a prominent
colonial official who had the humanity to see, and the courage to
discuss openly, the justification of American Indians fighting tooth and
nail to keep their Nations intact and to preserve their freedom. In
fact, the only written statement that I’ve come across during my
reading of hundreds of thousands of pages of history books, colonial
documents etc., which acknowledges the right and the justice of the
American Indian’s fight for their land and for their freedom, was the
following made in 1867 by Nova Scotia’s Honourable Joseph Howe.
“The
Indians (Mi’kmaq) who fought your forefathers were open enemies, and
had good reason for what they did. They were fighting for their country,
which they loved, as we have loved it in these latter years. It was a
wilderness. There was perhaps not a square mile of cultivation, or a
road or a bridge anywhere. But it was their home, and what God in His
bounty had given them they defended like brave and true men. They fought
the old pioneers of our civilization for a hundred and thirty years,
and during all that time they were true to each other and to their
country, wilderness though it was....”
Greed
was the main motivation for the horrors that were visited upon the
Peoples of the Americas by the European invaders. Their thirst and
craving for power and riches were insatiable; the more acquired the more
wanted.
Sioux Chief Sitting Bull
aptly described it: “The love of possessions is a disease with them.
They take tithes from the poor and weak to support the rich who rule.
They claim this mother of ours, the Earth, for their own and fence their
neighbours away. If (North) America had been twice the size it is,
there still would not have been enough; the Indian would still have been
dispossessed."
The
only modern comparison I can think of, without the carnage of course,
is the Wall Street bankers, who almost brought the world economy down in
2008 by the irresponsible fiscal actions they took to enrich themselves
over the prior decade or so. During that period, in careless disregard
of their financial responsibilities to society, they designed and
implemented schemes that were geared almost entirely towards trying to
satisfy their blind senseless greedy desire to accumulate more wealth
that they didn't need. The human suffering from it has been tremendous
worldwide, massive unemployment, tens of thousands have lost their
homes, and in 2011, millions are still unemployed.
Conversion to Christianity
did not help American Indians survive. In fact, the atrocious
treatment that they suffered at the hands of Caucasians before
conversion continued unabated after conversion. For instance, the
Mi’kmaq began to convert in 1610, but, during the 1700s, their land was
still being taken without their consent and without compensation, and
they were subjected to attempts to exterminate them. Within the records
of the modern Nations of the Americas rests many accounts of some of the
gruesome methods utilized by Christian stalwarts to convert the
“Pagans”.
Montezuma's
death provides a good example of colonial Christian thinking at work.
His jailors, after holding him prisoner for several years, tried to use
him to quell a Mexican uprising against Spanish rule, at which event he
was wounded and died a few days later. Quoted from Access Genealogy:
“As
a last resort, the great king himself, decked in his robes of state,
was taken to the tower from which he had before succeeded in quieting
the angry populace. The multitude listened with deferential awe, but
when they heard again the palpable falsehood that he staid among the
Spaniards by his own free will, reverence gave way to contempt and
indignation. Revilings and reproaches were followed by a shower of
stones and arrows. The attendant soldiers in vain interposed their
shields to protect the emperor: he fell, severely wounded upon the head
by a stone. The crowd now retired appalled at the sacrilege that they
had committed. But the work was done: the miserable Montezuma, overcome
with rage, mortification, and despair, would accept of no assistance,
either surgical or spiritual, from the Spaniards. In three days, says de
Soils, "lie surrendered up to the devil the eternal possession of his
soul, employing the latest moments of his breath in impious thoughts of
sacrificing his enemies to his fury and revenge."
There
are several stories about how Montezuma actually died. A hideous
account is that Cortez, growing fed up with the Emperor's complete
control and influence over his people, arranged to have him executed by
having a red hot iron rod inserted into his rectum.
Germ
Warfare was used by the colonials to try to exterminate American Indian
populations, the preferred method was Small Pox infection. The
following quotes are extracted from exchanges between the
Commander-in-Chief of British forces in North America, General Jeffrey Amherst
, and Colonel Henry Bouquet, which were traded between them during July
1763. They give an excellent example of inhuman racist mentality in
action.
Amherst: "Could it not be contrived to send the Smallpox among the disaffected Tribes of Indians?"
Bouquet:
"I will try to inoculate the Indians with some blankets that may fall
into their hands, and take care not to get the disease myself."
Amherst: "You will do well to try to inoculate the Indians by means of blankets."
Amherst’s
favourite degrading label for American Indians was that they were an
execrable race. In spite of the before-mentioned, and the fact that
after they exchange their memos, many citizens of American Indian
Nations were dying from the disease, Amherst defenders state it is only
circumstantial evidence.
Before I get to the Mi’kmaq experience, I want to provide a few examples of other atrocities suffered by American Indians.
The Trail of Tears:
The Cherokee of Georgia were rounded up in 1838, and during the winter
months herded to Oklahoma. En route, out of a starting number of
approximately 15,000, over five thousand perished. Many Nations were
exterminated by the invaders, for instance the Beothuk and the Taino. So
many disappeared that Shawnee Chief Tecumseh
observed: "Where are the.... many other once powerful tribes of our
people? They have vanished before the avarice and the oppression of the
white man, as snow before a summer sun." A comprehensive list of the
barbarities visited upon the Indigenous Peoples of the Americas, which
would also include many horrors that occurred during the more
enlightened 1900s, and short descriptions of them, would require several
works of encyclopedic proportions!
This
statement "The Indians' disappearance from the human family will be no
great loss to the world. I do not think them, as a race, worth
preserving" by Henry Clay, American Secretary of State, 1825/29,
a man idolized by Abraham Lincoln, and a strong believer in National
Socialism and a complete racist in all references to the American
Indian, further demonstrates the predominate White supremacist genocidal
mentality that the Indigenous Peoples of the Americas have had to
contend with over the centuries since 1492.
Canada,
is country that was created by the British by dispossessing thirty four
American Indian Tribes of their territories, it is also a land that has
genocidal efforts in it’s history. For instance, in efforts to try to
exterminate the Mi'kmaq, there were two proclamations issued by British
colonial authorities that set monetary bounties for harvesting their
scalps. The first, issued by Massachuetts Bay Colonial Governor William Shirley, in 1744, included bounties for the scalps of men, women, and children. The second, issued by Nova Scotia
Colonial Governor Edward Cornwallis ,
also included bounties for women and children. Gorham's Rangers was the
British Militia that was given prime rights to be the foremost
harvester of the scalps of mostly innocent Mi'kmaw, barbarous to say the
least! A third, issued in 1756, by Governor Charles Lawrence,
was for men only, however, it is not too far fetched to state that many
bounty hunters would have still believed that the all inclusive
bounties for Mi'kmaq scalps were still in effect. Also, by 1829, the Beothuk were exterminated.
I'll
use the Mi'kmaq experience of life under Caucasian rule to demonstrate
how American Indians suffered from neglect and declined in numbers
because of it.
On
June 25, 1761, a Burying of the Hatchet Ceremony was held at the
Governor's farm in Halifax, the British representative was Governor
Jonathan Belcher, the Mi’kmaq were represented by several Chiefs. As the
Ceremony progressed, several Peace and Friendship treaties were signed
between the parties. It did not spell relief and prosperity for the
Mi’kmaq. From this point to the late 1940s, they lived in a state of
near starvation, malnutrition was rampant. The following are a few
examples of the extent of the suffering of the People under British
rule, which are quoted from reports that widely respected Caucasian
Indian Superintendents submitted to Colonial Governments.
In
1774, "a Bill to prevent the destruction of moose, beaver, and muskrat
in the Indian hunting ground was introduced in the legislature, but was
defeated." The majority of legislators did not want to provide the
Mi'kmaq with even this small measure of comfort. However, White settlers
in many instances did supply some relief to the destitute and starving
People. While they did so the government disregarded petitions and
reports coming in from across the province that depicted the horrifying
state of affairs that existed. Even reports of people living in wigwams
completely naked and without sustenance in winter brought no relief.
George
Monk, Superintendent of Indian Affairs at the time, had forwarded many
petitions from settlers that begged the government to help the Mi'kmaq.
The government responded by providing only minimal rations from a budget
of £100 per year. One settler described in a petition of January 1794
just how desperate the situation was: "A great many Micmac have died for
want of victual ... notwithstanding the little they get from the
Superintendent ... if they have not some more general relief they and
their wives and children must in a few years all perish with cold and
hunger in their own country."
Joseph
Howe, who was Indian Superintendent in 1843, said of the Mi’kmaq plight
in a report he made to the Nova Scotia colonial government:
“At
this rate (of population decline) the whole Race would be extinct in 40
years, and half a Century hence the very existence of the Tribe would
be as a dream and a tradition to our Grandchildren, who would find it
difficult to imagine the features or dwelling of a Micmac, as we do to
realize those of an Ancient Breton.... Assuming the statistics of 1838
as a basis of a calculation, and deducting 10 percent, your Lordship
will perceive that there must be at least 1,300 Souls still in this
Province, appealing to the sympathies of every honourable mind by the
contrast of their misfortunes with our prosperity, their fading numbers
with our numerical advancement, their ignorance and destitution with the
wealth and civilization which surrounds and presses upon them from
every side.”
The Superintendent of Indian Affairs in 1848, Abraham Gesner, was
condemnatory of the meagerness of government assistence offered to the
Mi'kmaq in the reports he sent to the British colonial government about
the population decline of the Mi’kmaq. Gesner, 1797-1864, was a medical
doctor, a fellow of the Geological Society, a scientist, inventor and
author. His most famous output was the development of kerosene, which
laid the foundation for our modern petrochemical industry. The following
are excerpts from his reports:
“Unless
the progress of their annihilation is soon arrested, the time is close
at hand, when ... the last of their race, to use their own idea, "will
sleep with the bones of their fathers." Unless the vices and diseases of
civilization are speedily arrested, the Indians ... will soon be as the
Red Men of Newfoundland, or other Tribes of the West, whose existence
is forever blotted out from the face of the Earth.
"It
might be supposed that after their wars . . . and encounters with the
whites had terminated, the Aborigines would multiply, yet experience has
proved exactly the reverse. . . . Exposed to the inclemency of the
weather, and destitute of the proper diet and treatment required for
contagious diseases, numbers are swept off annually by complaint unknown
to them in their state. . . .
"From
the clearing and occupation of the forests, the wild domain of the
moose and caribou has been narrowed. Being hunted by the dogs of the
back settlers, these animals have become scarce - thus the Indian has
been deprived of his principal subsistence, as well as the warm furs
that in olden times lined his wigwam. Indigenous roots once highly
prized for food have been destroyed by domestic animals. . . . These
united causes have operated fearfully, and have reduced the whole tribe
to the extreme of misery and wretchedness. . . .
"Almost
the whole Micmac population are now vagrants, who wander from place to
place, and door to door, seeking alms. The aged and infirm are supplied
with written briefs upon which they place much reliance. They are clad
in filthy rags. Necessity often compels them to consume putrid and
unwholesome food. The offal of the slaughter-house is their portion.
Their camps or wigwams are seldom comfortable, and in winter, at places
where they are not permitted to cut wood, they suffer from the cold. The
sufferings of the sick and infirm surpass description, and from the
lack of a humble degree of accommodation, almost every case of disease
proves fatal. . .
“During
my inquiries into the actual state of these people in June last, I
found four orphan children who were unable to rise for the want of food -
whole families were subsisting upon wild roots and eels, and the
withered features of others told too plainly to be misunderstood that
they had nearly approached starvation. . . ."
The
Mi'kmaq population of Nova Scotia remained almost stationary,
approximately 1400, until the Canadian government starting providing
more nutritious diets and better medical care in the mid-1940s. As a
result, the population in 2011 is around 15,000.
NOTE:
Most of the historical facts that were verbally provided to the
attendees from memory about the Mi'kmaq Nation, during my discourse, can
be found at the following URLs. (Links to other URLs describing British
barbarities are included in the United Nations URL)
United Nations Genocide Convention
Mi'kmaq Culture
The
following historical data reveals that American Indians were the
victims of the two largest so-called “legal” mass executions in Canadian
and American history.
United
States: On December 26, 1862, thirty eight members of the Sioux Nation,
which had been fighting the US army for it's survival, were, at the
order of President Abraham Lincoln, simultaneously executed by hanging.
Canada:
On November 27, 1885, eight members of the Cree First Nation, whose
citizens were suffering from starvation, were executed for fighting for
survival. That the Canadian executions also had political approval is
borne out by what Canadian Prime Minister Sir John A. Macdonald
wrote in a white supremacist letter that he sent on November 20, 1885
to the commissioner of Indian Affairs, which was penned a week prior to
the executions: "The executions of the Indians ought to convince the Red
Man that the White Man governs."
American Indian Invisibility
This
statement, “....the greatest danger of oppression lies where bias is so
pervasive as to be invisible...,” coined by Dalhousie University
Professor Susan Sherwin, concisely identifies the type of racism that
American Indians are contending with in modern times. Her short concise
statement is by far the best I’ve ever read on the subject.
A
few examples of American Indigenous Peoples invisibility, or just old
fashion white supremacy, quoted from Nova Scotia’s Halifax Chronicle
Herald.
The following statements can only be true if one believes that the Indigenous Peoples of the Americas were not humans.
June
24 2012, In 1497, French explorer Jacques Cartier discovered Prince
Edward Island.” The Mi’kmaq had discovered and populated the Island tens
of centuries before a White man ever laid eyes on it.
July
12,2012, English explorer Martin Frobisher discovered the bay off
Baffin Island that now bears his name. Cree, Inuit and other Indigenous
Peoples had been using the Bay for uncountable centuries before
Frobisher “discovered” it.
August
9, 2012, French explorer Jacques Cartier discovered the Mingan Islands,
between Anticosti Island and the Quebec mainland.
In
a nutshell, the pervasive invisible bias that still victimizes American
Indians with the unwarranted designation “savage heritage,” a
designation originating from the demonizing propaganda of European
colonial times, has been so deeply imbedded in the sub-conscious of
succeeding generations of Caucasians by word of mouth, Eurocentric
history books, movies, etc., as the correct depiction of American
Indians, that it is almost impossible to get Caucasian society to
recognize, and accept that the systemic racism which victimizes First
Nations Peoples today actually exists. In plain English, the unwarranted
racist European savage designation that we suffer from, because of it’s
centuries old passage from generation to generation, is subconsciously
considered by many as the true depiction of American Indians.
The
before-mentioned assertion of Caucasian denial of American Indian
civility, and of Caucasians having little awareness of American Indian
history, is a fact highlighted by the following examples of American
Indian invisibility - these incidents occurred in Nova Scotia while I
was Executive Director of the Confederacy of Mainland Mi'kmaq .
However, it should be kept in mind that if one were to transcribe all
similar types of incidents that have occurred over the ages in and
around the Americas it would take volumes to do it.
Signs
stating, “Annapolis Royal, established 1605, Canada's oldest
settlement,” were placed at exits from a newly constructed by-pass
express highway of the village of Annapolis Royal. The message did not
recognize this fact; Canada had First Nation settlements for uncountable
centuries before Europeans began to establish their settlements after
1492.
After
hearing about it, and viewing it, I contacted the mayor of the Town of
Annapolis Royal, the Warden of Annapolis County, and the Department of
Transportation, and voiced my outrage. To their credit, after they were
reminded about First Nation existence, the Mayor and Warden were shocked
that they had supported the wording of the sign, and that they had not
even briefly considered the existence of American Indian Civilizations.
Within a few days of my intervention the signs were removed, and I was
invited to a joint meeting of the Councils, where both formally
apologised for the systemic racist based oversight.
The sign now reads: “Annapolis Royal, established 1605, Stroll Through the Centuries.”
Signs
on highway 102, stated: “Bedford, a Stopping Place Since 1503," which
ignored the fact that the Mi'kmaq had been using the Bedford location as
a stopping place for tens of centuries before Europeans did. The sign
wording was recommended for adoption by the Town Council of Bedford by
author Elsie Tolson.
To
find out why Elsie had not acknowledged Mi’kmaq usage when she coined
the phrase, I met with her and pointed out the erroneous message that it
portrayed. She was appalled by the fact that she had not taken into
consideration the existence of our ancestors. With her cooperation, and
the progressive attitude of Bedford’s Town Council, the sign now reads,
“Bedford, a Traditional Stopping Place.”
In
the 1990s I attended a business persons meeting at the Holiday Inn in
Dartmouth. The keynote speaker was an internationally respected
Caucasian industry C.E.O. from the United States. He started off his
presentation with a statement that came across something like this:
“When our ancestors first arrived in the Americas they found two vast
and vacant Continents, loaded with immeasurable wealth for the taking.”
Taking
exception to the insulting erroneous statement, I immediately rose to
my feet and pointed out the error of his ways. He responded by turning
red, apologizing profusely for his systemic racist statement, and later
he correctly placed the blame for his ignorance where it so rightly
belongs, the white supremacist education systems of the Americas, which
all but ignore the existence of the robust civilizations that prospered
and flourished in the Americas prior to the European invasion.
To
have Eurocentric education systems still in place in the Americas in
2011, which by and large ignore the real history of American Indians, is
the result of wilful ignorance! I state such because teaching the truth
of what transpired during colonial times would not bode well for the
reputations of the European colonials, who brutally dispossessed the
original inhabitants of the two Continents of their properties and
civilizations, and in many cases, their very existence. It should be
noted that the destruction was universally successful, of the hundreds
of robust civilizations that existed in the Americas in 1492, not one
survives intact today.
In 1993 I wrote the first of three editions of a book entitled "We Were Not the Savages,"
the latest edition was published in 2006. The title, which I used with
slight variations for the three editions, poses a question that someday
has to be truthfully answered by Caucasians, which is: If not they, who
then were the savages? I think the truthful answer is very unspeakable
and painful for a great many Caucasians to contemplate and acknowledge.
The
continued degrading of American Indian civility that ensues from not
teaching the history of the Americas as it transpired, and journeying on
with the Eurocentric lies that have passed to-date for history, is
unacceptable in societies that proclaim themselves democratic and just.
Such an indefensible course only reinforces the systemic racism that was
created by colonial propaganda, which will continue to victimize the
victims into eternity if not refuted and discarded!
If
you wish to test the veracity of what I’ve relayed, I suggest that you
journey down Barrington Street to the site where Governor Edward
Cornwallis’s statue is located in Cornwallis Park, across from the
Westin Hotel, and contemplate and honestly answer the following question
(For those from other areas of the Americas do the same with statues of
such barbarians as Columbus, Cortez, Colonel John Chivington, General
George Armstrong Custer, et al):
If
the victims of the Governor’s self admitted attempt to exterminate
their race had been from a white race, and not American Indian, a People
of colour, would the statue erected in his honour be there? I believe
that Caucasians of good conscience would come up with the same answer
that I did when I pondered it several decades ago; it would not be
there! In my opinion, no nation that self-describes itself as civilized
can honor such a man. Honoring him, in view of what he tried to do to
the Mi’kmaq, signifies that racism is alive and well in Nova Scotia. The
same can be said for jurisdictions across the Americas that honor
colonial barbarians.
The
following is a prime example of how systemic racism degrades the
dignity of American Indians. Quoted from a Denver Post opinion piece:
"Geronimo" for bin Laden offensive
By Simon Moya-Smith
Posted: May 6, 2011
"American
Indians expect to be belittled and dehumanized at every turn. We expect
to attend schools where the mascot is an Indian named Savage. We expect
cutting cultural appropriation by wannabe Indians. But what I, a
Lakota, couldn't have anticipated was the ignorance and naivete of
President Barack Obama, his administration and the U.S. military.
CNN
this week revealed that the military code name for Osama bin Laden was
Geronimo, a highly revered historical figure in the American Indian
community.
"We've
ID'd Geronimo," said a Navy SEAL. A short time later, President Obama
and his cohorts nestled in the situation room received confirmation that
"Geronimo" was, in fact, dead.
Take a look, folks. This is the face of ignorance.
"This
is blatant racism," said Ray Ramirez of the Native American Rights Fund
in Boulder. Ramirez added that although the connection made between bin
Laden and the honored Apache warrior is brazen, it's nothing new.
"When
insurgents leave an area, [the military] will say 'He's gone off the
reservation,' " he said. "I really don't know what it's going to take to
change things."
What
other races of people would sit idly by as such an audacious affront
debased one of their honored and respected ancestors? Would the black
community have objected if Osama's code name were "Malcolm X"? Would the
Hispanic community have taken to the streets if bin Laden was called
"Caesar Chavez"? Would whites have protested had Thomas Jefferson been
the code name for bin Laden?
I
suppose, though, since American Indians make up only 1 percent of the
population, there was no real concern that we'd revolt...."
I’ll
end with this truism, modern Caucasian citizens of the Americas cannot
be held responsible for what their colonial ancestors did in the past,
however, they have a responsibility to right the wrongs of history,
especially when millions are still negatively affected from the pain and
suffering that their ancestors inflicted. When the time arrives where
the descendants of the colonials insist that the unvarnished truth about
the brutality associated with the European invasion be taught in
education systems, and governments comply, then, and only then, will
justice finally be done for the Indigenous Peoples of the Americas!
An editied version of the before-mentioned article was published in Settler Colonial Studies Vol 1, No 2 (2011), A Contemporary Phenomenon
The following titles are a few of the positive works available about the Indigenous civilizations of the Americas:
Stolen Continents - By Ronald Wright
We Were Not the Savages - By Daniel N. Paul
1491 - By Charles C. Mann
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee - By Dee Brown
Cornwallis - The Violent Birth of Halifax - By Jon Tattrie
How do we heal trauma suffered by native communities?
GABOR MATÉ
The Globe and Mail, Published Wednesday, Apr. 13, 2016
Gabor Maté is a retired B.C. physician who specializes in addiction.
It is not enough that the Attawapiskat First Nation has declared a
state of emergency over the epidemic of suicides and suicide attempts
among its youth. Our entire country should declare a state of emergency
about the appalling health status, physical and mental, of First Nations
and Inuit communities. Would we not have already if, instead of Nunavut
or Attawapiskat, it was, say, the teens of Westmount, Forest Hill or
Kitsilano who were killing themselves at 10 times the national rate?
I am often asked to visit First Nations communities across Canada
to speak about addiction, stress-related illness and child development.
The ordinary Canadian citizen simply has no idea, cannot even begin to
imagine, what misfortunes, tragedies and other kinds of adversity many
native young people experience by the time they reach adolescence – how
many deaths of loved ones they witness, what abuse they endure, what
despair they feel, what self-loathing plagues them, what barriers to a
life of freedom and meaning they face.
At the core of the suicide pandemic is unresolved trauma, passed
almost inexorably from one generation to the next, along with social
conditions that induce further hopelessness.
The source of that multigenerational trauma is this country's
colonial past and its residue in the present. The march of the history
and progress Canada celebrates, from which we derive much pride and
national identity, meant catastrophe for natives: the loss of lands and
livelihood and of freedom of movement, the mockery and invalidation of
their spiritual ways, the near-extirpation of their culture, the
corruption of their intrafamilial and intracommunal relationships, and
finally, for nearly a hundred years, the state-sanctioned abduction,
rape, physical abuse and mental torture of their children.
The questions we must ask ourselves nationally are very simple.
How do we as a country move to heal the trauma that drives the misery of
many native communities? What can be done to undo the dynamics our past
has dictated? Some may balk at such inquiry, fearing the discomfort
that comes with guilt. However, this is not a matter of communal guilt,
but of communal responsibility. It is not about the past. It is about
the present. And it is about all of us: When some among us suffer,
ultimately we all do.
To begin, native history must be taught fully and in unsparing
detail in our schools. All Canadians should know, for example, that 50
years ago it was not unheard of for a four-year-old girl to have a pin
stuck in her tongue for the crime of speaking her mother language and
later endure serial rape by teachers, religious mentors. Such were the
antecedents of today's drug use and suicidal anguish.
The resonant values, brilliant art, stories and wisdom culture of
First Nations people should be introduced in Canadian schools.
Canadians must be helped to see their First Nations peers in their
fullness, which includes their humanity, grandeur, unspeakable suffering
and strength.
We must renounce any political, economic or social policy that
reinforces the colonial trauma of disempowerment, loss and
dispossession. Not another square centimetre of native land must be
disturbed, not a blade of grass cut, not one more drop of water
diverted, not a millimetre of pipeline laid without First Nations
agreement.
Institutions and individuals interacting with native people must
become deeply trauma-informed. Judges, teachers, law-enforcement
personnel, nurses, doctors, psychiatrists, social workers, public
employees, policy-makers all must understand what trauma is, its
multiple impacts on human mentality and behaviour, and how to address
it. Without such information, as I have witnessed repeatedly, the
best-meaning people can unwittingly retraumatize those who can least
bear further pain and loss. Practices that devastate families must be
stopped, such as the frequent apprehension of children without
restorative and compassionate family-building support.
Alternative forms of justice must be developed, aligned with
native traditions and in consultation with First Nations. The implicit
racism in our law-enforcement institutions must be openly acknowledged
and cleansed. Powerfully beneficial traditional healing practices must
be researched, taught, encouraged. We need to celebrate the First
Nations cultural renaissance, a tribute to human resilience, now taking
place.
Economic and social conditions that engender despair must be
addressed, with the utmost urgency. If we could spend more than
$15-billion on our self-declared mission to help the people of
Afghanistan, surely we can find the resources in our rich land to help
redeem people whom our history continues to victimize.
********************
New Spain – Old Horrors
The following is a quote from a timeline of the Christian
European Spanish barbarism that was part of the conquering and
depopulating of the Americas by Kenneth Humphreys
"The plunder of the empires of the Americas was to good purpose –
it allowed Spain to finance religious persecution in Europe for over a
century. Spanish wars of conquest included laying waste much of the
Netherlands and a disastrous attempt to invade England. By destroying
diverse cultures in the New World the Christian conquerors were able not
only to eradicate civilizations more ancient than their own but also
were able to senselessly erase a vibrant artistic legacy and even
scientific knowledge. In their stead the Christian adventurers imposed a
racist tyranny and an alien god. Millions were enslaved but their short
and brutalized lives had at least known Jesus."
To read more click TIMELINE
********************
Twentieth Century Medical Experimentation Examples
U.S. Apologizes for Syphilis Tests in Guatemala
By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr.
Published: October 1, 2010 New York Times
"It's ironic -- no, it's worse than that, it's appalling -- that,
at the same time as the United States was prosecuting Nazi doctors for
crimes against humanity, the U.S. government was supporting research
that placed human subjects at enormous risk."
DR. MARK SIEGLER, of the Maclean Center for Clinical Medical
Ethics, on a program in the late 1940's to deliberately infect
Guatemalans with venereal diseases, in a test of penicillin.
Canada
Medical experimentation took place in Indian Residential Schools.
The following example, reported in the May 8, 2000, issue of Maclean's
magazine, makes one wonder whether this is modern Canada or a throwback
to the Dark Ages:
“Natives denied dental care - Federal government doctors withheld
specialized dental care, such as professional cleaning and treatment of
decay, for aboriginal children living in eight residential schools in
the 1940s and 1950s to see what the effect would be on their health. The
director of the study, Dr. L.B. Pett, said last week that students'
teeth and gums were in terrible condition to begin with, and that
delaying treatment did not create more decay, but helped keep the
study's results accurate."
Such views about experiments using people deemed "inferior" as
guinea pigs were expressed by another majority group, the Nazis. As
might be expected from a systemically racist society, to my knowledge
not one word of condemnation has been uttered about this revelation from
any level of government or human rights commission in Canada.
Mi'kmaq Elder Daniel N. Paul
********************
The following is an excellent example of Caucasian efforts to keep
the truth about the European invasion of the Americas out of the school
room.
Monday, June 6, 2011
Sacred War and Arizona’s Final “Reduccion”
Column of the Americas, June 6, 2011
Sacred War and Arizona’s Final “Reduccion”
By Roberto Dr. Cintli Rodriguez
In Arizona, we are just days away from a momentous ruling: it is
expected that on the basis of an illegitimate audit, State Schools
Superintendent John Huppenthal – who ran on the promise of eliminating
“La Raza,” – will rule Tucson’s Mexican American Studies (MAS) program
to be outside of “the law.” The way HB 2281 was designed, the only
remedy is elimination.
Incidentally, supporters of the program do not recognize HB 2281 as a
legitimate law. In part, this is because this is nothing more than a
long line of “laws” meant to ensure our dehumanization. And this is not a
new story. A read of Pagans in the Promised Land (Newcomb, S. 2008)
gives us this understanding – that what’s happening in Arizona is not
simply a civilizational war, but rather a so-called sacred war – the
same war that brought us the Inquisition, pitting civilized Christians
v. uncivilized heathens. In the Americas, it is part of the deep story
about how Europeans (Christians) – via the mind-boggling divine
“doctrine of discovery” – claim[ed] the continent and de-rooted its
peoples.
In Arizona, it is also about who is legal and who is not and about whose knowledge is legitimate and whose is not.
This cosmic drama has actually been playing out since Biblical
times. This imported drama is how we can also come to understand the
meaning of Arizona’s final or Ultima Reduccion – the unfinished business
of colonization. Spain’s continent-wide policy of reducciones of the
1500s-1800s, was about spiritually killing Indians while creating
Christians in their place (American Indians will recognize this as the
19TH and 20TH century boarding school policies: kill the Indian, save
the man). The belief was that Europeans were Christian and Indigenous
peoples were pagan and thus, Christians had the right to claim the land
and the peoples’ souls. A reduccion was also the process by which
everything Indigenous was demonized, including the astronomical,
mathematical and scientific knowledge contained within the ancient
calendars. It also demonized the songs, dances, music, ceremonies,
medicine and even the food (amaranth).
The entire 300-year colonization era was one huge reduccion and
one huge Auto de Fe. The most infamous Auto de Fe in history was
recorded in 1562 at Mani, Yucatan, where Bishop Diego De Landa staged a
massive 3-day book burning – proclaiming the ancient codices of the
Maya: “Things of the Devil.”
Mexfiles.net
While those policies are officially over, they actually live on.
On Dec. 30, 2010, then State Schools Superintendent Tom Horne issued his
own 10-page Auto de Fe, declaring Tucson’s MAS program in violation of
the 2010 anti-Ethnic Studies HB 2281. He had long charged that Ethnic
Studies should be grounded in Greco-Roman values – the foundation of
Western Civilization, and nothing else. On that day, he declared MAS
outside of civilization and also, outside of the West. On that day, he
metaphorically commenced his own book burning, commencing yet another
Inquisition, declaring that books such as Rodolfo AcuZa’s Occupied
America and Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed promoted hate,
segregation and the overthrow of the U.S. government. He also cited
hip-hop groups Aztlan Underground and El Vuh for the same.
His declaration actually hearkens back to that “sacred war” brought
over by Columbus. On Jan. 3, 2011, Horne read his own Requerimiento; a
“legal” finding compelling the district to comply or else. The original
1514 Requerimiento was read in Latin to Indigenous peoples, declaring
that if there were no Christians on this land, the land now belonged to
the Spanish Crown. If they did not comply, the crown’s representatives
would wage merciless war upon them.
On April 26 and then on May 3, the Tucson school board attempted
to comply with the state’s wishes by telling the heathens what was good
for them (MAS classes were to henceforth become electives) – since
peoples less than human can’t think for themselves nor do they possess
equal rights. On the 26th, students prevented the school board from
meeting by chaining themselves to the board chairs. In response, on May
3, the board authorized a massive show of force (more than 100 police
officers, including SWAT units, metal detectors, a helicopter and a bomb
squad) to remind us how imposed laws are enforced: through brute force.
Seven participants, attempting to speak were arrested, and many youths
and elders were roughed up.
When Huppenthal issues his finding – his own Auto de Fe or his
own Requerimiento – it will not deter MAS supporters because we too are
involved in our own cosmic drama. It comes down to us from the ancient
Codex Chimalpopoca (The Legend of the Suns) and the Popul Vuh; it is
about how human beings and maiz were created. That knowledge is
thousands of years old, it is Indigenous to this continent, it is taught
at MAS and freely shared with the world. It is from here that we derive
In Lak Ech (You are my other me) and Panche Be (To seek the root of the
truth) – concepts that teach us to respect not just all human beings,
but all life. It is how we know that we are not heathen, that we are all
human and all deserving of our full human rights. It is also why we
will not be complicit in our own [final] reduccion.
If the state wants a solution, it will have to speak to us as co-equals and as full human beings.
Rodriguez is a professor at the University of Arizona and can be reached at: XColumn@gmail.com
********************
Ancient and Modern Barbarism Acknowledged and Atoned for
NOTE: It has often been stated by apologists for the atrocities that
were committed by Europeans during their invasion of the Americas that
such barbarous behaviour was normal "civilized" behaviour for the times.
I beg to disagree, such inhuman behaviour calls into question the very
civility of the perpetrators. Without question, men and women of good
conscience will agree, that barbarism has been acknowledged and
condemned since the beginning of recorded history. Example: the horrors
committed by Attila the Hun, the barbarities committed by Roman Empire
Emperors, the Inquisition horrors unleashed by Popes of the Roman
Catholic Church, etc., the perpetrators are not idolized.
However, in direct contradiction of the before-mentioned, the
authorization by Papal Bulls for Europeans to invade other Continents,
and to convert by brute force their Indigenous populations to
Christianity, and to seize without compensation their territories and
wealth, etc., have been not been fully acknowledged and condemned, and
the perpetrators are idolized
The following are examples of some of the horrors being acknowledged:
United States of America Apology
Canadian Apology for Indian Residential Schools
New York Times
Majorcan Descendants of Spanish Jews Who Converted Are Recognized as Jews
By DOREEN CARVAJAL
Published: July 10, 2011
Quote
In May, 2011, the regional government of the Balearic Islands
became the first to create a memorial ceremony for Jewish descendants,
marking the deaths of 37 people who were executed in 1691 by the
Inquisition, and expressing regrets for persecution that chueta families
suffered through the centuries.
King Herod the Great
Herod's reign ended in terror. The monastery at Qumran, the home
of the Essenes, suffered a violent and deliberate destruction by fire in
8 BCE, for which Herod may have been responsible. When the king fell
ill, two popular teachers, Judas and Matthias, incited their pupils to
remove the golden eagle from the entrance of the Temple: after all,
according to the Ten Commandments, it was a sin to make idols. The
teachers and the pupils were burned alive. Some Jewish scholars had
discovered that seventy-six generations had passed since the Creation,
and there was a well-known prophecy that the Messiah was to deliver
Israel from its foreign rulers in the seventy-seventh generation
more...). The story about the slaughter of infants of Bethlehem in the
second chapter of the Gospel of Matthew is not known from other sources,
but it would have been totally in character for the later Herod to
commit such a terrible act.
Herod was buried in one of the fortresses he had build, Herodion. Few will have wept.
Quoted from a July 12, 2012, Associated Press news-story by AIDA CERKEZ, entitled:
For Srebrenica, the sorrow never ends
"So far 5,325 Srebrenica massacre victims found this way have been laid to rest.
In Washington, President Barack Obama issued a statement
honouring the memory of the “8,000 innocent men and boys” massacred in
Srebrenica.
“The name Srebrenica will forever be associated with some of the
darkest acts of the 20th century,” Obama said, adding that the U.S.
“rejects efforts to distort the scope of this atrocity, rationalize the
motivations behind it, blame the victims, and deny the indisputable fact
that it was genocide.”
Perhaps one day World Governments, including those of Canada and
the United States of America, in relation to the European invasion and
destruction of the Indigenous civilizations of the Americas, will do the
right thing for our ancestors, as Obama did for the victims of
barbarous men that died in Srebrenica, and finally "reject efforts to
distort the scope of the atrocity, rationalize the motivations behind
it, blame the victims, and deny the indisputable fact that it was
genocide."
*********************
The New England Company PsyOps - Scammers in Psychological Warfare
Their Charter "provided for the promotion and propagation of the
Gospel of Christ unto and amongst the heathen natives in or near New
England and parts adjacent in America."
It's noteworthy that their Charter doesn't provide for
instilling into the descendants of the Barbarian heathens that invaded
from Europe some humanity and humility. I find it hard to believe that
even the God they worship would have ever condoned the massacre of
millions of the Indigenous People of the Americas and the complete
destruction of their property in His name. The more astute description
one can use to describe the roots of the horror delivered unto the
Americas by European invaders is that it was done by barbarians,
motivated by greed and white supremacist beliefs, led by the white man's
Devil, doing his evil work, not the work of a caring and loving God! To
accuse the Creator of condoning and blessing the inflicting of the
barbarity that Europeans carried out in the Americas is to me blasphemy!
Mi'kmaw Elder, (Dr.) Daniel N. Paul, C.M., O.N.S.
October 28, 2012
*********************
Mi'kmaq/Maliseet Nations News, November 2010 Issue
Celebrating European Colonization
By Mi'kmaq Elder Dr. Daniel N. Paul, C.M., O.N.S.
November 16, 2010
Roger Cohen - Columnist for theNew York Times, November 15, 2010.
His opinion piece is about how the Palestinians are charting a new
effective course that will ultimately give them internationally
recognized statehood.
"...That "something" is fundamental: the transition from a
self-pitying, self-dramatizing Palestinian psyche, with all the cloying
accoutrements of victimhood, to a self-affirming culture of pragmatism
and institution-building. The shift is incomplete. But it has won
Clinton over. And it's powerful enough to pose a whole new set of
challenges to Israel: Palestine is serious now..."
We, the citizens of the First Nations of the Americas, must do
what the Palestinians are doing to achieve their goal of effective self
government, chart a new course that is built on our cultural heritage,
which is the solid effective self-government that our Peoples had
developed and implemented before the European invasion.
European Invasion and Colonization
The summer of 2010 saw an event happen in Nova Scotia that
happens far too often throughout the Americas, Indigenous Peoples
celebrating with European institutions, in particular European royalty
and European Christianity, the invasion of the two Continents by
Europeans. In July of last summer, such a celebration occurred in the
Maritimes, the Mi'kmaq feted the English (British) Crown, as represented
by Queen Elizabeth II, and representatives of the Roman Catholic
Church. During colonial times these two European institutions were
responsible for the destruction of Mi'kmaq civilization as our ancestors
knew it, the loss of our country, and the near extermination of our
People. I credit such a happening with the fact that our People are
largely unaware of the horrors that these two institutions visited upon
the Mi'kmaq during European colonial times, and other First Nations of
the Americas.
When one takes into account that the true history of the European
invasion of the Americas, which relates the barbaric attacks against
all of the First Nation civilizations of the two Continents, which were,
in the face of far superior European armaments, almost helpless to
defend themselves, is mostly unavailable, the before mentioned statement
is understandable. The true history, which is not taught in schools,
but is readily available if desired, relates that over the passage of
time these barbaric assaults resulted in many Indigenous civilizations
being exterminated altogether, and the remaining civilizations reduced
to near ruin, millions dead, virtually all of their territorial lands,
resources, and property stolen, and most survivors today living in
destitution. In place of the truth, we get a diet of lies, which is
willful blindness on the part of the descendants of the invaders. But
this can now be changed, we ourselves can collect the truth, and teach
the truth, in particular to our own Peoples.
The before mentioned explanation I've given for why some of our
People, and leaders, would celebrate the European colonial invasion, and
consequent appropriation of our countries with the two institutions
mentioned, and the imposition of foreign ideals, is why I wrote a First
Nations History Book and entitled it "We Were Not the Savages" (I
encourage all to read it). It's my attempt to set the record straight. I
did so because the demonizing colonial propaganda, which dehumanized
the Indigenous Peoples of the Americas by depicting them to be
bloodthirsty barbarian savages, and is the root cause of the systemic
racism that stigmatizes Indigenous Peoples today, is still widespread,
and, indefensibly, there is no concerted effort being made by the
descendants of the invaders to set the record strait.
During the1500s and early 1600s British colonial officials began
the process of ethnic cleansing Great Britain's North American colonies
of their Indigenous populations by offering bounties for the heads of
murdered Indigenous people. During the Pequot War in the 1630s, they
began to offer payments for their scalps. However, scalping laws, which
offered bounties for Indigenous scalps weren't officially included in
the laws of the British American colonies until the mid-1660s.
Before I go further, I'll provide some information on what the
European invaders used during their colonization of the Americas to try
to legitimize and justify their barbarity. The following is only an
overview, only a book on the subject can relate the full story.
Doctrine of Discovery and Christianity
The origins of the Doctrine of Discovery can be traced back to a
Papal Bull (proclamation) issued by Pope Nicholas V in 1452. In it he
proclaimed that it was permissible for Christians to claim lands held by
non-Christians because only Christians were entitled to hold lands. In
1493, one year after the barbarian Christopher Columbus got lost and
landed in the Americas, Pope Alexander VI extended to Spain the right
for it to conquer newly-found lands by issuing the papal bull Inter
Caetera. This was after Christopher Columbus had already begun
appropriating for Spain the lands of the Indigenous People of the
Americas. Arguments between Portugal and Spain led to the Treaty of
Tordesillas, which clarified that only non-Christian lands could thus be
taken, as well as drawing a line of demarcation to allocate potential
discoveries between the two powers. It must be noted that in spite of
their hatred for the Catholic Church, European Protestant Nations
adopted the warped Bulls of the Popes with great enthusiasm, and applied
them as enthusiastically as the Catholics did when stealing Indigenous
lands.
The Doctrine of Discovery was used when France claimed the land
of the Mi'kmaq, which they christened Acadia. In 1618, Marc Lescarbot, a
French lawyer, articulated how this warped Christian law legalized
France's right to Acadia (now the Canadian Provinces of Nova Scotia, New
Brunswick and Prince Edward Island): This, by the way, was eight years
after Chief Membertou had converted to Christianity.
"The earth pertaining, then, by divine right to the children of
God [Christians], there is here no question of applying the law and
policy of Nations, by which it would not be permissible to claim the
territory of another. This being so, we must possess it and preserve its
natural inhabitants, and plant therein with determination the name of
Jesus Christ, and of France."
Thus, in 1713, at the end of one of their numerous wars, England
and France signed the Treaty of Utrecht, which, unknown to our
ancestors, included a provision that transferred the lands of the
Mi'kmaq and other First Nations to England.
In view of the White supremacist attitudes prevailing at the
time, the fact that Amerindian Nations, including the Mi'kmaq, were left
out of the treaty negotiations, not even made aware of its signing,
should come as no surprise. A letter from Governor T. Caulfield to
Vaudreuil, dated May 7, 1714, attests to the fact that the Mi'kmaq had
been left in the dark:
"Breach of the treaty of peace and commerce committed by Indians under
French government upon a British trading vessel at Beaubassin. Enclosed
letter from Pere Felix, giving the Indians' excuse, i.e., that they did
not know that the treaty was concluded between the two crowns, or that
they were included in it...."
Finally, in 1715, the Mi'kmaq were enlightened. At a meeting with
the Mi'kmaq Chiefs two English officers informed them that France had
transferred them, and the ownership of their land, to Great Britain via
the Treaty of Utrecht, and that King George I was now their sovereign.
The Mi'kmaq responded, in no uncertain terms that they did not come
under the Treaty of Utrecht, would not recognize a foreign king owning
their country and would not recognize him as having dominion over them.
The Chiefs then clarified for the English that they had never given over
ownership of their land to the French King, or considered themselves to
be his subjects, and therefore he had nothing to transfer. With no
agreement, open hostilities between the Mi'kmaq and the English resumed.
Thus, the die was cast for close to fifty more years of conflict,
broken, from time to time by occasional periods of uneasy truce.
After the Mi'kmaq learned that the French had claimed their land
and, unbeknownst to them, transferred their territories to Great Britain
by treaty two years earlier, the Mi'kmaq directed protests to St. Ovide
de Brouillant, Louisbourg's military commander in 1715, and after
September 1717, Governor. He responded: "He [the French King] knew full
well that the lands on which he tread, you possess them for all time.
The King of France, your Father, never had the intention of taking them
from you, but had ceded only his own rights to the British Crown." In
view of Marc Lescarbot's 1618 legal opinion that France was the owner of
Mi'kmaq lands, because the Mi'kmaq were not Christians, and the Treaty
transfer provisions, one can easily conclude that Ovide told a bald
faced lie to continue France's alliance with the Mi'kmaq.
In the future, before we celebrate anything with the Catholic
Church that happened during European colonial times, the Pope should be
asked to come to the Americas and publically revoke the Papal Bulls that
the European invaders used to steal the lands of the Indigenous Peoples
of the two Continents, apologise for the tens of millions that were
killed by the European invaders under the umbrella of the Bulls, and the
loss of our freedom. And, above all, use the moral authority of his
office to pressure the Eurocentric countries that were created in the
Americas as a result of the invasion, to begin a process of writing
history as it transpired, and discontinue the fairy tales that now pass
for the history of the Americas.
Now for the English Crown.
After 1713, Great Britain was hell bent and determined to
subjugate the Mi'kmaq and reduce them to beggars in their own land, or
exterminate them all-together. Every barbaric means available was put to
use to realize it's goal.
The most reprehensible of the methods selected by the British
colonial governors of Nova Scotia were proclamations for the scalps of
Mi'kmaq men, women and children, a practice that was widely used by
British Governors before to decimate, and in several cases exterminate
entire Tribes in what is now the eastern states of the United States of
America.
Three proclamations for Mi'kmaq scalps were issued by Nova
Scotia's British colonial governors. During 1744, the Mi'kmaq had the
British fort at Annapolis Royal under siege, which caused the colony's
Governor, Paul Mascarene, to request military assistance from the
British Governor of the Massachuetts Bay Colony, William Shirley. On
November 2, 1744, Shirley responded by declaring war on the Mi'kmaq, and
their allies. The war declaration included a provision that provided
that cash payments would be paid to those who harvested the scalps of
Mi'kmaq men, women and children, and for the scalps of any who were
assisting them. Captain John Gorham, who commanded Gorham's Rangers, was
sent to Nova Scotia with his men to enforce the declaration. Their
barbarities terrified all, including many British subjects.
Shortly after June 21, 1749, when Governor Edward Cornwallis
arrived in Nova Scotia to found a settlement of suitable Protestants
settlers at Chebucto Harbour, later renamed Halifax, he had English
officers meet with the Mi'kmaq Chiefs to inform them once again that the
King of England owned their land, and as the owners they were going to
start building English settlements. In response, on September 23, 1749,
the Mi'kmaq renewed their declaration of war against the British.
On October 1, 1749, Governor Cornwallis convened a meeting of his
colonial military government, aboard HMS Beaufort, at anchor in the
harbour, to decide upon a response to the Mi'kmaq declaration of war. It
was decided not to declare war in return upon the Mi'kmaq, but to treat
them as bandits, and offer a monetary reward for their scalps. Thus, on
October 2, 1749, Cornwallis issued a proclamation that specified
monetary rewards that would be paid to British Subjects that harvested
the scalps of Mi'kmaq men, women and children. Geoffrey Plank, a history
professor at the University of Cincinnati, labels it "a time when it
was a capital offence to be a Mi'kmaq." The stated intent of the policy
was to exterminate the Mi'kmaq. The following year, although scalps were
being brought into British forts for payment, they apparently were not
coming in fast enough, on June 21, 1750 the monetary reward was
increased five fold. Cornwallis was removed as governor in 1752,
however, before departure he, on July 17, 1752, revoked his bounty
proclamations. Obliviously, as I'm writing this in 2010, his
extermination plans failed!
Another scalp proclamation was issued in 1756, by Governor
Charles Lawrence, this one was only for males over 16 years. It has not
been repealed by an Act of Parliament.
On June 25, 1761, some of the Chiefs of the Mi'kmaq Nation
gathered at the Governor's farm in Halifax and participated in a Burying
of the Hatchet ceremony with British Governor Jonathan Belcher, and
also signed several Peace and Friendship Treaties with him. The treaties
were afterward ignored until the 1980s, when the Supreme Court of
Canada ruled they were valid documents.
From 1761 onward the remaining Mi'kmaq were reduced to poverty,
and suffered from starvation and malnutrition, which made any diseases
they contracted almost always fatal. In the mid 1800s the situation was
so bad, and the population was dwindling so fast (around 1400), that it
caused two of the colony's Indian Commissioners, Joseph Howe and Abraham
Gesner, to make predictions that the "Tribe would be only a memory if
corrective action were not taken." After which, assistance increased
somewhat, but did not end starvation.
When Canada was created in1867, by an Act of the British
Parliament labelled The British North America Act, the federal
government was given responsibility for Indians and Indian lands.
Starvation was reduced considerably, however, malnutrition ran rampant
up until the 1940s - the remaining population was somewhere around 1500 -
to 2000. Finally, after 1946, vastly improved health care and better
food supplies provided by the Feds stabilized the population and it
started to increase. As a result, today there are somewhere around
25,000 Mi'kmaq. If proper assistance had been provided by the British
Colonial Government after 1761, and by the Canadian government after
1867, the population of the Mi'kmaq today might well be half million or
more.
In view of the before-mentioned, it would be only proper if all
the Indigenous Peoples of the Americas put off any future celebrations
with the English Crown, and other European governmental and social
institutions, until such time as the Queen, or one of her successors,
and other European leaders, come to the Americas and make full and open
apologies to us for the horrors that their colonial ancestors inflicted
upon our ancestors and their descendants!
********************
American Indians Inadvertently Honoring Colonial Barbarians
By Daniel N. Paul, December 5, 2006
To
stop the practice of American Indians inadvertently honouring the
colonial monsters that brutalized our ancestors we must learn our
post-European invasion histories and stop celebrating European
colonialism
The following is something you probably will never see: a
Jewish person using a room, or a building, or a school, or anything
else, named to honour the memory of Adolph Hitler. The reason for this
is simple - Jews know that he tried to exterminate them - murdering
millions in the process. Knowing this, they appreciate that it would be
demeaning to the memories of their slaughtered brothers and sisters for
them to honour Hitler by using such facilities.
In the case of First Nations Peoples, it's a different
story; we don’t know our histories. This, of course, is not our fault,
it’s the fault of the invaders, who’ve managed to keep most of the
horrors perpetuated in the Americas by their ancestors against ours
under wraps. In fact, to this end, they’ve used scurrilous propaganda so
effectively to defame our ancestors that we, their children, the
victims, appear to be the children of monsters.
Down the road this will change! In time the truth will
prevail because we are beginning to acquire the expertise needed to
uncover the abundant evidence left behind by colonial authorities, which
effectively refute the heinous propaganda that depicts our ancestors as
barbaric heathen savages.
However, in the meantime, there is a practice among our
people that we must curb by all means possible. Which is, because of the
lack of knowledge of our histories, the use by them of facilities named
in honour of the memory of colonial officials guilty of committing
unspeakable genocidal crimes against our ancestors.
For an example of this usage, lets go to the World Trade
and Convention Centre in Halifax, Nova Scotia, where the powers that be
have named a large first floor room in honour of colonial British
Governor Edward Cornwallis. As all Mi’kmaq and Maliseet should know, but
don't, it’s named in honour of a man who made a barbaric attempt to
exterminate the Mi’kmaq and any Maliseet allied with them.
THE DETAILS OF THE CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY COMMITTED BY CORNWALLIS:
Governor Cornwallis, as a means to reach his hideous goal
of exterminating the Mi'kmaq, with the approval of his council, on
October 1, 1749, issued a proclamation offering a bounty of 10£ (Pounds,
British currency) for Mi'kmaq scalps - including women and children.
(Such is a logical move when you try to exterminate a race of People
because, as Hitler did with Europe’s Jews, it’s a must that you kill off
women and children.) Just in case anyone believes that he and his
councillors only enacted it for use as a threat to win Mi’kmaq
surrender, this information should set them straight. On June 21, 1750,
probably because scalps were not coming in fast enough to see him
realize his goal, he issued a new proclamation to advise European
colonists that the bounty had been increased to fifty pounds per scalp.
Back to the World Trade Center. Many times, over the past
few years, I’ve walked past the Cornwallis Room during events that were
held there, that included Mi'kmaq participation, and seen many Mi’kmaq,
including Chiefs and other leaders, using the room and celebrating
within it. Such behavior to the knowledgeable white man must seem
strange and incredulous to say the least. What other race of persecuted
people would willingly use a facility named in honour of the man who
tried to exterminate them? Not one that I know of.
In view of the before mentioned, it’s most important that
we learn our history. Then, as sensible people, who are respectful of
the memories of our persecuted and slaughtered ancestors, we would never
again be caught in rooms, buildings, or anything else, named in honour
of individuals who were responsible for their persecution and slaughter.
If we, the First Nations Peoples of the Americas, want to
regain dignity and self-respect, we must declare such places as the
World Trade and Convention Centre off limits until rooms named in honour
of monsters such as Cornwallis are renamed! Colonial European
authorities in the Americas, British and Spanish in particular, used
every means possible, biological warfare to scalp proclamations, to kill
off American Indian populations. In the process they violated every
provision of the 1948 United Nations Genocide Convention. Let us not
forget, untold crimes against humanity were committed by colonial
authorites, not one of the perpetrators was ever held accountable for
his barbaric acts!
NOTE: After the Assembly of First Nations sent me a
notice that it would be holding its annual assembly at the Halifax
World Trade and Convention Center in Halifax July 2007, I sent
information to Larry Whiteduck, AFN co-ordinator for the event, about
Cornwallis's bounty proclamation for Mi'kmaq scalps, with the advise
that the organization should not use the Center's Cornwallis room. Larry
forwarded my information to the Convention Center with the advice that
AFN would not use the room named in honour of the Governor.
I was asked by AFN Regional Chief Rick Simon to send to
Paul Cody, the Center's Senior Sales Manager, a letter outlining the
pertinent historical reasons why the name should be changed, which I
sent on May 8, 2007. The following day, May 9th, I received an Email
from Mr. Cody advising that as of that date the Cornwallis name was
being removed and that the room, until they choose a new name, would be
known as level one.
This result demonstrates that if we want positive change,
and are willing to struggle for it for a long time, it can be realized!
********************
Illogical, but possible criminal defense
I find it fantastically unbelievable that modern day descendants
of Anglo invading colonizers, who claim to be stalwart defenders of
liberty, justice and freedom, are still blind to the fact that the
Indigenous Peoples of the Americas were forced to use every method
possible to defend themselves from invaders, that were hell bent and
determined to strip them of their countries, and in many cases, their
lives. The defenders did not do it for the fun of it, it was done
because it was a necessity.
In view of the before mentioned, I wonder when a modern day
mugger, who was beaten off by the person he/she was attempting to mug,
will use as a defense the fact that the mugee assaulted him/her during
his attempted robbery. Why not, the victim was fighting back? Such a
justification seems to work quite well for the descendants of the
marauding European invaders, who use it religiously to defend the
horrific behavior of their ancestors.
Elder Dr. Daniel N. Paul, C.M., O.N.S., May 13, 2010
********************
Persistence pays off!
Halifax Herald
School to shed name of Cornwallis
By DAVENE JEFFREY Staff Reporter
Thu, Jun 23, 2011
The Halifax regional school board voted unanimously Wednesday to
forever sever the tie between a south-end junior high school and a city
founder who put a bounty on the Mi'kmaq.
Acting on a motion by its Mi'kmaq member, Kirk Arsenault, the board agreed that Cornwallis Junior High must have a new name.
The school is named after Gov. Edward Cornwallis, who spearheaded the colonization of the area for the British in the mid-1700s.
"Edward Cornwallis is deeply offensive to members of our Mi'kmaq
communities and to Nova Scotians generally who believe school names
should recognize persons whose contributions to society are unblemished
by acts repugnant to the values we wish our schools to embody and
represent," Arsenault said, reading from his motion.
He called the board's decision "an exercise in healing and of education."
No one appeared before the board to oppose Arsenault's motion,
and he said most of the feedback he received from the public before the
meeting was positive, with only a few people opposing the name change.
"Some people have tried to turn it into some sort of a political
storm and tried to flip it back on the Mi'kmaq people," he said.
Mi'kmaq elder and author Daniel Paul addressed the board after the motion was passed.
"I'm proud of you. You are proactive and God bless," he said.
Paul has long been spreading the word of Cornwallis's scalp
proclamation against the Mi'kmaq and protesting the Halifax founder's
place in history as a figure deserving tribute.
"Twenty-five years I've been at this," he said.
Paul, who started school in 1948 and quit in 1953, said the only
mention of the Mi'kmaq in his school textbooks was that they made axe
handles and baskets.
But nowadays, in at least one Dartmouth junior high school,
Mi'kmaq studies is a more popular course than Canadian history and
African-Canadian history combined, teacher Ben Sichel of Prince Andrew
High told the board.
The Cornwallis controversy comes up in class every year, Sichel said.
"You can't change history. This is true. But you can choose who you honour," he said before the vote was taken.
"(You) have an opportunity to make a historic contribution to peace and justice in this province."
It will be up to the school community to choose a new name for the junior high.
"It's a great school," said board member David Cameron, who said his granddaughter goes there.
"It will still be a great school with a name of which everyone can be proud."
The school sits in Cameron's district.
Paul said outside the meeting that he'd like Cornwallis's name to
be removed from more than just the school. For example, he'd like
Cornwallis Park, across the street from the Via Rail station, to be
renamed Freedom Park and a statue erected "to all the immigrants who
came to this country and helped to build the country into the powerhouse
that it is."
********************
Cultural Genocide
Twentieth Century Forcible Child Transfers: Probing the
Boundaries of the Genocide Convention, By Ruth Amir PhD, Max Stern
Yezreel Valley College, Nazareth, Israel, Department of Political
Science. I wrote the following for the back page of her book after
reading it.
“A well researched report about the horror of “legal” child
abduction by the State, which deems itself the savior that will elevate
the children of what it deems inferior cultures to it’s notion of
‘civilized’ heights. Slay their children, or rob them of their cultural
heritage by removal, the end result is Genocide.”
John Duncan, Canada's Minister of Indian Affairs, recently stated
that cultural genocide was never attempted in Canada, my response:
In one of his so-called "Indian Poems", white supremacist Duncan
Scott Campbell, Deputy Minister of Canada's Indian Affairs, wrote:
She stands full-throated and with careless pose,
This woman of a weird and waning race,
The tragic savage lurking in her face,
Where all her pagan passion burns and glows;
Her blood is mingled with her ancient foes,
And thrills with war and wildness in her veins;
Her rebel lips are dabbled with the stains
Of feuds and forays and her father's woes.
And closer in the shawl about her breast,
The latest promise of her nation's doom,
Paler than she her baby clings and lies,
The primal warrior gleaming from his eyes;
He sulks, and burdened with his infant gloom,
He draws his heavy brows and will not rest.
The Canadian Government's denial that Cultural Genocide and out
and out Genocide were never attempted by British colonial and Canadian
governments in what is today Canada is ludicrous, preposterous, and
delusional! The extinction of the Beothuk and three British
proclamations for Maliseet and Mi'kmaq scalps, plus other horrors under
British colonial rule that are too numerous to mention here, if not
Genocidal attempts, what were they, warped insane attempts to assure
survival? Then, under Canadian rule, malnutrition rations, minimal
health care, Indian residential and Indian day schools that were set up
specifically for taking the Indian out of the Indian, other government
Indian Affairs policies that were also enacted for the express purpose
of exterminating First Nation Cultures, etc., if these were not an all
out attempt to commit Cultural Genocide what were they, more warped
insane attempts to assure survival? As one who is old enough to remember
the humiliation of being degraded by overt white supremacist racism in
my youth, my advice for elected and non-elected Canadian Indian Affairs
officials is to take your heads out of the sand and have a reality
check! They could begin to acquire enlightenment by reading the
following short story.
Prime Minister Harper's Indian Residential School apology draws
attention to Duncan Scott Campbell, the Deputy Minister in charge of
Indian Affairs Branch from 1913 to 1932. Campbell described the
residential school program as an attempt "to kill the Indian in the
child."
Mortality rates at the residential schools soared during
Campbell's reign. Many students contracted tuberculosis and were forced
to sit through classes as their health deteriorated, ensuring that
healthy students would be exposed to the virus.
Campbell addressed the issue in 1924 in one of the most chilling statements in Canadian history.
"It is readily acknowledged that Indian children lose their natural
resistance to illness by habituating so closely in the residential
schools and that they die at a much higher rate than in their villages.
But this does not justify a change in the policy of this Department
which is geared towards a final solution of our Indian Problem."
About Duncan Scott Campbell
As the bureaucratic head of Indian Affairs Branch from 1913 to
1932, Duncan Scott Campbell had among his responsibilities the direction
and management of Canada's Indian residential school system.
The Encyclopedia Britannica reports that he "allowed school staff
to use a variety of inhumane punishments to implement and enforce the
assimilation of these children."
Campbell left a record of his thoughts during his 20 year command
of the Department of Indian Affairs. His duplicitous writing reveals a
carefully crafted policy of cultural genocide. It is chilling to realize
that Campbell wrote the following policy statements in the 1920's.
"The policy of the Dominion (of Canada) has always been to
protect Indians, to guard the identity as a race and at the same time to
apply methods which will destroy that identity and lead eventually to
their disappearance as a separate division of the population."
Reference: From a work of literary criticism produced as a Masters thesis by Nancy Chater at OISE in Toronto in 1999.
Library of Canada 0-612-45483-5
TECHNOLOGIES OF REMEMBRANCE: Click to read Nancy Chater's LITERARY CRITICISM AND DUNCAN CAMPBELL SCOTT'S "INDIAN POEMS
Nancy Chater: A thesis submitted in confomity with the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts, Department of
Curriculum, Teaching and Learning
Ontario Institute for Studies in Education
University of Toronto
Copyright by Nancy Chater, 1999
Chater pulled the quote from a book titled The Age of Light, Soup
and Water: Moral Reform in English Canada 1885 - 1925 by . Valverde is a
criminology prof at University of Toronto Mariana Valverde Also Wikipedia Mariana Valverde
Scott's role as Canada's top Indian Affairs bureaucrat enabled
him to travel on Indian territory at tax payer expense and write
pretentious lamentations about the people he was determined to destroy.
Thanks to Michael Jack Lawlor for his input.
Daniel N. Paul, November 26, 2011
*******************
Sikh 24 .Com
February 3, 2013
A Sikh Response to the Idle No More Movement
By: Sikh24 Editors
Silent No More:
I try to imagine the government coming to my house one morning
and taking my five year old daughter and eight year old son away to a
boarding school hundreds of kilometres away. I try to imagine that at
this school, my children’s hair will be cut, their dastars and will be
removed and they will be forcibly baptized as Christians. I try to
imagine that they will be beaten for speaking Panjabi, reading or trying
to maintain their religious and cultural traditions. I try to imagine
that even their basic health needs will not be looked after and they may
well die from treatable infections and diseases. And then, I must
admit, I am not able to imagine the rest; I can not bear to imagine them
being abused, assaulted, beaten and raped.
That is what occurred in this country for one hundred years as
the Canadian government, along with government sanctioned church groups,
kidnapped First Nations children from their homes and took them to
residential schools where unspeakable horrors were committed on them. Of
course the history of colonization in the Americas does not begin with
the Residential School system but is in fact a legacy going back
centuries. It is estimated that 90 to 95% of all indigenous people
living in the Americas were killed by smallpox within the first century
after European first contact in the late 1400’s. It is difficult to
fathom death at that scale. Those that remained had their land stolen
and were forced onto reservations to live as non-citizens in their own
lands.
As a nation, Sikhs are extremely proud of our own anti-colonial
struggle against the British. Yet we have completely failed to
acknowledge that in Canada we have succeeded due to the colonial
oppression of other nations. This land where we build our homes and
businesses was the land of nations that lived here for tens of thousands
of years. Yes, one hundred and seventy years ago the British annexed
Panjab and ended Khalsa Raj. But the British did not exile us from our
own villages and towns. The British did not take our land and build new
cities. The British did not migrate to Panjab and force us to live on
inadequate reserves.
We face discrimination in Canada and suffer from chronic
underfunding in order to address challenging issues like domestic
violence, sexual abuse and drug use. However, we are not without means.
We have Sikh representatives at every level of government across the
country and have been financially successful as a community. We owe a
debt to this country and to its true heritage; not the Canada evolved
from French and British colonies but to a land that was the sovereign
territory of nations that sustainably farmed, fished and hunted here
since before the dawn of history.
It has become an integral part of how we define ourselves, this
message that “Sikhs believe in equality” but speaking those words is
easy; living this in truth is much more difficult. We need to
demonstrate our commitment to the revolutionary message of Guru Nanak
Sahib, that every human being contains equally an aspect of the divine
and that we are all truly worthy of having our basic human needs and
rights protected and defended. In fact, this impulse to speak against
the oppressor in defense of the rights of the other stems from the Gurus
themselves. It was Guru Nanak Sahib himself who faced down the first
Mughal Emperor Babur after his invading forces had committed horrendous
massacres. Though Guru Nanak Sahib stood alone, he did not hesitate to
speak against those who had perpetrated the crimes he witnessed.
One of the most treasured episodes in Sikh history is the
Shaheedi of Guru Tegh Bahadur Sahib. In November of 1675, Guru jee gave
his life in the streets of Delhi. He did not die for Sikh rights but
instead he gave his head as an act of political disobedience against the
Mughal Empire’s forced conversion of Hindus. That a leader of a
religion would die to to defend the rights of another religion is almost
unbelievable and Guru Tegh Bahadur’s example still stands uniquely in
all of human history. It is our Ninth Guru’s example that Sikhs strive
to emulate when we defend the rights of those who are different from us.
But it is more than just defending the rights of the other. The
Guru asks us to stand with those who are been marginalized, those who
society considers low and unworthy. As Guru Nanak Sahib reveals in Asa
ki Vaar, he himself identifies as one of those who others call low:
That is the challenge put forth to us by the Guru, that we must
place ourselves in the position of those who have no power in our
societies, those who have been cast off and dehumanized.
Idle No More is a response not only to the legacy of colonialism
but the continuing colonialism that First Nations people are being
subjected to. First Nations simply want the their rights as a sovereign
people respected. They want justice for the crimes of the past and the
basic human dignity that all people are entitled to. They want control
of their resources and the right to educate and govern themselves as
they see fit. Does this sound familiar? It’s exactly what Sikhs have
been struggling for in India for the last several decades. From the
Anandpur Sahib Resolution to the demand for justice for victims of
massacres, human rights abuses and pogroms to Panjab’s ongoing struggle
with government enabled substance and alcohol abuse, the parallels
between and contemporary Sikh struggles is striking.
But these protesters are not just fighting for themselves, they
are fighting for all of our rights. They are fighting against the
government’s omnibus bill and its erosion of environmental protection.
They are fighting for all of our futures.
Today we face many problems as a community. We face internal
divisions and external threats. But that has always been the case
throughout Sikh history. Things have never been easy for our people. But
we are capable of greatness when we are united. And when do we unite?
When we struggle for justice, freedom and equality. is a growing
movement. It is the voice of a people demanding their rights. We need
not care about political expediency.
Sikh history is clear: the Sikh response to marginalized people
fighting for rights has always been simple. Against all odds, we stand
for you.
