AMERICAN INDIANS: Apology, and much needed assistance, in order

June 6, 2005

The atrocities inflicted on the indigenous people living in this land when European settlers arrived are well known. Finally, Congress is considering bills to create an official national apology to Native Americans.

It will take more than an apology to assist them, especially those on reservations in impoverished conditions. Heartfelt repentance should be combined with increased funding for Native American programs.

While gambling casinos have brought a measure of prosperity to some tribes, Native Americans as a whole have long ranked at or near the bottom of nearly every social, health and economic indicator, according to U.S. Census data. They are more likely than whites to die from a host of illnesses and they have the highest prevalence of Type 2 diabetes in the world. About 30% of the 538,300 Native Americans on reservations live in poverty.

An apology would join two others the government has officially offered. Congress in 1993 apologized to native Hawaiians for overthrowing their kingdom. And in 1998, Japanese Americans received an apology for their forced detention during World War II. African Americans have yet to receive a much deserved apology for the horrors of slavery, after a bill introduced in 2000 failed.

The nation's crimes against Native Americans were numerous, and a resolution from Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., outlines many of them. It calls on the United States to acknowledge "the broken treaties and many of the more ill-conceived federal policies that followed, such as extermination, termination, forced removal and relocation, the outlawing of traditional religions and destruction of sacred places."

The bill seeks forgiveness for massacres, including the 1864 Sand Creek Massacre in Colorado, where up to 200 Native Americans perished, and the 1890 Wounded Knee Massacre in South Dakota, which killed roughly 350 Native Americans.

But being sorry isn't enough. If the government cares about the citizens that predated this country's creation, it must address the conditions in which too many of them now live.