Editorial Comment: While this commentary dates back to April 4th, its message is timely. This month is American Indian and Alaska Native Heritage Month and the Day of Mourning will soon be upon us. This article helps to spread the truth about Thanksgiving and much more.
There is a movement afoot to force some American companies who made their fortunes through the use of slave labor to make reparations to the black community. But I have a few questions I would like answered about the feasibility of such an action, such as, who exactly would stand to collect this money? Not every black person in this country is a descendant of slaves nor was every slave black. Many of our People were also sold into slavery. So would some of us be entitled to money? And if so, how does one prove slave descendancy? Why, Pocahontas alone has nearly a million descendants, if everyone who claims her blood is telling the truth. So what about the People who occupied this land in the first place, ..... you know, those peace loving men and women who kept a foreign race from starving to death their first years here, taught them to grow crops they had never seen before, acted as guides and protectors in a strange land and treated their illnesses using medicines the newcomers had never seen before? What was their reward for these acts of kindness - those gentle folks who felt the first waves of terrorism on this soil long before September 11? Where are their reparations? What about the more than 700 Pequot men, women and children who were murdered in 1637 while attending their Green Corn Festival? In the predawn hours they were awakened and ordered to come outside by English and Dutch mercenaries. Those who came out were shot or clubbed to death while the terrified women and children who huddled inside the longhouse were burned alive. The governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony declared "A Day Of Thanksgiving" in honor of their extermination. Where are their reparations? And what about the 110 women and children who were murdered at Ywahoo Falls in southeastern Kentucky on Friday, August 10th, 1810. For years the blood of the Cherokee People had stained our home land. In a desperate attempt to save the remaining children in the region, Cornblossom, daughter of Chief Doublehead. made arrangements to bring what was left of them to sacred Ywahoo Falls. Once all the children were gathered at the falls, they were to make the journey to Reverend Gideon Blackburn's Presbyterian Indian School at Sequatchie Valley outside of Chattanooga Tennessee and freedom. But instead they were viciously murdered by Tennessee Militiamen. Their screams can still be heard today. Where are their reparations? What about the children who were cruelly ripped from their parent's arms and sent far away to government run schools after Congress appropriated funds to "civilize and educate" Indians in 1802? Many died alone, far from home in a strange and horrible world. Where are their reparations? And what about the 38 Indians Abraham Lincoln ordered hanged on Thanksgiving, 1864, as a result of a Sioux uprising in Minnesota? Their People were starving to death and these men had no choice but to fight so they could survive. Where are their reparations? But forfeiting our land and losing our lives was not enough. Even the bones of our ancestors were coveted. Many white people wore clothes fastened with buttons made of Indian bones. Not even allowed the sanctity of a proper burial, many of our ancestor's remains are still being held hostage in museums and "private collections." Where are their reparations? One by one, every Nation on this continent was forced to make a death march of one type or another. The Trail of Tears, Sand Creek and Wounded Knee, The Long Walk of the Navajo, the list is endless. Where are their reparations? Can the present generation atone for the sins of an earlier one? I don't know. Our People are still waiting for the answer to that one.Special thanks to Cindy McWilliams for forwarding this column.
Last updated on November 04, 2005