Columbus Day and America’s forgotten people

Dear Editor,

As some look forward to celebrating Columbus Day this coming Monday with a day off, parades, retail sales and parties, we should also note the consequences of his arrival (and since) in regard to the Native Americans.

It is incomprehensible how Columbus’ atrocities against the Native Americans were followed by other conquerors and this became a pattern to this very day! Even Christians contributed to this effort.

The Plains Indians depended almost wholly on buffalo. Can you imagine for a moment, millions of buffalo reduced to only 1,000 a little over a hundred years ago to starve the Indians and change their culture to ours?

This area is not without fault, as the Clinton and Sullivan campaign burned Indian villages at Vestal and Owego. Even today, at Pine Ridge, South Dakota (Wounded Knee), only 60 percent have running water TODAY!

This was not the history I learned in school. I remember the positive term, “the great western expansion”!

A few years ago, the United Methodist Church recognized this terrible past and created an “Act of Repentance and Healing Relationships with Indigenous Persons” in the spirit of how we tell the true story of Native Americans. The Church will no longer recognize Columbus Day.

To quote Stephen Heiss, “For starters, we’d have to admit that starting with Christopher Columbus, Christian extremist terrorists virtually destroyed the entire population of native peoples on two continents in the New world – the most extensive genocide in world history.”

Let us re-purpose this holiday to honor Native Peoples!

Sincerely,

Duane Palmiter, Sr.

Owego, N.Y.