A reader’s column comment from Feb. 15 criticized Billie Eilish for making a reference to “stolen lands” at the Grammys: “ . . . let’s be truthful. There is no such thing as stolen lands. It’s conquest and conquering. It’s been going on since the beginning of time. . . . .MIGHT MAKES RIGHT.”
There is a lot to unpack with these two points of view. Is this the way a democratic nation supposedly founded on Christian principles should conduct itself? Does the “stolen lands” statement imply there should be some kind of reparations?
I doubt that Billie Eilish is ready to turn her property over to the Tongva Tribe, and I’m not ready to transfer my property to the Haudenosaunee, although the Susquehannocks have a previous claim, and before them the Leni Lenape, and before them the Mound Builders, and before them various fishermen and hunters.
Native American tribes were not immune to expanding their territory at the expense of others before white settlers arrived, but the scope of such expansion pales in comparison to the “Manifest Destiny” which became the justifying philosophy as America expanded to the Pacific. Even earlier, the Catholic Church gave sanction to the conquering of indigenous lands through a Papal Bull. It was formulated by Pope Nicholas V in 1452. Its official name was Dum Diversas and it came to be known as the “Doctrine of Discovery.” (*) In part, it gave the green light for European explorers to “subjugate pagans and any other unbelievers or enemies of Christ” and “reduce their persons to perpetual servitude.”
John Marshall in a Supreme Court decision in 1823 accepted this doctrine as part of municipal law.
So how should we conduct ourselves regarding the Native Americans who were here thousands of years before Columbus, and how do we acknowledge the various interactions that took place between Western civilization and the 1,000 or so distinct tribes, clans, or bands that existed on the North American continent?
I can never forget the opening scene in 2001: A Space Odyssey. A mysterious obelisk gives the technological edge to a particular group among the apes. In a similar way, the superior technology in warfare and trade goods of the Europeans would overwhelm one tribe after another. Indigenous populations became dependent on the products of the colonizers, and missionaries sought to change their worldview and religious concepts. Contagious diseases and alcoholism devastated millions and led to plummeting drops in population.
In 1972 a number of Native American organizations sponsored a march from Minnesota to Washington, D.C., entitled the Trail of Broken Treaties. It presented the Nixon administration with a list of 25 points to realign the negotiations between Native Americans and the United States. Of the 370 treaties that the U.S. signed with Native Americans, nearly all of them were broken. This is something that needs to be acknowledged.
Native American children were taken from their reservations and sent to boarding schools where they were abused, degraded, and taught that native customs and culture had to be eliminated. (**) This needs to be acknowledged.
There are particular parts of our involvement with Native Americans that were especially egregious: the atrocities committed during the Pequot War and King Phillip’s War, the Canestoga Indian Town, the Gnadenhutten Massacre, the Trail of Tears, the Long Walk (of the Navajo now Dine), the Sand Creek Massacre and Wounded Knee. These need to be acknowledged.
Besides the land and resources, there was valuable advice gained from the Natives. In the 1744 Treaty of Lancaster, the leaders of the Six Nations encouraged the colonists to unite in some fashion similar to the Six Nations. In the early days of the Republic, the Articles of Confederation were modeled after the federalism and democratic input that had been developed by the Confederacy. (***)
How much richer have the world’s food resources become with the addition of corn, potatoes, beans, squash, sunflowers, and a cornucopia of other fruits and vegetables? This needs to be acknowledged.
Of special interest to me is the role that the Oneida and the Tuscorora played during the Revolutionary War. They helped the rebels gain independence, and yet these two tribes were not treated much differently than the other tribes of the Six Nations that fought with the British. This needs to be acknowledged.
In the struggle for women’s rights, it is not a coincidence that the Seneca Falls Convention of 1848 took place in the land of the Seneca. The early feminists, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott and Matilda Josyln Gage, were very much influenced by the equity they observed for women among the Haudenousaunee.
In a summary of the book by Sally Roesch Wagner, Sisters in Spirit, shows the ideals that the women of the “civilized world” aspired to:
“Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) women fired the revolutionary vision of early feminists by providing a model of freedom for women at a time when Euro-American women experienced few rights. Women of the Six Nations Iroquois Confederacy enjoyed decisive political power, control of their bodies, control of their own property, custody of the children they bore, the power to initiate divorce, satisfying work, and a society generally free of rape and domestic violence.” This should be acknowledged.
This year we are celebrating the 250th founding of these United States. It began with some very lofty goals: “We hold these truths to be self-evident …” Eleven years later, in 1787 the United States Constitution also began with more inspiring words: “In order to form a more perfect union . . .” But let’s be honest. None of this rhetoric was meant for Native Americans, African Americans, women, and a whole host of other cultures, religions, concepts,, and philosophies that have now become part of this country called the United States of America, one of the most powerful and influential countries in world history.
We are a work in progress. This needs to be acknowledged.
P. S. A few years back, I thought about America’s celebration of its Centennial in 1876. On the eve of all the parades, speeches, and festivities for July 4, 1876, Americans must have been crestfallen to learn of Gen. Custer’s Seventh Cavalry had been wiped out at the Battle of Little Big Horn on June 25-26.
(*) This papal bull would be repudiated by the Roman Curia in 2023.
(**) Canada was just as guilty.
(***) A resolution in the U.S. Senate in 1987 formally recognized this influence.
Sincerely,
Ed Nizalowski
Newark Valley, N.Y.
Be the first to comment on "Letter: Conquest and Conquering"