Dear Editor,<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
It is incomprehensible how Columbus\u2019 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.<\/p>\n
The Plains Indians depended almost wholly on\u00a0buffalo.\u00a0Can 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?<\/p>\n
This area is not without fault, as the Clinton and Sullivan campaign burned Indian villages at Vestal and Owego.\u00a0Even today, at Pine Ridge, South Dakota (Wounded Knee), only 60 percent have running water TODAY!<\/p>\n
This was not the history I learned in school.\u00a0I remember the positive term, \u201cthe great western expansion\u201d!<\/p>\n
A few years ago, the United Methodist Church recognized this terrible past and created an \u201cAct of Repentance and Healing Relationships with Indigenous Persons\u201d\u00a0in the spirit of how we tell the true story of Native Americans.\u00a0The Church will no longer recognize Columbus Day.<\/p>\n
To quote Stephen Heiss, \u201cFor starters, we\u2019d 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 \u2013 the most extensive genocide in world history.\u201d<\/p>\n
Let us re-purpose this holiday to honor Native Peoples!<\/p>\n
Sincerely,<\/p>\n
Duane Palmiter, Sr.<\/p>\n
Owego, N.Y.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-52508","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-letters"],"yoast_head":"\n