Native American Awareness Sunday

NATIVE AMERICAN AWARENESS SUNDAY
A Service of Blessing and Repentance
TEXT: Matthew 4:3-11

Most of the time when the Church reads from the Biblical prophets, we are very selective. We like to read about the ways that the prophets predicted the coming of Jesus and we love to hear that there will come a day of consolation when God will make streams in the desert and will turn weeping into joy. We like those parts. There are occasions when we make use of the large portions of judgment passages in the prophets...mostly we use these when we want to emphasize the condemnation of our enemies.

Israel, however, heard the prophets differently. The prophets of Israel were speaking to them about deeds committed by them and by their ancestors, about the way that Israel could stare into the face of injustice and do nothing. Our service this morning reflects the spirit of the not-so-popular cry of the prophets. This was the cry for justice to be done, for those who had means to reach out to those who did not, for those on top of the social ladder to reach to those below...no matter whose fault it was or wasn't. It was the cry that landed prophets in dungeons and cisterns, and not infrequently led to their death.

In that spirit we move into Native American Awareness Sunday, remembering both the greatness of a particular culture that is native to our land and the efforts of those white men and women, from whom most of us are descended, to snuff it out. "But we didn't do those things!" you might respond. No, but some of these atrocities date only to my great-grandfather's time in the late 1800's. Let's say my great-grandfather killed your great-grandfather and then took all his land and possessions. When we meet in this age, you are destitute and I am rich because of it. Do you think it is right for me to say to you, "Well, I didn't do it."? Do I really have no responsibility to make amends? If the antique chair in my dining room was stolen from your family by mine, is it right for me to keep it? Recently a speaker at the Third National Native American Ecumenical Dialogue characterized the white response as "Gee, I'm sorry. Can I keep your land?"

Listen to the stories. Listen to your heart. Listen to the cry for justice.

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven....

The colonists argued that entitlement to land required its utilization. Native men, they claimed, pursued "no kind of labour but hunting, fishing and fowling." Indians were not producers. "The Indians are not able to make use of the one fourth part of the Land," argued Reverend Francis Higginson in 1630, "neither have they any settled places, as Towns to dwell in, nor any ground as they challenge for their owne possession, but change their habitation from place to place." In the Puritan view, Indians were lazy. "Fettered in the chains of idleness," they would rather starve than work, William Wood of Boston complained in 1634. Indians were sinfully squandering America's resources. Under their irresponsible guardianship, the land had become "all spoils, rots," and was "marred for want of manuring, gathering, ordering, etc." Like the "foxes and wild beasts," Indians did nothing "but run over the grass." [Mirror, p. 39]

I am truly astonished that the French have so little cleverness. They try to persuade us to convert our poles, our barks, and our wigwams into their houses of stone and of wood that are as tall and lofty as these trees. Very well! But why do men of five to six feet in height need houses that are sixty to eighty? Do we not have all the advantages in our houses that you have in yours, such as reposing, drinking, sleeping, eating, and amusing ourselves with our friends when we wish? Have you as much ingenuity as the Indians, who carry their houses and their wigwams with them so that they may lodge wherever they please? We can say that we are at home everywhere, because we set up our wigwams with ease wherever we go, without asking permission from anyone. You reproach us-very inappropriately-and tell us that our country is a little hell in contrast with France, which you compare to a terrestrial paradise. If this is true, why did you leave it? Why did you abandon your wives, children, relatives, and friends? Which of these is the wisest and happiest-he who labors without ceasing and only obtains, with great trouble, enough to live on, or he who rests in comfort and finds all that he needs in the pleasure of hunting and fishing? [Micmac Chief (1676), Wisdom, p. 58-59]

Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted....

A few more hours, a few more winters, and none of the children of the great tribes that once lived on this earth, or that roamed in small bands in the woods, will be left to mourn the graves of a people once as powerful and hopeful as yours. The whites, too, shall pass-perhaps sooner than other tribes. Continue to contaminate your own bed, and you will one night suffocate in your own waste. When the buffalo are all slaughtered, the wild horses all tamed, the secret corners of the forest heavy with the scent of many men, and the view of the ripe hills blotted by talking wires, where is the thicket? Gone. Where is the eagle? Gone. And what is to say farewell to the swift and the hunt, to the end of living and the beginning of survival? We might understand if we knew what it was that the white man dreams, what he describes to his children on the long winter nights, what visions he burns into their minds, so they will wish for tomorrow. But we are savages. The white man's dreams are hidden from us. [Wisdom, p. 74-75]

"Humanity has often wept over the fate of the aborigines of this country, and Philanthropy has been long busily employed in devising means to avert it," Jackson explained in a message to Congress, "but its progress has never for a moment been arrested, and one by one have many powerful tribes disappeared from the earth. To follow to the tomb the last of his race and tread on the graves of extinct nations excite melancholy reflections." But "philanthropy could not wish to see this continent restored to the condition in which it was found by our forefathers." The philosophical president then asked: "What good man would prefer a country covered with forests and ranged by a few thousand savages to our extensive Republic, studded with cities, towns, and prosperous farms...filled with all the blessings of liberty, civilization, and religion?" [Andrew Jackson, Mirror, p. 88]

Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth....

From Wakan Tanka, the Great Spirit, there came a great unifying life force that flowed in and through all things-the flowers of the plains, blowing winds, rocks, trees, birds, animals-and was the same force that had been breathed into the first man. Thus all things were kindred, and were brought together by the same Great Mystery. Kinship with all creatures of the earth, sky, and water was a real and active principle. In the animal and bird world there existed a brotherly feeling that kept the Lakota safe among them. And so close did some of the Lakotas come to their feathered and furred friends that in true brotherhood they spoke a common tongue. The animals had rights-the right of man's protection, the right to live, the right to multiply, the right to freedom, and the right to man's indebtedness-and in recognition of these rights the Lakota never enslaved an animal, and spared all life that was not needed for food and clothing. The Lakota could despise no creature, for all were of one blood, made by the same hand, and filled with the essence of the Great Mystery. In spirit, the Lakota were humble and meek. "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth"-this was true for the Lakota, and from the earth they inherited secrets long since forgotten. Their religion was sane, natural, and human. [Chief Luther Standing Bear, Wisdom, p. 36-37]

During the Pequot War of 1637, some seven hundred Pequots were killed by the colonists...Describing the massacre at Fort Mystic, an English officer wrote: "Many were burnt in the fort, both men, women, and children...There were about four hundred souls in this fort, and not above five of them escaped out of our hands. Great and doleful was the bloody sight." Commander John Mason explained that God had pushed the Pequots into a "fiery oven," "filling the place with dead bodies." By explaining their atrocities as divinely driven, the English were sharply inscribing the Indians as a race of devils. This was what happened during King Philip's War of 1675-76. While one thousand English were killed during this conflict, over six thousand Indians died from combat and disease. Altogether, about half of the total Indian population was destroyed in southern New England. Again, the colonists quickly justified their violence by demonizing their enemies. The Indians, Increase Mather observed, were "so Devil driven as to begin an unjust and bloody war upon the English, which issued in their speedy and utter extirpation from the face of God's earth." Cotton Mather explained that the war was a conflict between the Devil and God: "The Devil decoyed those miserable savages [to New England] in hopes that the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ would never come here to destroy or disturb His absolute empire over them." Indians...personified the Devil and everything the Puritans feared-the body, sexuality, laziness, sin, and the loss of self-control. They had no place in a "new England." [Mirror, p. 42-43]

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled....

If the white man wants to live in peace with the Indian he can live in peace. There need be no trouble. Treat all men alike. Give them the same law. Give them all an even chance to live and grow. All men were made by the same Great Spirit Chief. They are all brothers. The earth is the mother of all people, and all people should have equal rights upon it. You might as well expect the rivers to run backward as that any man who was born a free man should be contented when penned up and denied liberty to go where he pleases. If you tie a horse to a stake, do you expect he will grow fat? If you pen an Indian up on a small spot of earth ad compel him to stay there, he will not be contented, nor will he grow and prosper. I have asked some of the great white chiefs where they get their authority to say to the Indian that he shall stay in one place, while he sees white men going where they please. They cannot tell me. I only ask of the government to be treated as all other men are treated. If I cannot go to my own home, let me have a home in some country where my people will not die so fast. When I think of our condition my heart is heavy. I see men of my race treated as outlaws and driven from country to country, or shot down like animals. I know that my race must change. We cannot hold our own with the white men as we are. We only ask an even chance to live as other men live. We ask to be recognized as men. We ask that the same law shall work alike on all men. If the Indian breaks the law, punish him by the law. If the white man breaks the law, punish him also. Let me be a free man-free to travel, free to stop, free to work, free to trade where I choose, free to choose my own teachers, free to follow the religion of my fathers, free to think and talk and act for myself-and I will obey every law, or submit to the penalty. When the white man treats an Indian as they treat each other, then we will have no more wars. We shall all be alike-brothers of one father and one mother, with one sky above us and one government for all. Then the Great Spirit Chief who rules above will smile upon this land, and send rain to wash out the bloody spots made by brothers' hands from the face of the earth. For this time the Indian race are waiting and praying. [Chief Joseph, 1879, Wisdom, p. 186-187]

There can be no question of national dignity involved in the treatment of savages by a civilized power. The proudest Anglo-Saxon will climb a tree with a bear behind him, and deem not his honor, but his safety, compromised by the situation. With wild men, as with wild beasts, the question whether to fight, coax, or run, is a question merely of what is easiest or safest in the situation given. Points of dignity only arise between those who are, or assume to be, equals." [Francis Amasa Walker, 1874, Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Mirror, p. 231]

Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy....

As we rode along we came to some good land that was already occupied by Indians and white people. General Howard, pointing to this land, said, "If you will come on to the reservation, I will give you these lands and move these people off." I replied, "No. It would be wrong to disturb these people. I have no right to take their homes. I have never taken what did not belong to me. I will not now." We rode all day upon the reservation, and found no good land unoccupied. I have been informed by men who do not lie that General Howard sent a letter that night telling the soldiers at Walla Walla to go to Wallowa valley and drive us out upon our return home. In the council, next day, General Howard informed me, in a haughty spirit, that he would give my people thirty days to go back home, collect all their stock, and move onto the reservation, saying, "If you are not here in that time, I shall consider that you want to fight, and will send my soldiers to drive you on." I said, "War can be avoided, and it ought to be avoided. I want no war. My people have always been the friends of the white man. Why are you in such a hurry? I cannot get ready to move in thirty days. Our stock is scattered, and the Snake River is very high. Let us wait until fall. Then the river will be low. We want time to hunt up our stock and gather supplies for winter." General Howard replied, "If you let the time run over one day, the soldiers will be there to drive you onto the reservation, and all your cattle and horses outside of the reservation at that time will fall into the hands of the white men." I knew I had never sold my country, and that I had no land in Lapwai. But I did not want bloodshed. I did not want my people killed. I did not want anybody killed. I said in my heart that, rather than have war, I would give up my country. I would give up my father's grave. I would give up everything rather than have the blood of white men upon the hands of my people. General Howard refused to allow me more than thirty days to move my people and their stock. I am sure that he began to prepare for war at once. When I returned to Wallowa I found my people very much excited upon discovering that the soldiers were already in the Wallowa valley. We held a council and decided to move immediately, to avoid bloodshed. [Chief Joseph, Wisdom, p. 167-169]

Indian policemen were sent to Sitting Bull's cabin; after arresting him, they were confronted by angry and armed Sioux. During an exchange of gunfire, the police shot and killed the chief. The news of Sitting Bull's murder alarmed Big Foot, chief of another group of Sioux. While trying to escape, Big Foot and his people, mostly women and children, were intercepted by the cavalry. They surrendered and were escorted to a camp near a frozen creek called Wounded Knee. As the Indians set up their tepees for the night, they saw two manned Hotchkiss guns on the ridge above them. "That evening I noticed that they were erecting cannons up [there]," Wasu Maza recalled, "also hauling up quite a lot of ammunition." The guns were trained on the Indian camps, and the scene seemed terribly ominous. In the morning, under a clear blue sky, the Indians heard a bugle call. Surrounded by mounted soldiers, they were told that all of their men should assemble at the center of camp. The captives were ordered to turn over their weapons. "They called for guns and arms," White Lance recounted, "so all of us gave the guns and they were stacked up in the center." But the soldiers thought there were more arms hidden in the tepees and began a search. The situation became tense, volatile, and the Indians sensed the danger. Medicine man Yellow Bird began dancing the Ghost Dance to reassure the worried Indians...Suddenly a shot rang out. Instantly, the troops began shooting indiscriminately at the Indians. "There were only about a hundred warriors and there were nearly five hundred soldiers," Black Elk reported. "The warriors rushed to where they had piled their guns and knives." The Indians tried to defend themselves, but then they heard an "awful roar," the death sounds of the Hotchkiss guns. Shells hailed down upon them, at the rate of fifty per minute, each missile carrying a two-pound charge that exploded into thousands of shrapnel. The smoke was so dense it was like fog, blinding the Indians. "My father ran and fell down and the blood came out of his mouth"...recalled Yellow Bird's son, who was four years old at the time. Blue Whirlwind received fourteen wounds, while her two children running at her sides were also shot. "We tried to run, but they shot us like we were buffalo," said Louise Weasel Bear. "I know there are some good white people, but the soldiers must be mean to shoot children and women." Fleeing the camp, the Indians were pursued by the soldiers..."Dead and wounded women and children and little babies were scattered all along there where they had been trying to run away," Black Elk reported. "The soldiers had followed them along the gulch, as they ran, and murdered them in there."...Shortly afterward, clouds rolled across the sky and "a heavy snow began to fall," covering the corpses like a white blanket as if Nature were trying to shroud or cleanse the gore and blood. After the storm passed, the soldiers threw the dead Indians into a long trench, their frozen bodies "piled on upon another like so much cordwood, until the pit was full." Many of the corpses were naked: the "ghost shirts" had been stripped from the dead as souvenirs. [Mirror, p. 229-231]

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God....

Once I was in Victoria, and I saw a very large house. They told me it was a bank, and that the white men place their money there to be taken care of, and that by and by they got it back with interest. We are Indians, and we have no such bank; but when we have plenty of money or blankets, we give them away to other chiefs and people, and by and by they return them, with interest, and our hearts feel good. Our way of giving is our bank. [Maquinna, Nootka Chief, Wisdom, p. 60]

Revered as a victorious hero of Indian wars, Jackson was elected to the presidency of the United States in 1828. As chief executive, Jackson supported the efforts of Mississippi and Georgia to abolish Indian tribal units and extend state authority over Indians. These states then opened Indian territory to settlement, even allowing whites to take improved or cultivated Indian tracts. As Jackson watched the states violate federal treaties with tribes, he pleaded presidential helplessness. "If the states chose to extend their laws over them," he told Congress, "it would not be in the power of the federal government to prevent it." Actually, treaties and federal laws had given authority over the Indians to Congress, not the states. The 1802 Indian Trade and Intercourse Act had provided that no land cessions could be made except by treaty with a tribe, and that federal rather than state law would operate in Indian territory. In 1832, after the Supreme Court ruled that states could not legally extend their jurisdiction into Indian territory, Jackson simply refused to enforce the court's decision. [Mirror, p. 86]

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God....

Try to do something for your people-something difficult. Have pity on your people and love them. If a man is poor, help him. Give him and his family food, give them whatever they ask for. If there is discord among your people, intercede. Take your sacred pipe and walk into their midst. Die if necessary in your attempt to bring about reconciliation. Then, when order has been restored and they see you lying dead on the ground, still holding in your hand the sacred pipe, the symbol of peace and reconciliation, then assuredly will they know that you have been a real chief. [Winnebago lesson, Wisdom, p. 26]

In command of seven thousand soldiers, General Winfield Scott warned the Cherokees that they had to cooperate: "My troops already occupy many positions...and thousands and thousands are approaching from every quarter, to render assistance and escape alike hopeless. Will you, then by resistance compel us to resort to arms...or will you by flight seek to hide yourself in mountains and forests and thus oblige us to hunt you down?" The soldiers first erected internment camps and then rounded up the Cherokees. "Families at dinner were startled by the sudden gleam of bayonets in the doorway and rose up to be driven with blows and oaths along the weary miles of trail that led to the stockade. Men were seized in their fields...women were taken from their wheels and children from their play." The process of dispossession was violent and cruel. "The Cherokees are nearly all prisoners," the Reverend Evan Jones protested. "They had been dragged from their houses...allowed no time to take any thing with them, except the clothes they had on. Well-furnished houses were left prey to plunderers, who, like hungry wolves, follow in the train of the captors...The property of many have been taken, and sold before their eyes for almost nothing-the sellers and buyers, in many cases having combined to cheat the poor Indians." From the internment camps, the Cherokees were marched westward. "We are now about to take our final leave and kind farewell to our native land the country that the Great Spirit gave our Fathers," a Cherokee informed Chief Ross. "We are on the eve of leaving that Country that gave us birth...It is with [sorrow] that we are forced by the authority of the white man to quit the scenes of our childhood." The march took place in the dead of winter. "We are still nearly three hundred miles short of our destination," wrote Reverend Evan Jones in Little Prairie, Missouri. By the time they reached the new land west of the Mississippi, more than four thousand Cherokees-nearly one-fourth of this exiled Indian nation-died on what they have bitterly remembered as the "Trail of Tears." [Mirror, p. 96-98]

Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven....

When I was a boy, the Sioux owned the world. The sun rose and set on their land; they sent ten thousand men to battle. Where are the warriors today? Who slew them? Where are our lands? Who owns them? What white man can say I ever stole his land or a penny of his money? Yet they say I am a thief. What white woman, however lonely, was ever captive or insulted by me? Yet they say I am a bad Indian. What white man has ever seen me drunk? Who has ever come to me hungry and left me unfed? Who has ever seen me beat my wives or abuse my children? What law have I broken? Is it wrong for me to love my own? Is it wicked for me because my skin is red? Because I am a Sioux? Because I was born where my father lived? Because I would die for my people and my country? [Sitting Bull, Wisdom, p. 51-52]

Behind the "resistless" railroad were powerful corporate interests, deliberately planning the white settlement of the West and the extension of the market. Railroad companies saw the tribes as obstacles to track construction and actively lobbied the government to secure rights-of-way through Indian territory. They pushed for the passage of the 1871 Indian Appropriation Act, which declared that "hereafter no Indian nation or tribe within the territory of the United States shall be acknowledged or recognized as an independent nation, tribe, or power, with whom the United States may contract by treaty." Explaining the law's significance, an attorney for a railroad corporation stated: "It is not a mere prohibition of the making of future treaties with these tribes. It goes beyond this, and destroys the political existence of the tribes." Armed with the 1871 Indian Appropriation Act, railroad companies rapidly threw tracks across America and opened the West to new settlement. Along with the advance of the railroad and the increasing arrival of white settlers came a cry for Pawnee removal. "Pawnee Indians are in possession of some of the most valuable government land in the Territory," the Nebraskian editorialized. "The region of the country about the junction of Salt Creek and the Platte is very attractive and there would immediately grow up a thriving settlement were it not for the Pawnees. It is the duty of Uncle Sam to remove the Pawnee population." [Mirror, p. 102-103]

THE WORDS OF CHIEF SEATTLE

Yonder sky that has wept tears of compassion upon my people for centuries untold, and which to us appears changeless and eternal, may change. Today is fair. Tomorrow it may be overcast with clouds.

The White Chief [Governor Stevens] says that the Big Chief at Washington sends us greetings of friendship and goodwill. This is kind of him, for we know he has little need of our friendship in return.

His people are many. They are like the grass that covers vast prairies.

My people are few. They resemble the scattered trees of a storm-swept plain.

The Great Chief sends us word that he wishes to buy our lands, but is willing to allow us enough to live comfortably. This indeed appears just, even generous, for the red man no longer has rights that he need respect. And the offer may be wise also, as we are no longer in need of an extensive country.

There was a time when our people covered the land as the waves of a wind-ruffled sea cover its shell-paved floor. But that time long since passed away with the greatness of tribes that are now but a mournful memory.

I will not dwell upon, nor mourn over, our untimely decay, nor reproach my white brothers with hastening it, as we too many have been somewhat to blame.

Youth is impulsive. When our young men grow angry at some real or imaginary wrong, ...they are often cruel and relentless, and our old men and old women are unable to restrain them.

Thus it has ever been. Thus it was when the white man first began to push our forefathers westward.

But let us hope that the hostilities between us may never return. We have everything to lose and nothing to gain.

Chief Seattle, 1853
Wisdom, p. 193-194

Sources used in the readings:

The Wisdom of the Native Americans. Edited by Kent Nerburn. New World Library, 1999.

A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America, by Ronald Takaki. Little, Brown and Company, 1993.

Sermon concept © 2002, Anne Robertson

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