Posted on 05/25/2005 11:32:48 AM PDT by nypokerface
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. senator on Wednesday urged a Senate committee to pass a resolution apologizing on behalf of the United States to American Indians for centuries of massacres, broken promises and other injustices.
Indian leaders at the hearing said they would need more than an apology to overcome the poverty, substance abuse and health care problems that many of their people face.
The United States has never formally apologized for its treatment of the indigenous people who were living here before European settlement began.
Sen. Sam Brownback, a Kansas Republican who is spearheading the apology resolution, told the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs it would be a first step toward healing deep wounds.
"Before reconciliation, there must be recognition and repentance," he said. "It begins the effort of reconciliation by recognizing past wrongs and repenting for them."
Brownback introduced a similar resolution in the last Congress. It was voted out of the committee but the full Senate never acted on it.
The closest the United States has come to a formal apology to Indians came in 2000 when an assistant secretary for Indian affairs apologized for the past conduct of his agency. He said policies of successive U.S. governments had "set out to destroy all things Indian" and left a "legacy of misdeeds that haunts us today."
Brownback's resolution says the United States must acknowledge "the broken treaties and many of the more ill-conceived federal policies that followed, such as extermination, termination, forced removal and relocation, the outlawing of traditional religions, and the destruction of sacred places."
The resolution apologizes on behalf of the people of the United States to all American Indians "for the many instances of violence, maltreatment, and neglect inflicted on native peoples by citizens of the United States." It also asks forgiveness for massacres such as the 1864 Sand Creek Massacre in Colorado, where as many as 200 Indians were killed, and the Wounded Knee Massacre in South Dakota, where about 350 Indians died in 1890.
Indian leaders at the hearing said much more than an apology was needed to help deal with the many problems their communities are facing, including poverty, ill health and poor health care, alcoholism, drug addiction and unemployment.
"The president has proposed drastic budget cuts to many of the programs that are vital to the health and well-being of our people," said Tex Hall, president of the National Congress of American Indians.
Edward Thomas, president of the central council of the Tlingit and Haida Indian tribes of Alaska, said it was clear that some in the U.S. government were sorry about the treatment of Indians while others were not.
"An apology to us while ignoring the Third World conditions of so many of our people just doesn't seem genuine," he said.
Yep.
And since accountability is a remedy assigned through the courts, I've got no problem with it. Right is right. Even when it hurts.
Oh no! Not my house . . . :-)
Ok, and they apologize to each other for centuries of warfare among the different tribes right?
Then the criminals involved should be making the apologies, not an entire race of people.
Otherwise, what race should be apologizing for Jesse James or Al Capone?
What a crock! These wimps and wusses in the GOP get more disgusting every day. How sick can you get. Apologizing for somthing you had nothing to do with.
It was a classic clash of cultures between the American Indians and the Europeans and the Euros won.
With the Indian and Mestizo invasion from Mexico going in full bore, they may win Round II, however.
"Otherwise, what race should be apologizing for Jesse James or Al Capone?"
I fully concur.
My point was it is absurd for one people to apologize to another. We are all individuals.
Bump for reading.
These morons we elect are like the character Kevin Bacon played in Animal House, where he was kicked as part of the treatment for pledges and he said ... "Thank you sir. May I have another?"
U.S.Congress = Animal House, without the laughs. ;)
"They also commonly practiced slavery, genocide and cannibalism against other tribes."
Uhhh, pick up a book on European History. Check out the Thirty-Years War.
"They had never seen a horse, a metal knife, a cart or a plow."
?????????????
"In terms of population percentage loss, the worst war we ever fought was King Philip's War in 1675-76. King Philip was an indian chief (also known as Metacomet) who attacked to oust white settlers from New England."
King Phillip was the son of Massasoit, the Chief who welcomed and helped the Pilgrims. When Massassoit died, Phillip's' older brother Wamsutta, or King Alexander, was brow-beaten by the Puritans in Boston and forced to come at their beck and call there like a subordinate, where he was humilated as though he was an underling instead of an independent ruler. On his return ne died under questionable circumstances, and the other Wampanoags believed he had been poisoned by the English.
When Metacomet succeeded Phillip, the English continued to force the Wampanoags to surrender lands to them, and otherwise abused and humiliated them. Phillip himself was whipped by the Puritans - a punishment no Indian would tolerate normally, and certainly not a Chief.
A little sneaking rat Wampanoag traitor named John Sassamon was detected by the other Wampanoags, killed and his body sunk in Assawomsett Pond. When the English found out their informer had been executed, they demanded the killers be turned over to them for "justice". These were hanged.
Phillip then was forced into his "rebellion". During this war, not only were English settlements depopulated, but the English attacked a large settlement of ostensibly neutral Narragansetts in the Great Swamp "Fight" in the dead of winter. The Puritans thought the Narragansetts had provided shleter to refugee Wampanoags. In Native American tradition, anyone seeking shelter was usually welcomed and helped.
The Puritans surrounded the village and set it on fire and then proceeded to shoot down anything moving in it or trying to escaape from it. Even some Pequot Indians who were heriditary enemies of the Narragansetts were horrified at the slaughter of women and children - something completely alien to their culture at the time. Whoever got away died of exposure in the cold.
It later transpired that most of the people in the village were women and children and old men. The warriors were away on a hunt.
The English did pretty poorly in this war until somebody named Benjamin Church came along and offered captured Indians immunity from punishment and freedom if they would serve as scouts for the British and allow them to attack the hostile indians.
When the war was over, despite Church's promises, those indians who helped him were sold along with all captured indians as slaves in the sugar plantations of the West indies - a sure death warrant.
As for Phillip himself, he was shot by an indian and, at Church's direction, his body was quartered and beheaded like a beast instead of a human being and parts of his body displayed all over New England.
Who, I ask you, behaved like the "savages"?
Yup. there's the connection all right.
It's all about money.
When are the liberals going to apologize for THEIR actions:
http://www.neoperspectives.com/NativeAmericans.htm
the invaders at Jamestown were the foreigner, right? I believe the Indians were the residents.
"Indian leaders at the hearing said they would need more than an apology to overcome the poverty, substance abuse and health care problems that many of their people face. "
We've given the Indians billions so far. How much are they going to milk this for? I knew an Indian in the Air Force who got $36,000 when he turned 18. So, don't even think for a second the Inidians don't already get a ton of dough.
You are either stupid or ill-informed. There are full blooded Indians all over the place. If you can't find any, go to any reservation in the U.S.
"Poverty, Substance abuse, health sare problems": Sounds like the same problems they already had when our fore fathers got here.
So how should such an apology be worded: " We in the US Senate-the most kissieassedest of all the decendants of those who landed on these shores and found your ancestor's exactly as you remain to this today-helpless and hopeless-are sorry that despite our best efforts and billions of dollars spent over more than two hundred years, find that we too are hopelessly and helplessly unable to save you from your self inflicted woes, either."
What hostility!!
I suggest you read - some more.
I refuse to answer on the grounds it may end up costing me more money thru heavier taxation.
The original reason for the reservations was a recognition that American Indians die from disease at a high rate in the presence of African, European and Asian people.
It may be yours, but it's yours as an English-American, that is as an "hyphenated American".
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