Genocide and Atonement

We recently watched as thousands of people of Armenian descent marched to commemorate the systematic attempts by the Ottoman Empire to wipe out Armenians. Around a million were murdered.

Not too long before that, the world commemorated the more well known horrors of the Holocaust, where six million Jews were murdered under the rule of Nazi Germany. In addition, as many as a half million Gypsies, 250,000 mentally or physically disabled persons, more than three million Soviet prisoners-of-war, Jehovah’s Witnesses, lesbians and homosexuals, Social Democrats, Communists, and other undesirables were also victims.

We can, and should, remember these acts in an attempt to prevent them from occurring again.

Sunday, my husband and I visited a fabulous exhibit of artifacts from the Plains Indians at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. We saw beautiful decorated robes, beaded clothing, carved figures and decorated drums and peace pipes. The exhibit began in the years just as Europeans were beginning to populate America and moved us through to present day Native artists who incorporate traditional and modern art. And, of course, much of that history involves the shameful European decimation of the native peoples of America.

The exhibit brought back many memories from our first year of marriage, when we lived in an Athabaskan Indian village 145 miles northwest of Fairbanks, called Minto. It was an amazing year that we treasure in our memories, because it brought us into such close contact with a culture of which we knew little. We experienced, first hand, people who still did the exact crafts and art that we saw in the Museum, and we both remembered the songs and dancing at Potlatches.

As I browsed the exhibit I also felt such sorrow. Many people criticized the Turkish government for not acknowledging the genocide of the Armenians. But, how much have we acknowledged and publicly atoned for our near genocide of the native people's of North America?

Exact figures cannot be known since we do not know the native population prior to the arrival of Europeans. A good portion of the genocide was inadvertent, when huge percentages of the population died from diseases brought by Europeans. A significant additional number we intentionally killed in skirmishes, battles, and massacres. Many more perished due to relocation and the destruction of the buffalo. People of European descent, many of them Christians, made many intentional efforts to wipe out the languages and cultures of the native people. Children were taken from their parents, sent to boarding schools, and punished if they used native languages. A friend of mine in Minto, and many others there, actually experienced this before the practice was stopped. Our government made promises to these tribes, only to break them, and relocate them over and over again. It is estimated that at least 200 tribes are now extinct. Many tribal languages are now extinct. It is, indeed, a trail of tears.

When does this become as much of a conversation as the ones we are having now about racism and sexism? In large parts of the country, those of Native descent are not even seen, let alone part of our consciousness. We tend to gloss over this embarrassing part of our past. One modern artist in the exhibition commemorated the conviction of 300 Native men who rose up against Europeans in Minnesota. The man in charge? Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln's administration, in particular, was pretty nasty to the Indian people.

History is written by the winners. It often glosses over the atrocities that were committed by the victors. Only a clear-eyed look at our own past, in all its good AND evil, will really bring us to the full promise of America as a land of the free that is for ALL people. Including those who were here long before my ancestors arrived.