From: rich@pencil.cs.missouri.edu (Rich Winkel)
Subject: WE ARE STILL HERE: THE 500 YEARS CELEBRATION
Followup-To: alt.activism.d
Originator: rich@pencil.cs.missouri.edu
Organization: PACH
Date: Sat, 3 Oct 1992 00:41:31 GMT

/** native.1492: 200.0 **/
** Topic: We Are Still Here: The 500 Years **
** Written  4:54 pm  Oct  2, 1992 by josefina in cdp:native.1492 **
From: Josefina Velasquez <josefina>
Subject: We Are Still Here: The 500 Years

From sojourners Wed Sep 23 10:07:16 1992
From: Sojourners Magazine <sojourners>

[Credit line: Reprint permission granted by Sojourners, P.O. Box
29272, Washington D.C. 20017]

WE ARE STILL HERE 
THE 500 YEARS CELEBRATION
by Winona LaDuke

quotes:

The ecological agenda is what many indigenous people believe can,
and must, unite all peoples in 1992.

Columbus later returned to Europe in disgrace, but the invasion
set into motion a struggle over values, religions, resources,
and, most important, land.


In school I was taught the names
Columbus, Cortez, and Pizzarro and
A dozen other filthy murderers.
A bloodline all the way to General Miles,
Daniel Boone and General Eisenhower.

No one mentioned the names
Of even a few of the victims.
But don't you remember Chaske, whose spine
Was crushed so quickly by Mr. Pizzaro's boot?
What words did he cry into the dust?

What was the familiar name
Of that young girl who danced so gracefully
That everyone in the village sang with her))
Before Cortez' sword hacked off her arms
As she protested the burning of her sweetheart?

That young man's name was Many Deeds,
And he had been a leader of a band of fighters
Called the Redstick Hummingbirds, who slowed
The march of Cortez' army with only a few
Spears and stones which now lay still
In the mountains and remember.

Greenrock Woman was the name
Of that old lady who walked right up
And spat in Columbus' face. We
must remember that, and remember
Laughing Otter the Taino who tried to stop
Columbus and who was taken away as a slave.
We never saw him again.

In school I learned of heroic discoveries
Made by liars and crooks. The courage
Of millions of sweet and true people
Was not commemorated.

Let us then declare a holiday
For ourselves, and make a parade that begins
With Columbus' victims and continues
Even to our grandchildren who will be named
in their honor.

Because isn't it true that even the summer
Grass here in this land whispers those names,
And every creek has accepted the responsibility
Of singing those names? And nothing can stop
The wind from howling those names around
The corners of the school.

Why else would the birds sing
So much sweeter here than in other lands?
        Columbus Day, by Jimmie Durham (West End Press, 1983)

        To "discover" implies that something is lost. Something was
lost, and it was Columbus. Unfortunately, he did not discover
himself in the process of his lostness. He went on to destroy
peoples, land, and ecosystems in his search for material wealth
and riches. 
        Columbus was a perpetrator of genocide, responsible for
setting in motion the most horrendous holocaust to have occurred
in the history of the world. Columbus was a slave trader, a
thief, a pirate, and most certainly not a hero. To celebrate
Columbus is to congratulate the process and history of the
invasion.
        The Taino, Arawak, and other indigenous peoples of the
Caribbean, the first "hosts of Columbus," were systematically
destroyed. Thirteen at a time they were hanged, in honor of the
12 apostles and the Redeemer. Every man over 14 years of age was
obliged to bring a quota of gold to the conquistadors every three
months. Those who could not pay the tribute had their hands cut
off "as a lesson." Most bled to death. The Taino leaders argued
with the conquistadors. They pleaded that "with their thousands
of people grow[ing] enough corn to feed many of the people of
Europe))was that not enough of a tribute, of a payment?" 
        The conquistadors would not accept their tribute from the
land. So the "idle" ships of the second voyage of Columbus were
used to transport back 500 Indians to be slaves to the markets of
Seville. The repression was so brutal that many of the Taino,
Caribs, and Arawaks, faced with brutality and slavery at the
hands of conquistadors, chose instead to commit mass suicide.
        Sixty years later, in 1552, the Catholic priest Bartoleme de
las Casas declared that within the entire Western Hemisphere, a
total of 50 million Indians had already perished in just over a
half)century of Spanish invasion. Las Casas had been an
eyewitness to some of the slaughter and depopulation caused by
diseases accidentally introduced by the Spanish. In his protest
of his own people's "abominable cruelties and detestable
tyrannies," Las Casas cried out that five million had died on the
Caribbean islands and that 45 million had died on the mainland.
(In 1492, in the Western Hemisphere, there were 112,554,000
American Indians. By 1980, there were 28,264,000 American
Indians.)
        Although Columbus himself later returned to Europe in
disgrace, his methods were subsequently used in Mexico, Peru, the
Black Hills of South Dakota, and at Wounded Knee and Sand Creek
in TK. They are still being used in Guatemala and El Salvador,
and in Indian territory from Amazonia to Pine Ridge in South
Dakota. The invasion set into motion a process, thus far
unabated. This has been a struggle over values, religions,
resources, and, most important, land.
        
THE "AGE OF DISCOVERY" marked the age of colonialism, a time when
our land suddenly came to be viewed as "your land." While
military repression is not in North American vogue (at least with
the exception of the Oka)Mohawk uprising of the summer of 1990),
today legal doctrines uphold that our land is your land, based
ostensibly on the so)called "doctrine of discovery." This
justifies in the white legal system the same dispossession of
people from their land that is caused by outright military
conquest. But in a "kinder, gentler world," it all appears more
legal.
        The reality is that the battering has been relentless. With
each generation more land has been taken from indigenous peoples,
either by force or by paper, but in no case with our consent.
Today, Indian people in North America retain about 4 percent of
their original land base))land called reservations in the United
States or reserves in Canada. 
        And those remaining lands are facing a new assault.
Underlying Indian reservations are approximately two)thirds of
the  uranium resources within the continental United States and
one)third of all Western low)sulphur coal. Other lands include
vast oil tracts (including that in the so)called Arctic National
Wildlife Refuge))the last unexploited portion of the north shore
of Alaska) and final stands of pristine water and unexploited
old)growth timber. The statistics for Canada are much the same.
        What we have is still what they want: whether it is EXXON,
ARCO, Rio Tinto Zinc (the British mining giant), COGEMA (the
French uranium company that is active in Dene and Cree lands in
northern Saskatchewan), or lumber companies from Japan or North
America. The North American onslaught is matched only by that in
South and Central America, where remaining rain forests and
resource)rich lands are greedily consumed by foreign
multinationals and governments.
        The rate of exploitation is astounding. In 1975, 100 percent
of all federally produced uranium in the United States came from
Indian reservations, so that Indians were the fifth largest
producers of uranium in the world. That same year, four of the 10
largest coal strip mines in the United States were on Indian
reservations. By 1985, Dene and Cree lands in Saskatchewan were
producing more than $1 billion worth of uranium annually for
foreign multinationals. 
        An area the size of France in northern Quebec has been
devastated by hydroelectric development in a huge James Bay
project, which is the largest manipulation of a subarctic
ecosystem in history. The lands flooded are those of the Cree and
Inuit))two peoples who have lived there for 10,000 years or more
in a carefully balanced way of life. Today, thousands more face
relocation as new dams are proposed for European aluminum
interests (who will locate in Quebec to secure cheap electricity)
and American consumers. The devastation of the ecosystems and the
people is relentless. In short, the problem or challenge posed by
1992 is the invasion, and the reality is that it continues.
        We understand that "to get to the rain forest, you must
first kill the people," and that is why since 1900 one)third of
all indigenous nations in the Amazon have been decimated, while
during the same time one)quarter of the forest has disappeared.
There is a direct relationship between how industrial society
consumes land and resources and how it consumes peoples. 
        In the past 150 years, we have seen the extinction of more
species than since the ice age. And since 1492, we have witnessed
the extinction of more than 2,000 indigenous peoples from the
Western Hemisphere. Where are the Wappo, the Takelma, the
Natchez, and the Massachuset?

MOST DISGRACEFUL OF all is the self)congratulatory hoopla under
way in most colonial and neocolonial states. In 1992, the
governments of Spain, Italy, the United States, and 31 other
countries are hosting the largest public celebration of this
century to mark the 500th anniversary of the arrival of "Western
civilization" in the hemisphere. 
        As planned, it will outstrip the bicentennials of the
Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution, and the
French Revolution in scale and cost, and in the callous rewriting
of history. The multibillion)dollar official extravaganza
includes a race to Mars between three solar)powered spaceships
named after Columbus' Nina, Pinta, and Santa Maria; a "Tall
Ships" regatta, featuring replicas of Columbus' original vessels,
which will leave Spain in the spring of 1992 for a tour of the
Americas; and Expo '92 in Seville, involving more than 100
countries and emphasizing Spain's contributions to world culture.
        It is in the face of this celebration of genocide that
thousands of indigenous peoples are organizing to commemorate
their resistance, and to bring to a close the 500)year)long
chapter of the invasion. Indigenous organizations such as CONAIE
(Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador), SAIIC 
(South and Central American Indian Information Center), the
Indigenous Women's Network, Seventh Generation Fund, the
International Indian Treaty Council, UNI (from the Brazilian
Amazon), and other groups have worked to bring forth the
indigenous perspective on the past 500 years.
        For several years, indigenous people appealed to the United
Nations to designate 1992 as the "year of indigenous peoples."
They faced stiff political opposition from Spain, the United
States, and other "pro)Columbus" nations. 1993, instead, has been
designated as such. However, a number of indigenous nations are
actively working on the United Nations Environment Program
Conference in 1992 in Brazil and demanding, among other things,
full participation of indigenous peoples in the "nation state"
agenda.
        CONAIE and other groups hosted an intercontinental meeting
of indigenous peoples in Quito, Ecuador, in July 1990. The
meeting brought together hundreds of people from throughout the
Americas to share common histories and strategies to mark 1992,
and to plan for the next 500 years. It was hailed by the Native
people in attendance as a fulfillment to a traditional prophecy
of the Runa people of Mexico. 
        The prophecy reports that many years ago the indigenous
people of the Americas were divided into two groups, the people
of the Eagle (those from the North) and the people of the Condor
(those from the South). According to the prophecy, when the tears
of the Eagle and the Condor are joined, a new era of life and
spirit will begin for Native people. As the delegates joined
together in work, prayer, and ceremony, they felt a joining of
the vision and the people. According to CONAIE, "The basic
objective of the mobilization is to recover the dignity of our
peoples and reject all forms of submission, colonial practices,
and neo)colonialism."
        A number of other meetings have been held, including a huge
First Peoples Gathering in June in Winnipeg, Manitoba, which was
attended by more than 500 representatives from the Americas.
Other work continues among indigenous nations, internal in the
communities, and in coalition with other groups. A series of
tribunals on colonialism have been proposed in several locations
in North America, as well as educational and cultural events. A
number of Native writers, including Gerald Vizenor, M. Scott
Momaday, Louise Erdrich, and Joy Harjo, are completing books and
anthologies on the 500 years. And a great number of indigenous
peoples are calling on other groups))nationally and
internationally))to mobilize around 1992 as a year to protect the
Earth and the people of the Earth.
        Indeed, the ecological agenda is what many indigenous people
believe can, and must, unite all peoples in 1992. That agenda
calls for everyone to take aggressive action to stop the
destruction of the Earth, essentially to end the biological,
technological, and ecological invasion/conquest that began with
Columbus' ill)fated voyage 500 years ago.
        Through it all, indigenous people will continue to struggle.
It is this legacy of resistance that, perhaps more than any other
single activity, denotes the essence of 1992. After all the
hoopla and celebration by the colonial governments are over, the
Native voice will prevail. It is like a constant rumble of
distant thunder, and it says through the wind, "We are alive. We
are still here."

That dream
Shall have a name
After all,
And it will not be vengeful
but wealthy with love
and compassion
and knowledge
And it will rise
in this heart
which is our America.

>From Sand Creek, by Simon Ortiz (1981)


Winona LaDuke is president of the Indigenous Women's Network and
a member of the Anishinabe Nation.

Orignally published in Sojourners, October 1991

** End of text from cdp:native.1492 **
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