Book Blog #9

Chief Joseph of The Nez Perce, on Their Abrogated Treaty

An elegant speech by Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce symbolizes the closing of the treaty era. The tribe had been promised by treaty a reservation in their ancestral lands in Oregon’s Wallowa Valley. In 1877, however, they were forcibly removed to a poorer, smaller, and unfamiliar reservation near Lapwai, Idaho. Chief Joseph and his band decided they could not live in this new land, far from the bones of their ancestors, and so they fled, embarking on a twelve-hundred-mile fighting retreat across Idaho, Wyoming, and Montana, on their way to join Sitting Bull’s Lakota across the border in Canada. Starving and exhausted, Joseph and his band surrendered to General Nelson A. Miles on October 5, 1877, just forty miles from the Canadian border.

Two years after his surrender, Chief Joseph, with a translator, gave a speech in Washington, D.C., to the government and the public. David Treuer has printed it in full.[cvii] Following is my redaction:

My friends, I have been asked to show you my heart. I am glad to have a chance to do so. I want the White people to understand my people. Some of you think an Indian is like a wild animal. This is a great mistake. I will tell you all about our people, and then you can judge whether an Indian is a man or not. I believe much trouble and blood would be saved if we opened our hearts more. I will tell you in my way how the Indian sees things. The White man has more words to tell you how they look to him, but it does not require many words to speak the truth. What I have to say will come from my heart, and I will speak with a straight tongue. Ah-cum-kin-i-ma-me-hut (the Great Spirit) is looking at me and will hear me.

My name is In-mut-too-yah-lat-lat (Thunder traveling over the Mountains). I am chief of the Wal-lam-wat-kin band of Chute-pa-lu, or Nez Perces (nose-pierced Indians). I was born in eastern Oregon, thirty-eight winters ago. My father was chief before me. Our fathers gave us many laws, which they had learned from their fathers. They told us to treat all men as they treated us; that we should never be the first to break a bargain; that it was a disgrace to tell a lie; that we should speak only the truth; We were taught to believe that the Great Spirit sees and hears everything, and that he never forgets; that hereafter he will give every man a spirit-home according to his deserts: This I believe, and all my people believe the same.

We did not know there were other people besides the Indian until about one hundred winters ago, when some men with White faces (French Trappers) came to our country. …Some thought they taught more bad than good. An Indian respects a brave man, but he despises a coward. He loves a straight tongue, but he hates a forked tongue.

The first White men of your people who came to our country were named Lewis and Clark. They talked straight, and our people gave them a great feast, as a proof that their hearts were friendly. These men were very kind. All the Nez Perces made friends with Lewis and Clark, and agreed to let them pass through their country, and never to make war on White men. This promise the Nez Perces have never broken.

When my father was a young man there came to our country a White man (Rev. Mr. Spaulding) who talked spirit law. He won the affections of our people because he spoke good things to them. At first he did not say anything about White men wanting to settle on our lands. Nothing was said about that until about twenty winters ago, when a number of White people came into our country and built houses and made farms. At first our people made no complaint. They thought there was room enough for all to live in peace, and they were learning many things from the White men that seemed to be good. But we soon found that the White men were growing rich very fast and were greedy to possess everything the Indian had. My father was the first to see through the schemes of the White men, and he warned his tribe to be careful about trading with them. He had suspicion of men who seemed so anxious to make money.

Next there came a White officer (Governor Stevens), who invited all the Nez Perces to a treaty council. He wanted the land marked out so that the Indians and White men could be separated. If they were to live in peace it was necessary, he said, that the Indians should have a country set apart for them, and in that country they must stay. My father, who represented his band, refused to have anything to do with the council, because he wished to be a free man. My father said to Rev. Spaulding (rejecting his cajoling): “Why do you ask me to sign away my country? It is your business to talk to us about spirit matters, and not to talk to us about parting with our land.” Governor Stevens urged my father to sign his treaty, but he refused. “I will not sign your paper,” he said; “you go where you please, so do I; you are not a child, I am no child; no man owned any part of the earth, and a man could not sell what he did not own. I have no other home than this. I will not give it up to any man. My people would have no home. Take away your paper. I will not touch it with my hand.

Soon after this my father sent for me. I saw he was dying. I took his hand in mine. He said: “My son, my body is returning to my Mother Earth, and my spirit is going very soon to see the Great Spirit Chief. When I am gone, think of your country. You are the chief of these people. They look to you to guide them. Always remember that your father never sold his country. You must stop your ears whenever you are asked to sign a treaty selling your home. A few years more, and White men will be all around you. They have their eyes on this land. My son, never forget my dying words. This country holds your father’s body. Never sell the bones of your father and your mother.” I pressed my father’s hand and told him I would protect his grave with my life. My father smiled and passed away to the spirit-land. I buried him in that beautiful valley of winding waters. I love that land more than all the rest of the world. A man who would not love his father’s grave is worse than a wild animal.

For a short time, we lived quietly. But this could not last. White men had found gold in the mountains around the land of winding water. They stole a great many horses from us, and we could not get them back because we were Indians. The White men told lies for each other. They drove off a great many of our cattle. Some White men branded our young cattle so they could claim them. We had no friend who would plead our cause before the law councils. It seemed to me that some of the White men in Wallowa were doing these things on purpose to get up a war. They knew that we were not strong enough to fight them. I labored hard to avoid trouble and bloodshed. We gave up some of our country to the White men, thinking that then we could have peace. We were mistaken. The White man would not let us alone. We could have avenged our wrongs many times, but we did not. When the White men were few and we were strong we could have killed them all off, but the Nez Perces wished to live at peace.

I believe that the old treaty has never been correctly reported. If we ever owned the land we own it still, for we never sold it. In the treaty councils the commissioners have claimed that our country had been sold to the Government. Suppose a White man should come to me and say, “Joseph, I like your horses, and I want to buy them.” I say to him, “No, my horses suit me, I will not sell them.” Then he goes to my neighbor and says to him: “Joseph has some good horses. I want to buy them, but he refuses to sell.” My neighbor answers, “Pay me the money, and I will sell you Joseph’s horses.” The White man returns to me, and says, “Joseph, I have bought your horses, and you must let me have them.” If we sold our lands to the Government, this is the way they were bought.

I have carried a heavy load on my back ever since I was a boy. I learned then that we were but few, while the White men were many, and that we could not hold our own with them. We were like deer. They were like grizzly bears. We had a small country. Their country was large. We were contented to let things remain as the Great Spirit Chief made them. They were not; and would change the rivers and mountains if they did not suit them.

I only ask of the Government to be treated as all other men are treated. 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. 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.

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. Whenever the White man treats the 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 country around 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. I hope that no more groans of wounded men and women will ever go to the ear of the Great Spirit Chief above, and that all people may be one people.

In-mut-too-yah-lat-lat has spoken for his people.

The Unrecognized, Shared Values between Native Americans and the United States -- as Shaped by the Judeo Christian Tradition

The dialogue regarding shared values did not happen; or the culture clash sparked by the meeting of these 2 cultures would have avoided much of the carnage. Additionally, the ethnic -Europeans would have gained a reawakening of core values relating to land, the environment and the treatment of strangers that had been ignored, misappropriating their tradition.

Taking this deeper dive into religion is important for secular readers as well as religious because Judeo Christian values have shaped secular as well as religious America. Noted for relevance to this writing, the US government was frequently sending out missionaries along with armies to relate to the tribes, and when reservations were formed, government divided them up among various denominations to help with the so-called “civilizing” process. Native American’s sacred tradition was often brutally suppressed. Charlotte Blackelk, a survivor of the Wounded Knee massacre, wrote of life on the reservation. She recalled, being told,

…you shall bring all of your sacred objects - sacred pipes, spirit bundles, everything that we had that was sacred - into the agency and there we shall have a grand bonfire.” We were told that women will no longer have the role in society that they enjoyed, that they were to become like White women, they were to be chattels, they were to be owned by men, you had to take your husband’s name. So, everything about our culture was systematically to be destroyed.[1]

Rituals through which healing powers are experienced, such as the Sundance, the Sweat Lodge and Pipe Ceremonies were outlawed and were enacted only in secret. Not until the passage of the American Indian Religious Freedom Act in 1978, were Native Americans allowed to legally exercise their traditional religious rights and cultural practices.

The following pages will highlight Biblical themes that relate to "land" and to cultural issues that marked a clash of traditions. A deeper look will frequently show that these conflicts of values were often in harmony.

A Belief in a Supreme Creator is lntegral io both Native American Spirituality and Biblical Tradition – The Great Mystery, (a.k.a.: the Great Spirit, the Creator, Yahweh, Sophia) Precedes All Creation and Fills All Beings with Spirit.

The feminine aspect of the Creator, as perceived by some Biblical writers in the Old and New Testament, is sometimes referred to as “Sophia”, (also translated as Wisdom). In what may be the oldest creation story in the Old Testament, She narrates –

Proverbs 8:22-31 The Lord created me at the beginning of his work, the first of his acts of long ago. Ages ago before the beginning of the earth, when there were no depths, I was brought forth, when there were no springs abounding with water. Before the mountains had been shaped, before the hills, I was brought forth— when he had not yet made earth and fields, or the world's first bits of soil. When he established the heavens, I was there, when he drew a circle on the face of the deep, when he made firm the skies above, when he established the fountains of the deep, when he assigned to the sea its limit, so that the waters might not transgress his command, when he marked out the foundations of the earth, then I was beside him, like a master worker; and I was daily his delight, rejoicing before him always, rejoicing in his inhabited world and delighting in the human race.

Sophia describes Spirit as within living beings, including, e.g., plants --

Eclesiasticus 24: 12-19 I grew tall like a cedar in Lebanon, and like a cypress on the heights of Hermon. I grew tall like a palm tree in Engedi, and like rosebushes in Jericho; like a fair olive tree in the field, and like a plane tree beside water I grew tall. Like cassia and camel's thorn I gave forth perfume, and like choice myrrh I spread my fragrance, like galbanum, onycha, and stacte, and like the odor of incense in the tent. Like a terebinth I spread out my branches, and my branches are glorious and graceful. Like the vine I bud forth delights, and my blossoms become glorious and abundant fruit. Come to me, you who desire me, and eat your fill of my fruits.

(Gospel parallel: John 15:5, I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit,)

As with Native Americans, Everything in Creation Is Acknowledged as Alive

The Spirit filled beings of creation, the rocks, trees, mountains, hills and all the animals that fly, swim or move upon the earth are vibrantly alive and noted in the Bible as evoking emotional interactions with people. Metaphors are often used to describe the responsiveness of nonhuman beings to people –

Psalms 114:4 The mountains skipped like rams, and the little hills like lambs.

Psalms 148:9 Praise him hills and mountains, fruit trees in the forests; all animals, tame and wild, reptiles and birds.

Isaiah 55:12 For you shall go out with joy, and be led forth with peace: the mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.

Amos 5:24 But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.

Through sacred energies, all beings are connected and support the lives of one another. Scientifically, we call these inter-specie relationships, ecosystems. The Psalms describe these relationships poetically e.g., Psalm 104, collated:

10 You make springs gush forth in the valleys; they flow between the hills, 11giving drink to every wild animal.

12 By the streams the birds of the air have their habitation; they sing among the branches.

14 You cause the grass to grow for the cattle, and plants for people to use, to bring forth food from the earth.

16 The trees of the Lord are watered abundantly, the cedars of Lebanon that he planted. 17 In them the birds build their nests; the stork has its home in the fir trees.

18 The high mountains are for the wild goats; the rocks are a refuge for small fish.

24 O Lord, how manifold are your works! In Sophia you have made them all; the earth is full of your creatures.

25 Yonder is the sea, great and wide, creeping things innumerable are there, living things both small and great.

30 When you send forth your Spirit, they are created; and you renew the face of the ground.

The elements of creation are media through which God speaks, “you make the winds your messengers, fire and flame your ministers.” (Ps. 104) Within the Judeo-Christian tradition, the birds of the air and the fish of the sea; indeed, all creatures, including persons, are given their opportunity for being and receive the gift of their daily sustenance. Fellow creatures become our mentors,

Job 12:7-10 “…ask the animals, and they will teach you; the birds of the air, and they will tell you; ask the plants of the earth, and they will teach you; and the fish of the sea will declare to you. Who among all these does not know that the hand of the Lord has done this? In his hand is the life of every living thing and the breath of every human being.”

Beauty and the caring within natural beings evoke awe and the sense of the sacred. In Matthew 6, Jesus teaches,

26, Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? 27, And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? 28, And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, 29, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these.

John Mohawk, an Iroquois elder and scholar, now deceased, describes Native American spiritual teachings that parallel the Biblical themes highlighted above. Mohawk writes,

We see manifestations of the Creator’s way all around us in the wind, the rocks, the mountains, the rain, and our Spirits are often lifted by their incredible beauty. The Spirit of the Great Mystery flows through the Sun, the Earth and all beings. The Sun, like all the beings of creation is both a spiritual being and is naturally observable, manifesting the Power of the Universe. We know of that Power because we can observe the many ways in which it is revealed to us through the Spirits of the Universe. In this way, the Sun is also a messenger of Creator. Through the Sun’s ways, we come to know of a way of the Great Mystery. We speak of the source of Power of the Universe as the Great Mystery. All that is manifested to us by that Power is named by us “the Creation.” That which is the source of the Creation we call the Creator; when we say Creator, we mean the Spirit of the Creation. The Spirit of Creation is manifest in all Life. All things, in their created ways, support life. It is only when beings leave their natural ways that they cease to support Life—that they break away from the Life Cycle.[2]

Indigenous traditions cultivate reverence for Life, a great respect for all living things. The followers of indigenous traditions try to make their lives a celebration of life and they ritualize the natural world by showing greeting and thanksgiving to all beings. Active participation in the daily celebration of the Life-supportive processes is why followers of indigenous traditions do not call theirs a religion, but a Way of Life.

They seek to strengthen the Human Spirit through participation in all processes of Life and seek that participation for their children and for generations to come. They value involvement in the lives of their children and their elders, to experience and participate in the process of the Universe that creates the Birds and the Grasses. They are the people of wisdom and vision, of love and truth, of beauty and happiness, for theirs is the way of the Creation. They are true sons and daughters of the Earth and the Power that they call the Great Mystery.[3]

Humans, of all the beings in this Universe, can choose or fail to choose to participate in Life-Supportive Ways. Humans can fail to have a reverence for Life and turn their eyes and their hearts away from the Life Supporters, the spiritual beings of this place, and to cease to be spiritual people. Everything in the world needs to know that it is appreciated. It is true that plant beings are nourished by soil and air, but it is known too that their health and well-being is encouraged by our words. Thus, do followers of indigenous traditions speak to the plants, encouraging them to carry on in their plant ways, and for this reason, our grandparents walked among the Corn Sisters and talked to them, encouraging them to grow. It is a way that our spirits encourage the spirits of other beings of this World. Everything in the world is encouraged in this way.

The first duty of the People is to show an appreciation and a high regard for one another. Just as the first thing people do upon meeting is to greet one another with a wish of good health it is their way to extend their greetings to the other beings of this world. Indigenous, spiritual people, come together to express appreciation for other beings of the Universe, such as the feathered beings and the grass beings, and in this way, they are participating in an aspect of the Life-Supportive process.[4]

The Significance of Relating to the Earth, As Alive, Is Captured In the Following Poem –

When Earth Becomes an “It”[5] By Marylou Awiakta, Cherokee, Scots-Irish, and Appalachian heritage When the people call Earth “Mother,”

they take with love

and with love give back

so that all may live.

When the people call Earth “it,”

they use her

consume her strength.

Then the people die.

Already the sun is hot

out of season.

Our mother’s breast

is going dry.

She is taking all green

into her heart

and will not turn back

until we call her

by her name.

If American missionaries had been openly attentive, Native American spiritual practices would have quickened sensitivity to the sacredness of the Earth within Judeo-Christian scriptures.

Biblical teachings regarding ownership and management of land would have informed a vastly different treaty making process.

God, as described in the Old Testament, gives land, and Israel is a people that holds land in alternative ways. The core tradition is intended to promote an alternative to the imperial system of land known both in the Egyptian empire and in the Canaanite city-states. The embracing of land as gift, as inheritance from ancestors, is prophetically and repeatedly emphasized, to resist the land and resource monopolies of Empire, the demeaning of land to mere property for buying and selling; and to protect the poor from being displaced by conquerors or by the marketplace.[6]

Biblical descriptions of appropriate relationships to land resonate with Native American views of land as gift from Creator, inherited by their ancestors; land that is not for sale; land that is not to be valued solely as a marketplace commodity.

The centrality of land in the Old and New Testament

Land and “land” as a synonym for other resources in urbanized environments, despite its centrality to both the Old and New Testaments is often overlooked. When this happens, Judeo Christian spirituality becomes individualized and divorced from material realities; traditions of environmental and social justice become marginalized.

The values inherent in Old Testament teachings about land management are powerfully illustrated in the tale of Naboth's vineyard in I Kings 21. The confrontation over how land is valued, between King Ahab and the prophet, Elijah, begins with the narrated encounter of King Ahab and Naboth (vv. 1-2). Ahab regards the land as a tradable commodity:

"Give me your vineyard, that I may have it for a vegetable garden, because it is near my house; I will give you a better vineyard for it; or, if it seems good to you, I will give you its value in money" (v. 2). In contrast, for Naboth, land is not a tradable commodity, "The Lord forbid that I should give you my ancestral inheritance" (vv. 3-4).

Naboth’s declaration represents the traditional covenantal view in which the land inherited from Creator, through ancestors, is not owned in a way that permits its disposal. It is held in trust from generation to generation, beginning in gift and continuing so, and land management is concerned with preservation and enhancement of the gift for the coming generations. Naboth is responsible for the land but is not in control over it. The land does not belong to him; rather, he belongs to the land. (Interestingly, this is the same language used by Native Americans in response to demands from treaty makers that they sell their land.) Naboth perceives himself and the land in a covenantal relationship, between the two there is a history of fidelity that did not begin with him and will not end with him. Ahab had no notion of that, because kings, as agents of imperial powers, characteristically think everything is to be bought and sold and traded or conquered.[7]

Subsequently, Queen Jezebel arranged for Naboth’s death and told Ahab that he could now do as he pleased. But the prophet, Elijah, met Ahab in Naboth’s vineyard and warned him of the destruction that was to come because of his evil deeds. Prophetic warnings in the Old Testament, do not generally assert God as an active agent in punishment, but rather that such outcomes inexorably follow such actions. Thus, land-grabbing does not depend on the action of God for retribution but creates its own destructive consequences. One cannot grab land, so the story argues, with impunity.[8]

Elijah’s intervention was strategic. Had that land became an arena for commercialism, it would have triggered all the social problems that emerge when the strong are aligned against the weak. Old Testament prophets repeatedly warned that when land is treated only as a commodity, inattentive to social relationships, it results in some having a monopoly and others being systematically reduced to poverty, dependence, and despair.

(E.g., Isaiah 5:8-9) Ah, you who join house to house, who add field to field, until there is room for no one but you, and you are left to live alone in the midst of the land! The Lord of hosts has sworn in my hearing: Surely many houses shall be desolate, large and beautiful houses, without inhabitant.

(E.g., Micah 2:1-3) How terrible it will be for those who lie awake and plan evil! When morning comes, … they do the evil they planned. When they want fields, they seize them … And so the Lord says, I am planning to bring disaster on you, and you will not be able to escape it. You’re going to find yourselves in trouble and then you will not walk so proudly anymore.

(E.g., Prov 22:22-23) Do not rob the poor, because he is poor, or crush the afflicted at the gate (asylum-seekers); for Yahweh will plead their cause and despoil the life of those who despoil them.

"Robbery" here is not breaking and entering but is a legal transaction "at the gate." The response of Yahweh to such victimization is that Yahweh will "go to court" on behalf of the poor. This same warning is evident in Prov 23: "for their Redeemer is strong; he will plead their cause" Yahweh is allied with the poor, with asylum-seekers and will engage in legal defense.

The most dramatic Old Testament case of the usurpation of Land on an international scale is the self-indictment placed in the mouth of the arrogant Assyrian, Sennacherib: “By my own might I have acted, and in my wisdom, I have laid my schemes; I have removed the frontiers of nations and plundered their treasuries.” (Isa 10:13) Here, whole nations are cast in the role of the marginal in the face of a Great Power. Prophetic condemnation declares that seizing the land of another is an act of exploitative greed and violates God's intent for social order, whether it is local or international. The development of large landholdings by the rich and powerful is condemned as a betrayal of Israel's contract with Yahweh.[9]

The Old Testament describes God-given strategies for protecting the resiliency of land and redistribution directives for dealing with landholdings that have become too large or been taken, either legally or illegally, at the expense of the poor. The purpose in detailing these strategies, is not to imply that they are literally applicable to the present, but rather to highlight a Judeo-Christian tradition of caring for land as gift, of limitations on legal or illegal grasping and owning of land; and the redistribution of land or equivalent resources when the poor are excluded. Informed by this tradition, the treaty making process would have been vastly different; reciprocally, Native American attitudes toward the land could have awakened the Judo-Christian tradition as a resource for dealing with today’s environmental crises and inequities.

The following strategies for land care and land redistribution are referenced in multiple places throughout the Bible and are detailed fairly comprehensively in Leviticus 25 –

Every seventh year there shall be a sabbath of complete rest for the land; let it rest and lie fallow, so that the needy of your people may eat; and whatever they leave the beasts of the field may eat. You are to do the same with your vineyard and your olive grove.

At the end of every seven years you shall grant a remission of debts.

The land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for the land is mine; with me you are but aliens and tenants.

(Jubilee) Hallow the fiftieth year and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you: you shall return, every one of you, to your property and every one of you to your family.

Land care, as social contract with Creator, (people being as tenants) is continued in the New Testament. Jubilee, with land redistribution and the release of captives or slaves, is at the center of Luke's presentation of Jesus.

Luke 4: 16-19 --When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, Jesus went to the synagogue on the sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written: The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.”

Jesus taught, (Matthew 5:5) “Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the land.”

Jesus is a threat to vested interests in his time because he announced Jubilee, proposing to give land and dignity back to those who had lost it. “The first shall be last and the last shall be first.” The good news is not that the poor are blessed for being poor, but that to them belongs the kingdom, that is, the new land. (Luke 6:20)

Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth. (Matthew 5:20)

(From 10th commandment) “Do not covet your neighbor’s field.”

Against coveting, the Old and New Testament celebrate land redistribution, which breaks up monopolies and gives back land to those who should properly have it. In Joshua 13-19, care is taken that when land is returned, tribal groups receive their proper entitlements. Those who violate those old rights in the interest of land speculation and land seizure would not prevail. It is not a difficult stretch of imagination to link the lessons of redistribution to Israeli tribes with policies toward Native American tribes.

Biblical scholar, Walter Brueggeman, brings together themes of the Old Testament, the New Testament and issues of our contemporary society, when he writes,

The grasped land of the kings has important points of contact with a production-consumption set of values in which it is assumed that more leads to well-being and security. The production-consumption values inevitably place a central priority upon utility, upon reward for people who can perform useful tasks. Such values tend to discard people without utility. And Jesus, the center of land history, announced and embodied the conviction that in the new land (the kingdom) the issue of utility as a means of entry was not pertinent (see Luke 14:12-14, 21-24).

“When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, in case they may invite you in return, and you would be repaid. 13But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. 14And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you,

How staggering it could yet be if we are driven to the unthinkable possibility that land cannot be arranged on the basis of utility. The articulation of the gift/grasp issue is a warning against utility as a norm for land. If utility for production and consumption is not a norm for landedness, then we are given new pause about urban development and "progress" that claims the right to relocate and reassign people, to move them from storied place to history-less space.[10] It is commonplace in the so-called “prosperous” cities of the United States and of the world, often those that have the attraction of high-tech companies, that children, older people, and service labor have less utility value and are forced to move out of the city and commute from a distance to serve those whom the marketplace regards as having more worth.

Child-Rearing Practices

Continuing the discussion of what could happen differently (past and present) if representatives of the Judeo-Christian tradition entered into respectful dialogue with Native American spiritual practices, this discussion turns from land to child rearing.

Earlier in this book, attention was called to how US policies endeavored to replace genocidal violence with harsh strategies for assimilation designed to do away with Native American resistance. The dual focus of the strategies was 1) extinguishing Native American’s bond to the land, and 2) taking children from their families, placing them in boarding schools and endeavoring to “cleanse” their bodies, minds and spirits from Native American culture. In most cases, these harsh and often cruel boarding schools were run by Christian denominations. Native American child-rearing practices, unlike the boarding schools, were in harmony with the attitudes toward children prominent in the teachings of Jesus.

The following discussion will highlight Biblical references that mark a thematic movement through Biblical documents that culminate in tuning into the hearts of children. The cultural traditions extant at of the most ancient settings of Old Testament oral traditions and documents included gynocratic or matriarchal societies as evidenced in the archaeological evidence from Crete, on the one hand; and patriarchal nomadic societies on the other end of the spectrum, such as those that surrounded the emergence of the Israeli tribes. The gynocratic, women centered cultures eschewed violence and included permissive, nurturant child rearing practices. The nomadic, patriarchal tribes took a harsh stance toward children including sanctioning of their killing in war and child sacrifice to gain perceived favor with their gods.[11]

The Old Testament’s first legendary step toward child protection is the story of Yahweh instructing Abraham to sacrifice a ram instead of his son, distinguishing his actions from surrounding nomadic-tribal traditions. Child sacrifice continued within surrounding tribes and was also something that the prophets had to repeatedly admonish Israel to refrain from, calling it “passing children through the fire” to the god, Molech.[12]

A next step was, by inference, the honoring of children’s behavioral agency, as in the commandment to “honor your father and mother” from the Decalogue. A further movement toward parent-child mutuality is suggested, e.g., in the concluding verse of Malachi, stating that Elijah will reciprocally “turn hearts from parents to children and children to parents.”

Then, in the New Testament, Luke 1:17, an angel tells Zechariah, that his forthcoming son, John the Baptist, as forerunner to Jesus will “turn the hearts of parents to their children.” Unlike the anticipation of Elijah in Malachi 4: 6, here the turning of hearts concerns only the parents. It is the hearts of the parents—the power generation—that must turn reconciliation to the vulnerable children.[13] Putting the focus on children, sets the stage for Jesus’ teaching ; e.g., –

Luke 18:15-17: People were bringing even infants to him that he might touch them; and when the disciples saw it, they sternly ordered them not to do it. But Jesus called for them and said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs. Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.”

Matthew 18: 4-6: Whoever becomes humble like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me. If any of you put a stumbling block before one of these little ones who believe in me, it would be better for you if a great millstone were fastened around your neck and you were drowned in the depth of the sea.

Although Native American tribal groups varied in their child-rearing practices, in general, children enjoyed a high status that resonated with the sacred nature described in the New Testament.

A traditional Lakota prayer includes children as sacred among all beings not just the Lakota tribe’s. This quotation is from the elderly Black Elk,

“Great Spirit ..., all over the earth the faces of living things are all alike. With tenderness have these come up out of the ground. Look upon these faces of children without number and with children in their arms, that they may face the winds and walk the good road to the day of quiet. This is my prayer; hear me! The voice I have sent is weak, yet with earnestness I have sent it. Hear me!”[14]

Regard for all of Mother Earth’s children is also a foundation of the proverbial Native American reminder to always consider future generations in all decision-making. John Mohawk has written,

The unborn generations’ faces come toward us from our Mother Earth, still part of her flesh and spirit. They are the community of human beings whose welfare our actions today affects, and it is they who will judge the life that we who are living now leave to them.

And so, when we judge the life that we lead on this earth, we always try to do so through the eyes of the unborn generations.

It is our awareness of the spirit of a common dedication to the provision of a good life for our children and our children’s children that can enable nations to fulfill their just purpose.[15]

Martin Brokenleg, Prof. of Native American studies at Augustana College, has been quoted,

“Native Americans have a very high regard for children; in the Lakota language, the word for child means ‘standing sacred.’ Children are treated respectfully and there is no punishment. This is in contrast to the Dickensonian approach to child-rearing brought to this country by the English. Adults felt they had to punish children to shape them.[16]

His description is echoed by Paula Gunn Allen, in her book, Sacred Hoops. Through her research, she describes how most North American tribes either have gynocentric traditions or since 1800 have emerged from such a pre-European historical background. She notes how this affected their child rearing practices. “The welfare of the young is paramount, the complementary nature of all life forms is stressed and the centrality of powerful women to social well-being is unquestioned.” She contrasts these beliefs to the harsh conditions that characterized most United States sponsored boarding schools to which many Native American children were abducted.

Imprisoning, torturing, caning, strapping, starving, or verbally abusing children was considered outrageous behavior. Native Americans did not believe that physical or psychological abuse of children would result in their edification. Punitiveness was not used as a means of social control. [17]

Native American children modeled and imitated the behaviors of important people in their lives. Although child rearing was predominantly a female task, men and women of all ages worked together to raise children. Traditional education of children involved the use of stories, humor, and theater; experience as a primary tool for learning was emphasized. Although seen as individuals, children were reared to be responsible to the community.

Prominent Old Testament scholar, Walter Brueggeman, has written repeatedly about how the previously described prophetic warnings against over commoditization and “passing children through the fire” are applicable to American society. Had there been respectful dialogue, parallel spiritual beliefs embraced by Native Americans, might have highlighted these Biblical resources for Judeo-Christians.

Referring to Biblical statements associated with Elijah, Malachi, John the Baptist, and Jesus, Brueggeman sees a movement that refused the hostage taking of the Empire in which the hearts of adults are turned against children, passing them through fire. Such heightened moral consciousness in America today, would not permit schools and childcare to be funded inadequately and disparately according to their values as commodities in the marketplace. Nor would children be denied asylum and/or taken as hostages at the border to deter migration.

NPR reported on June 19, 2018, that “Since early May, 2,342 children have been separated from their parents after crossing the Southern U.S. border, according to the Department of Homeland Security…”[18]Thousands of allegations of sexual abuse against unaccompanied minors (UAC) in the custody of the U.S. government have been reported over the past 4 years, according to Department of Health and Human Services documents given to Axios by Rep. Ted Deutch's office.[19]

10 million child slaves in the world are ignored. “Passing through fire” is a willingness to sacrifice the future, that is, our children, for the sake of present well-being. Critical thought and resistance to overcoming our endless commitment to fossil fuels and an unlivable planet is overcome by our concerns for the economics of commodifying almost everything. Concluding in the language of the prophets that he has so meticulously studied, Brueggeman writes,

“In two or three generations, our sons and daughters will pass through the fire of unsustainable creation, all because of endless commoditization offered to the idols of commodity in the form of unregulated economics.”[20]

As I was writing the preceding paragraph, I could not help but think of this recent news release,

The Trans Mountain pipeline expansion should be approved by the government of Canada, the country’s National Energy Board found Friday in a massive report. The project would likely harm endangered southern resident killer whales, increase greenhouse-gas emissions that worsen the impacts of climate warming, and could cause oil spills that would be damaging to the environment, the board found. However, the more-than-700-mile-long pipeline should be approved by the government anyway, the board found, because it is in Canada’s national interest.

Idolizing our present system of commoditization and income distribution leads to the illusions that it is not in the national interests of either the United States or Canada to save the world’s ecosystems, even though we are pulling down other species to death with us. Where are the plans as to where our nations should be moved, as the environment fails? ☹[21] As noted earlier, the Biblical, prophetic, “woe unto you” type statements do not imply an active intervention by Yahweh, but rather that the destructive consequences of idolatrous actions are inherent in the actions themselves; and, that generally, the consequences come upon the innocent as well as the guilty. This is certainly true when it comes to fueling climate change.

The Judeo-Christian Belief in “Chosen People” and the U.S. Tradition of “Manifest Destiny”

The Judeo Christian theme of “Chosen People” and its transmorphing into “Manifest Destiny” had a major influence on US policy that “justified” the conquering of Native Americans and the taking of their lands. Both the Old and New Testament are sometimes preoccupied with the notion of being chosen by God, but the Biblical tradition regarding exclusive chosenness is mixed. When tainted by exclusiveness, divine chosenness can be used to rationalize aggression. This was the case when chosenness, operating from a lineage that extended from the Old Testament, the New Testament, European Christianity, the pilgrims, and finally transmorphed into the concept of Manifest Destiny, justified the grabbing of all land coast-to-coast, committing genocide against Native Americans on the way. This invasion had its ancient precedent when the Israelites conquered the Canaanites to take their land, because in their chosenness, they perceived a promise of entitlement to the land of Canaan. The book of Joshua is filled with violence that justified killing Canaanite men, women and children.

A sense of entitlement to land and resources belonging to other people, associated with chosenness, converged with wetiko when Columbus came to North America.

“The rising of the sea was very favorable to me,” he [Christopher Columbus] recorded in his journal, “as it happened formerly to Moses when he led the Jews from Egypt.” On a later voyage Columbus claimed that God had treated him like Moses and David, adding, “What more did he do for the people of Israel when he brought them out of Egypt?”[22]

The lineage of “chosenness” from Columbus to the present is readily apparent. If, in pushing West, the representatives of the Judeo-Christian tradition, had respectfully observed that Native American tribes conceived of themselves as being the chosen residents of their Lands, they might have been awakened to another aspect of the Biblical tradition wherein chosenness is inclusive rather than exclusive. Those missionaries might then have prevented some of the United States genocidal actions; and, perhaps, even become a mitigating force on how the concept of Manifest Destiny has been and is still being used to justify “America First;” sometimes, transmorphed into White America First. John Winthrop, the initial governor of the Massachusetts Bay colony, identified Cotton Mather as “America’s Nehemiah,” that is, as the governor of the chosen people.[23] In the 1840s William Fall Giles, US Representative and later federal judge, could say of US expansionism: We must march from ocean to ocean . . . straight to the Pacific Ocean, and be bounded only by its roaring waves. . . . Or John Calhoun in the same period: “We have never dreamt of incorporating into our Union any but the Caucasian race. . . . Ours, sir, is the destiny of the White race, it is the destiny of the Anglo-Saxon race,”[24] the Government of a White race. Most recently, Iowa representative, Steve King not only defended White nationalism and White supremacy, but also noted how he had internalized the concepts from his education. He stated,

“White nationalist, White supremacist, Western civilization – how did that language become offensive? Why did I sit in classes teaching me about the merits of our history and our civilization?”[25]

“Chosen People” when taken to mean superiority to other people, (like wetiko) results in a sense of entitlement not only to other people’s lands; but also, entitlement to extract their resources.

Acknowledging other peoples as also chosen, highlights a competing Biblical theme that nullifies the concept of exclusiveness. The Abrahamic legend supports exclusive chosenness and the unconditional promise of land and is yet used to support Israel’s non-sharing with Palestinians and other Middle Eastern neighbors. But the Moses tradition took a first step away from exclusivism, making Yahweh’s promise of land conditional upon acting with justice, opening space for prophetic exclamations regarding land management and relationships to neighbors. In this later tradition, if the voice of justice is not heard, the promise of land becomes a curse rather than a blessing.[26]

The infection of wetiko has often led United States policymakers to embrace the concept of “chosenness” as exclusiveness, as putting the United States Manifest Destiny above the interests of other nations. Old Testament prophets warned against exclusiveness and laid the groundwork for compassionate, inclusive relationships with other nations.

When chosenness is interpreted to mean the exclusion of others

It is clear that “the other”—non-Christian, non-White, non-Westerner—does not need to be honored if and when Christian White Westerners are superior.

Exclusion concerns the racist notion of the purity of “holy seed,” which requires “separation” from other peoples. This racist interpretation of chosenness can be found as one theme in both the Old and New Testament:

Do not be mismatched with unbelievers. For what partnership is there between righteousness and lawlessness? Or what fellowship is there between light and darkness? It is you the Lord has chosen out of all the peoples on earth to be his people, his treasured possession. (Deut 14:1–2)

I Peter 2:9 “Peter” can assert that the church is “a chosen race, (overt racism) a royal priesthood. (“like us” to the exclusion of all others.) An even more vigorous distinctiveness is articulated in 2 Corinthians 6:14–7:1:

Do not be mismatched with unbelievers. For what partnership is there between righteousness and lawlessness? Or what fellowship is there between light and darkness? What agreement does Christ have with Beliar? Or what does a believer share with an unbeliever? What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; as God said, “I will live in them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Therefore come out from them, and be separate from them, says the Lord, and touch nothing unclean; then I will welcome you, I will be your father, and you shall be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty.” (again, “like us” to the exclusion of all others.)

The current heated debate about immigration and the widespread practice of deportation evidences the continuing power of exclusivism as a way to enforce and insist on a certain kind of chosenness. From exclusionary exceptionalism in the United States, it is easy enough to segue to White exclusionary practice and White nationalism. Pres. Trump has remarked that he wants fewer immigrants from Haiti and shithole countries like Africa and more from places like Norway.[27] Whether or not the United States is full depends upon your skin color being brown or white.

Chosenness, When Exclusive, Includes Entitlement to Extract Resources from the Non-chosen[28]

Chosenness issues in extraction by coercion. Wealth is extracted from the vulnerable nonchosen and is transferred to the “chosen,” who turn out to be the powerful who manage the processes of socioeconomic distribution. White chosenness has legitimated extraction of goods and services from non-Whites. Slavery was a source of cheap labor that brought great wealth to the ownership class. The long-standing arrangement of “separate but equal” served (and was designed to maintain) a supply of cheap labor by denying access to educational and other opportunities that would enable climbing the economic ladder.

Against Chosenness As Exclusive

The moral case against the exclusive chosenness tradition of Israel is that it violently appropriated the land of the Canaanites, and it did so, says the tradition, at the behest of and with the legitimating power of YHWH. The Book of Joshua is replete with narratives of the barbaric dispatch of the indigenous population, and with attestation of divine sanction for such actions. It foreshadowed the treatment of slaves as animals and the genocide of Native Americans.

Chosenness, interpreted as exclusion, was railed against by the prophets. Amos gives voice to Yahweh as proclaiming an inclusive chosenness, 9:7:

Are you not like the Ethiopians to me, O people of Israel? says the Lord?

Did I not bring Israel up from the land of Egypt, and the Philistines from Caphtor and the Arameans from Kir?

Old Testament scholar, Walter Brueggeman, comments,

The initial question in this text would likely evoke a response of no from Amos’s listeners. No, we are not like the Ethiopians because we are chosen. But Amos intends a yes. Yes, Israel is like the Ethiopians, thereby subverting the claim of chosenness as exclusive.

…Yes, God “brought up” Israel from Egypt; Yes, God “brought up” the Philistines from Caphtor; Yes, God “brought up” the Syrians from Kir.

…Israel is regarded by God just like the other peoples, just like the others in dependence upon YHWH. …Amos asserts that God has many chosen peoples, including Israel’s adversaries.

Chosenness, as an experience of a people receiving land and/or other blessings from Creator, is described by the prophets as a blessing “for all nations” for “all peoples.” Israelies are admonished to perceive their chosenness as non-exclusive.

In Micah 4:1–5 and Isaiah 2:2–4 the prophets offer an anticipatory vision of a coming drama in Jerusalem. In the vision “all nations” and “many peoples” will come to Jerusalem to be instructed in the ways of peace and justice.

Micah 4: In days to come the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be raised up above the hills. Peoples shall stream to it, 2and many nations shall come and say: “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.”

… 3He shall judge between many peoples, and shall arbitrate between strong nations far away; they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more; 4but they shall all sit under their own vines and under their own fig trees, and no one shall make them afraid; for the mouth of the Lord of hosts has spoken. 5For all the peoples walk, each in the name of its god, but we will walk in the name of the Lord our God forever and ever.

The Jerusalem temple will no longer be a place for exclusive worship of an Israelite God. Now it is envisioned as a place where all nations will worship the God of all peoples. Especially telling of inclusion is Micah 4:5. This verse characterizes the procession of people’s coming to Jerusalem as each purposing to learn the ways of peace, as having many different faith affirmations. Each people in the procession will have its own faith commitment and be motivated by “it’s God,” who is not perceived as the God of Israel. That is, Israel’s conception of God has no monopoly on the pilgrimage of peace. Other people with other perceptions of God can join the parade.[29]

The prophets are calling Israel to perceive their chosenness as shared with all other beings as articulated in the covenant statement that followed the story of the great flood. God established the inclusiveness of Divine presence and love, saying, “I have set my bow in the clouds, a sign of the covenant between me and the Earth and every living creature.” (Gen. 9) One with “All Our Relatives” (Mitaqouyasin) is a Way of Life found not only among Native Americans but also within the foundation of the Judeo-Christian Tradition.

Isaiah, 19:24–25, in this passage declares that shared worship is a part of inclusiveness. He imagines a new map of the Near East where there will be free passage between the several nations and shared worship between Assyria, the northern power, and Egypt, the southern power (v. 23). Then, in verses 24–25 the prophet goes further and imagines God constructing a new regime of chosenness:

On that day Israel will be the third with Egypt and Assyria, a blessing in the midst of the earth, whom the Lord of hosts has blessed, saying, “Blessed be Egypt my people, and Assyria the work of my hands, and Israel my heritage.”

In the New Testament, inclusiveness again echoes through the words of the prophet, Isaiah, whom Jesus quoted when he cleaned out the temple, “...all who hold fast my covenant, these I will bring to the holy mountain; and make them joyful in my house of prayer; their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be accepted on my altar; for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples.” (Isaiah 56:7)

A deeply rooted aspect of the human psyche wants to be the “most special.” Perhaps it is seated in our DNA? Or, perhaps it is rooted in the necessary specialness of infant to the mother, required for the care necessary to thrive? Across cultures, it is a challenging developmental task to balance the need to be special, to have self-esteem, with family and community needs for resonance to inclusiveness. The psychological challenges are intertwined with cultural challenges to groups and nations. Instinctual enthusiasm is generated within an experience of a group or a nation that is felt to be most special, be it an athletic team or at a larger scale, being a part of nationalistic fervor. The formidableness of this challenge is what necessitated the prophets to repeatedly say “woe unto you and your people,” whenever chosenness became exclusive. In this book we have traced some of the destructive consequences of exclusive chosenness, as in manifestations of racism, as in the United States’ sense of “Manifest Destiny,” and we could add “Christian supremacism,” “White supremacy,” all forms of excessive Nationalism and such racist movements as neo-Nazism and anti-Semitism. When chosenness becomes exclusiveness, vulnerability to being caught up in wetiko is not far behind.

Going back to the New Testament, it took Peter being shaken up in a trance state for him to be pulled out of his needs for religious exclusiveness and to embrace religious inclusiveness.

Acts 10:9 ff. reads,

About noon,…Peter went up on the roof to pray. He became hungry and wanted something to eat; and while it was being prepared, he fell into a trance. He saw heaven opened and something like a large sheet coming down, being lowered to the ground by its four corners. In it were all kinds of four-footed creatures and reptiles and birds of the air. Then he heard a voice saying, “Get up, Peter; kill and eat.” But Peter said, “By no means, Lord; for I have never eaten anything that is profane or unclean.” The voice said to him again, a second time, “What God has made clean, you must not call profane.” This happened three times, and the thing was suddenly taken up to heaven.

Soon Peter’s revelatory understanding was tested by an invitation to visit the home of Capt. Cornelius, a Gentile. Arriving at Cornelius’s home, Peter stated

“You yourselves know that it is unlawful for a Jew to associate with or to visit a Gentile; but God has shown me that I should not call anyone profane or unclean. … “I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him. …While Peter was still speaking, the Holy Spirit fell upon all who heard the word. The circumcised believers who had come with Peter were astounded that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on the Gentiles…

In the New Testament, the admission of gentiles into the fellowship of the church was the decisive shattering of old exclusive notions of chosenness. In the United States, we continue to face the central value issue as to whether or not we utilize our chosenness, our exceptionalism, to exclude ourselves from the common interests of the planetary community; or, we undertake to do our part in addressing world problems of climate change, extinctions, bondaged labor and poverty.

[1] Wilson, James. The Earth Shall Weep: A History of Native America (p. 309). Grove Atlantic. Kindle Edition. [2] Barreiro, José. Thinking in Indian: A John Mohawk Reader (p. 9). Fulcrum Publishing. Kindle Edition. [3] Barreiro, José. Thinking in Indian: A John Mohawk Reader (p. 11). Fulcrum Publishing. Kindle Edition. [4] Barreiro, José. Thinking in Indian: A John Mohawk Reader (p. 12). Fulcrum Publishing. [5] Through Indian Eyes, p. [6] Walter Brueggemann. Land Revised Edition (Overtures to Biblical Theology) (Kindle Locations 2778-2784). Kindle Edition. [7] Walter Brueggemann. Land Revised Edition (Overtures to Biblical Theology) (Kindle Locations 1517-1519). Kindle Edition. [8] Walter Brueggemann. Land Revised Edition (Overtures to Biblical Theology) Kindle Edition. [9] Walter Brueggemann. Land Revised Edition (Overtures to Biblical Theology) (Kindle Locations 2813-2814). Kindle Edition [10] Walter Brueggemann. Land Revised Edition (Overtures to Biblical Theology) (Kindle Locations 3205-3207). Kindle Edition. [11] Renae Eisler, The Chalice and the Blade [12] http://www.crossroad.to/heaven/Excerpts/glossary/rpg/molech.htm [13] Brueggemann, Walter. Tenacious Solidarity. Fortress Press. Kindle Edition. [14] _____ Black Elk Speaks [15] Barreiro, José. Thinking in Indian: A John Mohawk Reader (p. 3). Fulcrum Publishing. Kindle Edition. [16]http://firstpeoplesvoices.com/morality.htm [17] Allen, Paula Gunn. The Sacred Hoop: Recovering the Feminine in American Indian Traditions . Open Road Media. Kindle Edition. [18] https://www.npr.org/2018/06/19/621065383/what-we-know-family-separation-and-zero-tolerance-at-the-border [19] https://www.axios.com/immigration-unaccompanied-minors-sexual-assault-3222e230-29e1-430f-a361-d959c88c5d8c.html [20] Brueggemann, Walter. Tenacious Solidarity . Fortress Press. Kindle Edition. [21] https://www.adn.com/nation-world/2019/02/23/despite-harm-to-orcas-canada-should-expand-pipeline-energy-board-says/ by Linda Mapes, February22, 2019 [22] Bruce Feiler, America’s Prophet: Moses and the American Story (New York: HarperCollins, 2009), cited by Brueggemann, Walter. Tenacious Solidarity . Fortress Press. Kindle Edition. [23] Brueggemann, Walter. Tenacious Solidarity. Fortress Press. Kindle Edition. [24] Brueggemann, Walter. Tenacious Solidarity . Fortress Press. Kindle Edition [25] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/iowa-rep-steve-king-White-nationalism-and-White-supremacy/ [26] Brueggemann, Walter. Tenacious Solidarity. Fortress Press. Kindle Edition. [27] Jen Kirby, https://www.vox.com/2018/1/11/16880750/trump-immigrants-shithole-countries-norway [28] Brueggemann, Walter. Tenacious Solidarity. Fortress Press. Kindle Edition. [29] Brueggemann, Walter. Tenacious Solidarity. Fortress Press. Kindle Edition.

TRANSITION

The Closing of the Treaty Era and the Rise of Federal Attempts to Manage, Assimilate, or Terminate Native American Tribes.

As the treaty era drew to a close, the primary government weapons for controlling tribal lives, (and the attempt to turn tribes into separated individuals) were the severing of bonds to the land and the breaking up of culture through laws and the family separation that would be “achieved” through Boarding Schools.[cviii]

Those who advocated for permutations of these strategies, so-called reformers, often had the best of intentions, forming such organizations as “Friends of the Indian.” Others, generally lurking in the wings, were business interests seeking to profit from Native American land and resources.

The solutions to the Indian “problem” seemed clear to the reformers: civilization through citizenship, free enterprise, and private ownership of land. As passionate as the Friends of the Indian were, they did not consider what Indians thought and what Indians themselves wanted.[cix]

The Boarding Schools

Brig. Gen. Richard Pratt is known as the founder of Native American Boarding Schools, starting the prototype at Carlisle, Pennsylvania. He opened the first of many in 1879, in an abandoned army barracks. Pratt noted,

A great general has said that the only good Indian is a dead one, and that high sanction of his destruction has been an enormous factor in promoting Indian massacres. In a sense, I agree with the sentiment, but only in this: that all the Indian there is in the race should be dead. Kill the Indian in him, and save the man.[cx]

Students were forbidden to speak their native languages, at risk of physical punishment. Upon arrival, students were photographed in their traditional garb and then stripped, stuffed into uniforms, and boys shorn of their longhair. Perhaps no other aspect of Indian education during the sixty years of the boarding school era is more tragic than that the school grounds at Carlisle will all the other schools included graveyards. The traumas of premature dying and death affected not only the direct victims and their families, but also terrorized and scarred their classmates.

At Haskell, a forlorn cemetery is tucked behind the power plant and marked by more than a hundred small White tombstones. Many of the children who died there didn’t even get a marker. At Carlisle, hundreds of students were buried. The names on the graves at Flandreau are a poignant roll call of a whole generation of Indians from across the country who never made it back to their tribal homes and never saw their parents again. Indian children were six times as likely to die in childhood while at Boarding Schools than the rest of the children in America. Despite the good intentions of reformers (and because of those intentions) significant portions of three entire generations of Indians died in the boarding schools, and countless more were damaged by them.[cxi]

The comprehensive Merriman report, published in 1928, provided a penetrating look at conditions. Most schools ran largely on Indian child labor. Students milked the cows and killed the chickens and split the wood and mowed the fields and Whitewashed the walls and cooked the food. The report cautioned that “if the labor of the boarding school is to be done by the pupils, it is essential that the pupils be old enough and strong enough to do institutional work.” It also noted that “there are numbers of young children, and in the reservation Boarding Schools the children are conspicuously small and …. who, according to competent medical opinion, are malnourished.”

The report noted … insufficient ventilation, rampant overcrowding, frequently nonoperational toilets and sinks, and an almost complete absence of “modern” laundry facilities. In one school very small children were discovered working behind piles of laundry that dwarfed them because the superintendent found they folded more when confronted by big piles. At another, the children were too malnourished to play. Even where they had the energy, they were often required to “maintain a pathetic degree of quietness.” Some authorities did not allow them to speak at all. Most schools included a sort of jail used to discipline children.

The report concluded, “The generally routinized nature of the institutional life with its formalism in classrooms, its marching and dress parades, its annihilation of initiative, its lack of beauty, its almost complete negation of normal family life, all have disastrous effects upon mental health and the development of wholesome personality.

Such were the ways in which Boarding Schools tried to “kill the Indian” to “save the man.” From 1879 to the late 1930s, when the last compulsory boarding school programs were suspended, tens of thousands of Indian children were torn away from their families, forced to abandon their cultures and religions, and indoctrinated in federally funded religious schools.[cxii]

Many Indian leaders seemed to support the schools; they had come to recognize that assimilation was the only hope for the survival of their children. Conditions “back home” were often worse, and some parents begged the schools to take their children because they couldn’t afford to feed them. The majority of Indian parents, however, didn’t want to be separated from their children and resisted putting them in the system. Indian Agents did not hesitate to coerce them.[cxiii]

Allotment

Besides Boarding Schools, the other major strategy for breaking tribal culture was to sever them from their land.

An 1888 report, asserted that the Indian “must be imbued with the exalting egotism of American civilization so that he will say ‘I’ instead of ‘We,’ and ‘This is mine’ instead of ‘This is ours.’” And in 1896, Merrill Gates, the future head of the Board of Indian Commissioners, stated: “We must make the Indian more intelligently selfish. . . . By acquiring property, man puts forth his personality and lays hold of matter by his own thought and will.”

Senator Henry Dawes, a member of the Friends of the Indian, helped push forward the General Allotment Act. To the reformers of the Friends of the Indian and the Indian Rights Association, its (so-called) strengths were that it promised to break up the tribe as a social unit, encourage private enterprise and farming, reduce the cost of Indian administration, fund the emerging boarding school system (with the sale of “surplus land”), and provide a land base for White settlement.

David Treuer noted,

“If we look back at the period now, it is impossible not to feel a kind of sickness at the thought that the government stole Indian land in order to fund the theft of Indian children.” By the time of the Wounded Knee Massacre in 1890, allotment was in full swing. Indian agents were busy hiring surveyors, recording deeds, and registering heads of household. Armies of surveyors platted Indian homelands and marked them off. Clerks worked nonstop copying and recording deeds (although even under this new system, Indians could not buy or sell land—the allotments “owned” by Indians were in fact owned by the government in trust).[cxiv]

Indian agents consolidated power by giving good allotments to Indians who supported their policies and even, in some cases, made sure that especially good allotments were excluded from the process so that White people (often business interests who had agents in their pockets) ended up owning vast tracts of the very best land within the boundaries of the reservation. It is no accident that non-Natives own the majority of the lakeshore on all the best lakes in Minnesota, or the richest farmland with access to water in Nebraska, Montana, and South Dakota.

Allotment was as cruel a kind of coercion as the withholding of rations. Sometimes the two were used together—rations for Indians who were reluctant to adopt the allotment system were delivered late, were of even poorer quality, and were sometimes withheld altogether until the requisite signatures were put to paper. Starvation is a powerful motivator.[cxv]

At the end of the allotment period—which stretched from 1887 to 1934—Indian landholdings had dropped from 138 million to 48 million acres. What the process of so called “civilization” had brought to Indian country was poverty, disenfranchisement, and the breakdown of Indian families. Without steady employment, often homeless on their own reservations, chronically malnourished, Indians across the country were vulnerable to disease. At Grand Portage Reservation in far northern Minnesota, tuberculosis struck more than 30 percent of the population. Poverty took the children, and it also took the parents. Boarding Schools gradually filled with orphans.[cxvi]

The Code of Indian Offenses, Including Ceremonial Dancing and Indigenous Medicine

In the midst of poverty and the assault on their social structures, life on the reservations became increasingly chaotic. Traditional warrior societies, such as the Dog Soldiers among the Lakota and the Bear Clan among the Ojibwe, which enforced tribal law and kept the peace, were in shambles or underground or suppressed. There were shortages of food, clothing, blankets, and shelter. And the very structure of many reservations was a cancer on a people’s sense of self. Who are we, a tribe might ask, when we can no longer hunt or fish or gather or travel? As the living conditions on reservations grew worse, the rhetoric of reformers rose to a higher pitch. In 1877, Episcopal bishop William Hobart Hare wrote: Civilization has loosened, in some places broken, the bonds which regulate and hold together Indian society in its wild state and has failed to give people law and officers of justice in their place.

Although the abject poverty of reservation life was caused by the coercive and exploitive policies and presence of the dominant culture rather than caused by tribes or tribal society, policy makers were willfully blind to their complicity. In 1878, legislation was passed empowering Indian agents to hire police to keep “law and order” on reservations around the country. In 1883 a Court of Indian Offenses was created and funded by Congress. But it was clear that the agents who pushed for the bill and the legislators who drafted it had more than law and order in mind. Here was another assault on Indian cultural selfhood and autonomy.[cxvii]

Henry M. Teller, Secretary of the Interior, had been dead set against the Dawes Act (allotment), which he saw for what it was.

The “real aim of this bill is to get at the Indian lands and open them up to settlement,” he wrote. “The provisions for the apparent benefit of the Indian are but the pretext to get at his lands and occupy them. . . . If this were done in the name of greed, it would be bad enough; but to do it in the name of humanity, and under the cloak of an ardent desire to promote the Indian’s welfare by making him like ourselves whether he will or not, is infinitely worse.”

Nevertheless, Teller was equally opposed to Indian cultural autonomy. In the preamble to the Code of Indian Offenses that could be tried in the new court, He pointed out,

“what I regard as a great hindrance to the civilization of the Indians, is the continuance of the old heathenish dances. … Another great hindrance to the civilization of the Indians is the influence of the medicine men, who are always found with the anti-progressive party.”[cxviii]

The codes were clear: Indian ceremonial life was to be disrupted by Indian police and tried in the Court of Indian Offenses and adhering to one’s traditions was to be punished with the withholding of rations, the threat of loss of property, and exclusion from the running of tribal affairs. As with the boarding school system and allotment, the Code of Indian Offenses was designed to destroy Indian culture as a means of making Indians American, but Americans on the bottom rung of the ladder.[cxix]

The Seeds of Renewed Tribal Resistance to Severance from Land and Culture –

Even as the Friends of the Indian and the Indian Rights Association tried to push the Dawes Act through Congress as a way of helping Indians become civilized, another organization sprang up that was opposed to such measures and committed to including Indians’ points of view in policies that affected them: the National Indian Defense Association (NIDA). Their activism gave tribes a tiny bit of wiggle room in being consulted regarding their allotment processes. The leaders of the Red Lake reservation leveraged that bit of space into resistance.

The Red Lake leadership noticed that on other reservations marked by dissent or populated with variously displaced and relocated bands and tribes and families, the government and its agents were very successful at playing factions off one another, empowering some people and disempowering others, until they got their way. The Red Lake leaders worked together to make sure that each and every community on the reservation was represented by hereditary chiefs. They met regularly and worked through their considerable differences.

They formalized their structure of governance by creating the General Council of the Red Lake Band of Chippewa Indians. They not only kept the reservation boundaries free from allotment, they also protected their spiritual ceremonies. Although, nevertheless, victimized by the assault of boarding schools, their success in resisting meant that when their children completed school, they could return to a strong community. Other tribes were not so lucky, but they all resisted their own destruction in their own way.

Despite the government’s three-pronged assault on Indian communities and people (boarding schools, allotment, and the law), Indian tribes not only clung to the old ways but also found in them a strength that would see them through this awful middle passage.[cxx]

The Indian Reorganization Act

John Collier, the force behind the Indian Reorganization Act, was born into a powerful political and banking family in Atlanta in 1884. Studying at Columbia, he came to believe that capitalism, if not modernity itself, was not altogether a good thing. American society, he would later say, was “physically, religiously, socially, and aesthetically shattered, dismembered, directionless.” In his mind, mechanization, modern life, and the striving for money eroded community and purpose. From 1907 to 1919 he served as the secretary for the People’s Institute, which taught political theory and social philosophy to workers and immigrants in New York City, focusing on ways to bolster ethnic and cultural pride through parades, lectures, and pageants. continued in Book Blog #9

[i] Brown, Dee. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West (p. 1). Open Road Media. Kindle Edition. [ii] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tecumseh. [iii] Ibid. [iv] Ibid. [v] Ibid. [vi] Ibid. [vii]https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-tame-continent-america-945121 [viii] [ix] Wilson, James. The Earth Shall Weep: A History of Native America (p. 256). Grove Atlantic. Kindle Edition. At a profound level, the animals gave themselves to their human relations, who had to respond by showing their gratitude and love through ritual and - since the gift was intended to benefit all the people - by sharing the meat with the same open-handed generosity [x] Brown, Dee. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West (p. 37). Open Road Media. Kindle Edition. [xi] Brown, Dee. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West (p. 38). Open Road Media. Kindle Edition. [xii] Brown, Dee. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West (p. 40). Open Road Media. Kindle Edition. [xiii] Brown, Dee. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West (p. 45). Open Road Media. Kindle Edition. [xiv] Brown, Dee. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West (p. 52). Open Road Media. Kindle Edition. [xv] Brown, Dee. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West (p. 54). Open Road Media. Kindle Edition. [xvi] Brown, Dee. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West (p. 55). Open Road Media. Kindle Edition. [xvii] Brown, Dee. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West (p. 60). Open Road Media. Kindle Edition. [xviii] Treuer, David. The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee (p. 93). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. [xix] Brown, Dee. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West (p. 65). Open Road Media. Kindle Edition. [xx] Brown, Dee. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West (p. 65). Open Road Media. Kindle Edition. [xxi] Brown, Dee. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West (p. 70). Open Road Media. Kindle Edition. [xxii] Brown, Dee. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West (p. 71). Open Road Media. Kindle Edition. [xxiii] Brown, Dee. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West (p. 73). Open Road Media. Kindle Edition. [xxiv] Brown, Dee. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West (p. 77). Open Road Media. Kindle Edition. [xxv] Brown, Dee. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West (pp. 83-84). Open Road Media. Kindle Edition. [xxvi] Brown, Dee. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West (p. 84). Open Road Media. Kindle Edition. [xxvii] Brown, Dee. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West (pp. 85-87). Open Road Media. Kindle Edition. [xxviii] Brown, Dee. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West (pp. 88-90). Open Road Media. Kindle Edition. [xxix] Ibid. [xxx] Brown, Dee. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West (p. 90). Open Road Media. Kindle Edition. [xxxi] http://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/people/a_c/blackkettle.htm [xxxii] Brown, Dee. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West (pp. 92-94). Open Road Media. Kindle Edition. [xxxiii] Brown, Dee. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West (p. 97). Open Road Media. Kindle Edition. [xxxiv] Brown, Dee. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West (p. 98). Open Road Media. Kindle Edition. [xxxv] Brown, Dee. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West (p. 99). Open Road Media. Kindle Edition. [xxxvi] Brown, Dee. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West (p. 104). Open Road Media. Kindle Edition. [xxxvii] Brown, Dee. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West (p. 105). Open Road Media. Kindle Edition. [xxxviii] Brown, Dee. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West (p. 119). Open Road Media. Kindle Edition. [xxxix] Brown, Dee. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West (p. 130). Open Road Media. Kindle Edition. [xl] Brown, Dee. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West (p. 132). Open Road Media. Kindle Edition. [xli] Brown, Dee. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West (p. 132). Open Road Media. Kindle Edition. [xlii] Marshall, Joseph M. III, the Journey of Crazy Horse, Kindle Edition. [xliii] Brown, Dee. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West (p. 133). Open Road Media. Kindle Edition. [xliv] Brown, Dee. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West (p. 134). Open Road Media. Kindle Edition. [xlv] Brown, Dee. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West (p. 137). Open Road Media. Kindle Edition. [xlvi] Brown, Dee. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West (p. 138). Open Road Media. Kindle Edition. [xlvii] Brown, Dee. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West (p. 138). Open Road Media. Kindle Edition. [xlviii] Brown, Dee. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West (p. 122). Open Road Media. Kindle Edition. [xlix] Brown, Dee. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West (p. 144). Open Road Media. Kindle Edition. [l] Brown, Dee. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West (p. 162). Open Road Media. Kindle Edition. [li] Brown, Dee. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West (p. 187). Open Road Media. Kindle Edition. [lii] Brown, Dee. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West (p. 189). Open Road Media. Kindle Edition. [liii] Brown, Dee. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West (p. 273). Open Road Media. Kindle Edition. [liv] Brown, Dee. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West (p. 274). Open Road Media. Kindle Edition. [lv] Brown, Dee. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West (p. 276). Open Road Media. Kindle Edition. [lvi] Brown, Dee. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West (p. 279). Open Road Media. Kindle Edition. [lvii] Brown, Dee. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West (p. 279). Open Road Media. Kindle Edition. [lviii] Brown, Dee. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West (p. 284). Open Road Media. Kindle Edition. [lix] Brown, Dee. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West (p. 285). Open Road Media. Kindle Edition. [lx] Brown, Dee. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West (p. 287). Open Road Media. Kindle Edition. [lxi] Brown, Dee. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West (p. 288). Open Road Media. Kindle Edition. [lxii] Brown, Dee. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West (p. 289). Open Road Media. Kindle Edition. [lxiii] Brown, Dee. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West (p. 290). Open Road Media. Kindle Edition. [lxiv] Brown, Dee. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West (p. 290). Open Road Media. Kindle Edition. [lxv] Brown, Dee. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West (p. 293). Open Road Media. Kindle Edition. [lxvi] Brown, Dee. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West (p. 298). Open Road Media. Kindle Edition. [lxvii] Brown, Dee. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West (p. 439). Open Road Media. Kindle Edition. [lxviii] Brown, Dee. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West (p. 439). Open Road Media. Kindle Edition. [lxix] Brown, Dee. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West (p. 439). Open Road Media. Kindle Edition. [lxx] Brown, Dee. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West (p. 439). Open Road Media. Kindle Edition. [lxxi] Brown, Dee. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West (p. 441). Open Road Media. Kindle Edition. [lxxii] Brown, Dee. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West (p. 442). Open Road Media. Kindle Edition. [lxxiii] Brown, Dee. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West (p. 443). Open Road Media. Kindle Edition. [lxxiv] Brown, Dee. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West (p. 445). Open Road Media. Kindle Edition. [lxxv] Brown, Dee. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West (p. 446). Open Road Media. Kindle Edition. [lxxvi] Madley, Benjamin. An American Genocide: The United States and the California Indian Catastrophe, 1846-1873 (The Lamar Series in Western History) . Yale University Press. Kindle Edition. [lxxvii] Ibid. [lxxviii] Ibid. [lxxix] Ibid. [lxxx] Ibid. [lxxxi] Ibid. [lxxxii] Ibid. [lxxxiii] Ibid. [lxxxiv] Ibid. [lxxxv] Ibid. [lxxxvi] Ibid. [lxxxvii] Ibid. [lxxxviii] Ibid. [lxxxix] Ibid. [xc] Ibid. [xci] Ibid. [xcii] Ibid. [xciii] Ibid. [xciv] Ibid. [xcv] Ibid. [xcvi] Ibid. [xcvii] Ibid. [xcviii] Ibid. [xcix] Ibid. [c] Ibid. [ci] Ibid. [cii] Ibid. [ciii] Ibid. [civ] Ibid [cv] Ibid [cvi] Ibid [cvii] Treuer, David. The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee (p. 122). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. [cviii] Treuer, David. The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee (p. 113). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. [cix] David. The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee (p. 131). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. [cx] Treuer, David. The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee (p. 133). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. [cxi] Treuer, David. The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee (p. 140). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. [cxii] Treuer, David. The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee (p. 142). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition [cxiii] Treuer, David. The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee (pp. 142-143). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. [cxiv] Treuer, David. The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee (pp. 145-146). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. [cxv] Treuer, David. The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee (pp. 147-148). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. [cxvi] Treuer, David. The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee (p. 151). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. [cxvii] Treuer, David. The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee (pp. 152-153). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. [cxviii] Treuer, David. The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee (p. 154). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. [cxix] Treuer, David. The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee (p. 158). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. [cxx] Treuer, David. The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee (p. 175). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.