We Are Still Here

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 Bartolome 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 and Wounded Knee in South Dakota, and Sand Creek in Colorado. 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 rainforests 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 is 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

An Awkward Opportunity for White America

Growing up in a small town in southwest Virginia, I would not normally have had the chance to interact with Native Americans. In fact, all my years at home would likely have passed without such an occasion, except for a vacation trip my family took to the Eastern Shore when I was around 4 years old.

On that family excursion, one of our stops was at a "model Indian village," reconstructed to resemble what such a community would have looked like when my white ancestors first arrived here. I might not even remember this brief episode, if not for one quite disturbing moment. At one point during our visit, I was asked to sit down on a deerskin rug beside a Native American girl about my age to pose for a picture [right].

I was shy anyway, but there was something about this situation that was even more intimidating than usual. I can still recall the terrible awkwardness I felt as we sat beside each other for only as long as it took to take the picture. We may have been about the same age, but it was as if we had come to that rug from different worlds.

The 500th anniversary of Columbus' arrival in this hemisphere is important for people of my heritage precisely because it reminds us that these feelings of awkwardness remain with us. While my own ancestors in the faith neither held slaves nor went to war, we too profited from the geographic and economic expansion of white "settlers" across North America.

In recent years we have done too little to work for justice for the original inhabitants of this land and for those whose ancestors first glimpsed these shores from the holds of slave ships. So now we continue to sit together on this hemispheric deerskin, living with a deep and persistent disease about where we are and how we have gotten here. 1992 is a poignant reminder of this.

Some of our communities are already beginning to face this awkwardness. They are reading new histories of this land and its people. They are seeking ways to interact with those of the other traditions to learn from one another and to set directions for the future. They are putting in place programs for church members to broach the subject in ways that offer healing and new possibilities. It may not be enough, but it is something.

For the larger church, 1992 not only offers the opportunity to take another look at our relationships in this hemisphere, but it also invites us to think about the ways in which our faith shapes our witness around the globe. In what ways does our mission work export the same values that have characterized our relationships on this hemisphere: materialism, triumphalism, and the degradation of others' cultures? Do our programs of service enhance the dignity and possibilities for self-empowerment among those we wish to serve? Are we willing to listen to the testimonies of those among whom we witness today in the same way that we have insisted that we be listened to in the past?

Sitting on this deerskin together makes for an awkward moment. Yet if we would have any hope of bringing our different worlds together toward one world of peace and justice, sit there we must.

—David Radcliff

Conflicts of Religion and Real Estate

The 1992 commemoration allows people of faith the opportunity to challenge the myths and idols around the secular celebration of Columbus' invasion. Columbus managed to combine religion and real estate in his proclamation of discovery, claiming the New World for Catholicism and Spain. From then on, missionaries both Catholic and Protestant were unable, with few exceptions, to distinguish between their religious mission and their hunger for land.

While the rhetorical thrust of Christian mission was to save individuals, its result was to shatter invaded societies and destroy the cohesiveness of the native communities. Missionaries in the North American continent were no different. They came to preach, but they stayed and ruled, or at least prepared the way for others to conquer and exploit.

I would challenge the Christian community in three areas with regard to creating a new ethos around this myth of evangelization and cultural interaction after 500 years of European Christianization.

• To transcend the present exploitation of multiculturalism and multiracialism prevalent in corporate and ecclesiastic circles.
• To transcend the prevalent bipolarization of institutional racism; in other words, that everything is seen in black and white.
• For Latinos, to transcend the present denominationism and escapism that prevent us from dealing seriously with social and economic problems that afflict our peoples; and to transcend the myth of a Spanish heritage that prevents us from recognizing our racial diversity, which includes African and indigenous blood, and celebrate our common destiny.

Latinos come in all colors and shapes, but we do share a Latin American ancestry. As such, the term "Hispanic" is an inappropriate term for us, used by the dominant society to lump us into their own definition. Some concrete actions in the churches would start moving us to deal with the present effects of that invasion 500 years ago.

We should initiate a serious theological dialogue with liberation theologians in Latin America about the "evangelization process," to seek ways to reverse the ideological and religious approaches used with poor peoples in South America and Latinos in the United States. We should institute a serious effort to "demythologize" the present Latino other-worldly approach to Christianity. We should support efforts toward self-sovereignty in Puerto Rico. And we must support the liberation of African Americans, Puerto Ricans, Native Americans, and white political prisoners who seek a more just society.

It is my hope that these efforts will bring about a new pattern of change in the churches.

—Alfonso Roman

This article is adapted from a speech to the NCC's "1492-1992: Faithful Responses" consultation in May 1991.

A call to the work of Repentance (Official Statement)

Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, and saying, "The kairos is fulfilled, the realm of God has come near; repent and believe in the good news. "
—Mark 1:14-15

What Is the Time? Where Is the Place?

Something is happening. The Spirit is on the move. A decisive moment in a crucial place has arrived. And we are struggling to act in concert with it. Here and now.

We believe we are living in what the New Testament writers call a kairos, a time when the Spirit of God shatters religious complicity with injustice. A kairos is a moment of truth, a time for decision, a crisis of judgment and grace; it is a God-given opportunity for conversion and hope.

A kairos has come in this place, now called North America, now called United States, but a place more ancient with history and peoples: shores, mountains, plains, deserts, and forests long ago named sacred.

We see the geography of this moment exposed for us in high-relief by the forthcoming anniversary (the 500-year "quincentenary") of Columbus' voyage to the Americas. That voyage marked the beginning of a new world order of European domination built on Native American resources, the violation of the land, and slave labor.

We understand the official celebration of the quincentenary (and its commercial variants) as an imperial liturgy not only retelling lies of the past, but building a consensus for more of the same: a two-tiered system of global and domestic economic apartheid.

This is the time and place for resistance and hopeful action. We are called to join Native Americans, African Americans, and so many others who have for 500 years refused to cooperate with oppression. Here and now we must say a clear NO.

It is the time and place for repentance and conversion. The church ecumenically has been complicit in this history. Not merely silent before violence and injustice, it has been an active participant, often mistaking cultural imperialism for evangelization. Frankly, our churches in the United States have succumbed to national myths and idols that compromise the very meaning of the gospel before the world.

We are now called by our love for the church to confront it with its own good news. Building on the spirit of 500 years of resistance, we also say a clear YES to new priorities and new ways of being church as we prepare to enter the 21st century.

Who Are We?

We are local and national groups, organizations, and churches yearning to become a faith-based partnership movement, one that acts for deep and real social transformation in this moment of our common history.

We take heart, indeed we see it as a confirmation of the Spirit, that many groups and communities in the United States are recognizing this moment independently and in conversation. Energetic organizing is happening within Native American, Latino, Chicano, and African-American communities in response to the quincentenary. Small groups spring up to study scripture and the various Third World "kairos documents." Christian peacemakers re-examine their work. Theologians are calling for reflection and action. Congregations completely re-evaluate their ministries in the light of economic justice. Denominations and ecumenical organizations resolve to consider the meaning of 1492 and their own role in the subjugation and destruction of whole cultures and peoples.

To embrace and nourish these many uprisings of the Spirit, we call ourselves "1992/Kairos USA" and issue this call.

Kairos, as we are using it, is an openly Christian term, and we anticipate being expressly Christian in our theological reflection. We know that to address the churches in the United States (both Protestant and Catholic) about idolatry, about confusion, about captivity to the faith of imperial culture, we need to speak freely from within the very gospel we claim to announce.

We are, however, excluding no one from our efforts. Indeed we welcome challenges and input from people of many faith perspectives as we find the language and spiritual power to discover in this place, at this moment, the way toward justice and peace for humans and for the planet of which we're part.

What Are We Committed To?

Our commitment is to the work of repentance, conversion, and concrete actions. U.S. Christians stand in need of confession for corporate sins continuing unabated now 500 years. The soul of America yearns for redress, reparation, and reconciliation with Native Americans, African Americans, and other ethnic peoples.

True repentance, we understand, is far more than feeling sorry, more than acts of public apology. Repentance is change. It will surely require a complete transformation of the dominating culture, beginning with ourselves in the church. It goes without saying that it is the Eurocentric white community in our movement that bears special responsibility for this particular work of transformation.

Concretely, we have committed ourselves to work toward a broad faith-based movement through several goals in the short term: 1) Develop and distribute educational materials on the truth of 1492, 2) Develop liturgical materials and actions, 3) Encourage intercession and political solidarity now for the initiatives of Native, African-American, and racial-ethnic communities, 4) Plan culminating events, both local and national, for October 1992, and 5) Facilitate a theological process that might result in a USA Kairos document.

Toward these goals we are calling for the identification and formation of small, faith-based, grassroots communities to discern the signs of the kairos, and to undertake the work of action and reflection.

Join us! Let us intercede, in heart and deed, for one another and for this process of movement building.

Always remember that this is the hour of crisis [kairos]: It is high time for you to wake out of sleep, for deliverance is nearer to us now than it was when we first believed. It is far on in the night; the day is near. Let us therefore throw off the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light.
—Romans 13:11-12

This call was issued by 1992/Kairos USA, a partnership movement of local and national groups and churches.