To the editor:
This is in response to (U.S. Secretary of Agriculture) Tom Vilsack declaring November as Native Heritage Month. As one of those so-called Native Americans I feel I have to say to Tom “thanks but no thanks.”
To Indians a truly meaningful recognition would be for the foreign American government to recognize, acknowledge, accept what the transplanted Euroamericans did to our people and our homeland and then do the right thing about the theft of our homeland and the genocide of our people.
In the 500 years since the arrival to our homeland of those transplanted Europeans our population went from 120 million to 5 million and our homeland went from all of “America” to 55 million acres called Indian reservations.
Our identity as human beings went from being known as Maliseet, Penobscot, Passamaquoddy, Saco, Norridgwak, Kennebec, Pequot … to something known today as Native American. Our language went from all of the above languages to something called American English.
Our spiritual way of life which Great Creator placed in the hearts of our beloved Ancestors along with her sacred instructions to live a spiritual life and pass on these instructions to future generations was forcibly replaced with the transplanted European hate-filled religion.
The language utilized by Vilsack in his notice of recognition is cleverly crafted so as to avoid and dance around that growing 500-year-old elephant under America’s carpet — genocide and the theft of Indian homeland. It is hypocritical, dishonest, insincere and simply another blatant example of the extreme contempt that Americans and their government hold for Indians, the true and rightful owners of the land known as America.
This Vilsack guy mentions something about America providing compensation for tribal (producers) who were wronged in the past. What audacity and arrogance. What about the millions of Indians who were annihilated, and the theft of our homeland by the transplanted Europeans? How does America compensate for those crimes against humanity? These are the words of a child of the American holocaust.
Dan Ennis, O.I.M.
Caribou
