Horizons magazine is published by Presbyterian Women (PW) the national women’s organization of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).
Issue link: http://horizons.epubxp.com/i/623149
January/February 2016 21 Epidemic diseases brought from Europe killed hundreds of thousands more native people. Even more died from malnourishment and illness after being forcibly removed from lands that had sustained them for thousands of years to camps where they lived on government rations. But perhaps the most insidious and least understood violence was the cultural genocide perpetrated against native peoples. Throughout the 1800s, European Americans debated how to deal with the "Indian Prob- lem." While a minority of European Americans recognized natives as fully human, most regarded them as sub- human or as savages who could be civilized by Christianity and Euro- American culture. Attacking People, Attacking Culture The government passed legislation for native people to live on reservations where their range and livelihood was drastically limited, and the U.S. gov- ernment could lay claim to the land and resources from which native peo- ples had been removed. Others, like Richard Henry Pratt, suggested that native people could become U.S. citi- zens, but only if they abandoned all elements of their culture. He said, "A great general has said that the only good Indian is a dead one . . . . 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." 3 Following Pratt's orders, native children—from 4 to 16 years old— were taken from their communities, usually off reservations, and put into boarding schools. There, every trace of their culture was eliminated. Their hair was cut off. They were doused with DDT powder. They were put in uniforms. Siblings were kept apart. Native children were taught that everything they knew, including their spirituality, was wrong. If they spoke their native languages, their mouths were washed out with lye. Native spiritual practices were out- lawed. They were taught that they were savage sinners and were forced to practice Christianity. Punishments were brutal, food scarce, illness and death common. Abuse, sexual and otherwise, was commonplace. Many generations of indigenous people were abused in this way. It traumatized the children, but also the communities that the children were taken from. Then, in the 1950s, the Child Welfare League of America started the Indian Adoption Project, which placed native children with non- native families. Forced adoption and foster placements subjected native children to great emotional, psycho- logical and spiritual violence, again los- ing their culture and traumatizing the whole community. A Passamaquoddy woman, who is now in her 50s and was taken at age seven, has spoken a number of times about native children being taken from their homes. She explained that even if you were taken to a stable and kind home, "The trauma was in the taking." These practices—even when conceived and executed with the intention of helping—amounted to personal trau- mas and a cultural genocide. Truth and Healing Ancient Anishnabe prophecies (pre-European contact) predicted, among other things, that indigenous children would be taken and the waters run black (oil spills, like Deepwater Horizon or Exxon Valdez), yet there would come a time of healing. It would begin where the morning light first hits the land (Maine) and it would involve the coming together of native and non-native peoples. The healing part of this prophecy began in Maine in 1999 when Wabanaki social workers and non-native social workers began work- ing together for better compliance with the Indian Child Welfare Act. This federal legislation, passed in 1978, was meant to protect native children from being taken away from their communi- ties and cultures. Its compliance has had mixed results across the country, including in Maine. This group, which came to be called Maine–Wabanaki REACH (Reconciliation, Engagement, Advo- cacy, Change, Healing), worked together for many years until a vision emerged of creating a truth commis- sion to investigate what happened to Wabanaki children and families in the state child welfare system. In 2012, the mandate for the first truth commission to address native child welfare issues was signed by five Wabanaki chiefs and the governor of Maine—The Maine Wabanaki– State Child Welfare Truth and Rec- onciliation Commission (TRC). Once the commissioners were seated in 2013, the role of REACH shifted to helping the TRC raise awareness about the experiences of the region's native people and the need for a truth commission process. REACH contacted Wabanaki and Maine citizens involved in child wel- fare and then supported them through the process of providing offi- cial statements to the TRC. The Maine TRC, comprised of five commissioners, had 27 months to gather testimony and conduct research. The commission released its findings and recommendations in June of 2015. The commission found that native children are still removed from their homes at a higher rate than non- native children (five times the rate, at the time of the study). Racism against