It is past time to act on the truths about Indigenous Amerindian loss of homeland. Land Acknowledgment in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and now in some US venues is a start. However, both England and its freed American colony have never apologized to Native Americans for their near eradication, land grab, enslavement, human export, and exploitation of ancestral territories and hemispheric riches.
The earliest recorded eradication events in the Americas occurred in the fledgling Spanish Empire, which was first headquartered on the Caribbean island of Hispaniola (Haiti and the Dominican Republic). The Indigenous Taino names for this second largest Caribbean Island is Ayti Bohio (High Mountain Home) and Kiskeya (Mother of All Lands). There the estimated one million original souls in 1492, were reduced after 10 years by 968,000. They were “Taíno [who] had perished from enslavement, massacre, or disease.” (Hispaniola Case Study:
One can multiply these numbers by the 23 countries that occupy 9.45 million square miles of our planet. Currently, with a total population of over 580 million people, most of whom are called “Indigena”, "mestizo" or "Hispanic." Many of these indigenous descended survivors of the Amerindian genocide were called "rapists and murderers" by past President Trump.
The Truth
Although the entire USA and its territories should be included in a national apology, we must start at America's beginning. The Powhatan People of the Virginia Territory, established by the Virginia Company of London, should be first in line for the proposed apology. This company's 1606 charter was revoked after just one year by James I, who assumed direct control of Virginia. in British plans, their occupation of Powhatan lands began in1607. However, the final takeover of Powhatan and surrounding territories took 70 years with the signing of the 1677 Treaty of Middle Plantation (Williamsburg). During these seventy years, the indigenous people became the pandemic-ridden survivors topped off by wars of attrition and murder as evidenced by Nathaniel *Bacon's Rebellion.
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Their painfully untimely demise is continually passed off by writers as some mysterious innocuous European derived diseases, “for which they had no immunity.” Amerindian victim-blaming for their Holocaust as a deficiency for some “compromised immune system,” is part of today’s avoided National guilt.
The Record
Let the Spanish make their own peace with the victims of their colonizer, Cristobal Colon.
Upon the first recorded European encroachment in our country, the victimized Powhatans in Ajakan of the Chesapeake were hanged from the yardarm by a Spanish crew. The Iberians had returned where they had previously kidnapped a "prince" from off the beach, taken him to Cuba and then to Spain.
The kidnapped Powhatan prince was renamed "Don Louis de Velasco," was thought by some writers to have been Powhatan II’s brother Opichancanough. He finally convinced the Spanish to return him home to fetch his people for Christian conversion and territorial theft. Instead, Don Louis returned with warriors and dispatched the kidnappers.
However, the English colonizers were first responsible for the demise of the Powhatan Paramountcy in the southern Virginia Territory while Pequot’s King Philip War in Connecticut and the subsequent deportation of many survivors were shipped to Bermuda. These Colonial atrocities included the Native American Slave Trade to the Caribbean Island sugar plantation colonies, prior to the change to African enslavement.
Reconciliation
Gratitude to the Indigenous Peoples of the Americas and their descendants is a basic requirement for healing. Colonial governments, private businesses, religious and educational institutions in Europe monetarily benefitted from the Amerindian genocide, as did other European countries who indirectly benefited from the crime. Since colonization the northern Eastern Hemisphere amassed untold wealth from the demise of indigenous civilizations in the Western Hemisphere. Those who wrote the history of this Holocaust use high sounding terms such as “The Age of Discovery, “The Age of Enlightenment,” and the resulting “Industrial Revolution” that were financed off the backs and riches of Amerindians and Africans.
The historical records are there. In America’s case, both England and the American Revolutionary inheritors need to fess up.
How Do We Fix This?
Once the truth is finally confronted, absolution and atonement must follow. This was true after the dismantling of Apartheid in South Africa and the Catholic Church under Pope Francis apologized to the Indigenous people of the Americas for the Church’s role in the Amerindian Holocaust.
A monument and an official apology should be made to this continent’s First People who were at the brunt of the American invasion and the resulting epidemic. One man alone stands out as this symbol atonement.
Above: A simple sculptural recommendation for atoning remembrance.
This monumental concept is intended as an apology to Wahunsenacawh the Second Powhatan whose leadership of a vast paramountcy was violently curtailed by three seemingly simple acts; The destabilizing kidnapping of his favorite daughter, Pocahontas, the introduction of the North American Native American Slave, and the ensuing European introduced pandemic.
Invited survivors of this Holocaust should attend a public ceremony. This should include people from the historic Powhatan Paramountcy and the signatories of the 1677 Treaty of Middle Plantation, as well as the Pequots of King Philip’s War in Connecticut and those shipped to Bermuda.
Above: is an example of what atonement could be between a Powhatan survivor and the British Crown while American governmental beneficiaries of the First North American encounter look on.
The photograph is of Chief Ken Adams, Upper Mattaponi Indian Tribe, who took part in welcoming Britain's Queen Elizabeth II to Virginia on the 400th anniversary of the establishment of Jamestown. Virginia Governor Tim Caine and First Lady Anne Holton look on.— Richmond, Virginia; May 3, 2007. Photo courtesy of the tribe.
* Bacon.s Rebellion was a case of murder via misidentification.
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