Once, years ago, we had a Nez Perce history discussion going on at the Josephy Center. Bobbie Conner, then and now director of Tamastslikt on the Umatilla Reservation, came in the door on another task. I greeted her from the balcony discussion group and announced that we were talking about Nez Perce Treaties. Bobbie walked up the stairs and told us that if we were talking about treaties we’d better start with the Doctrine of Discovery, and learn how it crept into American Indian Law.Read Rich’s Post →
Category: Indigenous Peoples Day
Indigenous Peoples’ Day
I and my peers grew up with Columbus Day, not a big holiday, unless you lived in an Italian neighborhood, but a middle of the run holiday that meant bank closures and a day off from school. There was little thinking about it—beyond hackneyed stereotypes of Columbus landing in the
“new world,” and thus “discovering” America.Read Rich’s Post →
Indigenous Peoples Day, General Howard and the Mountain
Columbus Day has not been an important holiday in my life. Maybe we got out of school. Maybe friends of Italian ancestry celebrated—and I laughed or applauded. Even now, as I think about all the negative things we have learned about Columbus, and think about the nation-wide effort that has made this day “Indigenous Peoples Day,” I have a soft spot for the descendants of Italian immigrants. They have often been mistreated by immigrants who came on earlier boats. And Italians were Catholics—the Republic, formed on lands stolen from Native tribes, was built by Enlightenment free thinkers, deists, and some from various Protestant denominations. Christianity was not written into our founding documents, and Catholics were a further minority from the outset.Read Rich’s Post →