By Rev. Dr. Doe West
The story of Native Americans/American Indians continues, with some glimmers of hope for the future.
Having failed to fully record the genocide, contemporary U.S. governments have decided to recognize 562 Native American tribes. To be included on those rolls, you must have an ancestor who was processed and counted–and most likely ended up on one of the reservations created while treaties were being broken and peoples moved like cattle across lands unknown to them.
As with all people who are deemed different and set apart, a number of Native Americans, ancestors of the survivors who may not be recognized as such today, voluntarily removed themselves from that processing and relocation. Within that group were my Grandmother’s family members.
The tales my grandmother told me regarding my lineage included ancestors hiding in the woods of the Hudson Valley area and coming into newly integrated groups of various tribes surviving there (Lenape/Delaware, Mahican, Wappinger, and others who entered that area) as well as African Americans, Cajuns, French Canadian trappers, and other European traders) in villages that developed on the Hudson river. This beautiful mélange of cultures created what I consider my “true American mutt heritage.”
When the Missionaries learned that my Grandmother’s parents were both dead, they came to “save her from the Savages.” To do so, they placed her in a white woman’s home in Peekskill, NY, as a kitchen slave.
The recognition of the history that Andrés Reséndez recounts in his recent book, The Other Slavery: The Uncovered Story of Indian Enslavement in America” is growing, as more and more people learn about and recognize the truth of this aspect of a generally unreported part of “American history. But whether or not painful facts are recognized or understood, the facts are the facts. And for my grandmother and for me, America’s historical degradation and enslavement of native peoples was and is a fact of life.
When you read this story, you may suspect that it bears a tone of anger that I did not feel in writing it. Instead, as an academic, I speak with a voice that is intended to be one of education.
November is Native American Heritage Month.
Learn the truth.
Understand what was done.
Know that tribal affiliation and lineage does not exist only on ledgers on dusty shelves in official buildings in Washington, DC.
I trust my Grandmother’s oral traditions, passed on to me along with other true tales of her life that persist above and beyond the records made by those who enslaved her.
I celebrated my heritage throughout this month and I celebrate the next steps in our attaining all the rights and privileges owed me on the basis of my citizenship and my humanity in the land of my ancestors.
And I welcome the coming waves of immigrants and invite them to learn more about the true heritage of all the peoples who have struggled to build a decent life in this land of ours.