by jam 52 Replies latest jw friends
To the people who say injustices to natives are just part of the foggy distant past:
http://m.thestar.com/#!/news/redirect/45bb6636b0b7a9a0011f1ff01a2e111a
Canadian government researchers deliberately STARVED native children as part of sick experiments in the 40s and 50s.
Government-sanctioned starvation policies aren't new either. Canada's first prime minister John A. Macdonald was a despicable man who used starvation as a weapon to force the western plains nations onto reserves.
Later, Western European settlers began to complain that natives were being given preferential treatment because of obligations the government had under the treaties (sound familiar?) and the government came up with the utterly depraved "peasant farming" policy that was written into the federal Indian Act. This made it illegal for natives to use modern farming implements or own more than one cow. Sowing and harvesting had to be done by hand without plows or draft animals, which led to the widespread abandonment of any attempt at industrial agriculture, keeping natives starving and under the thumb of the government.
http://esask.uregina.ca/entry/aboriginal_reserve_agriculture_to_1900.html
These calculated policies are behind the decades of social ills that plague many First Nations to this day.
But hey, at least my great-grandparents weren't born in California:
"Towns offered bounty hunters cash for every Indian head or scalp they obtained. Rewards ranged from $5 for every severed head in Shasta City in 1855 to 25 cents for a scalp in Honey Lake in 1863. One resident of Shasta City wrote about how he remembers seeing men bringing mules to town, each laden with eight to twelve Indian heads. Other regions passed laws that called for collective punishment for the whole village for crimes committed by Indians, up to the destruction of the entire village and all of its inhabitants. These policies led to the destruction of as many as 150 Native communities.
In both 1851 and 1852 California paid out $1 million--revenue from the gold fields--to militias that hunted down and slaughtered Indians. In 1857, the state issued $400,000 in bonds to pay for anti-Indian militias.
http://rwor.org/a/v21/1030-039/1039/gold1.htm
When California was admitted to the Union in 1850, the estimated Indian population of this state numbered some 150,000.
One of the first statutory acts of this legislature was to offer a bounty on Indian scalps.
From 1850 to 1863, state law provided for the indenture of California Indians.
Indian property was free for the taking because Indians weren’t permitted to testify in court. It was impossible to prosecute any crimes against them.
In this very body, State Senator J.J. Warner spoke for many at the time when he said: “... there is no place within the territory of the United States in which to locate them ... better, far better, to drive them at once into the ocean, or bury them in the land of their birth."
And by the mid-1870’s, the Indian population had fallen to less than 30,000.
http://republican.sen.ca.gov/web/mcclintock/article_print.asp?PID=270
White merchants, miners, and others impatient for the new state to further their interests created citizen militias to rid the state of Indians who resisted their demands for their land, their labor, or anything else. The Pit River Rangers, the Oregon Militia and others carried out their deadly work with support from the new State of California that provided a bounty for Indian scalps. By 1859 less than a third of the Indian population in California was able to escape the bloodbath. During this period the federal government negotiated eighteen treaties with Indians that promised reservations where Indians could live in peace and economic aid and vocational training g in compensation for the lands taken from them. The California Legislature prevailed on the Senate not to ratify the treaties and the genocide proceeded. By 1900, California Indians had nearly been annihilated and the population was only 15% of what it had been in 1850. The surviving Indians had to learn to live with an alien set of beliefs and life philosophy. Indians were forced to adapt to changes in their standards of living, their ability to travel, their ability to use their own language, the way they practiced conservation, their diet, and their art forms. In other words, their way of life was forcibly taken away from them and those who rebelled were destroyed.
http://www.cahro.org/html/aprilmay97-3.html
Marmot : Granted the fodod part was heard third hand so I will admit to error...
As for naive land.. I agree however I pojnt to Nunavut and also that I live in the cowichan valley onf vancouver island (Where that big Native olympics was a few years ago
Half the land here is native. I am well aware (having been through all western canda and much of the western US as well as the southern USA that Native lands are a majority.. but in same places like here and others they are not....
I will not argue. I do not wish hard feelings on a message board. I will ask the things you said o some native friends tomorrow .. best way
Nunavut and the Inuit are not considered "natives" by the government. They don't fall under the oppressive Indian act and for the large part they were left alone to practice their way of life, unlike natives who actually lived where white people wanted to.
Isn`t this question typical of any indigineous people when overtaken by another race ?
The Maouris of New Zealand , the Aborigine s in Australia ? etc. etc.?
smiddy
Like I said initially, it is a grey issue. marmot you have shown articles only highlighting government abuses.
On the other side of the coin you will find chiefs and councils abusing their own people on reserves. Many child abuse scandals of their own and looking into the historical record you will find attacks on settlers where entire familes were tortured, gang raped and burned.
I could very easily post links to massacres in the 1800's as well as survivor stories of abuse occuring on modern reserves.
Neither side is innocent.
I have never been one to favor political correctness. I really see little culture of native tribes surviving. Rather than continuing to grow as a culture, the trend is to adopt modern customs to the point that being "native american" is just a novelty title.
Is there legitimate anger towards the Government's handling of legislation? Sure. Is there any anger towards the elders and ancestors for abandoning their way? Usually not.
My personal thought is that the biggest injustice of the whole issue is keeping the status quo. It isn't working and the proposed solution seems to be more of the same. Give more land over and more money. To do what? Most cases existing land is leased out for mineral rights or residential community building. The money rarely being used to better life for the tribe, usually enriching a select few.
There are good examples out there, but by far they are the minority.
I just grow weary of being told I should be ashamed for being Canadian for something that neither I, nor any of my ancestors were a part of.
The answer lies in reaching across the divide and shaking hands.
And I grow weary of being told that natives are shiftless tax-exempt drunks. None of the stuff I posted is taught in history classes to Canadian children. Do you think the Jews should just "get over" the holocaust and blacks shouldn't be taught about the slave trade?
There are horrible things that were deliberately done to natives just a single generation ago, I'm sooooo sorry if that makes you feel uncomfortable in your maple-leaf Ivory Tower.
UN factfinder urges Ottawa to call national inquiry into missing and murdered aboriginal women May 12, 2014 10:53 PM ET Susana Mas, CBC News
Canada has made "notable efforts" to improve the social and economic well-being of indigenous people, but needs to do much more to improve their overall living conditions, says a report by a United Nations human rights envoy.
"There are daunting challenges and in many respects… there is a crisis among aboriginal communities in terms of their basic necessities," said James Anaya, the UN's special rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples, in an interview with CBC News on Monday.
"The numerous initiatives that have been taken at the federal and provincial-territorial levels to address the problems faced by indigenous peoples have been insufficient," Anaya said in his report.
The UN envoy found that:
Anaya spent nine days last October visiting aboriginal communities and their leaders as well as government representatives across Canada to compile the report.
He urges the federal government to:
Aboriginal Affairs Minister Bernard Valcourt said in a written statement issued Monday that "despite these challenges, the federal government has taken many steps "to improve the overall well-being and prosperity of aboriginal people in Canada."
"Our government is proud of the effective and incremental steps taken in partnership with aboriginal communities. We are committed to continuing to work with our partners to make significant progress in improving the lives of aboriginal people in Canada. We will review the report carefully to determine how we can best address the recommendations," Valcourt said.
Anaya does acknowledge in his report that Canada has taken "positive steps" to improve the relationship with aboriginal people, such as:
"Despite positive steps, daunting challenges remain. Canada faces a continuing crisis when it comes to the situation of indigenous peoples of the country," Anaya said.
Monday’s UN report comes at a fragile time for relations between the federal government and First Nations.
The government put “on hold” its prized but controversial First Nations education bill following the sudden resignation of Shawn Atleo as national chief for the Assembly of First Nations.
Bill C-33 will remain on hold until the AFN “clarifies” its position on the bill, which it is expected to do during a special assembly of national chiefs in Ottawa on May 27.
While the federal government has to date refused to launch a national inquiry into the case of missing and murdered aboriginal women, the RCMP said this month there are about 1,186 recorded incidents by police of aboriginal homicides and unresolved missing women investigations.
That report is expected to be released soon.
Both the NDP and Liberals are calling on the government to heed Anaya's recommendations and launch a national public inquiry into missing and murdered aboriginal women.
NDP aboriginal affairs critic Jean Crowder blamed the federal government for not taking more action sooner.
"Study after study, report after report find that investments are needed to improve the quality of life for indigenous peoples in Canada, especially in housing, child welfare and education, yet this government continues to let funding trickle out."
Carolyn Bennett, the Liberal critic for aboriginal affairs, said in a written statement that Anaya's report reflects "the serious and persistent crisis in outcomes for indigenous peoples in this country."
“The government needs to engage with indigenous peoples as partners to create real progress on the appalling conditions for far too many of these communities," Bennett said.
The report also recommends the government get consent from aboriginal groups before moving forward with resource extraction projects on land subject to aboriginal claims. That would include pipeline projects currently in the works, such as Enbridge's controversial Northern Gateway pipeline.
"While indigenous peoples potentially have much to gain from resource development within their territories, they also face the highest risks to their health, economy, and cultural identity from any associated environmental degradation," reads the unedited version of the preliminary report.
"Perhaps more importantly, indigenous nations’ efforts to protect their long-term interests in lands and resources often fit uneasily into the efforts by private non-indigenous companies, with the backing of the federal and provincial governments, to move forward with natural resource projects."
According to the aboriginal affairs minister, "the responsible development of our natural resources is good for all Canadians and provides an unprecedented opportunity for First Nations."
"In fact, over 32,000 First Nations people are employed in the natural resources sector, making it the largest private employer of First Nations people in Canada. Over $650 billion worth of major projects are projected in the next 10 years and First Nations communities are well positioned to benefit from these opportunities," Valcourt said in a written statement on Monday.
Anaya said that the concerns of aboriginal people merit "higher priority" at all levels of government noting that the relationship between aboriginal people and the government is perhaps even more "strained" since the last UN special rapporteur visited in 2003.
