Indigenous Americans demand a reckoning with brutal colonial history

[Jilly_in_VA]

As statues of queens and conquistadors are tumbled amid protests across North and South America, Indigenous people are pushing for a region-wide reckoning with colonialism’s bitter legacy of massacre and cultural erasure.

From the Arctic Circle to Tierra del Fuego, Indigenous Americans have taken aim at the Catholic Church, national governments and other powerful institutions.

In Canada, the horrifying discovery of the unmarked graves of Indigenous children near former Catholic boarding schools has prompted widespread calls for a reassessment of the country’s colonial history and the structural inequalities that persist today.

In Chile and Colombia, uprisings over social inequity have also been accompanied by demands for a reconsideration of national narratives and the lingering aftermath of conquest.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jul/27/indigenous-americans-protesting-brutal-colonial-history

[sagetea]

1. KnR

N/t

[roamer65]

2. We owe them reconciliation.

It’s well past time to start making things right.

[SoonerPride]

7. We should pay them reparations of billions and billions

Same goes for African Americans.

John Oliver made the case this last weekend for reparations and it was solid and foolproof.

[roamer65]

8. Yes, we should.

Definitely.

[Bonx]

13. Hundreds of billions. maybe even more.

[Solly Mack]

3. K&R

[niyad]

4. KNR. We been a 1619-type study to start. Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz' "An Indigenous People's

History of the United States" is one starting point.

[Champp]

5. This is the start of something big. Huge opportunity here, but painful.

[panader0]

6. Indigenous Americans should be a part of any CRT class.

Prejudice against them began even before 1619.

[roamer65]

9. 1492.

[csziggy]

10. There are two excellent books about the influx of Europeans into the Americas

"1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus" and "1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created" both by Charles C. Mann.

1491 details what the Americas were like before the arrival of Columbus. 1493 covers the impact on the Americas in the years after Columbus' arrival. Both are very good books and well worth reading.

Amazon offers both in a package with "A People's History of the United States" by Howard Zinn - a logical grouping.

[roamer65]

12. I know we brought over death, in more ways than one.

The viruses we brought over wiped out nearly 90 percent of Native Americans, by some estimates. The Spanish conquistadors didn’t have much to conquer. Many villages they encountered simply had no one left. There was no one left to conquer or enslave.

So...they looked to Africa for slave labor in the Americas, starting another horrific chapter in European history.

[csziggy]

14. Yes, but what is interesting is the influx of peoples from Asia

The Spanish traded silver with the Chinese - but the Chinese would not let the land in China so it was traded in the Philipines. The ships returning to Mexico and South America were crewed by Philipinos and Chinese, many of whom ran away in the New World and settled. Japanese Samurai were hired as security, so there were groups of Samurai wandering around Mexico, hiring out as guards and mercenaries.

There is even a tale of a "princess" from India who became a sort of celebrity in Mexico.

AS for the African slaves, one reason the trade continued was that mosquito borne diseases were introduced to the New World and the European indentured servants could not survive those diseases - in fact, they became endemic in parts of Europe, too - so African slaves were needed since Native Americans had been greatly killed off and white workers could not live and work under the same conditions.

[malaise]

11. THIS

About time truth gets a hearing