JUUstice Washington

A Unitarian Universalist State Action Network

Unitarians and the Bond Mission School

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Journal of Universalist History
Volume XLI (2017-2018)
Special Issue:  2016 Convocation of Unitarian Universalist Studies
Editor:  Kathleen R. Parker
2018, Unitarian Universalist History and Heritage Center

The Montana Industrial school for Indians at Romona Ranch, 1886-1897

by Dana Capasso Stivers, pgs. 38 – 65

Dana Capasso Stivers has, so far to date, offered up one of the more accurate versions of the American Unitarian Association and it’s role in the Indian boarding school tragedy, specifically with the Montana Industrial School for Indians, better known as the Bond Mission School.  Many of the other, more recent writings on the Bond Mission School skirted around and glossed over a number of issues and attitudes of our predecessors and their participation in aiming “to assimilate the Crow people into Anglo-Saxon society and to dismantle their culture through various forms of symbolic violence.”

CHANGING THE NARRATIVE ABOUT NATIVE AMERICANS A GUIDE FOR ALLIES

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Being Native American may mean being deeply involved in protecting, teaching and advancing the knowledge and traditions of one’s tribe(s). Or it may mean being less connected to tribal communities while maintaining unique Native American identities in other ways within the larger society. There is no “one way” to be Native American. Every tribe and tribal citizen has a unique culture, history and tradition, and many people identify more as a citizen of a specific tribe(s) than collectively as Native American.

Even with such a strong identity, contributions and presence, however, contemporary Native Americans are largely invisible to the rest of the country. Native American voices are rarely heard in the news, in popular culture or in history books, and what little isreflected in those venues about Native issues and cultures is riddled with misinformation and confusion.

A group of diverse Native and non-Native stakeholders from across the country has conducted unprecedented research and developed a strategy to change this situation
as part of an initiative called Reclaiming Native Truth. This initiative is designed to eradicate harmful and toxic narratives, stereotypes, structural and institutional racism, dehumanization, and the invisibility of Native Americans. It aims to increase access to opportunities and rights and to ensure that Native Americans live in a society where they are celebrated as a vital part of the fabric of the United States as both leaders and key contributors.

Read more: RNT – Guide for Allies

Reclaiming Native Truth – Lessons Learned from Standing Rock

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The movement at Standing Rock significantly undermined the systemic erasure of Native peoples from the dominant American narrative. At a time when most Americans continued to believe that Native Americans and Nations no longer exist in the United States, Americans were presented with a movement that forced a new conversation around values, identity, and our collective connection to the Earth around us and the lands we live on.

Suddenly, Native Americans were no longer simply characters from the past that occasionally pop out of oblivion and into a Western movie or a museum. Instead, Americans watched as contemporary Native Americans populated the daily news diet with articulate, powerful narratives concerning the sovereignty of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe—and all Tribal Nations—as well the collective threat that climate change and losing our drinking water poses to us all.

Read more here:  RNT – Standing Rock Report

The California Native American Genocide – Two books reviewed

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The first comprehensive treatments of this subject were published very recently, in 2012 and 2014. These are An American Genocide: The United States and the California Indian Catastrophe, 1846-1873 by Benjamin Madley, and Murder State: California’s Native American Genocide, 1846-1873 by Brendan Lindsay.

. . .

Over the past few months, I’ve read these books and have been working on this report. More than any other aspect of local history I’ve written about, this has been the most difficult. This is not because these books are not well-written. It is because this topic is, to quote Madley, “unrelentingly grim.” This project has taken me longer than normal because it is emotionally very heavy. It is profoundly disturbing and unpleasant.

Read more here.

Our Moment of Choice

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To be released by Publishers, Simon and Schuster, September 1, 2020~Excerpt from Chapter 9~Overview Prophecies, Dynamic Change, and a New Global Civilization.  Chapter Nine was written by Chief Phil Lane Jr., a hereditary Chief of the Inhanktonwan Dakota and Chicksaw Nations.  His presence has graced us many times here in the Pacific Northwest, especially in relation to Tsleil-Waututh First Nation and other BC First Nations struggles against TransMountain and in support of intersecting issues with Lummi Nation here in northern Washington.
We are witnessing a growing Global Storm visibly sweeping the face of our Mother Earth. This Global Storm will prove, unless we awaken, to be unprecedented in its violence, unpredictable in its course, and sometimes catastrophic in its immediate effects. It appears that no place on Mother Earth is protected from the cleansing, healing, and unifying power of this Global Storm.
This is due to a widespread “paralysis of will and action” to make the essential decisions and behavioral changes needed to move forward positively and constructively. The gridlock that supports this “paralysis” is the reluctance to entertain the possibility of subordinating national and personal self-interests to the needed requirements of concerted global actions. It is also reinforced by a deep-seated conviction in the inevitable adversarial nature of humankind. We seem unwilling to articulate a desire and need for a world in which we can live in peace, harmony, and prosperity with all members of our human family.
Our Moment of Choice may be purchased at ourmomentofchoice.com.