They were people who found their way during the earliest migrations to the North American continent. They were not "Indians." They were Native Americans, indigenous people. They developed many cultures and they loved the land, the sky and the water. Prior to the invasion by Europeans, they believed they were part of a Great Spirit that created the land and shared it with them.

The arrival of Europeans had profound and devastating effects on Native American populations, bringing disease, dispossession, violence, and the destruction of entire communities and ways of life. Along with their Christian religions and its priests, they shattered Indigenous societies, killing millions, uprooting communities, and accelerating the near-destruction of entire cultures and lifeways. All in the names of their leaders, their kings, and their Church.

Today, it's all there for your perusal and reading and today it is virtually ignored.

I have no doubt that Slavery is an "original sin" that qualified and quantified the founding of the American republic. Its horrifying effects still prevail today. African slaves were considered chattel, sub-humans to be traded or disposed of at will. Many of America's early presidents (including G. Washington) were slave owners and believed in their chattel ownership. So did Germany's Nazis.

But the other "original sin" began long before mass slavery appeared: the European 15th century toe-stepping into the "New World" and the steady diminishing of Native Americans which also prevails today. (We should include Canadian America and Mexican America in this).

I'm not going to trample into any more history. You probably know some of it and there's plenty more to find. Carla Maria Verdino-Süllwold's article on Edward Curtis in this issue is a good place to start.

We did it, we inherited it and we are players in the orange&gold &green masque that plays today, 24-hours a day, in Washington D.C.

What we have done to others is what is being done to us. An enactment of the Golden Rule.

Sleep well... if you can.
I can't.