“For American Native Americans, Columbus Day is not a typical holiday. We don’t celebrate 500 years of being dominated, exploited, enslaved and nearly exterminated by Europeans. But we do celebrate our survival.”

Update 10/11/14:

It’s all a lie.

History is being rewritten daily thanks to alternative media news sources bringing to light the mass propaganda of false history and disclosing truths hidden for decades and centuries.

There were many, many cultures from Greek to Roman to Nordic artifacts that have been found all over the United States pre-dating 1492 showing that Spain was just another occupier, murderer, and conqueror of the Native people.

Even edgy Mainstream whorporate news is revising history now as truths become known as to the barbaric history of our country’s “founding” when we genocided over 97% of the Indian population in conquest and brought millions of slaves across the Atlantic to work in the cotton and tobacco fields of the wealthy with names like Jefferson, Washington, Adams, etc.

Remember the

This is 24/7 Wall St.’s list of the richest U.S. presidents:

1. George Washington, first president from 1789 to 1797
— Net worth: $525 million In office
His Virginia plantation, Mount Vernon, consisted of five separate farms on 8,000 acres of prime farmland, run by more than 300 slaves. His wife, Martha Washington, inherited significant property from her father. Washington made well more than subsequent presidents: his salary was 2% of the total U.S. budget in 1789.

2. Thomas Jefferson, third president from 1801 to 1809
— Net worth: $212 million
Jefferson was left 3,000 acres and several dozen slaves by his father. Monticello, his home on a 5,000-acre plantation in Virginia, was one of the architectural wonders of its time. He made considerable money in various political positions before becoming president, but was mired in debt towards the end of his life.

3. James Madison, fourth president from 1809 to 1817
— Net worth: $101 million
Madison was the largest landowner in Orange County, Va. His land holding consisted of 5,000 acres and the Montpelier estate. He made significant wealth as Secretary of State and president. Madison lost money at the end of his life due to the steady financial collapse of his plantation.

Additionally, all these men had slaves, even until death. In fact, Thomas Jefferson pledged his slaves as assets upon his death against the massive debt he had incurred.  (source)

Now these richest of the new country land baron’s of the time were really interested in freedom for all of We the People as they pushed natives into reservations on the worst land possible and took slaves willingly to run their business’?

When they were done with the “most important document in history”, the U.S. Constitution, they gave rights to only 7% of the population; White, Male and Puritan land owners. It took 75 years later for minorities to even get the right to vote and 120 years for women and now corporations of the wealthy run this country.

The truth is the barbaric ways of old Europe just morphed into new overlords who broke away from the King and Church to form their own Kingdoms and used deception and fraud to sell it to the masses.

My country ’tis of thee…

***

It may sound a little over the top but it’s really no overstatement to say that much in our modern world is based on falsehood and fabrication. We are told, for example, that Columbus ‘discovered’ America in 1492, yet there is plenty of evidence to suggest that others had visited America before Columbus: including visitors from ancient Egypt, Phoenicia and medieval Europe. Despite this modern authorities continue to push the line that “Columbus discovered America.”

In point of fact Columbus himself never even set eyes upon America; the closest he got to the mainland of North America was Puerto Rica. However in the aftermath of Columbus’s voyage John Cabot sailed from Bristol, England; which in turn opened the way for the first colony in Jamestown, Virginia and thus allowed the English to claim America as their own. Yet there is considerable evidence that suggests that others from different cultures preceded Cabot and Columbus. So one is forced to ask: why, when there is much to suggest that others from different cultures preceded Columbus, don’t we hear more about this possibility being investigated? Could it be that certain powers have a vested interest in keeping our real history under wraps?

The United States of America is not named after Amerigo Vespucci, as you learned in school. . The name is actually a combination of words.

• “Am” is the Hebrew word for “people”
• “Ame” is also the command form of the Spanish/Latin verb “to love”
• “Eri” or “ari” is a Hebrew term for “lion”
• “Rica” is the feminine form of the Spanish word for “rich”
• “Ka” is the ancient Egyptian word for soul, or spirit force within a body

There are two layers of meanings. The Ancient Hebrew/Egyptian translates to say,

“the people of the lion with spirit force”

Hence, the pyramid and all-seeing eye on the one-dollar bill. The Latinized version translates to say, “love riches”, in a feminized/physical reality way. This gives an idea of what they had in mind. 

Whatever the answer the fact remains that a great deal has been unearthed which is completely at odds with conventional notions regarding the origins of what we know today as America. In fact according to some contemporary authorities, the Native Americans encountered by the early settlers from England were not what they appeared to be. They were indeed native to the Americas but they were not its original inhabitants, who according to various tribal legends, had disappeared eons before in a series of cataclysms.

Once again, it’s time to celebrate Columbus Day. Yet, the stunning truth is: If Christopher Columbus were alive today, he would be put on trial for crimes against humanity. Columbus‘ reign of terror, as documented by noted historians, was so bloody, his legacy so unspeakably cruel, that Columbus makes a modern villain like Saddam Hussein look like a pale codfish.

Question: Why do we honor a man who, if he were alive today, would almost certainly be sitting on Death Row awaiting execution?

If you’d like to know the true story about Christopher Columbus, please read on. But I warn you, it’s not for the faint of heart.

Here’s the basics. On the second Monday in October each year, we celebrate Columbus Day (this year, it’s on October 11th). We teach our school kids a cute little song that goes: “In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue.” It’s an American tradition, as American as pizza pie. Or is it? Surprisingly, the true story of Christopher Columbus has very little in common with the myth we all learned in school.

Columbus Day, as we know it in the United States, was invented by the Knights of Columbus, a Catholic fraternal service organization. Back in the 1930s, they were looking for a Catholic hero as a role-model their kids could look up to. In 1934, as a result of lobbying by the Knights of Columbus, Congress and President Franklin Roosevelt signed Columbus Day into law as a federal holiday to honor this courageous explorer. Or so we thought.

There are several problems with this. First of all, Columbus wasn’t the first European to discover America. As we all know, the Viking, Leif Ericson probably founded a Norse village on Newfoundland some 500 years earlier. So, hat’s off to Leif. But if you think about it, the whole concept of discovering America is, well, arrogant. After all, the Native Americans discovered North America about 14,000 years before Columbus was even born! Surprisingly, DNA evidence now suggests that courageous Polynesian adventurers sailed dugout canoes across the Pacific and settled in South America long before the Vikings.

Second, Columbus wasn’t a hero. When he set foot on that sandy beach in the Bahamas on October 12, 1492, Columbus discovered that the islands were inhabited by friendly, peaceful people called the Lucayans, Taínos and Arawaks. Writing in his diary, Columbus said they were a handsome, smart and kind people. He noted that the gentle Arawaks were remarkable for their hospitality. “They offered to share with anyone and when you ask for something, they never say no,” he said. The Arawaks had no weapons; their society had neither criminals, prisons nor prisoners. They were so kind-hearted that Columbus noted in his diary that on the day the Santa Maria was shipwrecked, the Arawaks labored for hours to save his crew and cargo. The native people were so honest that not one thing was missing.

Columbus was so impressed with the hard work of these gentle islanders, that he immediately seized their land for Spain and enslaved them to work in his brutal gold mines. Within only two years, 125,000 (half of the population) of the original natives on the island were dead.

Shockingly, Columbus supervised the selling of native girls into sexual slavery. Young girls of the ages 9 to 10 were the most desired by his men. In 1500, Columbus casually wrote about it in his log. He said: “A hundred castellanoes are as easily obtained for a woman as for a farm, and it is very general and there are plenty of dealers who go about looking for girls; those from nine to ten are now in demand.”

He forced these peaceful natives work in his gold mines until they died of exhaustion. If an “Indian” worker did not deliver his full quota of gold dust by Columbus‘ deadline, soldiers would cut off the man’s hands and tie them around his neck to send a message. Slavery was so intolerable for these sweet, gentle island people that at one point, 100 of them committed mass suicide. Catholic law forbade the enslavement of Christians, but Columbus solved this problem. He simply refused to baptize the native people of Hispaniola.

On his second trip to the New World, Columbus brought cannons and attack dogs. If a native resisted slavery, he would cut off a nose or an ear. If slaves tried to escape, Columbus had them burned alive. Other times, he sent attack dogs to hunt them down, and the dogs would tear off the arms and legs of the screaming natives while they were still alive. If the Spaniards ran short of meat to feed the dogs, Arawak babies were killed for dog food.

Columbus‘ acts of cruelty were so unspeakable and so legendary – even in his own day – that Governor Francisco De Bobadilla arrested Columbus and his two brothers, slapped them into chains, and shipped them off to Spain to answer for their crimes against the Arawaks. But the King and Queen of Spain, their treasury filling up with gold, pardoned Columbus and let him go free.

***

Christopher Columbus‘ Crimes Against Humanity

To be sure, the real annihilations did not start until the beginning of Columbus‘ second voyage to the Americas in 1493 (1).  For while he had expressed admiration for the overall  generosity of Indigenous People (1) and considered the Tainos to be “Very handsome, gentle, and friendly,” he interpreted all these positive traits as signs of weakness and vulnerability, saying “if devout religious persons knew the Indian Language well, all these people would soon become Christians (3).” As a consequence, he kidnapped some of the Tainos and took them back to Spain.

On his second voyage, in December 1494, Columbus captured 1,500 Tainos on the island of Hispaniola and herded them to Isabela, where 550 of ”the best males and females” were forced aboard ships bound for the slave markets of Seville.

Under Columbus‘s leadership, the Spanish attacked the Taino, sparing neither men, women nor children. Warfare, forced labor, starvation and disease reduced Hispaniola’s Taino population (estimated at one million to two million in 1492) to extinction within 30 years.

Furthermore, Columbus wrote a letter to the Spanish governor of the island, Hispaniola. Columbus asked the governor the cut off the ears and the noses of any of the slaves who resisted being subjugated to slavery.

…It is estimated that 100 million Indians from the Caribbean, Central, South, and North America perished at the hands of the European invaders. Sadly, unbelievably, really, much of that wholesale destruction was sanctioned and carried out by the Roman Catholic Church and various Protestant denominations. (1: p.37)

One of Columbus‘ men, Bartolome De Las Casas, was so mortified by Columbus‘ brutal atrocities against the native peoples, that he quit working for Columbus and became a Catholic priest. He described how the Spaniards under Columbus‘ command cut off the legs of children who ran from them, to test the sharpness of their blades. According to De Las Casas, the men made bets as to who, with one sweep of his sword, could cut a person in half. He says that Columbus‘ men poured people full of boiling soap. In a single day, De Las Casas was an eye witness as the Spanish soldiers dismembered, beheaded, or raped 3000 native people. “Such inhumanities and barbarisms were committed in my sight as no age can parallel,” De Las Casas wrote. “My eyes have seen these acts so foreign to human nature that now I tremble as I write.”

De Las Casas spent the rest of his life trying to protect the helpless native people. But after a while, there were no more natives to protect. Experts generally agree that before 1492, the population on the island of Hispaniola probably numbered above 3 million. Within 20 years of Spanish arrival, it was reduced to only 60,000. Within 50 years, not a single original native inhabitant could be found.

*****

IN 1492; Columbus Day Poem Taught to U.S. School Children

In fourteen hundred ninety-two
Columbus sailed the ocean blue.

He had three ships and left from Spain;
He sailed through sunshine, wind and rain.

He sailed by night; he sailed by day;
He used the stars to find his way.

A compass also helped him know
How to find the way to go.

Ninety sailors were on board;
Some men worked while others snored.

Then the workers went to sleep;
And others watched the ocean deep.

Day after day they looked for land;
They dreamed of trees and rocks and sand.

October 12 their dream came true,
You never saw a happier crew!

“Indians!  Indians!”  Columbus cried;
His heart was filled with joyful pride.

But “India” the land was not;
It was the Bahamas, and it was hot.

The Arakawa natives were very nice;
They gave the sailors food and spice.

Columbus sailed on to find some gold
To bring back home, as he’d been told.

He made the trip again and again,
Trading gold to bring to Spain.

The first American?  No, not quite.
But Columbus was brave, and he was bright.

Conventional History

Columbus Day first became an official state holiday in Colorado in 1906, and became a federal holiday in the United States in 1937, though people have celebrated Columbus‘ voyage since the colonial period. In 1792, New York City and other U.S. cities celebrated the 300th anniversary of his landing in the New World. President Benjamin Harrison called upon the people of the United States to celebrate Columbus Day on the 400th anniversary of the event. During the four hundredth anniversary in 1892, teachers, preachers, poets and politicians used Columbus Day rituals to teach ideals of patriotism. These patriotic rituals were framed around themes such as support for war, citizenship boundaries, the importance of loyalty to the nation, and celebrating social progress.^[1][2]

Catholic immigration in the mid-19th century induced discrimination from anti-immigrant activists. Like many other immigrant communities, Catholics developed organizations to fight discrimination and provide insurance for the struggling immigrants. One such organization, the Knights of Columbus, chose that name in part because it saw Christopher Columbus as a fitting symbol of Catholic immigrants’ right to citizenship: one of their own, a fellow Catholic, had discovered America.^[1]

Many Italian-Americans observe Columbus Day as a celebration of their heritage, the first occasion being in New York City on October 12, 1866.^[3] Columbus Day was first popularized as a holiday in the United States through the lobbying of Angelo Noce, a first generation Italian, in Denver. The first official, regular Columbus Day holiday was proclaimed by Colorado governor Jesse F. McDonald in 1905 and made a statutory holiday in 1907.^[4] In April 1934, as a result of lobbying by the Knights of Columbus, Congress and President Franklin Delano Roosevelt made October 12 a federal holiday under the name Columbus Day.^[4][5]

RECONSIDER COLUMBUS DAY AD: Columbus Day, a day that our government has deemed worthy of remembrance. But with all due respect—with all due respect—with all due respect, there’s an ugly truth that has been overlooked for way too long. Columbus committed heinous crimes against the indigenous peoples of the Caribbean and millions of natives throughout the Americas. And Columbus set the stage for the slave trade in the New World. So, please, please reconsider if this is a man you want to honor. Reconsider if you want to celebrate the crimes of Columbus. It’s not your fault; it happened a long time ago. But remaining neutral and pretending like it didn’t happen, or that it doesn’t still impact us today? So, please, take the day to learn the whole story. 

Righting the Great Wrong: Happy ‘Native Indigenous People’s Day‘
(For christsakes, the guy C.C. thought he was in INDIA or so the story goes)!  He then found the indigenous people so giving, he went back to get 14 more galleon ships to steal, pillage, rape and conquer the peaceful people throughout the Carribean, South and North America’s.  For an excellent overview of the plight of the ‘loser’s’ to American hegemony over the centuries read Howard Zinn’s ‘The People’s History, as told by those that suffered at the hands of the invaders. here)

As the nation commemorates the arrival of Christopher Columbus to the so-called “New World” in 1492, indigenous activists at Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colorado, are pushing for schools to teach the “real history of the Americas” and to celebrate indigenous culture. “Columbus Day” has long evoked sadness and anger amongst people of color, especially Native Americans, who object to honoring a man who opened the door to European colonization, the exploitation of native peoples, and the slave trade. We’re joined by three guests involved with the “Real History of the Americas” day: Esther Belin, a writing instructor at Fort Lewis College and a member of the Navajo Nation; Shirena Trujillo Long, coordinator of El Centro de Muchos Colores at Fort Lewis College and chair of the the Real History of the Americas Committee; and student activist Noel Altaha, a member of the White Mountain Apache Tribe and Fort Lewis College senior.

– Michael Tsarion, “Astrotheology and Sidereal Mythology”

“The official story that Christopher Columbus discovered the Americas is ludicrous. A few miles from Edinburgh in Scotland today still stands Rosslyn Chapel, that holy grail of the Brotherhood Elite. It was built in the shape of a Templar cross by the St Clair-Sinclair family and is a mass of esoteric symbolism. The foundations were laid in 1446 and it was completed in the 1480s. How remarkable then that the stonework at Rosslyn includes depictions of sweetcorn and cacti which were only found in America and Christopher Columbus did not ‘discover’ that continent until 1492! How could this be? There is, in fact, no mystery. Christopher Columbus was not even nearly the first white person to land in the Americas. The Phoenicians, Norse, Irish, Welsh, Bretons, Basques and Portuguese, all sailed to America before him and so did Prince Henry Sinclair of Rosslyn, as documented in a rare book by Frederick I. Pohl called Prince Henry Sinclair’s Voyage To The New World 1398. Sinclair made the journey with another Brotherhood bloodline, the Zeno family, one of the most prominent Black Nobility families in Venice. Sinclair and Antonio Zeno landed in what we call Newfoundland and went ashore in Nova Scotia (New Scotland) in 1398 … The Brotherhood had known about the Americas for thousands of years and Christopher Columbus was used to make the official discovery so that the occupation of the Americas could begin.” –David Icke, “The Biggest Secret” 178-9

Columbus’ supporters were European royalty and the Templars. His father-in-law was a former Templar Knight and Catherine de Medici of the Illuminati bloodline (along with others) financed his voyage. Columbus’ three ships sailed under the Templars Red Cross flag, used today by the Red Cross and Switzerland. The royals also sent out fleets of conquistadors and swash-buckling pirates flying the Skull and Bones flag – their orders to rape, kill, and pillage all they could from the New World.

“The Skull and Bones cross used by the secret society comes from the pirate skull and cross bones. They weren’t just a bunch of swashbucklers like you’ve seen in the movies. No, these were agents sent onto the high seas by the British royal family to colonize the Americas.” -Michael Tsarion, “The Subversive Use of Sacred Symbolism in the Media” Lecture, Conspiracy Con 2003

(Skull and Bones Secret Society that Bush, Kerry, et al have belonged to)

http://www.atlanteanconspiracy.com/2008/10/christopher–columbus-new-world-part-1.html

(Atlantean Conspiracy by Eric Dubay and David Icke’s, “The Biggest Secret”are excellent big picture books on revisionist history.)

****

“In this sign you will conquer”.

History of the Knights Templar Red Cross

Columbus sailed under the Knights Templar Flag for good reason.  He was representing their goals of conquest and acquisition.

History of the Skull and Bones (Columbus) Secret Society.  

Symbols of the Knights Templar and Skull and Bones Society.

Bush, Kerry, Schwarzenegger, Hitler’s Nazi’s, Mussolini,Columbus, Jolly Roger all have used or worn these insignia’s.

***

Amazon book review

A Little Matter of Genocide ~ Ward Churchill

During the four centuries spanning the time between 1492, when Christopher Columbus first set foot on the ‘New World’ of a Caribbean beach and 1892, when the US Census Bureau concluded that there were fewer than a quarter-million indigenous people surviving within the country’s boundaries, a hemispheric population estimated to have been as great as 125 million was reduced by something over 90 percent. The people had died in their millions of being hacked apart with axes and swords, buried alive and trampled under horses, hunted as game and fed to dogs, shot, beaten, stabbed, scalped for bounty, hanged on meathooks and thrown over the sides of ships at sea, worked to death as slave laborers, intentionally starved and frozen to death during a multitude of forced marches and internments, and, in an unknown number of instances, deliberately infected with epidemic diseases. (p. 1)

Later in the book he gives a staggering estimate of the total who were ‘ethnically cleansed’: ‘All told, it is probable that more than one hundred million native people were ‘eliminated’ in the course of Europe’s ongoing ‘civilization’ of the western hemisphere.’(p. 86) (Emphasis added)

Although Ward Churchill has not written fully on the genocide against the Palestinians, he does place it within the global context of the present book, A Little Matter of Genocide, a book which leapt out at me from a display of books by and about native Americans in City Lights Book Store. The author is an enrolled Keetoowah Cherokee and Professor of American Indian Studies in the Department of Ethnic Studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder and has been a leader of the Colorado Chapter of the American Indian Movement since 1972. The title of the book is taken from a statement by Russell Means, founder of the American Indian Movement, who spoke of ‘a little matter of genocide right here at home,’ by which he meant the ongoing genocide against the American Indians which is still in progress.

~~~

A Little Matter of Genocide ~ The U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) Comes Clean 185 years later.

“Immediately upon its establishment in 1824, the Office of Indian Affairs was an instrument by which the United States enforced its ambition against the Indian nations. As the nation expanded West, the agency participated in the ethnic cleansing that befell the western tribes. War begets tragedy, but the deliberate spread of disease, the decimation of the bison herds, the use of alcohol to destroy mind and body, and the cowardly killing of women and children made for tragedy on a scale so ghastly that it cannot be dismissed as merely the inevitable consequence of the clash of competing ways of life. After the devastation of tribal economies, the BIA set out to destroy all things Indian by forbidding the speaking of Indian languages, prohibiting traditional religious activities, outlawing traditional government, and making Indians ashamed of who they were. Worst of all, the BIA committed these acts against the children entrusted to its boarding schools. The trauma of shame, fear, and anger has passed from one generation to the next, and manifests itself in the rampant alcoholism, drug abuse, and domestic violence that plague Indian country. The BIA expresses its profound sorrow for these wrongs, extends this formal apology to Indian people for its historical conduct, and makes promises for its future conduct. “

***

Canary Effect ` Full movie
The Canary Effect is a 2006 documentary that looks into the effects of that the United States and its policies have on the Indigenous peoples (Native Americans) who are residents.

It premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival and won the Stanley Kubrick Award at the 2006 Traverse City Film Festival (Michael Moore hosts).

The movie was directed by Robin Davey and Yellow Thunder Woman, who are both members of LA Based alternative pop group The Bastard Fairies.

Delving deeply into the often misunderstood and frequently over looked historic realities of the American Indian, The Canary Effect follows the terrifying and horrific abuses instilled upon the Indigenous people of North America, and details the genocidal practices of the US government and its continuing affects on present day Indian country.

Featuring interviews with the leading scholars and experts on Indian issues including controversial author Ward Churchill, the film brings together the past and present in a way never before captured so eloquently and boldly on film.

Excellent History of the Lakotah Nation and White Man’s role(1hr. mp3)

Forced Sterilization of Native American Women

Smallpox, Indians and Blankets

Natives did not have built up immune systems like Euro-White man so they became easily susceptible to White Man’s diseases.

***

The U.S. Government Native Indian Re-education Program

(African American slavery, Indigenous People’s genocide, Japanese Interment in WWII, Chinese banashment, Women Suffrage and now we turn on those humans of Muslim faith to dominate and eradicate.)

DENNIS BANKS: I was in the boarding schools when punishment was very severe if you ran away. This was during the early ’40s. I was taken to a boarding school when I was four years old, and taken away from my mother and my father, my grandparents, who I stayed with most of the time, and just abruptly taken away and then put into the boarding school, 300 miles away from our home. And, you know, the beatings began immediately, the—almost the de-Indianizing program. It was a terrible experience that the American government was experimenting with. And that was trying to destroy the culture and the person, destroy the Indian-ness in him and save the human being, save the—kill an Indian, save the man. That was, you know, the description of what this policy is about, about trying to—

AMY GOODMAN: Now, the government ran the schools?

DENNIS BANKS: The U.S. government paid—of course, they ran a lot of the schools themselves, but they also delegated a lot of it to the Christians, Christian communities. The Catholics had some. The Episcopalians had some. The Lutherans had some. Methodists had some. And so, it was like a complicit—there was complicity between the churches and the state in taking care of Indian problem, solving the Indian problem, and trying to change who we were.

AMY GOODMAN: Dennis, where had—where had you lived? Where had you lived, and where were you brought to school?

DENNIS BANKS: I lived on the federal—or, on the Leech Lake Indian Reservation, where I was born, in northern Minnesota. And I was taken to a boarding school 300 miles away to the south, southernmost part of Minnesota, the southwestern part, called Pipestone Indian School. I stayed there three years—six years—

AMY GOODMAN: And how—

DENNIS BANKS: Go ahead.

AMY GOODMAN: How did you communicate with your family? And how often did you get to see them? Did you get to talk to them?

DENNIS BANKS: Never. Never. You know, they cut off all communication with your parents, and a lot of letters, which I found later in—I stayed there for six years without communicating to—with my parents at all. And finally, they let us go home for six years. Of course, we couldn’t speak the language. We could speak only English and—what these young people were talking about.

But there was severe punishment for running away from that kind of system. I ran away. I kept running away. Almost once a week, I’d run away from those schools. They’d catch me. They’d bring me back to the school, beat me. And it was—it was terrible. I mean, there was other kinds of punishment that we went through, as well. And it was—now that, it was a—that kind of experience, I still remember what it is like today. And I have a friend who has been—who had been my friend for over 70 years now, and we remember those days. There were—we stuck together. A lot of people stuck together. Just being together, that’s what saved a lot of us from terrible consequences of speaking. But eventually, they—you know, they kept beating me down, and I kept—so I started learning English, and I started learning who the presidents were. I started learning all that stuff.

And then they let me go home for 30 days. Six years. And I asked my mother, I said, “Why didn’t you write to me?” And she—you know, and she says, “I did.” But I never—I never questioned beyond that. And then there was—they sent me to another boarding school in North Dakota, another 200 miles away. I was there for three years. And then, after that, same thing: no—only English, you know, corporal punishment. And then I went home for another 30 days, asked my mother, “Why is it you didn’t write to me again?” She says, “I did, and I did.” Then they sent me to another boarding school in South Dakota further away, so another 400 miles. I kept running away from these schools. And I finally ran away from the last one, and I finally made it home.

And it wasn’t ’til almost just three years ago when my daughter was—they were doing a documentary on Dennis Banks, and they found—they went to—in the federal depository records in Kansas City. And she called me, and she says, “Dad, we found” — “Dad,” she said, “we found your—we found your school records.” And I said, “Bring them back.” So she brought them back, and I started looking at them. And she says, “Dad, we also found something else.” She handed me a shoebox. And I opened up the shoebox, and those were letters, letters from my mother. And I started opening them up, and I started reading them. And in the second one, there was a letter to the superintendent of the school that said, “Here is $5. Please send my children—my son back home to me.”

***

“Make no mistake, we will close Guantanamo prison, which has damaged our national security interests and become a tremendous recruiting tool for al-Qaeda,”  President Barrack Obama

(Not much has changed since 1492.)

What it is like existing on a U.S. government granted reservation today.

Suicide is Epidemic Among Youth on Indian Reservations.

****

From the Belly of My Beauty, Esther Belin

surviving in this place called the united states
is possible

impossible
for those who take it seriously

“if I were japanese
i would be a nisei
i am second-generation
off-reservation

my mother comes from
the land of enchantment
now also the land of poverty
drugs
illiteracy
and confusion

my mother
like many japanese during world war II
was relocated
off the rez
to a federally run
boarding school
in riverside, california, USA”

my mother resides still
angelic
among yellow-brown haze
indigenous and immigrant smog in los angeles
skyscraping progress pushing her home

i’m sure when you were young
your history books told you all about indians
or
i’m sure when you were young
you saw indians on TV
YOU SAW ME ON TV:
indian princess
rotund squaw
blood-thirsty brave
stoic chief
ungrateful drunk

now
i’m sure when you were young
your fifth grade teacher couldn’t tell you why

men worked on cars and built airplanes and school buses
men drank beer and played pool
they had friends named Buffalo Joe and Harold Jim
they laughed a lot and yelled a lot
and called white men chicken —-—-
men stayed at bars all weekend and wore dark glasses and sat in the back at church
their shame silenced and their anger roared you into an arroyo
safe from them and you didn’t want to be like them
or know anyone like them
or love anyone like them
again

when i was young
i saw men as father
as a grown woman
i see my father in me
become me

sitting in a bar
silencing the war cry of my mothers corralled at bosque redondo
numbing the wound deep in my valley of cowboys and indians
recycling the memory of cold mountain fever

Esther Belin, reading from her poetry book, From the Belly of My Beauty.