Indigenous Thinkers

Houston's Mayor Pro Tem Michael Berry insulted American Indian listeners during his talk show on slavery and Indians on KPRC Radio 950. The American Indian Genocide Museum in Houston urges others to respond his email address is michaelberry@clearchannel.com or iam@michaelberry.com :

Houston's Mayor Berry:

" We need to stop wasting all this time and energy apologizing to the American Indian, which we continue to do ... We give them casinos, we give them special licenses, we give them special scholarships and why I don't understand ..."

" We conquered them, that's history - Hello "'

" You got to be against giving welfare to the American Indians because of the fact , that 200 years ago they were whipped in a war. Lets just call it what it is, they lost a war."
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Response by Depree ShadowWalker, Mescalero Apache:

First off, I would like to say that Michael Berry is a prime example of the failure of our education system. The United States education system (k-12 and Higher Education), is not concern with teaching the public about the true history of the United States nor the history of the land, the people, the nations before and after the organization of our United States government.

If Michael Berry and the US citizens had been educated that the formal agreements between 450 + American Indian Nations are called treaties and that those treaties have never been honored in their entirety, he might not have been so blandly malicious in his remarks. The United States would not have to apologize if the mismanagement of these treaties would have not occurred and did not continue to occur.

Second, American Indian Nations have sovereignty a formal word that recognizes each American Indian Nation as “self-governing”. Sovereignty means that the United States does not “give us” anything “special” such as licenses, scholarships, welfare, or casinos.

Third, American Indians were not conquered or “whipped in a war”, treaties were established as a compromise between the invading nation, called the United States and the 500 nations that existed before colonization of North America. The treaties were established as a compromise of warring nations, an agreement to stop killing each other and to cohabitate the land. (read: Uneven Ground, by David Wilkins and Tsianina Lomawaima)

Lastly but not final, this process of possessing and acquiring land through a war did not happen 200 years ago for each of the American Indian Nations. It was initiated by the landing of Columbus, but the “war” has never ended, because politicians continue to engage in policies that undermine the sovereignty and integrity of the American Indian Nations and dismiss the contributions that we have “given” to make our nation, the United States, strong. One such contribution was the US Constitution (Iroquois Confederacy), to name just one. (read: Exiled in the Land of the Free by Oren Lyons, John Mohawk, Vine Deloria, Jr., Laurence Hauptman, Howard Bernman, Donald Grinde, Jr., Curtis Berkley, Robert Venables)

Yes, I do expect our government to apologize (at the very least) for all the grievances’ that it has allowed against each American Indian Nation. After all my great aunt, Mildred Cleghorn, who pasted away in 1976 was one of the third generation of children born into captivity as a Prisoner of War. Please note the date; this is not 200 years ago! This political status was another broken negotiation between Geronimo and a United States representative.

Since the government will not educate its citizens in the history of United States and the indigenous people who cohabitate it, we will continue to see ignorant politicians creating policies and making statements that continue the “genocide” of indigenous people

*Mildred Cleghorn*
Mildred Cleghorn, retired tribal leader, and a living treasure to her people, died April 15, 1997 in a traffic accident in Apache, Oklahoma. She was born at Fort Sill, Oklahoma on Dec. 11th, 1910. She was 86 years old, and served as Tribal chairwoman of the Fort Sill Apache Tribe until her retirement in 1995.

She was one of the few surviving Prisoners of War of the Fort Sill Apaches, as they became known, who weren't freed until 1913-1914. The Fort Sill Apaches were members of Geronimo's band, who "surrendered" Sept. 5, 1886. The U.S. government promptly corralled 394 of his people, loaded them into railroad boxcars and shipped them off to Florida as prisoners of war. Mildred's grandparents were shipped east from the San Carlos Reservation in New Mexico, even though they stayed on the Reservation as ordered by U.S. authorities.

"There was nothing we could do," said Cleghorn, who retired in the fall of 1995, after 18 years as tribal chairwoman. "We just accepted it and went on, but they could never make up for what happened to us."

Before they were released, the Fort Sill Apaches were required to accept 160-acre allotments with a house, a well and a year's rations. Only two families received 158 acres, while most received 80 or less.

In a 1996 interview, Cleghorn remembered her first moments of freedom when her family left Fort Sill in a horse-drawn wagon. She was 3 years old when her family settled on a 40-acre plot near Apache, Oklahoma.

"The families weren't allowed to live together," Cleghorn said. "So they scattered us all over. If we wanted to go visit someone, it would be an all-day trip. I guess they were afraid of another uprising."

In 1996, only 372 Fort Sill Apaches remained on the tribal roll from a tribal population that once numbered 1,000. That year, fewer than 115 members were still in Oklahoma.

Also, in 1996, Mildred became one of the lead plaintiffs in the class action suit against the mismanagement of Indian money held in trust by the U.S. Government. The suit charged that the federal government had mismanaged Indian money and destroyed important documents. Filers of the suit hoped to get a reliable accounting of hundreds of millions of dollars in Indian trust funds, which has still not been forthcoming.

The suit was filed in federal court in the District of Columbia by tribal members who say the Interior Department has lost track of money that it was supposed to be investing and guarding for American Indians. Mildred Cleghorn, filed on behalf of more than 300,000 Indians who have trust fund accounts with the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

Last year, on the anniversary of the Oklahoma City Bombing, Mildred helped to read the 168 names of the bombing victims in the company of Governor Bill Anoatubby of the Chickasaw Nation and others tribal leaders.

information provided by John Berry, Oklahoma - Quotes by AP and The Daily Oklahoman
*retrieved from http://www.dickshovel.com/elders.html#Mildred

Currently there are 562 tribal entities recognized by our Federal Government. http://www.census.gov/pubinfo/www/FRN02.pdf

other resources:
http://ucblibraries.colorado.edu/govpubs/us/native.htm