April 8-12, Lynda Hollinger-Janzen and Janet Shoemaker represented Waterford Mennonite Church, while walking the Solidarity with Indigenous Peoples Pilgrimage, which was cosponsored by The Coalition to Dismantle the Doctrine of Discovery and Mennonite Mission Network. This article is adapted from a reflection shared with the Waterford congregation, April 27. A photo essay of the pilgrimage can be viewed here.
The goal of a pilgrimage is to be present to a way of life that is unfamiliar to us, so that we can begin to see and interrupt injustice in the ways we live. In this spirit, we joined a group of 19 other pilgrims in walking in solidarity with Indigenous Peoples, led by Sarah Augustine, co-founder and executive director of The Coalition to Dismantle the Doctrine of Discovery.
April 8-12, on land that lies three hours east of present-day Seattle, Washington, we learned that, although the Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation have sovereignty, they are also subject to United States government policies that were designed to wipe out Indigenous cultures and spiritualities.
The Doctrine of Discovery shapes guiding beliefs of the U.S.
The Doctrine of Discovery is one of the tools that the U.S. government uses to eradicate Indigenous Peoples and cultures. The Doctrine of Discovery is about the same age as Anabaptism and is at the basis of many of the laws in the United States. It also structures the way many of us see the world. How often have we said, “Finders keepers. Losers weepers”?
Popes and the kings and queens of Europe wrote the Doctrine of Discovery into being, as they sent explorers off to find new land and wealth to increase their power. But the European explorers weren’t the first people to “find” Turtle Island, the name by which many Indigenous Peoples identified the continent of North America! The European explorers found sophisticated Indigenous civilizations, who had lived on this land for thousands of years.
Now, what should we do with the moral guidelines of “Finders keepers. Losers weepers”? What if you want something, but you aren’t the finder? According to the Doctrine of Discovery, we just say that the only people who count are Christians. All other people are barbarians, who aren’t fully human, and God has given Christians the mandate to subdue the barbarians, civilize them and make them more god-like, or more like us.
We learned from Sarah Augustine that the Doctrine of Discovery and other related concepts legitimate extractive industries that displace and destroy many Indigenous Peoples and other vulnerable communities. Acting in this way also harms the earth, by taking as much as we can from it immediately with no thought for our children and grandchildren. It rapes our Mother Earth, rather than living in loving relationship with her.
The popes had the most powerful religious voices in the Western world in the mid-1400’s. Consequently, what they said became embedded in the White, western European worldview and has yet to be eradicated.
By the time the relatives of those of us who are of European ancestry headed to the “New World,” they were proclaiming their “chosen-ness by God,” to claim a new “promised land” where, because of their Christian faith, they would be part of a nation blessed by God. This mindset is still prevalent today. But are we blessed by God, or are we blessed by the capitalist/extractive economy that sustains our comfort? Are we “blessed” or just privileged by laws that ensure that White people have rights and access to resources that others do not?
The U.S. steals Yakama land
The Yakama reservation was created in 1855, when the Yakama People were forced to cede all but one-tenth of their ancestral land. All of the people living within the ceded territory were supposed to be given two years to move from their home to somewhere within the boundaries of the small reservation. But 12 days after the treaty was signed, the governor of the Washington territory began advertising Yakama lands for sale. Immediately, White settlers began moving onto that ceded territory, pushing out the Yakama People.
Thirty years later, in 1887, the Dawes Act was passed, affecting all lands reserved for Indigenous Nations. This act mandated that each Indigenous family be allotted 160 acres and each Indigenous single adult receive 80 acres. All over the United States, the allotments were drawn out in a grid and assigned, and what was left over was sold to White people, once again reducing the amount of available land for Indigenous use and habitation.
This is one way the U.S. government created and broke laws to take land away from the people who first lived on Turtle Island.
Occasionally, an attempt at reparation has been made, as was the case in 1972, when, through an executive order signed by President Richard Nixon, the eastern side of Pahto, a sacred mountain that is at the center of Yakama cosmology, and 21,000 acres of surrounding land were returned to the Yakama Nation. The 1855 treaty that founded the reservation included promises that the mountain would be included in the reservation boundaries, but it took nearly 120 years for this promise to be realized.
In 2023, 65% of the population on the Yakama reservation was Latino — migrant workers who came for fruit-picking and packaging jobs — 15% was White and 15% was Indigenous. Why is it that the Yakama population became so small on their own reservation?
All tribal lands are federal property and held in trust for the Indigenous nations by the U.S. government. This means that members of the Yakama nation do not own their land. If you don’t own land, you have no capital. If you have no capital, you can’t accumulate the wealth needed to start a business or to build a house. The few Indigenous people, who, through exceptional persistence, finish school, go to college and find jobs — most likely off the reservation — are obligated to give up living in their homeland and being close to their people. This is another way the U.S. government separates Indigenous Peoples from their cultures and forces assimilation.
The U.S. government violently forces assimilation
In the late 1850’s, the U.S. government violently took Mool-Mool, a sacred oak grove, named for the gurgle of natural spring water. This land, which had been a sacred gathering place for many Indigenous nations and a source of life-giving water, was desecrated when Fort Simcoe was erected on it to subjugate the Yakama People. After three years, the fort became a boarding school.
The jail, built to contain prisoners of war, was used for schoolchildren, who were punished for bad behavior, like speaking the language they had spoken from birth. There are Yakama people who remember their elders talking about children being packed in so tight they couldn’t sit or lie down. The young prisoners weren’t given food or water or a place to take care of their bodily needs.
Fort Simcoe is now a state park, where Civil War re-enactments take place. Tourist signs describe the three years that this land was used as a fort, but they make no mention of the millennia when Mool-Mool was a holy place of healing or of the 62 years that it traumatized Yakama children. This is an example of how the U.S. government sanitizes history and erases Indigenous Peoples.
How do we respond?
Many of us reading this article are part of the dominant White settler culture in the United States. For those who aren’t, thank you for your generosity of spirit and your faith that White people can become better allies and co-conspirators in working toward God’s kindom.
One common response that White people have when they come face-to-face with the systems of oppression is to resist awareness to the fact that they unfairly profit from the system that oppresses others. White people often say things, like, “I didn’t kill anyone for the land I live on! In fact, I’ve spent most of my life working hard to pay for it. So, I’m not guilty of murder or land theft!”
Another frequent response White people make when they hear about the systems of oppression that benefit them is, “Why are you trying to make us feel guilty? What good can be served by making us feel bad about ourselves?”
Yet a third oft-heard response is dismissal of oppression, by saying, “History throughout all of time has been written by the victors. Trying to make amends for past harms is like opening a beehive. It would be impossible, overwhelming and retraumatizing. Let’s just start where we are now and try to make things better from here on.”
We can choose polarized or flexible/compassionate thinking
These three common responses fit into a cycle of polarized thinking, in which there are only two roles: the oppressor and the oppressed. White Anabaptists of European descent are used to thinking of themselves as the oppressed or the “good guys.” But in the past 500 years, many European and North American Anabaptists have moved from being the oppressed to being the oppressors. If the descendants of White European Anabaptists can honestly look at this reality, they may feel humiliation, guilt and shame. These are powerful emotions that can block growth, break down relationships and get in the way of positive action.
To protect themselves from discomfort and self-judgment, people often resort to resenting the oppressed and justifying their ways of life. They build walls between themselves and the oppressed to avoid having to deal with people who don’t look, or act, or think, or vote, like they do. The “others” become the “bad guys,” the criminals, or many other derogatory names. The “others” are blamed for all society’s dysfunctions.
This kind of response may be normal human behavior. But staying in this zone of guilt and blame and “othering” is a function of White privilege. The beneficiaries of violent systems can decide whether they accept the truth shared by the people on the margins of society. Those who are oppressed by the system do not have a choice; they live within the oppressive system every day of their lives, without a way of escape.
An alternative to the polarized-thinking cycle is the flexible thinking cycle, or the cycle of compassion. It’s true that White people today did not actively participate in the genocide of the Indigenous Peoples or steal the land that they now inhabit. However, when we acknowledge that some of us unfairly benefit from the systems that govern the United States, it allows us to ask:
- How do we want to live today?
- How can we stand for justice now?
We can learn Indigenous history, feel the sadness and repair harms
We cannot change the past. But we can acknowledge the harms done by the United States government and how it benefited White settler families, creating a network of wealth and relationships. We can know the truth and feel sadness for how Indigenous Peoples, and other people who have been pushed to the margins of society, have been hurt and oppressed by the U.S. government and people who live in the dominant culture.
Out of that sadness, compassion can grow. White people, rather than defending their actions and those of their ancestors and minimizing the harms done, or on the other hand, villainizing their ancestors and beating themselves up, so that they become incapacitated by guilt and shame, can ask questions about how to repair the harms done and how to stand for justice.
“The world is not made better by diminishing yourself,” Sarah Augustine told the pilgrimage participants.
We can find our way to solidarity, the collective people of God
From a learning posture, rather than a judgmental stance, we can find our way to solidarity. We can stand with Indigenous Peoples in movements for their dignity and self-determination. By standing in solidarity, we become the people God created us to be, the collective people of God.
Steps toward living into the kindom of God
We have found that action helps us work through our feelings of sadness, guilt, shame and anger. These feelings can sometimes be incapacitating. However, when we join others and take steps, even though they may be small, toward solidarity with those who are oppressed, our feelings find a way to express themselves, instead of wreaking havoc in our bodies. We become grateful for new relationships and new ways of seeing and being. Solidarity can begin to grow in the soil of our hearts and minds, which has been churned up, or plowed, by our emotions.
Education and awareness-raising
- Become familiar with the The Coalition to Dismantle the Doctrine of Discovery’s website.
- Read Indigenous authors.
- Attend local powwows and other events for which the Indigenous Nations have issued a public invitation.
Financial support
- Give to The Coalition to Dismantle the Doctrine of Discovery, as they help Mennonite Church USA and other denominations discern the way forward.
- A recurring donation of $10/month permits one Yakama child or young person to participate in Mending Wings, through which they can learn to dance their prayers and experience Jesus’ love in the context of their cultural practices. Corey Greaves, founder and president of Mending Wings, said, “Mending Wings exists to empower our Native youth, as followers of the Jesus Way, while being fully Native. We believe that we are closest to the Creator, when we are truly ourselves, when we are true to our cultures, because that is how [Creator] made us and [Creator] doesn’t make junk.”
Action
- Join a group, or start a group, with people who are curious about how to stand in solidarity with Indigenous Peoples. If you are unaware of such groups, contact The Coalition to Dismantle the Doctrine of Discovery.
- Participate in The Coalition to Dismantle the Doctrine of Discovery’s monthly worship sessions, and receive training for grassroots organizing and much more.
