Native groups debunk Lewis and Clark
By Stephanie Hedgecoke
Reenactors of the 1803-1806 Lewis and Clark "Discovery"
expedition traveling up the Missouri River in replica boats met
with the first of several planned confrontations by Native
communities on Sept. 18. When the reenactors docked their boats
at a park in Chamberlain, S.D., Indigenous people were there to
meet them. Lakota organizer Alex White Plume from Pine Ridge
said, "We want you to turn around and go home."
Lakota families drove four hours from Pine Ridge Reservation
to protest the reenactment of the "Dawn of Genocide."
Meriwether Lewis and William Clark had carried out Thomas
Jefferson's original "Manifest Destiny" plan of reconnaissance
on the territories of Native Nations between the Atlantic and
Pacific oceans. That expedition laid the groundwork for years
of genocidal war against Indigenous people as the U.S. settler
state penetrated territory after territory to conduct a series
of genocidal wars. U.S. troops often attacked peaceful sleeping
villages of women, children and elders at dawn. News papers
propagandized against Native people, characterizing them as
"savage" and "primitive." The federal government guaranteed
homestead land to settlers to help destroy the buffalo and
other food sources in their drive to steal the lands all the
way to the Pacific Ocean.
American Indian Movement activist Carter Camp (Ponca
nation), said to those celebrating the expedition, "You are
reenacting something ugly, evil and hateful. You are reenacting
the coming of death to our people." Camp added that Lewis and
Clark knew what had already happened to the great Indigenous
Nations in the eastern regions of "Great Turtle Island," the
Indigenous name for this continent. Camp said they knew that
missionaries followed the soldiers, and the people of those
great Native nations had been decimated and driven from their
homes.
Lewis and Clark, said Camp, "had no honor. They came with
the American lie. They murdered 60 million people. Come to your
senses. Take those silly clothes off. And take your [expletive]
boat and go back down the river!"
Lakota elder Floyd Hand said, "We are the descendants of
[famous Lakota leaders] Red Cloud and Crazy Horse. I didn't
come here in peace." He said that they would not smoke the pipe
with the expedition. "We want you to turn around and go
home."
Alfred Bone Shirt of Rosebud Reservation told them, "This is
disgusting. This is a slap in the face." Bone Shirt described
the racist character of South Dakota towns, including
Chamberlain. "Our prisons are full, our children are being
taken away." Bone Shirt asked if there would next be a
reenactment of Bush and Cheney invading Iraq.
White Plume told them, "The whole West is drying up. The
Earth should be a priority and not your own personal needs." He
added, "If you continue the journey, we will harass you every
inch of the way."
Deb White Plume presented Peyton Clark, the great, great,
great-grandson of Clark, with a blanket. "Smallpox," she said.
"Have it back." And she chastised their celebration of
genocide: "I have [only] two sons because your government
sterilized me."
Pointing out that they were surrounded by cops, she said
police always surround Lakota. "Your government fought my
family with guns and I survived and I am here to tell you about
it. You are here with no respect."
The reenactment had received funding of $85 million to play
out a cover story that the expedition had "minimal or
negligible impact" on the Native Nations. Official and academic
events have been held to put a facade of "reconciliation" on
the reenactment, and some Bureau of Indian Affairs governments
welcomed the reenactment without the approval of the
reservation communities they are supposed to represent.
Lakota people caravanned to Ft. Pierre, S.D., the following
weekend to protest the "Dawn of Genocide" events there. Organi
zers are calling on all Native peoples to "decolonize their
viewpoints" on this issue and join the protests to stop the
reenactment.
Quotes taken from organizers' press release, UN Observer
and International Report, and Daily Republic of Mitchell,
S.D.
Reprinted from the Oct. 14, 2004, issue of
Workers World newspaper
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