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Will the next President apologize to Native Americans?
By Lauren | June 20, 2008
A few weeks ago, I wrote a post asking whether the next President would apologize to America’s ethnic minorities. The trigger for that post was the heartfelt apology that Australia’s Prime Minister delivered to his country’s aboriginal natives for the abuse they suffered at the hands of Caucasian settlers. Now, Canada’s Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, has upped the ante with an apology on behalf of the Canadian government to Canada’s indigenous population.
Starting in the 1800’s, it was the practice of the Canadian government to take native children away from their families and communities and place them in ”Indian Schools,” where they suffered loneliness, homesickness and, all too often, physical abuse and deprivation. Modeled on industrial schools of the period, these institutions were designed, appallingly, to “take the Indian out of the child” by forcing them to abandon the culture and traditions their families cherished. Harper’s apology is accompanied by a $2 billion settlement between the Canadian government and representatives of Canada’s indigenous tribes.
What many Americans may not realize, however, is that Canada followed the United States’ lead when it established “Indian schools,” and that thousands of Native Americans in the U.S. were forced into such institutions in a blatant effort to eradicate Native American culture. (These schools were one innovation of which no American has any reason to be proud.) If Canada’s government owes its native population an apology, the government of the U.S. certainly has the same obligation to its own Native American citizens.
In February, the U.S. Senate passed a resolution asking President Bush to consider apologizing to the United States’ Native American population. That resolution is currently awaiting action in the House but, with the election only a few months away, it seems unlikely that President Bush will deliver the requested apology before leaving office. However, nothing says that the next President has to wait for a Congressional resolution to apologize to Native Americans for the abuses they suffered. Native American children were mistreated by the U.S. government as surely as indigenous Canadian children were by the Canadian government; if an apology is due and owing, as it surely must be, there’s no reason not to deliver it now.
Would your Presidential candidate have the courage to apologize to Native Americans for their past sufferings at the hands of the U.S. government? What would he say, and are you okay with that? You decide.
Topics: Apologies, Presidential Campaign, Social Ethics, ethics |