LETTERS: THE THANKSGIVING EXCHANGE RECALLED

To the editor:

I close my eyes and picture in my mind how it must have been when our people first saw them as they stepped off their ships. Our people welcomed them, and gifts and friendship were exchanged.

In time, the blood flowed, and harshness on our people began. We saw native people carried off as prisoners. It was a friendship that would cost native people our land, our religion, our freedom to move freely and even our children.

The newcomers passed a law to take all native children from their parents and tribal ways in the 1880s and put them in an all-Indian school. Even the bones of our ancestors were dishonored. Ninety percent of the native Americans perished. The bones that were not claimed by Mother Earth were claimed by the newcomers.

The few who remained alive were told where to live and how to live. They grieved and starved daily on reservations from loneliness and broken hearts.

Today we are free to move about as free people. We took on their identity to escape mistreatment. Even today some native people have no homeland to call our own home as our ancestors did. We cannot gather the bird-of-prey feather for our regalia and religion. They tell us it is illegal to collect the feathers.

They do as they please in their religion, yet they have forgotten the Ten Commandments. They have forgotten what the Bible says. They use only what they want out of the Bible.

Our people always thanked the Creator and honored his creation to the fullest. We gathered together every fall, sharing food and thanking the Creator. This tradition we passed on to the newcomers. They would have starved and frozen without our friendship and support.

In return, they put harsh punishment on our people. Our few in numbers have hidden out and starved. We lost everything in that friendship.

The Creator hand of mercy reached down and protected the remaining few so the story would always be told of the Thanksgiving exchange.

JOHNNY MOTTNothern Cherokee Tribe

Cape Girardeau