Submitted by Sally Bowers and Julie Melton, Friends of Wisdom Prairie
In this installment of reSTORYation, we invite you to consider the doctrine that allowed newcomers to this continent to forcibly remove the indigenous people that were already here. We learn the troubling stories of how doctrines and laws dehumanized indigenous peoples through the removal of their mind, body and spirit. We begin reSTORYation with conciliation. Conciliation occurs with truth telling. Conciliation without truth is like trying to bring health without comprehensive diagnosis. A lament emerges from the confrontational nature of truth and the honest response to the truth.1
The Doctrine of Discovery, pronounced by Pope Alexander VI in 1493, endorsed the murder and enslavement of infidels (non-Christian Europeans). Between 1400s and the 1900s, this idea allowed governments and the Roman Catholic church to seize lands inhabited by indigenous under the guise of “discovering new land.” From the 1830s through the 1870s, the Ho-Chunk endured eleven such removals.
The indigenous people responded with strength & resistance. In People of the Big Voice, Amy Lonetree writes, “the word survival does not sufficiently encompass the great strength, courage, and perseverance that it took to remain intact as a tribal nation in the face of violence, colonial oppression, and policies of ethnic cleansing. Survivance tells their story of active repudiation of dominance, tragedy, and victimry.” The survivors endured disease & starvation. Family members, sacred grounds, homes, gardens, seeds, and the lands that supported life were wiped out. Stories passed down recorded these losses, but also record heroism and renewal as survivors defied the dangers and returned to ancestral lands.
We can learn and stand in solidarity with these indigenous stories. We begin our conciliation with an open mind through readings, building relationships, attending events of resistance like protests against pipelines or mines that threaten clean water. For further reading, we invite you to explore the following sources, several of which are available in the Friends of Wisdom Prairie collection in the Holy Wisdom Library.
1 Charles, Mark & Rah, Soong-Chan. 2019 Unsettling Truths, The Ongoing, Dehumanizing Legacy of the Doctrine of Discovery, p. 11
Jones, Schmudlach, Mason, Lonetree, & Greendeer. 2011 People of the Big Voice: Wisconsin Historical Society Press
Lowe, Patty. 2001 Indian Nations of WI: Histories of Endurance and Renewal Madison: Wisconsin Historical Society Press