Statue of Roger Williams, the father of Rhode Island, overlooks Terrace Plaza and the City of Providence.
North America's Indigenous Peoples know that The Land is very important. In fact, in most First Nations societies, land is sacred. There is little doubt that our land is being desecrated and destroyed. Not only is the planet being harmed environmentally, it is slowly being destroyed because of our immorality.
The shooting of two young journalists in Virginia on August 26 is the most recent horrid example of the ways our land and our people are being defiled.
The Bible tells us "do not profane the land where you are, for blood profanes the land, and the land is not pardoned for the blood that is shed on it, except by the blood of him who shed it" (Numbers 35:33).
Bloodshed includes murder, unjust warfare, suicide, infanticide, abortion, and some accidental deaths.
We all can remember back to the most horrific "shedding of blood"-Columbine, Red Lake Reservation, Sandy Hook, Aurora theater, and Charleston. If we go back further in history we have the mass killing of at least 29 million Indigenous peoples in North America.
This says nothing of the over 45 million infants who have been killed since 1979 through abortion.
Wherever bloodshed has occurred, blood cries out to Creator for justice to be done. He is just and He is committed to making things right on the earth but He is also very patient. But time is running out
The earth is also being desecrated through broken treaties. There are many different kinds of treaties that are broken. Here are a few: Treaties between Tribes and Nations, divorce, certain bankruptcies, church splits.
Dr. Iglahliq Suuqiina, Inuit scholar and artist (see page 2), in his book Speak to the Earth, writes that "a broken treaty may indicate an evil intention in making the treaty in the first place. In other words, some treaties were made with no intention of fulfilling them. It is evil and defiles the land.
According to Dr. Suuqiina, the history of treaties between the First Nations in North America and the governments of the United States and Canada is large and dismal. "The first treaty was a verbal agreement with the Pilgrims in Plymouth, MA, that the land would not be stolen from the original inhabitants but a "just and fair" price would be paid for the land. This verbal agreement lasted only 50 years. The first written treaty was made in 1778 and at least 370 documented treaties were signed over the next 100 years. All of them were broken by the U.S. Government.
Suuqiina states that most treaty breaking resulted in violence and bloodshed. "In 1800, there were 260,000 Natives in California; by 1900 only 20,000 had survived. By 1899, in all of North America, there were only 237,000 surviving First Nations people.
Once a treaty was broken, it appears the freedom for bloodshed was unleashed and the land defiled.
"The treaties concerning the education and health care for First Nations people continues to be most reluctantly fulfilled and every obstacle possible is put in the way of receiving the promises of the treaty..." Suuqiina writes. Because sowing and reaping is true, America faces a dark and dreadful future.
When it comes to the breaking of treaties with North America's Indigenous peoples, blame is laid at the feet of governments but primarily the Christian Church. While in many cases this was true, there were those who stood for justice. Does the name Roger Williams ring a bell? No, not the famous pianist from the sixties and seventies.
Roger Williams lived 100 years before America won independence from Britain. He was a pastor who fled England because he had been persecuted, tortured, and imprisoned for his faith. He came to the "New World" in search of freedom-religious and political. Why? He believed some principles that the Church of England opposed. Here's what he believed:
• He believed that the Indigenous Peoples of America were the true owners of this land, not the King or his representatives. He also believed that "we ought to repent" of receiving it by way of a patent from the King (Doctrine of Discovery).
• It's unlawful to swear allegiance or pray to the King; only to God.
• It's not right to follow the teaching of pastors of the Church of England.
• Governments can only control our possessions and our bodies, not our souls.
When Williams got to America, he didn't realize that the colonies were under the same rule-the king and the church. So he ended up escaping for his life again and lived secretly among the Indian people. Here's what was written about him: "Such was the mutual affection and trust between the two, Williams and the Narragansett Indians, that the great sachems (Native chiefs), Cononicus and Miantonomi, gave him the land. Before leaving Salem, Williams already had arranged with Canonicus for a tract of land large enough to support a colony. Canonicus would not accept money in payment for the land. 'It was not price or money that could have purchased Rhode Island,' Williams wrote later. 'Rhode Island was purchased by love.'"
Here are two lessons we can learn from Roger Williams, the founder of Rhode Island. First, if our government and even our church is doing something that goes against Creator God's law, we must take a stand against it. The second lesson is that the only way we as human beings, fellow citizens of Turtle Island are going to make a difference in our communities, nation, and world, is for us to develop relationships with our Native and non-Native neighbors of all ethnic and religious backgrounds. Begin to treat each other as creatures of God, treating each other as Rev. Roger Williams and his Native neighbors did-with "mutual affection and trust."
