Stolen Lives

They thought they were clever, hiding secrets in mistranslations.

For they can claim they didn’t know, now we face the consequents. Now we face them.

Mere paper was stronger than our war-club, knife, and spirit. They laughed at our expense, hiding their glee when we signed. Iroquois and Huron fell to their bullets, their culture snuffed, they became “civilized”. And yet their hunger for land didn’t cease.

They expanded. Further, further, further.

The Indian Removal Act was done. Cherokee, Muscogee, Seminole, Chickasaw, and Choctaw. Stay strong as you face the ‘Trail of Tears’…

Odawa, Ojibwa, Sauk people. These tribes fell as well, when will their hunger cease?

Lakota, Dakota, Sioux, they fought back. No hope.

Defeated.

Millions died, they knew that had diseased blankets, yet they gave them to us. They nearly hunted the bison to extinction, to cause our extinction. Pyramids of skulls rest across the plains. No Powwow, no Sundance, no celebration. For we are dead…

Bullets fired, men died, treaties signed.

The mighty Cree had fallen.

Our land stolen, we are the stolen lives.

Never the same again, Turtle Island burned. “Mêtoni miyo-kîsikâw?” Was now “good morning, how are you?” Language repressed.

Blackfoot and Crow, they tried to fight back, but the might of the American army was too strong.

Tlingit, your totem poles stand tall. But now burn brightly in the kingdom of the sunset. Mere ashes blowing in the wind.

Our hearts cut out and stomped, barely beating.

The Apache tribes resisted, led by great chiefs, and a greater spirit. Their fathers fought bloody wars, only to have their sons surrender their weapons and freedom.

The last to be conquered was the mighty Comanche Empire, they never gave up, centuries they fought, and greatly feared, until in 1877 they too fell.

No tribe is free, many are ruthlessly slaughtered by their “protectors”. And these protectors hide behind their fortified cities, treaties, and red tape. Breaking their word, but we have to honour ours. Stealing our food, lands, and gold.

It was a brutal slaughter.

Children wrenched from their parents’s arms, parents shot if they resisted. Never knowing if their child will survive… till’ they come back in a box. Or not even a box.

Shallow graves, unmarked.

No hope.

But who will take pity?

“They’re drinkers!” The politicians shout, “don’t listen to them!” Their solution was easier than ours, easier to face, easier to understand. So we were muffled.

Ignored, exterminated, spat at, lied to, attacked, removed, civilized.

1997 was the first good feeling we had, the last Indian Residential School was closed. Freedom, triumph at last! But we were still ignored.

Our voice was mute.

Our sons are in jail, our daughters murdered. But who cares? The acceptance of us being the first people of this land is slow, if not halted. You’re lying to yourself if you say this isn’t happening anymore, even now this is an ongoing crime. America and Canada will never admit they’re mistreating their own people, not when they’re sticking their nose into other countries problems.

“You’re stealing land!” (What about the First Nations?)

“You’re committing genocide!” (What about the First Nations?)

“You’re removing an ethnic group!” (What about the First Nations?)

“You’re not listening to the pleads of your people!” (What about the First Nations?)

“You’re murdering your own people!” (What about the First Nations?)

“You’re dishonouring your word!” (What about the First Nations?)

“Have you forgotten what you did to those people!” (What about the First Nations?)

No hope yet, waiting still, our voices need to be heard. But who will hear it?

Who will hear the pleads of the Stolen Lives?