Letter: Slavery, mistreatment of natives, have deep roots here

Posted 6/30/20

To the editor:

I found all the letters on your June 11 opinion page to be courageous and thought provoking, and they stirred me to continue my efforts to get justice for our indigenous people …

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Letter: Slavery, mistreatment of natives, have deep roots here

Posted

To the editor:

I found all the letters on your June 11 opinion page to be courageous and thought provoking, and they stirred me to continue my efforts to get justice for our indigenous people — called Indians by white settlers.

Indians are from India, nor are they Americans. The name America was slapped on this country by marauding Europeans looking for gold and the “Fountain of Youth,” and slaughtering anyone who got in their way, the indigenous population be damned,

They felt their Christian God approved of their white supremacy. Wave after wave of what is now thought of as immigrants came to take native land. In our time it was the Puritans who left Europe in a wobbly ship carrying a hundred or so pilgrims and a goat or two.

They came to practice freedom of religion and then didn't allow any freedom of religion at all. They felt that their God gave the white man permission to wipe out the indigenous population so that only they could be the masters of their own destiny.

This sad history, along with the horrors of slavery and its aftermath, would break any god's heart.

Injustice of every kind is, thankfully, being faced more honestly than ever before. That injustice was being dealt the natives well before the ships left Bristol, RI, carrying barrels to fill with rum in the Caribbean before they set off for Africa to pick up as many black human beings as they could cram on along with the rum. Then, back in Bristol, they they would sell both the slaves and the rum — a perfect triangle as they called it. No one really knows how many thousands of ships left Bristol carrying their home made rum barrels.

Meanwhile, Mr. Brown, in Providence, was one of the biggest slave holders in the north. He donated some of his hundreds of acres of stolen Indian land to found Brown University. He was, I'm sure, very proud of himself.

Isabel Mattia's brilliant letter says it all — we should be grateful to her for helping us into her bright light of knowledge and compassion.

Denise Lyons

Little Compton

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