Church Makes Historic Apology to Lenape

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New York City - An Event of Cultural Reconciliation between the Collegiate Church and the Lenape

Healing Turtle Island

The Collegiate Church, established in New Amsterdam in 1628, held a healing ceremony with representatives of the Lenape Indians
on Friday, November 27, at 11 AM in the plaza on Bowling Green in front of the old U.S. Custom House (now the National Museum of the American Indian).
http://www.healingturtleisland.com/

http://www.healingturtleisland.com/
The date marked the first observance of Native American Heritage Day, as signed into law by President Obama in June.

The event site has historical significance, as it is near where the first Collegiate Church was raised in Fort Amsterdam. And, just across State Street The Netherlands Monument stands as a reminder of the greatest misunderstanding by the Dutch of Native Americans: Peter Minuit’s so-called “purchase” of Manhattan in 1626 for 60 guilders’ worth of dry goods. The Lenape, having no concept of private ownership of land, likely believed that Minuit was not purchasing the island but instead thanking them for the aid they had given the Dutch settlers when they first started arriving here.
http://www.collegiatechurch.org/?q=content/healing-turtle-island
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STATEMENT

Healing Turtle Island: An Event of Cultural Reconciliation

Remembering, Recognizing, Renewing

Delivered by representatives of the Collegiate Church of New York to representatives
of the Native American people on 27 November 2009 at Bowling Green, Manhattan,
New York

Today we pay homage to forces greater than ourselves that exist in the human
spirit: the greater Spirit of unity, wholeness and truth that surrounds and
embraces us all.

Here, at the foot of Manhattan Island –– the place called Manahatta by the
Lenape people –– there had been a steady “Trail of Hope,” interrupted by
historical events long ago. Now, a people who call themselves the Collegiate
Church of New York seek to remember, recognize and renew a connection
with this Spirit and the people of its original deep expression, our Native
American brothers and sisters.

Four hundred years ago, a voyage here by a few of our ancestors became the
symbol of great change to all of our ancestors. The journey of a single
explorer, Henry Hudson, opened a gateway for a new culture and history.

Following Henry Hudson was the Dutch West Indies Company, complete with
its own customs, laws and policies. Coming less for religious freedom and
more for the abundance of resources, the company poured through this
gateway and formed a company town they called New Amsterdam. The
company town had a company church. The Collegiate Church, established in
1628, has been and continues to be part of this history.

As traveling preachers, who moved collegially among congregations in
Brooklyn, Manhattan and Staten Island, we were the conscience of this
company.

We were the first Christian church to permanently settle at this gateway. On
this site, the well traveled path of our Native American brothers and sisters met
the gateway’s first fort, Fort Amsterdam, built to serve our newly arrived
ancestors. The trail is known now as Broadway – and by what we do here
today, again as “the Trail of Hope.”

In spite of the ways of life of those here before us, the Dutch West Indies
Company began the steady imposition of its own culture on Native peoples.

Our forbears often had good intentions, engaging in acts of kindness,
expressions of remorse, and compassion for lives lost and lands taken; but
there was also ill will, great cruelty, acts of indignity and degradation, all with
life-altering consequences through the generations.

We, the Collegiate Church, remember our part in these actions.

Despite being a faith of brotherhood and sisterhood and love for neighbor, our
actions towards you, our Native brothers and sisters, caused great suffering
under the imposition of this new culture and its accompanying economic and
legal systems.

We, the Collegiate Church, recognize our part in your suffering.

We took, borrowed and bartered from you, our brothers and sisters, viewing
you more often as a resource rather than a people with whom to be in
relationship. Our actions set into motion a radical altering of an entire way of
life.

With pain, we, the Collegiate Church, remember our part in these events.

We consumed your resources, dehumanized your people, and disregarded your
culture, along with your dreams, hopes and great love for this land.

We express sorrow for our part in these actions.

The Lenape people and their kin wished and envisioned good health and a
good life for themselves and for their children – and a continuation of their
lives upon this great land. They farmed, they fished, and they hunted. They
built homes and they made trails across this great land. They gave thanks – and
they give thanks today in places far from their original homes – for the earth
and the sun, for the streams, lakes, rivers, ocean, clean air, and for all gifts of
sustenance and life provided for them by our common and our truly Great
Creator.

We honor your vision and wish to walk together on this new “Trail of Hope.”

Examining our history for life-giving renewal in our present day, the Ministers,
Elders, and Deacons of The Reformed Protestant Dutch Church of the City of
New York, known now as the Collegiate Church of New York, remember the
past, recognize our role in it, and renew the present with you. Intersections, a
signature initiative of the Collegiate Church of New York, along with her
Collegiate colleagues, seeks social justice, peace and reconciliation and has
engaged in important relationships with Native American communities in the
New York metropolitan region. This relationship building between our
communities is establishing a spirit of collaboration and advocacy.


In the many commemorations of the 400th anniversary of Henry Hudson’s
voyage, Native peoples’ voices have not been sufficiently heard. Today, we
seek to provide a corrective balance. We wish to also acknowledge the
influences of Native American people on early Dutch life and on the present-
day vibrancy of this city. Native American beliefs, customs, and abiding spirit
continue to have invaluable lessons for our society. Many of the difficulties in
our own culture are in need of your wisdom.

We place ourselves in your teaching.

Moving forward together, we wish to continue to renew and deepen our
connection, advocacy and support of your peoples, including financial and
programmatic resources to the many Native American communities in this, the
largest urban Native American population in the United States. We wish to
persuade other individuals, organizations and communities to engage in these
important efforts.

We humbly request an invitation into a lasting partnership with you.

Extending further into the future, our intention is to develop ongoing and
sustained relationships with you, our Native American brothers and sisters. We
have much to learn and much to offer each other’s cultures and traditions.

Therefore, we, the Ministers, Elders, and Deacons of the Consistory of the
Collegiate Church of New York, on behalf of our members, pledge to honor
this relationship as we move forward together in the spirit of wholeness that
this day represents.
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RESPONSE

Native American Healing Initiative

Trail of Hope: Remembering, Recognizing, Renewing

Delivered by Ron Holloway of the Lenape peoples to representatives of the
Collegiate Church of New York on 27 November 2009 at Bowling Green, Manhattan,
New York

Over 400 years ago, European explorers came to the shores of this land and
declared that they were here to colonize, to subjugate, and to convert the
indigenous population. They set up their homesteads, businesses and churches
right on this very spot.

This new world was “discovered” and, as the rulers of Europe had already
agreed, it was to be divided into sections, the results of which were devastating.

Some scholars estimate that there were close to 28 million natives living on this
continent at the time.

Today, there are less than 1 million full blood indigenous natives. Obviously,
something devastating happened to these original inhabitants.

What happened is that the native populations were suppressed by a political
and religious will of which they could never begin to conceive. Two different
ideologies clashed, the results of which were devastating, and to this day the
effects can still be seen and felt.

There are still some who view American Indians as second-class citizens in our
own lands. This is not surprising, considering our peoples were not even
granted U.S. citizenship until 1924. Further, it was not until the 1970’s that
Indians were legally allowed to practice their own religion.

American Indians were so far removed from the collective conscious of this
country, it took acts of Congress to obtain even these basic “rights” that most
of us take for granted.

No one ever apologized, no one voluntarily returned what was taken from us,
or even offered restitution. Instead, as the country expanded, every treaty was
systematically broken, and the Indians were relegated to reservations to be
removed from the public eye.

That is what makes today so very special. Today, the descendants of the
original explorers who landed here have come to the descendants of those who
have always been here, and openly apologized for their responsibility in policies
that so decimated our peoples. They have extended their hands in friendship to
chart a new course of race relations, to usher in a new era of healing and
reconciliation that can only have beneficial results for the whole of humanity.

For when humans come to understand their commonality: that all are equal
under the eyes of our creator; that neither skin color, race, nor even religion are
a reason to elevate one man above another; then healing and harmony can go
forth.

A 19th-century author wrote: “Certainly, there are many evils and bad passions,
and much hate and contempt and unkindness everywhere in the world. We
cannot refuse to see the evil that is in life. But all is not evil. We still see good in
the world. There is good amidst the evil. The hand of mercy leads wealth to the
hovels of poverty and sorrow. Truth and simplicity live amid many wiles and
sophistries. There are good hearts underneath gay robes and tattered garments
also. And there is no beauty like a firm faith in God, whatever your religious
belief, as well as a faith in our fellows, and ourselves.”

It is to this faith in our own deity, in our fellows, and in ourselves that we
celebrate today. On behalf of all Lenape that live, and have lived in
Lenapphoking, and my ancestors, I wholeheartedly accept this apology, and
offer of reconciliation. I extend my hand in brotherly affection for all to see.
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