Resolution of Apology to the Native Peoples

For several years Amanda and I worked actively in the area of Native American ministry and reconciliation issues. Our most important work with them was the Cherokee Prayer Initiative (1999-2000).

The Resolution of Apology to the Native American Peoples (S.J. Res 15, H.J. Res 3) is scheduled for the Senate floor. The Indian Affairs Committee moved it to the Senate general legislative calendar. This is an answer to much previous prayer.

THE RESOLUTION OF APOLOGY is meant “to acknowledge a long history of official depredations and ill-conceived policies by the U. S. Government regarding Indian tribes and offer an apology to all Native Peoples on behalf of the United States.” It mandates no monetary reparations but is simply a “first step” toward reconciliation, healing and restoration of honor toward the indigenous Native American Peoples.

The full text of the Resolution, S.J. Res 15 and H.J. Res. 3, links to members of Congress, and a new 9- minute video compilation of testimony from Senate Indian Affairs Committee Resolution hearings are available at www.NativeRes.org . Please visit soon and send an email off to your Senators and Representative. Our good friend Negiel Bigpond (Euchee Nation) of Oklahoma, has testified before the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs in support of this resolution. Therefore, this is an issue on our hearts.

Contact your Congressmen and Senators (NC Senator Burr serves on Indian Affairs.)

(Pictured: I am kneeling in confession of corporate sin to Oklahoma Cherokee Ada Winn at Nantahala Outdoor Center in the Nantahala Valley of NC in October 1999. It was the site of an unprovoked massacre of Cherokees by NC and SC armies in 1776. The Cherokees, confused at the American colonial rebellion (why would people of the same language fight one another?), decided to remain loyal to their treaty with the British Crown made just sixteen years earlier when they lost the Cherokee War. The colonials could not risk a potential enemy in their backcountry, and determined with Georgia and Virginia to wipe out the Cherokee as a force in the Revolution, which they did with great impunity.