The Eastern Association on Indian Affairs was started in New York in 1922 to assist a group of Pueblo people who were fighting efforts to dismantle their pueblos. In the 1920's this organization merged with a like-minded entity, and again merged with a third entity in 1937. In 1946, the name was changed to the Association on American Indian Affairs. In 1957, the organization was granted non-profit, 501 (c)(3) status for federal tax purposes.
In 1492 Columbus' ships appeared off the coast of San Salvador. The Taino Indians greeted Columbus with unimaginable hospitality. Columbus reported to his queen: "So tractable, so peaceable, are these people, that I swear to your Majesties there is not in the world a better nation. They love their neighbors as themselves, and their discourse is ever sweet and gentle, and accompanied with a smile; and though it is true that they are naked, yet their manners are decorous and praiseworthy." Columbus soon lost sight of the generosity and kindness of the Taino people. www.uctp.org and Operation Morning Star
THE RED PLAIN
There were splendors.
The ocean navigated them nearer
The plump breast of a new world.
Our indigenous, greeting the sailor
With smiles and immense warmness.
Peace,
In this meeting of fleshes,
Soiled itself with chains of slavery
And riches beyond the queen’s dreams.
The land…and its worship… was sliced open
Like buffalo on a red plain.
Sky, the sky, the sky doesn’t dance anymore,
Not with spirit or truth.
Of our scourge we eulogize the ghosts of death,
Of massacre, beyond the new machinery, our lives.
The Indian, the child, the meadow,
The slaughter of stillness. Can’t take
it back now, goddamnit! Can’t!
It’s done! Musket, arrow, flesh,
the birth of a country, drum.
© 2009 mrp/thepoetryman
