Restoring Justice with Indigenous Peoples

Learn the history. The US government’s treatment of native peoples was brutal, deceitful, and devastating. But the point is not for us to feel guilt or pity; the point is rather to understand the past so that we can better understand the present. Our actions must extend from our knowledge, not from partial truths or generalizations.

The Indigenous Studies Group is offering many learning opportunities throughout the year. There’s the Forum, meeting roughly once a month for a presentation and discussion of a particular topic. The Indigenous Studies Book Club meets on the second Monday of each month, and members take turns presenting a book (no preparation required, though others are welcome to read the book in advance if they like). You can also check out our recommended reading list, visit local museums, and attend our worship service honoring Indigenous People’s Day on October 11. And you can familiarize yourself with present-day issues, efforts, and perspectives of Indigenous People by reading and supporting Native News Online.

Recommended Reading

An Indigenous People’s History of the United States by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz

Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer

Serviceberry by Robin Wall Kimmerer

Theory of Water: Nishnaabe Maps to the Times Ahead by Leanne Betasamosake Simpson

Additional Resources

Native News Online

Shawnee Seed Sanctuary

A Brief History of Prophetstown by Judy Berkshire

Judy Berkshire's Personal Reflection: "Planting and Weeding at Prophetstown"

Ryan’s June 14 service

All of us come from ancestry that, somewhere in the past, was indigenous (“of the land”), but for most of us, those relationships were severed long, long ago by empire, feudalism, colonialism, and capitalism.

You can rekindle your connection with the earth by researching your own ancient roots, and/or by simply building your relationship with the land you occupy now. Get to know the plants, bugs, birds, and animals. Pay attention to the moon and the path of the sun. Pause in the morning to greet the new day and in the evening to greet the night. Learn about the local ecosystems. Attend equinox and solstice ceremonies to honor the changing seasons and heighten your awareness. Practice gratitude. As Mary Oliver writes, “Attention is the beginning of devotion.”

As you build your relationship with the natural world around you, be mindful of the impact your own actions have on your kin. Advocate for the earth and all her creatures. Recommit yourself to lowering your carbon footprint, consuming less, wasting less. Yes, all these things are part of building relationships that restore justice. Settler colonialism wreaked havoc on this land and her peoples hundreds of years ago and settler colonialist mindsets are continuing to do devastating harm today. We cannot restore justice at the same time as we continue to harm.

This includes repairing the damage done to the earth, water, and air; repairing relationships with native peoples and all our more-than-human kin; and helping to repair relationships among scattered indigenous peoples. A very concrete way to start is to help bring the corn, and the native peoples who belong to it, back to Prophetstown. Allow our lives to be reorganized by the truth of interdependence.

One of the core shared understandings of many if not all indigenous peoples is that we exist in a kinship relationship with all creatures – human and more than human – plants, water, air, fire, rocks, the earth, the sun, the moon, our ancestors, and the ones not yet born. Many of us find this to be a beautiful and indisputable idea, but Ryan isn’t asking us to simply agree with it. He is asking us to reorganize our lives around this perspective. If birds are our kin, how can we not address light pollution that disrupts their night migration over our city? If the Earth is our Mother, how can we perpetuate an economy based on extraction and land ownership? If water is sacred, how can we allow data center construction that pumps heavy metals and PFAS into our rivers and streams?