Natives in our nation

While sipping coffee and reading Kent Ward’s column on July 2-3, the one featuring the anonymous essay, “I Am the Nation,” I found myself choking up just a little, and thinking, yes, we are a great and wonderful nation. Then, a few sips later, a disturbing thought interrupted my complacent musings on being a proud American.

So, I re-read the essay.

There was no mention of the hundreds of thousands of first Americans, the Native Americans who were murdered, raped, displaced and dehumanized. An entire nation dismantled.

No mention of the “Trail of Tears,” the elaborate government of the Iroquois Nations, the Wind Talkers, the wisdom of Tecumseh, the military acumen of Sitting Bull, the desire for peace by Chief Joseph, the raw determination of Geronimo to keep for himself and his people what was theirs, and no mention of that amazing woman Sacajaweha.

From the land of the Passamaquoddy to the Tlinket, to Apache to the Seminole; a people, a race virtually destroyed.

One would think they deserve to be mentioned.

Doug Colbeth

Machiasport