Who we are as a nation is inextricably intertwined with our historical treatment of our continent’s Native American peoples.

That’s the premise of the experiential Quaker workshop “Roots of Injustice, Seeds of Change: Toward Right Relationship with America’s Native People,” which creator and Boulder resident Paula Palmer will be presenting at the Durango Friends Meeting on March 16.

The healing for almost 400 years of injustice isn’t easy for either side, she said.

“We all, Native Americans and whites, need an education on what really happened here,” she said. “And what impact has it really had.”

With a history including brutality, forced relocations and broken treaties – which have led to tribal members suffering from poverty, substance abuse, health problems such as epidemic levels of diabetes and lack of cultural identity – there’s a lot of learning to do.

Workshop participants will cover the history, do some role playing and analyze their feelings about the issue before and after attending.

Palmer’s interest in the subject began when she was attending a forum at the United Nations about indigenous nations.

“Everyone – whether they were in Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Peru or Nevada – wanted to take up the issue of the Doctrine of Discovery,” she said. “They want faith communities and people everywhere to understand the history of what has happened.”

The Doctrine of Discovery is the result of several papal bulls issued by Roman Catholic popes during the 15th century, giving Christian explorers the right to claim the lands they “discovered” for themselves and their monarchs, with any land not occupied by Christians available for discovery. If the “pagan” inhabitants refused to convert, they might be spared, but otherwise, they could be enslaved or killed with impunity.

“This notion of European privilege is embedded in our legal system and our mind set,” Palmer said, “and is the root of so much injustice against so many non-Christian indigenous peoples around the world.”

The Supreme Court used it as recently as 2005 as justification for denying land rights to the Oneida Tribe in New York.

Palmer based the workshop, which she has presented 45 times in nine states in just the first year, on a presentation by First Nations people in Canada. It took her six months of research and writing to create the workshop, and it has continued to evolve as she has seen how people respond.

Her favorite quote, which she used for an article she wrote for the January/February 2014 Western Friend, came from Rio Ramirez, a young member of the Tohono O’odham Nation, who attended one of her workshops:

“Knowing this country’s history is the first step we need to take in the long process of repairing our people and our land ... ,” he said. “No one here today made these things happen. But we are the ones who are living now, and we need to understand we are all in this together.”

The workshop also includes a prescription for healing created by Pawnee Walter R. Echo-Hawk, an attorney for the Native American Rights Fund and author of In the Light of Justice: The Rise of Human Rights in Native America and the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

“Drawing from the world’s wisdom traditions, Echo-Hawk sets forth these five steps for national healing and urges all Americans to take these steps together,” Palmer wrote in her article.

The steps begin with making a real and sincere apology, followed by an acceptance of the apology and forgiveness.

“Making a sincere apology for an injustice has a transformative power,” she said. “We don’t have to fix it right now; we just have to have the intent to participate in the healing process.”

abutler@durangoherald.com

Healing Our Nations Oldwest Wo (PDF)

If you go

The Durango Friends Meeting will host the experimental workshop “Roots of Injustice, Seeds of Change: Toward Right Relationship with America’s Native People” from 12:30 to 2:30 p.m. March 16 at its meeting house, 803 County Road 233. The Quakers also welcome visitors to their 10 a.m. worship and an 11:30 a.m. light lunch.

The workshop is free, but donations will be accepted.

Because seating is limited, RSVPs are requested to richard@population-matters.org by Thursday.

Visit www.boulderfriendsmeeting.org./ipc-right-relationship for more information.