As the Indigenous World re-emerges into its full glory the borders put in place to control the Indigenous people must go. On Turtle Island they are part of the 500 year genocide of indigenous people:


February 28, 2008

Barry Carter
Chairperson, Occoneechee-Saponi Indian Tribe of Virginia

To:
Members of the Virginia House of Delegates
Members of the Virginia Senate

There are several bills being considered by the Virginia state legislature that would dramatically harm Americans. My name is Barry Carter. I am chairperson of the Occoneechee-Saponi Indian Tribe of Virginia. We are indigenous Native Americans native to Virginia. Our people have been living in what is now called Virginia for over 10,000 years.

The so-called Hispanics, Latinos, immigrants and illegal aliens are in fact Americans Native to North America. They are Native Americans. They are all our cousins. We are all indigenous people, all Indian, all Native American! We are all Americans and the original owners of this land. Why then are they called Hispanics and Latinos? Since the 1492 European invasion, the intentional mislabeling of Native Americans has long been a tactic to disenfranchise brown Native Americans, and steal and maintain control of indigenous Native American land and wealth. The mislabeling of Native Americans coupled with racist borders and racist laws, such as those being proposed and evaluated now in Virginia, for 500 years have been tools used to control us, our land and our wealth. For example the racist one-drop rule in Virginia and the South enabled the theft of millions of acres of land. With the stroke of a pen people who were Native American were converted into Negro. And since black people were not indigenous to America, their Native American land was free for the taking. Later in the 1900’s, registrar for the state of Virginia Walter Pleckler, systemically changed birth certificates of Native American people from Indian to Negro. The terms Hispanic, Colored, Latino, Negro, Mulatto and Black are names given to Native Americans so that they could have no land claims. This paper and identity genocide was part of a much larger genocidal process that started in 1492 as I explain later.

The bills before you, such as HB14, SB729, HB891, HB440, SB623, HB91, HB433, HB436 and HB891 are part of a continuation of a 500-year genocide against brown indigenous Native Americans. Let me explain why these are racist bills that are a continuation of the genocide. In 1492 Europeans invaded the Americas. It was the beginning of the greatest holocaust and genocide in human history with over 90% of our population being tortured and murdered, amounting to tens of millions of Native Americans massacred. Part of the genocide was cultural where our surviving ancestors were brainwashed, tortured and forced into forgetting our culture, languages, history and spirituality. We were forced to accept new identities that disconnected us from our land—black, white, colored, Hispanic, Negro, Latino, mulatto, Mestizos. Even the term Indian was used making us indigenous to India. The slaughter, genocide, holocaust, and brainwashing inflicted upon our peaceful ancestors were intentionally done for one reason—to steal the wealth and land of the peaceful peoples of the Americas. The Americas amounted to 25% of the world’s wealth. Borders, immoral laws, lies and misinformation have always been a part of the theft process. The bills referenced above, if passed, will become immoral laws that continue the 500-year genocidal process. For 500 years borders have been placed on our land that we never agreed to. We were and are prevented from crossing these borders and were and are considered “illegal aliens” when we cross these borders.

This happened right here in Virginia. In 1492 my Siouan Native American ancestors’ territory covered the majority of what is today the state of Virginia and our population was approximately two million people. By 1701 we were relegated to a small reservation called Fort Christanna in Brunswick County VA. In 200 years two million of our people had been murdered and we had less than 600 people remaining. The “border” was the James River and our hunting territory was the land south of the James. According to the treaty of 1714, I would have been an illegal alien in the area where Richmond Virginia now resides without papers. The following is from the Treaty of 1714.

“There shall be set out and assigned for the Settlement of the said nation of Indians who shall hereafter be deemed as incorporated into one Nation a Tract of Land upon the south side of James River above the inhabitants equal to six miles square whereon they may build a Fort and make improvements for the convenience and Subsistence of their families, And moreover all the unpatented lands between James River and Roanoke shall be assigned for the hunting grounds of the said Nation. . . none of the said Indians shall depart off the grounds allotted for their habitation nor repair to the Towns of the other Tributary Indians expert [sic] in company with some of the English residing at the said Fort neither shall any of the said Indians depart off their hunting grounds or come among the Inhabitants without the License of the Governor or the Captain of the Fort or in company of some Englishman belonging to the said Fort on pain of being punished at the Governor’s discretion…”

Slowly the border has moved. With the Trail of Tears, and thousands of additional murdered Native Americans, President Andrew Jackson in 1830 shifted the border to the Mississippi river. He proudly proclaimed there were no more Indians east of the Mississippi and we were illegal aliens if we crossed the Mississippi River. Next came more reservations and more borders. We were illegal aliens when we crossed the borders of these reservations. Eventually the border was moved as far as the Rio Grand River where it is today. With each of these borders we have been illegal aliens whenever we crossed them and there have always been laws stripping our indigenous rights away when we cross these racist borders. For 500 years there have been lies, propaganda, racist laws and racist borders used to systematically disenfranchise brown, indigenous, Native Americans in North America. Currently there are 29 anti-Native American bills before you, in Virginia, such as: HB14, SB729, HB891, HB440, SB623, HB91, HB433, HB436 and HB891. These bills are part of a 500-year system of genocide, theft and disenfranchisement of Brown Native Americans. These are not immigration bills. The people in question are not from England, Spain, France, Russia or some distant foreign land. They are from this land—the Americas and have always been here. Our only crime is being born brown and indigenous to the Americas and the owners of 25% of the world’s wealth. And to attain this wealth the European invaders exterminated an estimated 70 million of our people. And yes it was extermination as documented in Bartolome De Las Casas writings. We have suffered enough, in the name of greed and theft and it is time to lift all border restrictions on Native Americans on our own homeland.

We, the indigenous people of the North American continent never agreed to any borders on our land nor did we agree to laws preventing us from crossing any borders. We were here before the borders and thus we did not cross any borders, the borders crossed us, on our land—dividing families, tribes and nations. Therefore these borders and immoral laws are not binding on any indigenous person in America. Since we did not agree to any borders, no brown indigenous Native American on the North American continent is illegal.

What we have with the Mexican border is an apartheid system with indigenous people separated, quarantined and controlled on a small portion of their own homeland—and brought in on temporary work passes and then sent back to their reservation when the work is done. Mexico is the world’s largest Native American reservation intended to control and disempower brown indigenous Native Americans, in our own homeland, on the North America continent. And now a Berlin style wall is being built to keep the Indians on the reservation.

For 500 years there have been those who have been paid to spread lies, misinformation and propaganda to confuse people. What a con game when the aliens and immigrants are called native and the natives are called illegal aliens and immigrants. There have also been those who are paid to pass laws to steal and maintain control of stolen Indigenous Native American lands and to control brown Native Americans in their own homelands.

The resultant problem of intentional false mis-information for hundreds of years is that most white Americans are not aware that most of the people they refer to as illegal alien immigrants are in fact Brown Native Americans. As the majority of Americans are shown that Mexicans, Guatemalans, El Salvadorians, Nicaraguans, Costa Ricans, are Native Americans, indigenous to the North American continent, the same as Navaho, Lakota, Cherokee, Occoneechee, Apache, there is no choice except to remove the illegal alien and immigrant min-labels. There is no choice except to do the just and ethical thing and stop passing racist laws against Native Americans, such as those bills before you and to undo the legislation passed against these indigenous Native Americans over the years.

Currently we have a moral dilemma. America has always had a self-image of itself being a moral and just nation. The reality has not matched the self-image. The land that Virginia and the United States is built upon is stolen property. And the United States was built with stolen lives and stolen wealth. A house cannot stand built upon a rotten foundation. It must be retrofitted with a strong foundation. In the past decades progress has been made beginning with civil rights laws, however, the indigenous rights issue has not been addressed and this portion of the foundation remains rotten. Neither a person, nor country, nor state can claim to be moral, honest nor just who refuses to allow indigenous owners of their homeland access to their own homeland. This is especially true knowing that the land was stolen and borders put in place and laws created specifically for the purpose of stealing the indigenous Native American land and once stolen to maintain control this land and the Native American owners of the land.

Neither we, nor the majority of Virginians or Americans will accept any laws that continue the 500-year genocidal process. We cannot undo what has been done in the past but we can today choose to end the systemic disenfranchisement of brown indigenous Native Americans. We can choose to end the 500-year genocidal process and begin building a strong foundation for the future. Thus we are asking that you vote no on the following bills: HB14, SB729, HB891, HB440, SB623, HB91, HB433, HB436, HB891, HB 820, HB729, HB151, HB350, HB445, Hb663, HB1061, SB132, SB652, HB91, HB433, HB436, HB440, HB623, HB926, HB1174, HB1298, HB1472, SB428. More proactive legislation protecting indigenous rights is needed at the state and federal level. Please vote yes on the following bills: SB441, SB132

Sincerely:


Barry Carter
Chairperson, Occoneechee-Saponi Indian Tribe of Virginia