Gov. Mills’ threatened veto, and the Legislature’s failure to act to restore sovereignty to the Maine Natives, prompt this reply.

Gov. Mills and the Legislature should go back to this country’s archives and look up the speech given centuries ago by Native American leader Chief Red Jacket to Congress. His first words were “my people welcomed you to our country with open arms, friendship and trust.” He then went on to tell Congress how they have repaid this gesture. The speech is too long to include here, but I hope Gov. Mills and legislators who have a conscience will look it up and read it.

I have not plagiarized any of Chief Red Jacket’s speech, but, ironically, when responding to a 1990s cartoon in Time Magazine, I ended up expressing my thoughts, which resembled Chief Red Jacket’s. I wrote to the editor of Time, expressing my disgust at seeing a cartoon depicting two Pilgrims, one saying to the other, “What would the Indians have if not for us Pilgrims?” The editor of Time allowed me to answer that Pilgrim’s question as such: “The Native American would still have their clean, unpolluted rivers and the Native American would still have an abundance of buffalo for their food, clothing and shelter.”

However, because of our forefathers’ invasion, the Native American is now treated as a second-class citizen, imprisoned on reservations located in a country they once owned.

It looks like our leaders never learned from our ancestors, eh?

Frank Slason
Somerville

 

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