Jamestown: Commemorating 400 years of English Genocide & Colonization
On May 3, 2007, Queen Elizabeth II arrived in Virginia to “commemorate” the 400th anniversary of the founding of Jamestown, the “first permanent English settlement in America.” The Queen’s visit is seen by many to be the crowning moment in the yearlong “celebration” of the recently excavated colony planned by the Commonwealth of Virginia, festivities that are estimated to cost nearly $200 million dollars. While the organizers of this year’s events have gone out of their way to entice local “Native American” and African-American participation, at the core, the celebrations remain a glorification of European colonialism and the perceived superiority of Euro-American culture.
For example, in her welcoming speech to the Queen, Sandra Day O’Connor, the retired Supreme Court Justice, remarked that the “establishment in the New World of the Rule of Law derived from Great Britain is the great and lasting achievement we celebrate today…”. Mrs. O’Connor went on to state that, “Despite a few differences between us in the late 1700s, relations have been remarkably close ever since…we have been allies in two world wars and we have helped each other in smaller disputes, including the conflict in Iraq. The seeds of these ties were sown in Jamestown 400 years ago this month.” While the theme of a shared history and heritage was repeatedly touched upon by keynote speakers such as Vice-President Dick Cheney and Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine, perhaps the most overt expression of the continued kinship between the current Anglo-American colonists and their motherland can be attributed to visitor Judy Stillman of Portola Valley, Calif., “She’s [Queen Elizabeth] our history…England started everything we have now: the law, the wonderful Magna Carta, democracy. We need to know about England. We need to know about the queen.” That is odd, I always thought the Greeks “started” democracy.
Despite the
blatant Anglophilia on display during the queen’s recent tour, there was an
insidious plan by organizers to prevent this year’s show from becoming a repeat
of the queen’s 1957 visit, described by current media outlets as an “all-white
affair in a state whose government was in open defiance of a 1954 Supreme
Court order to desegregate public schools.” 
This
year, members from 8 local Indigenous “tribes” were invited to participate
in the day’s gala. Disgustingly, this
plan seems to have worked. According
to washingtonpost.com, “Jamestown’s 400th anniversary, instead
of an event to be shunned [by “Native Americans”] for signaling the beginning
of their end, is something to embrace. What
better way to be ‘rediscovered?’” Are
you fucking kidding me? Sadly, this
ruse accomplished its goal by seducing local Indigenous people into thinking
that their participation really mattered (here I am being generous, hoping
that these individuals did not fully comprehend what they were doing, as apposed
to deliberately selling out and disgracing ALL indigenous people for a delusional
sense of fleeting importance). So what did the participation of Indigenous
voices achieve? Well, according to
Stephen R. Adkins, chief of the Chickahominy Tribe, his collaboration resulted
in the use of “commemoration” as opposed to “celebration.” Wow! What an accomplishment! (I did try to verify this, and noticed that
95% of the articles I researched used the word “commemoration,” including
the queen in her speech.).
Another Indigenous
person, Karenne Wood, had this to say, “People are not going to care about us
this much for another 400 years…we have to act quickly.” While my initial reaction to such comments
and actions is disgust, Karenne Wood may have touched upon a larger opportunity
for the Nican Tlaca of this continent to benefit from the media spotlight,
albeit in a more dignified, personal, and enduring way. Allow me to explain. October 12, 1992, marked the 500th anniversary of Columbus’s arrival in Cemanahuac (Western Hemisphere). While this solemn turning point in history is
not worthy of celebration among Indigenous people, it does mark the Quincentennial
milestone of continuing occupation of our lands by foreign invaders. In the next several years, dozens of very
important quincentennial milestones will be reached throughout Mexico, Peru,
and the Caribbean nations. Among the
most pressing will be the 500 year observance of the arrival of
Spanish troops in Anahuac, in 2013.
While the quincentennial of Balboa’s
“discovery” of the Pacific Ocean is likely to occurr with little or no official
display, upcoming events in 2017, 2019, and 2021 will not pass without much
pomp and pageantry by the elites of both Spain and Mexico (the first arrival of
Europeans on the coast of Yucatan, the arrival of Hernan Cortes in Veracruz,
and the establisment of modern Mexico City
[destruction of Tenochtitlan, modern day Mexico City],
respectively).
We as Nican Tlaca must utilize these anniversaries
as well, but we MUST utilize them in
a way that does not have any pretense of celebrating the arrival of Eurpeans,
the theft of our natural resources by Europeans, the continued occupation of
our lands by Europeans, nor the genocide and rape of our ancestors by
Europeans. The most effective way to
extricate these solemn observances from European domination is two-fold. The first, and most obvious, is to transform
any and all current “holidays” that celebrate European occupation of Cemanahuac
in ANY
fashion. Religious holidays such as
Easter, Hannuckah, and Ramadan, should be flatly ignored by people of
Indigenous ancestry, as should any “holy day” that honors or celebrates the
occupiers’ cultural heritage. In
addition, current secular holidays, inluding October 12 (Columbus Day in the “U.S.”, Dia de la Raza in Mexico and “Central America”), the 4th of
July, Dieciséis
de Septiembre, and “Thanksgiving,” should be given an Indigenous spin,
with the emphasis not on “discovery” and “independence,” but on remembrance and
resistance. One may ask, isn’t it better
to ignore these days as well? The simple
answer is no. These days are already
ingrained into the yearly cycles of our lives, and to suddenly end their
observance would create a vaccumm for those currently alive. The best solution is the calculated
transformation, which has already slowly begun in some areas, and will
eventually alter the meanings of these observances for future generations (one
must continually think beyond one’s own life).
The second aspect involves the creation of NEW days of remembrence, with an emphasis placed on the Indigenous perspective. Some of these new regional and “continental holidays” should include (but not limited to) solemn observances such as November 8, 1519 (entry of Spaniards into Tenochtitlan), and August 13, 1521 (fall of Tenochtitlan). A new celebratory day should be established for July 1, 1520, (the so-called La Noche Triste, which should be a day celebrating the defeat of Cortes’ army by the Mexica). The quincentennial of these events will all occur within 14 years, and now is the time to establish these observances with an Anahuac-centered vantage point, so that the media and European elites will not be able to dictate and dominate us with THEIR definitions. The time has come for us to define ourselves!
Detractors may be quick to point out that the proposed celebrations all seem negative, besides, aren’t holidays supposed to be about family and fun? The short answer is that days celebrating our independce can and will be incorporated, but when TRUE independence from European domination occurrs—unlike all the current psuedo-independence days wherein we celebrate the independence of others, or the trading of one master for another [meaning that criollos, Spaniards, and their descendants still rule and exploit Mexico and "Central America", and the rest of Cemanahuac.]. Another argument in my defense that comes to mind is the current tradition of Israeli soldiers who visit the archaeological site of Masada upon completion of their training. Masada was the location of ancient Israel’s subjegation by Rome and was the culmination of the “Great Jewish Revolt,” which led directly to the dispersal of ancient Jews into the world-wide diaspora. The modern traditional visit to Masada by soldiers was started by Moshe Dayan in the 1950s, and includes a solemn ceremony in which soldiers pledge that "Masada shall never fall again." Therefore, the new Indigenous day of remembrance for August 13th, can include a pledge to continue struggling against the European occupation of our continent until Tenochtitlan, and all of Cemanahuac, is once again liberated. After liberation, the day can serve as a reminder to never let the city fall again. Some may wonder if the creation of new “holidays” and the transformation of others into an Anahuac-centric theme is really necessary.
The answer is an emphatic YES. For as the historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr. wrote shortly before his death, “It is useful to remember that history is to the nation as memory is to the individual. As persons deprived of memory become disoriented and lost, not knowing where they are going, so a nation denied a conception of the past will be disabled in dealing with its present and its future.” If we can collectively seize this one-time opportunity to use the approaching quincentennials to spread awareness of the continued European occupation amongst our people, perhaps the spectacle of Indigenous people dancing shamelessly for the Queen of their oppressor will never occur again. For as Manuel Alderete so succinctly put it, “I didn't see them genuflect for her on CNN, but I saw them dancing for her. About the only thing they didn't do in public was physically kiss her ass while on their knees.” Never Again.
Tlazocahmati,
Carlos Cordova