EP 518 Legacy of America’s Stolen Lands and Attempts at Reconciliation

EP 518 Legacy of America’s Stolen Lands and Attempts at Reconciliation

 

In this podcast, we wonder aloud as to whether America has even to this day confronted the harsh truth that the country we know today was founded on the violent dispossession of Indigenous people.  While we seem to be having a moment of reckoning as it relates to the issue of slavery and its impact on African-Americans, how must Native peoples feel as there is barely a mention of the legacy of massacres and removal from their lands centuries back.  Native peoples are resilient as their sheer existence proves, and their spirit indomitable, but have we, the settlers, really come to terms with our actions?  Margaret Jacobs, a professor of history and director of the Center for Great Plains Studies at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, in her book ‘After One Hundred Winters’ tells stories of the individuals and communities who are working together to heal historical wounds.  She reveals how much can be gained by learning from our history instead of denying it.  As a settler historian she tries help her readers come to terms with our inaction toward Indigenous people, including the absence of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to finally set the record straight about a history many find too painful to unwind even with the passage of time. Can ordinary people do it alone or does our society have to have a true reckoning?  This podcast may help you sort out your own thoughts on the subject.

 


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