The UMC’s General Commission on Christian Unity and Interreligious Concerns,
based in New York City, announced that it has donated U.S. $50,000 to the
National Park Service for developing a center at the Sand Creek Massacre
National Historic Site, near Eads, Colo. The donation will be used to
fund research materials and other public education initiatives.
The donation is the latest in a series of acts in which the
12-million-member denomination has apologized for the action of Colonel
John Chivington, a Methodist minister who led a Nov. 29, 1864, attack
against members of the Cheyenne and Arapaho peoples along the banks of Sand
Creek.
Some 165 people – most of them women, children and the elderly – were killed. As
a result of the massacre, Cheyennes and Arapahos abandoned all claims to what was
then the Territory of Colorado.
“This effort is only a single step in a very complex and emotional journey
for our church,” the Rev. Stephen Sidorak Jr., general secretary of the
General Commission on Christian Unity and Interreligious Concerns, said in a
recent statement. “We have played an unfortunate role in history in regards
to Native Americans and our recognition of our involvement is long overdue.”
Sidorak told ENInews that Northern Cheyenne peoples today “are quite struck
by the fact that animals have returned to the massacre site, evidence of the
healing of the land, a victory of life over death.”
The UMC is preparing for a formal “Act of Repentance to Indigenous Persons”
during the meeting of its top legislative body, the United Methodist General
Conference, set for April 25-May 4, 2012, in Tampa, Fla.
That service, the general commission said, “is intended to be an
acknowledgment of wrongs done to indigenous persons and the beginning of a
process to heal relationships between indigenous communities and the
church.”
The UMC’s 1996 General Conference formally expressed regret for the Sand
Creek massacre and issued a public apology for the “actions of a prominent
Methodist.” The denomination authorized a donation to the Sand Creek
Massacre Learning Center in 2008.
“The Learning Center will enable descendants, visitors and researchers to
study the causes and consequences of this tragedy and its relevance to
contemporary events in the hope of preventing similar occurrences in the
future,” Alexa Roberts, superintendent of the Sand Creek Massacre National
Historic Site, said in a statement.
Chivington reportedly said: “Damn any man who sympathizes with Indians. I
have come to kill Indians, and believe it is right and honorable to use any
means under God’s heaven to kill Indians.” Almost 20 years after the
event, he was unrepentant, declaring: “I stand by Sand Creek.”
Such acts and words continue to wound, Sidorak said, explaining: “We will
never get a grip on our need for repentance until we grasp the breadth and
depth of the historical injuries sustained by indigenous ancestors and the
lasting wounds inflicted upon their descendants.”
