Preface
Abstract
On his very first day in the New World, Christopher Columbus introduced Europe's long heritage of religious intolerance into this hemisphere. He reported on the native inhabitants he encountered on 12 October 1492: They ought to be good servants and of good intelligence. . . . I believe that they would easily be made Christians because it seemed to me that they had no religion. Our Lord pleasing, I will carry off six of them at my departure to Your Highnesses, in order that they may learn to speak. Although Columbus did not tarry long to learn more about these native people ("I do not wish to delay but to discover and go to many Islands to find gold") his legacy of Old World insensitivity toward the indigenous religions of the Western Hemisphere remains a model of behavior followed by his cultural descendants in their relations with American Indians to this day. Five hundred years later, Native Americans are still defending themselves against religious intolerance as a matter of cultural survival. Two recent Supreme Court decisions have created a growing crisis in religious liberty throughout Indian Country. These cases deny First Amendment protection for tribal religious practices that predate the founding of the United States! Many people are genuinely surprised to learn from the Supreme Court that no constitutional or statutory protection can be found for native religious freedom under American law. After all, our society prides itself on protecting individual liberties, and worship is a freedom that most Americans take for granted. By excluding tribal religions from the First Amendment and placing them in an unprotected class, these two decisions have become benchmarks in the struggle that began on 12 October 1492 between two vastly different cultures. Even now-as tribal leaders prepare to go to Congress to seek statutory protections in the legislative arena-this cultural conflict undoubtedly will cause many Americans to consider whether they want to remain the cultural descendants of Columbus or whether, after five hundred years, they should adopt some indigenous values and become more ”native” to the hemisphere in which they live.