Transcription
[Music] You know, we look uh at history in present day, in our present day society. It is many times that the past is made to seem irrelevant to the present, as though it has no purpose in the present. Our colonization is made, taken, and it's—we're made to believe that it's civilization in present day, and even our oppression, we're made to follow it through religious obligation. And I know those might—that might be confusing to some people, but what I am saying is that all the events of where we find ourselves in the present, the conditions in which we find ourselves in the present, all lie in what's happened historically. And that's why history is so important. It is so important. If you don't understand history, how can you understand the present? If you don't understand where you came from, how can you understand where you want to go?
When I go to youth—I just did a youth conference in California. There were like 2,000 youth there. And I put the book up and I said—I asked them, I said, "Look, if you're going home and you were supposed to be somewhere else and you're coming up with a story that part of it is part of what happened, but part of it is not," I said, "What are you telling your parents?" Every one of the youth said, "We're telling them a lie." But every time I asked adults, "If you've come up with something and you're not going to tell the whole story," I said, "What are you telling?" They said, "Well, we're telling a half-truth." It's very difficult for adults to admit the truth. It's very difficult for adults to admit that they're telling a lie. In the cleansing process of trying to change our conditions, we have to contend with the truth, and we have to admit when we've lied about certain things in order to find the premise, the point of reference in which we can begin to come to terms with that truth.
In a dysfunctional relationship, what always has to come to form at the present before you can begin a recovery? You have to admit that there's a problem. And so we are calling for all of us to look at the reality of the situation on this 500th anniversary and recognize that there's a problem that we have to contend with. We have a dysfunctional relationship. Yes, we have a relationship between people that we have never seen in history. Never. We have a—a society where Africans are living with Chicanos, where Indians are living with white people, where white people are living with Asians, but it is in a dysfunctional relationship. In order so we do not perpetuate that division, we must come to terms with that truth.
This is Seville. Seville is considered a feat of architectural design. This is one of the major ports. The treasures of the Inca and the Aztec empires would be delivered to this port. What's happening in Seville in Spain and Europe at this time? Eastern Orthodox Christendom is coming together with the West. The Vatican is solidifying its power. It's calling for the conversion of Jews and Moors to convert to Christianity or they'll be expelled. The Jews practicing Judaism. The Moors practicing the Islamic religion. Many of the Moors are African. They are black. That is going to come up later on in the presentation. Please make note of that.
This is the city of Palos in the Gulf of Cadiz. This is one of the—the major ports where all the activity is going to take—most of—almost all the activity is going to take place from. This is a typical scene of the priest blessing the voyagers before they go on voyage. Two things very important: I am going to make numerous, numerous, numerous references to Catholicism, the Christianity, and the Vatican. My intent is not to bash Christianity or any one of them. But the intent of ourselves and our organization is to show how, in the name of religion, human beings carry out the atrocities against other human beings, utilizing that religion in the forefront to justify their acts. And two, when Christians first landed in the new world, they separated themselves from the indigenous population by calling themselves Christians to Indians. As they begin Christianizing most of the Indians due to the missions across the western hemisphere, they would separate themselves again from the indigenous population by calling themselves Dutch to Indians, French to Indians, English to Indians, British to Indians, Spanish to Indians, so on and so forth. As the northern territories would usurp power, even those that were labeled the first Americans in Central and South America would lose their right to call themselves American, and only those in the Northern Territories would have the right to call themselves American. Even those of us who were here prior to their coming, prior to their arrival, would have to preface our name in North America by calling ourselves Native American or Mexican-American. If it was par for the course, why were they not calling themselves European-American?
He falls on his knees. He weeps, kisses the earth. He steps forward, staggering, because for more than a month, he has hardly slept. And he beheads some shrubs with his sword. He then raises the flag on one knee, eyes lifted to the heavens. He pronounces three times in the name of Isabel and Ferdinand. From today, he says, everything belongs to Ramon monarchs. Luis de Torres translates Christopher Columbus' questions into Hebrew. Do you know the kingdom of the great Khan? He says, "Where does the gold you have in your ears and nose come from?" The naked men stare at him with open mouths. The interpreter tries his small stock of children. Gold temples China gold. Then he tries his Arabic, that little bit that he knows. Japan, China, gold. The naked men watch the anger of the intruder with red hair and coarse skin who wears a velvet cape and very shiny clothes.
It is 1492. Columbus sails the ocean blue. He disembarks on the island of Guanahani, plants a cross and names the island San Salvador in the name of the father, in the name of the son, in the name of the ghost. It is 1492. Columbus says, "They brought us parrots and balls of cotton and spears and many other things which they exchanged for glass beads and hawk bells. They willingly traded everything they owned. They were well-built with good bodies and handsome features. They do not bear arms or know them, for I showed them a sword, and they cut themselves out of ignorance. Their spears are made of cane. They would make good servants." He says, "With 50 men, we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want." Hail Mary, full of grace. Holy Mary, mother of God.
It is 1493. Columbus is unable to find the quantities of gold he needs to take back to the crown. He says, "There is only one solution. It goes against everything I've ever believed in. We must make immediate arrangements for the transportation of the captives to the slave markets of Seville. At least they'll have the opportunity for a decent life and the chance to become Christians. Besides, they will bring gold to those who demand it."
It is January 1493. Two ships returned to the old world. The third one, the Santa Maria, shipwreck. They build a fort out of the spare wood, is called Fort La Navidad. This is the first military fort in the new world. 39 men must stay behind to guard the fort. They begin taking liberties of their hospitality by raping the native women. The natives retaliate and kill all 39 men.
It is November 1493. Columbus returns to the new world. This time with 17 ships, 1,500 men, horses, dogs, armor, and cannons. He lures some of the natives on board ship inside a friendship and then begins lynching them and handing them to be a lesson to the rest of the natives. Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. We are coming to the close of the honeymoon period.
It is 1494. Columbus, he discovers the island of Jamaica. The natives, they don't speak English. They don't speak Spanish, French, or Dutch. But where is the gold? The natives are pagans, barbarians, heathens. At first, we want to convert them. Later, we don't. We begin exterminating them. Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners. Now, at the hour of their death, Pope Alexander VI gives Spanish monarchs titles to most of the new lands, and with it the duty to convert the pagans to Christians.
It is 1495 this time. Michael de Cuneo, first lieutenant to Christopher Columbus, he said, obligated to depart for Spain on our caravels on which I wish to go back home, had collected into the town, 1,600 men and women of the said Indians, of whom, male and female, we loaded the said caravels with 550 of the best. On February 17th, 1495, when we got into Spanish waters, he says, there they died in our hands, about 200 of the Sedin who we threw into the sea. The cause, I believe, to be unaccustomed to the cold. We landed all the slaves at Cadiz, he says. Half of them sick. They are not people suited to hard work. They suffer from the cold and they do not live long lives. Note, two years have passed and of the 8 million or so Taínos living in the Caribbean, half of them are already dead.
It is 1495. The first pitched battle between natives and Christians on the Vía Real ensues. They grabbed the natives by the throat. They ripped them to pieces. They disemboweled them. In the old world, these dogs are trained to hunt wild game. In the new world, they savor human flesh, Indian flesh.
It is 1496. Chief Guanabo, meaning golden house, husband to Queen Anacaona, meaning golden flower. Guanabo is the one who killed the 39 men at Fort La Navidad. Leader of the first natives to resist the European invasion. He is loaded for shipment to Spain with 29 other native prisoners. Guanabo will die at sea.
It is 1498. Columbus is still unable to find the quantities of gold he needs to take back to the crown. He says, "From here, one might send, in the name of the Holy Trinity, as many slaves as could be sold. If the information I have is correct, it appears we could sell 4,000 slaves who might be worth 20 million or more. And of the slaves there will be men, women, and children."
It is 1503. Nicolás de Ovando decided to perform what the—what the Spaniards always perform on the arrival in the Indies. That is to say, when they come to an area heavily settled, that's so outnumbered that they make sure that all hearts tremble at the mere mention of the name Christian, they begin with the large-scale massacre. This is a letter Ovando writes to the crown and God. The letter starts out, God, your worship. It is imperative that I, Nicolás de Ovando, explorer of forgotten empires, relate a most unfortunate altercation that occurred on Hispaniola, 1503, autumn midday. He said 70 of us, he alos on horseback as well as 300 foot soldiers marched into their heathen villages. He says, you know our men, restless, hungry for women, for pearls, for gold, to come to the point, we massacred the savages. He says those we didn't burn we ran through with our swords. He says, "We decently, however, hanged Queen Anacaona, although she is by all accounts queen of these profitious [ __ ] These barbarians are little more than two-legged dogs." Hail Mary, full of grace. Holy Mary, Mother of God, and the screams seem to come from another country.
It is 1503. Straight out of the crown. Queen Isabella this time she said, "If said cannibals continue to resist and do not wish to admit and receive to their lands and captains and men who may be on such voyages by my order, nor to hear them in order to be taught our sacred Catholic faith, that they may be in my service and obedience and taken to these my kingdoms and domains and other parts and places and be sold." Columbus gives the order to begin capturing all the young men from the ages 14 on up. That means every single one of you in this room would be required to work in the mines. Those that refuse to work in the mines to look for gold and silver would be burnt at the stake to be a lesson to the rest of the natives.
It is 1505. Bartolomé de las Casas, a young priest who in 1502 wrote that the natives were savages. He begins to open his eyes. He says, "There were better than 8 million people living these islands, including the natives. Over 3 million people had perished from war, slavery in the mines. Who in future generations will believe this?" I myself, writing it as a knowledgeable eyewitness, can hardly believe it. All the young men are given a hawk bell. They turn the hawk bell over and they fill it with gold. This is their quota of gold. They turn their quota of gold over to Columbus's men. Then they are given a copper token in which they hang around their neck. Columbus gives the order. If you find that some among them do not have the copper token around their neck, begin hacking off their feet and their hands till they bleed to death to be a lesson to the rest of the natives. Other ones they would wrap them in straw and set them on fire while they were still alive. And still others, they would cut off their hands. They would tie their hands around their neck and say, "Go, go off into the hills and tell the others if they don't come down to work in the mines, this is what they're in store for." Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. On occasion, the natives would capture a Christian and they'd say, "If this is the God that you want, if this is the God that you believe in, then this is the God that you'll have," and they would pour the molten gold down their throats. Once again, Columbus gives the order, "If you discover that some among them steal or try to run away, cut off their nose or their ears, for these are parts of the body which cannot be concealed."
It is 1506. This is yours truly. It is the fifth voyage. Last night he dedicated his last testament. This morning he asked if the king's messenger had arrived. Afterwards he slept. Nonsense. Mutterings and groans. He still breathes, but harshly, as if battling against the air. At the court, no one will listen to his entries. He returned from the third voyage on chains. And on the fourth, there was no one to pay attention to his titles and dignities. Cristoforo Colombo is going out knowing that there is no passion or glory that does not need to pay. He does not know that within a few years the banner that he stuck for the first time in the sands of the Caribbean will be waving over the empire of the Aztecs and in the lands yet unknown, over the kingdom of the Incas and the unknown skies of the southern cross. He does not know that with all his lies, promises and ravings, the supreme admiral of the Ocean Sea still believes he has reached Asia from the rear. He still thinks he's in China or Japan. The ocean will not be called the Sea of Columbus, nor will the new world bear his name, but that of his Florentine friend, America, feminized. But it was Columbus who found dazzling color that didn't exist in the European rainbow. Blind, he dies without ever seeing it. Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1492.
We are back at the Vatican. We are back in Europe. Veneration, beatification, canonization process begins. The Vatican wants a saint. And guess whose name is first on the list for sainthood? Cristoforo Colombo. Christopher Columbus. This is my favorite portrait, not because of the atrocities that it shows, but because there is so much history in this one picture. I'd like you to count the number of people you see hanging from these low gallows. By this time, there are 400 gallows in Hispaniola alone. They would take the local trees and build these low gallows. Then they would teach them to collect green wood sticks. Some of the children were sent to collect green wood sticks to build a fire underneath the feet of the Indians. The green wood is called cassava wood. It's from the local indigenous tree. The number is 13. Its representation is the twelve apostles and Christ in his mercy. The same twelve apostles you see in the last picture of the Last Supper, possibly in your home. The same Jesus Christ you see in the picture of the Last Supper, possibly in your home. This is its representation in the new world. This is what Christianity means to the natives in the new world. There is a modern-day rhyme in which we've all sung at one time or another. I'm sure of it. It goes, "One little, two little, three little Indians." This is its origin. Understand your history or you leave open the opportunity to make mockery of the tragedy of the past out of your ignorance of that past. Understand your history or you leave open the opportunity to make mockery of the tragedies of the past.
It is 1509. Bartolomé de las Casas. He speaks out once again. He said, "While I was in Cuba, 7,000 children died in 3 months." He said, "Some mothers even drown their babies from sheer desperation." He said the Spaniards would make bets as to who could slit a man in two or cut off his head at one blow. They would tear the babies from the mother's breast and then they would dash their heads against the rocks. He says, "My eyes have seen acts so foreign to human nature that I now tremble as I write." My eyes have seen acts so foreign to human nature that I now tremble as I write.
It is 1511. Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo, official chronicler, the one who was selected to write down the history of the West Indies. He said, "In these islands, those that choose death by hanging themselves or drinking poison along with their children are many." He says, "But we do not know how to explain it." He says, "Are the native Indians so savage that they think everything is common? Are people by nature idle and vicious, doing little work, that for a pastime many kill themselves with venom so as not to work and others hang themselves with their own hands?" What Oviedo cannot even fathom, what the Spaniards do not even understand, is that the natives do not take their life out of the fact that they're lazy. They do not take their lives and commit suicide out of the fact that they do not want to work. They take their lives out of the fact that it is the only way left to die with any dignity. Understand what I'm saying? It is the only way left to die with any dignity. If you were to come to me and I knew that you were going to massacre my family and I had no way to defend them, I would make sure that I took their lives first before I gave you the opportunity to take their lives. As you see the child on her mother's lap whose mother has taken her life before she has taken her own. Chief Hatuey, Chief Hatuey of the Guahaba region. My hero, Chief Hatuey, he will not commit suicide but will flee into the hills. Three months later he is captured. The priest, the friar, asked him, Chief Hatuey, accept Christianity. If you accept Christianity, you'll have a soul. And if you have a soul, you go to heaven. Chief Hatuey asked the priest, the friar, "Are there Christians and Spaniards in this heaven you speak about?" The priest replies, "Yes, there are." Chief Hatuey says, "Then I prefer hell." And the firewood begins to crackle.
It is 1512. Bartolomé de las Casas is trying to become a practicing Christian. He gives up his Indian slaves, but he is not yet there. He calls for the replacement with African slaves. This is what he says about what he sees. He said, "Endless testimonies prove to the mild and passive temperament of the natives, but our work was to exasperate, ravage, kill, mangle, and destroy. Small wonder then if they tried to kill one of us now and then. The admiral, is it true, was so anxious to please the king that he committed irreparable crimes against the natives. Total control led to total cruelty. The Christians thought nothing of knifing Indians by tens and twenties and cutting off a slice of them just to test the sharpness of their blades. The natives' attempt to defend themselves failed. And when they ran off into the hills, they were found and killed. They suffered and died in the mines and other labors in desperate silence, knowing not a soul in the world to whom they could turn to for help. Knowing not a soul in the world to whom they could turn to for help. As history tells us, tens of thousands of natives died from disease: smallpox, measles, cholera, tuberculosis. Too many, too numerous to mention, those that come from the old world to the new. Unable to contend with the tens of thousands of deaths, all they could do is begin to bury their dead. Time is marching on and it will not stop.
It is 1513. Vasco Núñez de Balboa, first to cross the Panamanian isthmus into what we now know as Central America. He uses dogs for his slaughter. Six years later, he is beheaded by his own men; Pedro Arias Dávila takes his place. They call him the butcher. Both Balboa and Dávila set up death squads, destroying more than—
400 villages and killing most of the people. 80% killed in Guatemala. 93% killed in Panama. 95% killed in Guatemala, Nicaragua, and 98% killed in Costa Rica.
It is said that one day a Christian was hunting deer and rabbit and worried, least his dog should eat. Took a child from its mother, commenced to cut the baby into pieces to feed to his dogs, to feed to his dogs so that they could have something to eat.
Today in San Diego, California, a 33-ft bronze statue is being erected in the name of Vasquez Nunes de Balboa as one of the great discoverers of America. The Norths, who donated the statue, say, "We want everyone in San Diego to enjoy it." Councilwoman Abby Wolfshimer said, "The Norths set a fine example for the city. We have to admire the pioneering spirit that goes into this gift."
We are back in the Vatican. We're back in Europe. It is 1514. Some theologians protested, and the enslavement of natives was formerly banned at the beginning of the 16th century. But actually, it was not banned but blessed. Listen. Before each military action, the captains of the conquest were required to read to the natives, without an interpreter, a long and rhetorical message known as the requerimiento, exhorting them to adopt the holy Catholic faith. And it basically said this: if they did not adopt the holy Catholic faith, they would take their women and children to be slaves and they would kill every last one of them, if need be, necessary.
It is 1515. Las Casas, on his way to becoming a human being and a true Christian, repents, repents for his earlier statements to use Africans as slaves. He says it is not the natives who are the savages, but it is the Spaniards who are the savages. But it is too late. The Africans will come as slaves to the new world, but they do not come as slaves to the new world because Las Casas has called for them to come to the new world. For they rarely listen to what he had to say. Anyway, Africans come as slaves to the new world because they have already killed so many of our ancestry. They have already killed so many of the native that they need the Africans to replace our work in the mines. They need the Africans to replace our work in the mines. Over 10 million Africans will make it across the water from Africa to America. The Christian Ten Commandments says, "Thou shalt not kill." Over 100 million Africans will lose their life. In the middle passage, on the way from Africa to America, over 100 million natives will lose their life due to the onslaught of Europeans in the Western Hemisphere.
When Christopher Columbus was landing in the Caribbean, Vasco da Gama was landing in Kenya of Africa. When the Europeans were landing in the Amazon to take the treasures of the Amazon River, the gold and silver, the same Europeans were landing in the Volta River, known as the Gold Coast, to take the gold and silver. We have no reasons to be divided with Africans, only reasons to be united with Africans. Africans will be shackled in chains and enslaved and take our place in the mines until they die.
It is 1515, back in Haiti, back in Guanahani, back in the Caribbean, back where we started. Of the 8 million or so Taínos living in the Caribbean, there are only 50,000 Taínos left. Bishop Zumarraga. Bishop Zumarraga. Z U M A R R A G A, with the accent on the U. Bishop Zumarraga is appointed the official protector of the natives. He is the one who burns the books of the Aztec Empire. He is also the one, also the one that owns the branding iron, the branding iron that he will stamp on the natives' faces like cattle, the name of their proprietor, the person who owns them. I am not sure this is a protector I want in my corner.
Oviedo, who writes in his Natural History of the West Indies that you should probably be able to find in your library here, said Satan has now been expelled, now that his influence has disappeared, now that most of the natives are dead. He says, who can deny that the use of gunpowder against pagans is the burning of incense to our Lord.
It is 1519. We are at the great Mexica Empire. Mexica, it whispers. It's Guacharasa. Mashika. Mashika. Mexica. Mashik, meaning the whole of the people. Mashika is spelled M E X I C A. You know them as the Aztecs. The Mexica came to refer to themselves—listen, listen—as Mexicano. In Spanish, it's Mexicano. In English, it's Mexican. They also refer to themselves as Chicanx. X I C A N O, meaning children of the earth. In Spanish, it's Chicano. Mexico. Chicanx came before all the other labels. It came before Hispanic. It came before Mexican-American. It came before Spanish surname. It came before Latino. It came before Latino. It came before Green [ __ ]. It came before [ __ ]. It came before illegal alien. It came before all the other labels our colonizers have tried to impose on us as though they owned us, to tell us who we are. My gratitude, respect, and thanks go out to each and every one of you in this room that still refers to yourself as Chicanx, for you are showing respect for the ancestry of your origin. Thank you very much, Rasa. Thank you very much for carrying on the dignity of your people.
Moctezuma hears of the coming of Cortés and will tremble in his seat, believing it is the god Quetzalcoatl. He sends troops to greet Cortés and offers him gifts, asking him to go no further. Cortés has already learned, however, from the journals of Columbus that what he must do is instill fear in the natives. Instill fear in the natives. So, he begins with large-scale massacres at some of the first villages he will come to, entering at Vera Cruz on his way to Cholula, but his ultimate stop, the Nōchtlān, of which we now know as Mexico City. Cholula is the mecca of the indigenous world. It is a place where they meet for spiritual reasons, a place where they meet without weapons, like your church. Cortés knows this. A meeting is called at Cholula. And no one leaves Cholula alive, not even with a way to defend themselves. They are all massacred.
It is still 1519. Cortés has reached the Nōchtlān. Dumbfounded by the beauty of it, the conquistadors ride down the causeway line. It seems to have been torn from the pages of a book—things never seen, never ever heard of, never ever dreamed of. The sun, it rises from behind the volcanoes. It enters the lakes and it breaks the floating mist into shreds. The city streets, the high tower temples, they all glitter before them. A multitude comes out to greet the invaders, silenced and unhurried, with innumerable canoes opening the furls of the cold, dark waters. The Nōchtlān is greater than all of Seville. It is greater than all of Madrid. It is greater than all of anything they have ever seen in Europe.
Moctezuma agrees to a meeting with Cortés. Cortés is given diplomatic immunity and is offered gifts. Cortés wants it all. He violates his diplomatic immunity. He will take Moctezuma captive, ask for a ransom. The ransom is met. He still kills Moctezuma. And in the takeover, a young man, a young man by the age of 17, by the name of Cuauhtémoc, will stand up and he will fight fiercely for his people. Hundreds of Cortés's men will die. Cortés will almost nearly be caught in the first battles. And this next part becomes so important to understand: the safety in which he finds among those natives he is able to divide and conquer. Those natives he is able to divide and conquer. Those that side with Cortés out of the fear for their own lives and those that side with Cortés out of the dissatisfaction of their existing government. Be clear on that point. Be clear on that point. Divide and conquer, which affects each and every one of us in this room today. Look at us, divided over the colors of our skin. Hating each other because we have a different color skin. Divided over the languages that we speak. Sometimes we even ridiculously divided over the clothes that we wear. All of us in this room and in this society, we condemn gangs and gang violence and we condemn the division of gangs that are divided over colors. But I don't entirely blame youth. I don't entirely blame youth. For youth learn by example. And what example have we taught them? Except violence and division. Except violence and division. Everywhere in society you turn, there is violence and division. And how do you want them to learn anything different? My challenge to all of us in this room is how can we learn to come together to set an example for the upcoming generations? They're looking for a way out. Are you going to give it to them, or are you going to go along with the division that perpetuates the decline of not only our own people but of humanity?
Two years have passed. Cortés is ready. He has received fresh new troops, new supplies. He burns the ships, leaving his men no way out. They cannot return. They must go forward. The Mexica are in celebration and do not expect an attack. What I'll read to you comes out of the codices called the Chronicles of the Mexica themselves. They ran among the dancers, they said, forcing their way to the place where the drum was played. They attacked the man who was drumming and they cut off his arm. They cut off his head and it rolled across the floor. They began attacking all the celebrants, stabbing them, spearing them, striking them with their swords. They attacked some from behind and they fell to the ground instantly. Others they stuck in the shoulders and the arms and the calves. Still some others they would slice them in the abdomens with their swords. And as they tried to run away, they would trip over their own intestines trying to get away. They would trip over their own intestines trying to get away.
It is August 13th, 1521, at the fall of the Mexica Empire, when the conquerors become the conquered. This is a message delivered by Cuauhtémoc that has been passed down through 17 generations of the oral tradition of our people. Listen to what he says. He says, "For the guardian of all time, for the man of the future, our son has gone and left us in darkness. We must shield and hide away all those things in our hearts that we know are treasures. They will destroy our temples, our places of mediation, our houses of song and dance, our ball courts, schools, and universities." He says parents are obligated to teach the culture to their children and they must tell their children, their children's children, what a beloved culture has done. He says they will pass on the lamp of our destiny, what a tradition our ancestors have given to us with love. He says, do not forget, and I am telling you, do not forget to tell your children that they may tell their children. Tell them how it was. Tell them how it will be. Tell them how to gain strength. Tell them how our beloved culture will fulfill its great destiny on our beloved Mother Earth.
Of the approximately 25 million or so Mexica living within the Mexica Empire, within one generation, there will be less than a million. There will be less than a million. Up until the late 1950s, up until the late 1950s in California, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Texas, Utah, Nevada, they would continue to lynch our people, Chicanos, up until the late 1950s for their continued resistance of domination and colonization. I was already born at that time.
It is 1531. We have reached the great Inca Empire, stretching 3,000 miles from present-day Ecuador to present-day Chile. The key players are Francisco Pizarro and Atahualpa. Pizarro has awaited this moment ever since he knelt before Charles V, Emperor, and described an empire as big as Europe that he discovered and proposed to conquer and promised him the most splendid of all treasures in human history. And Atahualpa hears of the landing of Pizarro and begins the long journey from Cusco to Cajamarca. The priest Vicente de Valverde emerges from the shadows and goes to meet Atahualpa. He raises the Bible in one hand and the crucifix in the other and he cries, "Here is God, the true one, and then all the rest is nonsense." The interpreter translates, and Atahualpa, the head of the throne, asks, "Who told you that?" "The Bible," the sacred book. Atahualpa says, "Give it here so it can tell me." Atahualpa takes the Bible. He puts it in his hand. He turns it over. He looks at it. He puts it to his ear. He shakes it. It says nothing. He drops it to the ground. This is all Pizarro needs. At the signal, the trap is sprung. From the ambush, the trumpets will blare and the rifles will fire and the cavalry will charge the stunned and unarmed crowd. Thousands who came to greet them as friends, thousands who came to greet them as friends will die in the initial battles with the Inca. The Inca Empire will fall. The Inca will become slaves in their own land. And they will have to collect the treasures of gold and silver to take back to be melted down to take back to the crown for 24 hours a day. The fires are going to burn that are going to melt the treasures that they are going to take back to the crown. It is the same treasures that they take from South America, the same treasures that they take from Central America, the same treasures that they take from Mexico, the same treasures that they take from North America, even the same treasures that they take from Africa, are going to keep Europe in power for the centuries to come, even allowing it the economic means for the creation of the United States of America. The Christian Ten Commandments says, "Thou shalt not steal." And they stole the land. They stole the treasures. And they even stole some of us. They even stole some of us to take back to the crown. Christianity, the new and correct religion; the natives can no longer practice their indigenous beliefs. Confession will be the order of the day. But the penance will not be an "Our Father" or a "Hail Mary." The penance will be a beating of men, women, and children, and many times to the death, and always, always, always in public, to be a lesson to the rest of the natives.
Túpac Amaru, my hero, Túpac Amaru, will fight fiercely to regain Cusco. He will try to recapture what is theirs, but the end result will be disastrous. And of the 18 million or so Inca living within the Inca Empire, within 70 years, there will be less than a million. This is an actual burial site just outside Cusco. They say the reason skeletons are above ground is due to poaching. We know that is not to—excuse me—tarnish or taint the name of archaeology and anthropology. We are clear on who are robbing the graves of our ancestry.
This next piece took much deliberation, as we did not want to enter the whole question of the deplorable attitude and disrespect among not only our people but among our society toward women. But we needed to emphasize the importance of the contradiction in which we find ourselves. We understand clearly that the struggle among women is the struggle among a people of themselves as a whole. It is not a separate issue but is an issue in which we must struggle amongst ourselves. And in order to find our liberation, we must move wholly as a people and as a family and as men and women together. Some of the pictures that you'll see are out of a Playboy movie called The Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungles of Death, implying that all indigenous women are horrors. I work with youth, and young women in even elementary school are calling themselves [ __ ], and young men are calling the women [ __ ], and hold it as though it was something affectionate to say. But again, I don't blame youth. I don't blame youth, for they learn by example. And what example are we teaching them when every billboard in this country shows women as though they were some type of sex object, less than human beings? We talk about how we want to change our conditions among our people, and then we disrespect the women among our people at the same time. When you disrespect women, you disrespect your people. And when you disrespect your people, you disrespect yourselves. We must take the challenge to learn to respect and show that respect among ourselves as human beings, or we cannot set the example for anyone or condemn anyone for what they say or do, especially youth.
This is what the Europeans said about indigenous women. Peter Martyr said, "In accordance with the general nature of women who prefer things of others to things of their own, these women love Christians most of all." Christoval Colón says, "We will convert them by love rather than by force." Amerigo Vespucci said, "When they had the opportunity of culating with Christians, urged by excessive lust, they defiled and prostituted themselves willingly." On his second voyage, Columbus gives a captured Caribbean woman to Michael de Cuneo as though it was his to give. Michael de Cuneo says, "I wanted to put my desire to execution, but she was unwilling for me to do so and treated me with her nails in such wise that I would have preferred never to have begun. But seeing this, I took a rope and beat her well," following which she produced such screaming and wailing it would have caused you to not believe your ears. I beat her again. And then he says, "Finally, we reached an agreement that I can tell you she seems to have been raised in a veritable school of harlots, and no, no, no, really meant yes, yes, yes."
In 1942, Samuel Eliot Morison, Pulitzer Prize winner of the three-book, three-book history book called Admiral of the Ocean Sea, said of all the people that he wanted to be like, he wanted to be like Michael de Cuneo for his interaction with women. It was 1982, 498 years later, the first European literary critic, Delia Staines, stood up and said, "It's not the fact that indigenous women were [ __ ], but it is the fact that they were raped," and it was a double rape, a rape of the fact of them being women and a rape of the fact of them being Indian.
In 1589, America was formerly named after Amerigo Vespucci. And I have one last statement to make. When I started on these tours, most of the people that have been in leadership positions that I have contacted, whether it was a student organization, whether it was a community organization, or even a youth organization, have been women. 95% of them have been women. 98% of the women were highly organized. Last week when I was in LA, a woman called me that evening and said, "Do you have a chance to come here tomorrow? I may—I'll make sure I have everything." In six hours, we set it up. I was there, and we had standing room only. We had standing room only. Of the 5% that I have dealt with, of the 5% that I have dealt with that have been men, 98% of those men have been highly disorganized. I have seen more division on behalf of our people by the ego and arrogance of what comes out of a man's mouth than what he is able to show in practice. I have seen more—I have seen more advances on behalf of what women have done and not what they said. They are willing to walk the walk and not talk the talk. If you are not willing to learn from your own contradictions and you are not willing to walk the walk, then shut up and get out of the way and let those who have shown us the way come and take us into the future. Women are setting the example. They have won since I was a young organizer. We must learn from the examples that are being set. Prophecy has said it, and it is showing its way to the forefront. Women are in the forefront of moving what's happening and they will take us into the 21st century for what our next generation will learn. We must learn. We must learn through our contradictions. We must learn. Oh, I lost my thing. Um, I've always searched, as I wondered what brings me joy, what keeps me going, what keeps me moving on. Um, many times I asked myself, what motivates me? What keeps me going? What drives me to change things? What drives me? Why do I beat myself up? And then when I'm around people, your involvement, you get so beat up. You get so beat up. What I realized is I love my people and I love myself. And it's through that love that no matter what the odds, no matter what the barriers, no matter what happens, every time I sit in front and have the opportunity to sit with youth and speak to them, the love that I receive back and they—and youth in—in—in conferences and meetings and—and I talk to them and they ask, well, why are you here? And I said, "Well, part of it is my responsibility, but I want you to know this, and I want you to...
Hear it clearly, because I love you as my people, and it's through that love that I am consistently motivated and driven to change the things that we see that are obstacles for our people. And you can beat me as much as you want, but as long as I have that love intact for my people and for myself, then unless you take my life, you can't take that away, you know?
It is so hard for people to come together, even among their own people, let alone to join along with other people of color. When you're colonized as a people, you become so insecure as a people. You marginalize and you retract to your own safety, to where you find that safety, and that's the closest to your people. That's why we have ghettos. That's why we have ghettos. And, of course, uh, northern Native Americans were put on reservations; so they didn't have to create them. They were created for them.
There is so much work that needs to be done amongst ourselves, from the point of reference of respect—of learning to respect ourselves internally, of learning to respect ourselves and respect our ancestors, respect our brothers and sisters among our own people. But there is hope. There is hope. And the hope is in the youth that are coming up. You know, as much as I see the contradictions of youth, I see the presence of youth who can see through the contradictions. As many of those that are getting involved in gangs now, there are many who are not getting involved in gangs. There are many who are taking the challenge in seventh and eighth grade who are standing up to get involved and who are calling adults on their contradictions of speaking out of both sides of their mouth. Cuz remember, adults, children know the truth. They look for the truth, and they are the hope for people of color coming together.
Some of the things that we've tried to do and we have attempted successfully in doing in our own community is first we started by coming to you with youth groups amongst choices, and then we began starting youth groups that included other indigenous people from North America, North American Indians and Central and South American Indians, including Chicanos. Last year we had our first youth conference that was a joint indigenous and African youth conference. Each and every school in the Denver school district told us it could not be done. You cannot bring those youth together because they will not get along. On their week off of vacation, on the last day of their vacation, we brought 500 youth together who came together and volunteered their time, volunteered their time, volunteered their time to come to a youth conference to hear of how they could begin to work together as people of color to change their conditions as youth. I gave a presentation. I had the honor of giving a presentation. And I drew the parallels from the pyramids in Egypt to the pyramids in Mexico. From the landing of Vasco Núñez de Balboa in the Caribbean, the landing of Vasco da Gama in Kenya—that there is a way out, that we are all suffering.
And here is the key question that we have to deal with in our confusion as people of color: We always, in a society that is so competitive that forces us to be so competitive, we even compete over who has suffered more, as though that was relevant to our present situation. It becomes ridiculous. I know. But youth are coming together because they're looking for a way out. They're no longer following the patterns of division that our older ancestors have, or some of our adults still are perpetuating today. They are hope, and that is the hope for the people of color—of those youth that will come together at their prime, at their prime, and will not have to go through the obstacles, obstacles of bad habits that they've picked up in becoming adults and organizers, but have broken those barriers in their prime. And those are the ones that are going to change the conditions. And what I am saying to you adults that are not making the efforts to come together with other peoples of color to change your tradition—that you better step back or shut up and get out of the way if you're not willing, if you're not willing to come together with people of color to change the conditions.
Martin Luther King said that an injustice anywhere is an injustice everywhere. An injustice to men anywhere is an injustice to men everywhere. What he is saying is that did not relate to just African people. Injustice does not just affect African people or just Native people or just Asian people. It affects us all, and it affects Western European cultures as well. But when we cross those cultural lines to come together as human beings, that is the significant essence of change for humanity, and that's what we must look at and focus on for the future.
You know, in the 500th anniversary, everybody says—I remember someone saying, "Who cares about what happened 500 years ago? How is that relevant to today? Why are you still mad about what happened 500 years ago?" And I know, and my response is, I looked at him and I smiled and I said, "I'm not upset about what happened 500 years ago. I'm upset about the injustice that still prevails today. That is a direct link to that landing of Columbus. That is a direct link from Columbus to Bush. There's a direct link from Cortez to Ronald Reagan. There's a direct line from that inhumanity to the inhumanity that still exists today. And that must be clear. That must be clear that there is a direct line of the colonizers and the people in power of that point that still continues today. The inhumanity of onslaught attacks against indigenous people, whether in South America, Central America, Mexico, or North America. We have approximately 297 Indian reservations in North America alone, and almost every single one of them is under attack by the US government for its natural resources in one way, shape, form, or another.
There must be understood that the things have not changed. We can no longer mistake advancements in technology for advancements in humanity. We have gone backwards, not forward. And we need to look at where we're at as human beings and move forward from there. [Music]