Reconciliation Resolution

by Thomas Ivan Dahlheimer

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On Wednesday, April 14, 2010, The Mille Lacs Messenger, a Minnesota county newspaper, published the following letter of mine. The three paragraphs in italic type were included in the letter I sent in, however the editor did not include them in the published letter.

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During an Aug, 18th, 2009 meeting with Minnesota Rep. Dean Urdahl, two Mdewakanton Dakota tribal leaders and two indigenous peoples rights activists, including John Borman and I, Urdah asked me to write a Minnesota Indian Apology Resolution. During the meeting, I stated that the Doctrine of Discovery should be included in the resolution and Leonard Wabasha, a Mdewakanton Dakota hereditary chief, said, Yes!  

I then contacted, Steven Newcomb, an internationally renowned Indian activist who is on the forefront of the movement to influence Pope Benedict IV to publicly revoke the Doctrine of Discovery, and asked him for his support and assistance with the draft resolution, which he did give. Newcomb is a columnist for Indian Country Today (ICT) newspaper, the world’s leading Indian news source.  A letter to the editor of mine about my correspondence with Newcomb and the draft resolution that I was asked to write was published in ICT. 

Urdahl recently informed me that he introduced a draft reconciliation resolution to the Minnesota House of Representatives. Most of the material in the draft resolution is from my draft apology/reconciliation resolution, including material about the Doctrine of Discovery.

Urdahl is now referring to the reconciliation resolution, as a “resolution of regret”. He recently asked the Minnesota Indian Affairs Council to coordinate a meeting with Minnesota tribal leaders to discuss the draft resolution. The meeting took place and he has informed tribal leaders, Rep. Gene Pelowski, Sen. Sharon Ropes, John Borman and I to send him suggestions by April 15th.

I recently sent information about the draft resolution and Newcomb’s and my correspondence to Robert Miller, another renowned leader of the movement to rectify “Doctrine of Discovery” associated injustices being committed against indigenous peoples. We now correspond. Miller’s article “Will others follow Episcopal Church’s lead?” was publish in ICT.   As was also an article about his book, ”Native America, Discovered and Conquered: Thomas Jefferson, Lewis & Clark, and Manifest Destiny,”

The Episcopal Church adopted a resolution entitled “Repudiate the Doctrine of Discovery”. The doctrine is a tenet of international law that was primarily developed by European monarchs and the Catholic Church in the 15th and 16th centuries. It authorized European Christians to declared it was their divine right to own vacant lands around the world and to claim lands that were occupied by “pagans and enemies of Christ.”

The church also called on the United States to review its “historical and contemporary policies that contribute to the continuing colonization of Indigenous Peoples” and for Queen Elizabeth II to “disavow, and repudiate publicly, the claimed validity of the Christian Doctrine of Discovery.”

Miller and I hope this call to action by the Episcopal Church will be adopted by other Christian churches and governments around the world. Miller and I also hope that the future Minnesota reconciliation resolution will serve as a model for other states.

I am hoping that this resolution will cause the Vatican to break its cover-up silence associated with the Doctrine of Discovery injustice issue, so that the Minnesota Catholic Conference  can give its support for the passage of this resolution, which would be a big step in the right direction toward setting indigenous people free.