2008
      
      
      
      
      
      
      
      
      
      
      SENATE JOINT RESOLUTION 08-031
      
      
      BY SENATOR(S) Williams, Sandoval, Bacon, Boyd, Gibbs, Gordon, Groff,
      Isgar, Keller, Morse, Shaffer, Tapia, Veiga, and Windels;
      also REPRESENTATIVE(S) Stafford, Benefield, Borodkin, Butcher, Carroll M.,
      Carroll T., Casso, Ferrandino, Fischer, Frangas, Gagliardi, Gallegos, Garza-Hicks,
      Green, Hodge, Jahn, Kefalas, Kerr A., King, Labuda, Looper, Madden, Marostica,
      Marshall, McFadyen, McGihon, McKinley, McNulty, Merrifield, Middleton,
      Mitchell V., Peniston, Pommer, Primavera, Riesberg, Roberts, Romanoff, Rose,
      Scanlan, Solano, Soper, Todd, Weissmann, White, and Witwer.
      
      
          CONCERNING THE REMEMBRANCE OF THE AMERICAN
      INDIANS WHO DIED AS A RESULT OF EUROPEAN MIGRATION TO
      THE AMERICAS. 
      
      
          WHEREAS, American Indians have made many sacrifices in the history
      of this great nation; and
      
          WHEREAS, At the end of the 15th century, Europeans began to cross
      the Atlantic, arriving in the Americas; and
      
          WHEREAS, Many people of European descent are unaware of the
      catastrophe that indigenous peoples of America endured as a result of the
      arrival of Europeans on the North American landmass; and
      
          WHEREAS, Demographers estimate that there were 18 million
      indigenous people in North America north of the Rio Grande in the last
      decade of the 15th century; and
      
          WHEREAS, By 1900, there were 200,000 American Indians left living
      in this region, a decline of nearly 99% of the indigenous population; and
          WHEREAS, Many of the deaths were caused intentionally by
      Europeans, and many other deaths occurred because of disease, which was
      intensified by volitional acts of cruelty, such as forced migrations,
      deprivation of nutrition, and enslavement, perpetrated by Europeans; and
      
          WHEREAS, American Indians have since endured many hardships at
      the hands of early settlers and their descendants; and
      
          WHEREAS, The vast majority of the Cherokee Nation, comprised of
      some 28,000 people, were forcibly removed from their ancestral lands in
      Georgia by the United States Army at the direction of President Van Buren
      and made to march nearly 1,200 miles during the brutal winter of 1838-39,
      resulting in the deaths of approximately 4,000 Cherokees; and
      
          WHEREAS, In 1864, a group of roughly 800 American Indians
      encamped at Sand Creek in southeastern Colorado, believing themselves to
      be under the protection of the United States government, were brutally
      attacked by Colorado Territory militia, who killed between 150 and 200
      people, mostly elderly men, women, and children; and
      
          WHEREAS, Numerous treaties were made between the American
      government and various American Indian nations; and
      
          WHEREAS, The vast majority of these treaties were broken by the
      American government; and
      
          WHEREAS, The Colorado General Assembly has recognized and
      memorialized the victims of genocide in Europe against the Jews, in the
      Middle East against the Armenians, and in Africa against the Sudanese; and
      
          WHEREAS, A common element in genocide is the creation of a myth
      that the victims are in some way not part of the human family; and
      
          WHEREAS, This element was present in the European treatment of the
      American Indians, as well; now, therefore,
      
          Be It Resolved by the Senate of the Sixty-sixth General Assembly of the
      State of Colorado, the House of Representatives concurring herein:
      
          (1)  That we, the members of the General Assembly, express our grief
      at the millions of deaths of American Indians caused by the European
      settlement of North America;
      
          (2)  That we acknowledge that early American settlers on many
      occasions treated the indigenous population of North America with cruelty
      and inhumanity and that our federal government dealt unfairly with the
      American Indians; and
      
          (3)  That we urge indigenous American peoples and Americans of
      European descent to treat each other with respect and to resolve disputes in
      a spirit of compromise and recognition of our mutual humanity.
      
          Be It Further Resolved, That copies of this Joint Resolution be sent to
      Governor Bill Ritter, Lieutenant Governor Barbara O'Brien, Chairman
      Clement Frost, Southern Ute Indian Tribe, and Chairman Ernest House, Sr.,
      Ute Mountain Ute Tribe.
      
      
      
      
      
      ____________________________  ____________________________
      Peter C. Groff                        Andrew Romanoff
      PRESIDENT OF                     SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE
      THE SENATE                         OF REPRESENTATIVES
      
      
      
      
      
      
      ____________________________  ____________________________
      Karen Goldman                          Marilyn Eddins
      SECRETARY OF                 CHIEF CLERK OF THE HOUSE
      THE SENATE                         OF REPRESENTATIVES