Underlying the discussion of Quakers and the settler-colonization of this land is this paradox: How could a religious community, White European Quakers, be involved in the Christian colonial capitalist violence required to settle/colonize this land, as Native peoples describe it? A people who profess nonviolence? Who were fleeing religious persecution? A people whose spirituality is based upon the belief that there is that of God or the Spirit in everyone? A people who say the way we live our lives expresses our faith and beliefs?
Responsibility vs guilt
When these subjects come up there are often complaints about people today being made to feel guilty for past injustices.
First, these injustices are not merely things of the past. Patterns of erasure and assimilation continue. This is one of the primary reasons settler-colonialism must be dealt with. Christian colonial capitalist violence persists.
Secondly, the only way to counter the Christian colonial capitalist violence is by replacing those interlocking systems of injustice with these interlocking systems of justice, i.e. LANDBACK, Mutual Aid and the abolition of police and prisons.
Responsibility is what is required of us now.
Race
Quakers were historically known for their roles in the Underground Railroad, for example, helping enslaved people escape to freedom. And, yet, there were Friends who were involved in chattel slavery. Few African Americans are attracted to Quaker meetings in this country. Unacknowledged White supremacy and racial tensions are common in many Friends meetings even today.
Forced Assimilation
Quakers were also very involved in the federal Indian Boarding Schools policies, and ran about thirty such schools in this country. Significant trauma was, and continues to be passed from generation to generation.
International attention was brought to these institutions when, in 2021, Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation found the remains of around 200 bodies on the grounds of the former Kamloops Indian Residential School in Canada. Since then the grounds of many other such institutions were explored in Canada and the US. The following report from the US Department of Interior, confirmed “that at least nine hundred seventy three (973) American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian children died while attending Federal Indian boarding schools.”
Such an acknowledgment should include a recognition that the United States operated or supported public-private partnerships with religious institutions and organizations to carry out its policy; that many Indian children suffered physical, sexual, and emotional abuse at these institutions, and that many Indian children died; and that these harms continue to impact American Indian and Alaska Native individuals and Indian Country.
Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative. Investigative Report Vol. II, July 2024, Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs, Bryan Newland
The other side of the paradox
So, Quakers aren’t exempt from doing harm. But we have the spiritual tools to guide us toward a better world for all. That’s why this decolonial journey is so important.
