When I look at the photography of Edward Sheriff Curtis and the way he captured the pain and beauty of so many of the First Nations people, I’m amazed by what I see. When I think of true evil, I think about how the first peoples of the Americas were slaughtered by racist and ignorant people because they looked different and were living on land that the colonizers wanted. It’s to easy to live in North America and go days without thinking about the horrific genocide that happened to “found” these countries. Edward Sheriff Curtis had the foresight to know that he was doing history a favor by capturing on film the story of great nations. In 2009, President Barack Obama signed the Native American Apology Resolution into law on Saturday, December 19, but they haven’t said anything about the mistreatment of hundreds of kids that were placed in Boarding Schools, which were their own form of cultural genocide. For today, have a look at Curtis’ photos, because they say more than I could ever say…What is true evil, and who are the people that have committed it?
