Mark Charles - Unsettling Truths: The Ongoing, Dehumanizing Legacy of the Doctrine of Discovery

AND

InterVarsity Press
P.O. Box 1400, Downers Grove, IL 60515-1426
ivpress.com
email@ivpress.com

2019 by Mark Charles and Soong-Chan Rah

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written
permission from InterVarsity Press.

InterVarsity Press is the book-publishing division of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA , a movement of students and faculty active on campus at hundreds of universities, colleges, and schools of nursing in the United States of America, and a member movement of the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students. For information about local and regional activities, visit intervarsity.org .

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from The Holy Bible, New International Version , NIV . Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com . The NIV and New International Version are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.

Cover design: David Fassett
Interior design: Daniel van Loon
Images: vintage sailing ships: DenPotisev / iStock / Getty Images Plus
paper texture: Zakharova_Natalia / iStock / Getty Images Plus
Navajo blanket: weaver, Katherine Marianito, courtesy of Steve and Gail Getzwiller, Nizhoni Ranch
Gallery, Sonoita, AZ

ISBN 978-0-8308-8759-0 (digital)

ISBN 978-0-8308-4525-5 (print)

This digital document has been produced by Nord Compo.

Introduction

Who We Are and What We Bring

Y t h.Mark Charles yinishy. Tsin bikee dine nish. D taheedlinii b shshchn. Tsin bikee dine dashicheii. D tdch i nii dashinl.

Hello. My name is Mark Charles. In the Dinculture, when you introduce yourself, you always give your four clans. We are a matrilineal people, and our identities come from our mothers mother. My maternal grandmother is American of Dutch heritage, and so I say tsin bikee dine,which translates as the Wooden Shoe People. My paternal grandmother is from the Water Flows Together People. My maternal grandfather is also from the Wooden Shoe clan, and my paternal grandfather is of the Bitterwater clan, one of the original clans of our Dinpeople.

My mother, Evelyn Natelborg, and my father, Theodore Charles, were married less than two years after the historic Supreme Court ruling of Loving v. Virginia. This ruling, in 1967, invalidated all anti-miscegenation laws in the United States. Believe it or not, prior to 1967, interracial marriage was still illegal in many states throughout the United States. I encourage you to pause and ponder that for a moment. And it was not until 1967 that interracial marriage was legalized at the federal level throughout the entire United States.

In 2004, after pastoring a small church called the Christian Indian Center for two years, I moved with my family from Denver, Colorado, to the Navajo Reservation, located in the four corners area of the southwest United States.