Resolution 58
Civic and Land Rights for Indigenous People of the Americas
This Conference supports all efforts being made for the procuring of land and civic rights for native indigenous people of the Americas, specially in the light of the forthcoming celebrations of the 500th anniversary of the arrival of Columbus in the New World in 1992.
In 1992 a great celebration is being proposed to commemorate the arrival of Europeans and their culture, specially the Spanish conquest. That arrival meant the destruction of many indigenous cultures and peoples as the Spanish, British, French, Portuguese and Dutch colonisers arrived. Efforts are being made to highlight this suffering. Traditionally Anglicans have taken the side of the Indians throughout the Americas and a lot of our work has been to improve their lot.
This Resolution is backed by: The Primate of the Southern Cone of South America, The Bishop of Honduras (ECUSA), The Bishop of Guatemala (ECUSA), The Bishop of Western Mexico (ECUSA), The Bishop of South Dakota (ECUSA), The Right Revd Robert Townshend, Suffragan Bishop of Huron (Canada), The Primate of Brazil, and the Right Revd Martiniano Garcia-Montiel, Suffragan Bishop of South and Central Mexico (ECUSA).
(See further paras 40 and 92 of the Report on "Christianity and the Social Order.")