An Indigenous Peoples History of the United States Ortiz

Conclusion: The Future of the United States 235

ow's home are astounded, and perhaps saddened, by the evidence

all around them of the fears and anguish of an obviously mentally

disturbed person. Yet there is another possibility: a sense of the scaf­

folding that supports US society, a kind of hologram in the minds of

each and every person on the continent.

Mrs. Winchester might have been more aware of the truth than

most people and therefore fearful of its consequences. Regardless, in

continuing to find or invent enemies across the globe, expand what

is already the largest military force in the world, and add to an elab­

orate global network of military bases, all in the name of national

or global "security," does not the United States today resemble Mrs.

Winchester constantly trying to foil her ghosts? The guilt harbored

by most is buried and expressed in other ways, on a larger scale, as

"regeneration through violence," in Richard Slotkin's phrasing.

THE FUTURE

How then can US society come to terms with its past? How can it ac­
knowledge responsibility? The late Native historian Jack Forbes al­
ways stressed that while living persons are not responsible for what
their ancestors did, they are responsible for the society they live in,
which is a product of that past. Assuming this responsibility pro­
vides a means of survival and liberation. Everyone and everything in
the world is affected, for the most part negatively, by US dominance
and intervention, often violently through direct military means or
through proxies. It is an urgent concern. Historian and teacher Juan
Gomez-Quinones writes, "American Indian ancestries and heritages
ought to be integral to K- 12 curriculums and university explora­
tions and graduate expositions ... [with] full integration of Na­
tive American histories and cultures into academic curriculums."
Gomez-Quinones coins a measure of intelligence in the United
States the "Indigenous Quotient."4 0
Indigenous peoples offer possibilities for life after empire, pos­
sibilities that neither erase the crimes of colonialism nor require the
disappearance of the original peoples colonized under the guise of
including them as individuals. That process rightfully starts by hon-