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WORLD: New York church apologises to Native American tribe
Monday, 30 November 2009
8:29:37 AM
By Verena Dobnik
UNITED STATES, November 30, 2009: Members of America's oldest Protestant church have apologised - for the first time ever - for the massacre and displacement of Native Americans 400 years ago.
The Collegiate Church - formerly the First Dutch Reform Church - and representatives of the Lenape tribe held a ceremony of reconciliation on Friday in Manhattan.
The ceremony occurred on the spot where the First Dutch Reform Church once stood. It was known as the "company church" of the Dutch merchants whose trading post helped develop the city's economic power.
It's also where Broadway begins, the site of an Indian trail 400 years ago.
The Rev Robert Chase told the Lenape: "We consumed your resources, dehumanised your people and disregarded your culture." -AP
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