New York City, USA - A reconciliation ceremony held by America's oldest Protestant church centered around an apology to Native Americans for massacring them 400 years ago. The Rev. Robert Chase of the Collegiate Church - started in 1628 in then-New Amsterdam as the Reformed Dutch Church - admitted, "We consumed your resources, dehumanized your people and disregarded your culture, along with your dreams, hopes and great love for this land."
The solemn rite was held on Native American Heritage Day, the day after Thanksgiving, in front of the Museum of the American Indian in lower Manhattan in New York City. This area is where Dutch colonists built a fort in Lenape tribal territory near what is now called Broadway. Four congregations compose the Collegiate churches in New York City including the landmark Marble Collegiate Church on Fifth Avenue once led by the late Rev. Norman Vincent Peale - a renown religious leader.
Ronald Holloway, the chairman of the Sand Hill band of Lenapes, reminisced that Dutch colonists "were hacking men, women and children to death. After 400 years, when someone says 'I'm sorry,' you say, 'Really?'"
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