Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development Volume 7 Issue 2 Volume 7, Spring 1993, Issue 2 Article 4 Strangers in a Strange Land: A Historical Perspective of the Columbian Quincentenary Rennard Strickland Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarship.law.stjohns.edu/jcred This Symposium is brought to you for free and open access by the Journals at St. John's Law Scholarship Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development by an authorized editor of St. John's Law Scholarship Repository. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. STRANGERS IN A STRANGE LAND: A HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE OF THE COLUMBIAN QUINCENTENARY* RENNARD STRICKLAND** The title Strangers in a Strange Land comes from a letter which John Rollin Ridge, the first Native American to practice law in California, wrote from the gold fields back to his Uncle Stand Wa- tie in the Indian Territory. "I was a stranger in a strange land," he began. "I knew no one, and looking at the multitude that thronged the streets, and passed each other without a friendly sign, or look of recognition even, I began to think I was in a new world, where all were strangers and none cared to know."' The last five hundred years-the Columbian Quincentenary-is captured for the Native American in the phrase-"a new world, where all were strangers," with Native Americans as the "stran- gers in a strange land [which] none cared to know." I believe from my historical studies that the so-called "Columbian Ex- change" symbolizes the triumph of technology over axe- ology-the ascendancy of industry over humanity.