Washington - US President Barack Obama promised improved relations with Native Americans and an end to neglect during a White House conference on Thursday. Obama acknowledged the role early American settlers played in bringing disease and driving indigenous people from their lands. He said the tribal nations had been ignored up until the current day.
"Few have been more marginalized and ignored by Washington for as long as Native Americans, our first Americans," Obama said. The US indigenous population numbers more than 3 million people and one quarter live in poverty.
"It's a history marked by violence and disease and deprivation. Treaties were violated. Promises were broken. You were told your lands, your religion, your cultures, your languages were not yours to keep," Obama said.
"And that's a history that we have got to acknowledge if we are to move forward."
Obama promised to help tackle poverty which runs rampant through most of the remaining tribal communities in the United States. The White House conference, which was attended by the leaders of 564 federally recognized tribes, was designed to hear their concerns.
Obama touted some 3 billion dollars directed to tribal communities in the fiscal stimulus bill approved last February. He signed a memorandum directing government agencies to present reports in 90 days on how to improve the lot of Native Americans.
"I understand what it means to be an outsider," Obama said, speaking of his own biracial childhood growing up with a single mother and moving between communities. "You will not be forgotten as long as I'm in this White House."
