Native Americans Confront Challenges, Seek To Forge A Different Future

By Barrington M. Salmon -Contributing Writer- | Last updated: Nov 23, 2016 - 9:29:25 AM

“Let’s be honest here. Every generation has had its ugly reaction to refugees. Whether they were the Irish, the Vietnamese, the Cubans or the Haitians. And those fears were largely unfounded. In fact there was only one time in American history when the fear of refugees wiping out everyone actually came true and we’ll be sitting around a table celebrating it on Thursday” – Comedian and Activist John Oliver

On Thanksgiving this year, as they have for decades, millions of Americans will gather with family and friends around turkeys and an assortment of other delicacies, break bread, drink liberally, eat too much and enjoy a holiday that recalls the first European contact with Native Americans.

But what is a source of celebration for most in this country, is the exact opposite for Native Americans for whom Thanksgiving is a sober and sorrowful reminder of genocide, mistreatment, theft of their land, broken treaties and lives often marked with struggle and deprivation.

Yet Native Americans continue to demonstrate a resiliency that belies the varied challenges they face.

A longtime activist detailed what she and other Native American and Indigenous people have endured since Europeans came to the United States.

America teaches young people of a harmonious feast where the pilgrims showed thanks to the Native American people for helping them survive in a harsh new environment. Today, many scholars are presenting a much different picture of how Native Americans were lied to, robbed and murdered. Captions to images on right read; ‘Hunting Indians with bloodhounds’ and ‘Bloodhounds tearing an Indian to pieces’.

“It’s been 500 years and no change. We were the first people forced into concentration camps since the Europeans came,” said Warrior Woman, a member of the Dakota tribe. “In 1978, we walked across the country to Washington, D. C. to fight 11 bills in Congress. It took six months. They found that the land they put us on have mineral resources on 75 percent to 90 percent of the land.”

Warrior Woman, a mother and a grandmother, said the Native American nation has been under sustained assault from all directions.

“We’re a nation within a nation but they’ve never respected our sovereignty,” said Warrior Woman of the U.S. federal government. “We have no banks, few businesses, no license plates unless they match those of the states (the reservation is in),” she added.

“There really is no Thanksgiving. They were invited in and massacred their hosts.” The activist acknowledged the importance of young people, but explained that they are being steeped in European education and foreign religions, as well as being seduced by the lure of material things and promises of a better life.

“Young people are born and raised in the system and are acting just like them. It’s a long process” said Warrior Woman softly. “They’re trying to get to the youth so they lose their minds. They just want to learn. It’s hard. The youth are committing suicide in mass numbers.”

The reservations are slums, Warrior Woman said, with inadequate housing, overcrowding, some quarters lacking running water and other issues. And the conditions men, women and children have endured has led to alcoholism, domestic violence and internecine conflicts.

She said the tribal councils and tribal police are too often controlled by the feds. There’s infighting over casino revenues and politics. And people are being poisoned by the food.

She said that along with others, she left the reservations and retreated to the mountains.

“We listened to the prophecies of the Elders and went into the mountains. We included the Brown people, Mexicans and that messed up their counts of how many we are,” Warrior Woman said with a wry laugh.

She said she honestly believes that the best outcome for Native Americans is separation.

Historically, there has been distrust between the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) and other agencies in the federal government but the BIA website puts a positive face on the relationship. “The United States has a unique legal and political relationship with Indian tribes and Alaska Native entities as provided by the Constitution of the United States, treaties, court decisions and Federal statutes,” the website said.

“Within the government-togovernment relationship, Indian Affairs provides services directly or through contracts, grants, or compacts to 567 federally recognized tribes with a service population of about 1.9 million American Indian and Alaska natives. While the role of Indian Affairs has changed significantly in the last three decades in response to a greater emphasis on Indian selfgovernance and self-determination, tribes still look to Indian Affairs for a broad spectrum of services.”

A young Black man holds a poster in solidarity with the Native Americans during a protest against the Dakota Access pipeline (DAPL) in Chicago, Nov. 12.Photo: Haroon Rajaee

Programs administered through the Bureau of Indian Affairs include social services, natural resources management on trust lands representing 55 million surface acres and 57 million acres of subsurface minerals estates, economic development programs in some of the most isolated and economically depressed areas of the United States, law enforcement and detention services, administration of tribal courts, implementation of land and water claim settlements, housing improvement and more.

Despite their struggles, the irrepressible spirit of Native Americans and Indigenous people has been on display at the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation in North Dakota where for the last several months, as many as 5,000 Native Americans, Indigenous people and their supporters have attempted to force the stoppage of a massive oil pipeline on what is sacred tribal land.

They have been met with a massive show of force, aggressive and heavily militarized police and other law enforcement, private security, several with dogs, pepper spray, armored vehicles, plastic bullets and sound weapons. So far, law enforcement officials have arrested almost 200 protestors who want to stop the project which they argue would threaten the area’s water supply and destroy sacred sites.

According to The Guardian, “The demonstrations, which have grown into a national symbol of indigenous rights and climate change activism, have resulted in more than 400 arrests, with local law enforcement accusing Native American activists, journalists and filmmakers of rioting, trespassing, resisting arrest and a number of other serious felony charges,”

The clashes have become the nexus and flashpoint for Native American rights and sovereignty and the fight to protect the climate.

“This (is) the National Day of Solidarity at Standing Rock. There are about 5,000 people here from 400 tribal nations and New Zealand. Indigenous voices across the world are standing in solidarity,” said Chicago immigration activist Susana Sandoval who traveled to Cannon Ball, North Dakota to participate with the water protectors. “They, we want to stop the pipeline. The language we’re using is that we’re protecting the right to have the water undisturbed by the pipeline. We’ve done prayer ceremonies, had an aerial demonstration and aerial photography over the area, and engaged in several actions off the campsite. This is a sacred ceremony on sacred ground.”

“I’ve been here on the ground talking to different groups. Everything’s been peaceful. We’ve received statements and more discussions are taking place. Basically, most of the pipeline is done. There is a river drill at the river. We want the Obama administration to take more direct action. We’re hoping and praying that he and other legislators take action.”

Since April, hundreds of Standing Rock Sioux tribal members and their supporters spearheaded what has become a global campaign protesting the $3.8 billion pipeline, which would be laid close to the reservation’s northern border. State officials insist that no sensitive cultural sites have been found on the route. But protesters have long contended that the pipeline—which would transport 470,000 barrels of crude oil from the Bakken oil field in North Dakota to a refinery in Patoka, Illinois—poses a major threat to the water supply and is destroying sacred Native lands.

Texas-based Energy Transfer Partners insists the project is safe. The tribe is fighting the pipeline’s permitting process in federal court.

The 1,172-mile underground pipeline is slated to deliver crude oil from North Dakota to Patoka, Ill. Recently, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers released a statement announcing a halt to pipeline construction under Lake Oahe, a reservoir on the Missouri River to allow for more input from members of the Standing Rock Tribe.

The press statement read: “The Army has determined that additional discussion and analysis are warranted in light of the history of the Great Sioux Nation’s dispossessions of lands, the importance of Lake Oahe to the Tribe, our government-togovernment relationship, and the statute governing easements through government property.”

Pipeline officials are incensed and filed a countersuit against the Obama administration.

“They’re losing millions and Jan 1 is their deadline. They’re angered by any pause. They did not do due diligence with the Standing Rock Nation,” Ms. Sandoval explained.

Young people protest in solidarity with Native Americans in Chicago, Nov. 12 Photo: Haroon Rajaee

Tuesday, Nov. 15 was recognized as a Day of Action in cities across the United States and Canada. Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders was among demonstrators who gathered outside the White House, according to published reports. The 2016 Democratic presidential candidate tweeted President Barack Obama encouraging him to “Stop this pipeline anyway you can. Declare Standing Rock a national monument. Our job now is to break our dependence on fossil fuels. Otherwise future generations will look back and say, ‘What were you thinking?’”

Environmental activist Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Characterized the confrontation as a clash between the old and the new in a video filmed onsite.

“This is the spear tip of the front-line of the battle over the transition from the old energy economy and the new economy,” he said while in Standing Rock to show his solidarity. We know that if we really had real free-market capitalism, it would have happened already because today we have wind and solar and much cheaper than the traditional oil energy so the only way the carbon cronies can keep the domination of the marketplace is by constructing a lot of infrastructure so that we are invested.”

“The people who invested in this, Citibank, Wells Fargo and the pension funds who invested in this pipeline now have to see oil going through that pipeline for years, even long after any justification for oil is long gone. And of course, we’re not going to be buying it in this country. We’re switching to wind and solar and electric cars. They’re trying to build the infrastructure that allows them to sell to poorer countries to continue polluting the globe and that doesn’t make sense to anybody.”

Mr. Kennedy castigated those opposing the protestors.

“I think the most troubling part about all of this is that the American people are watching a company that is breaking the law,” he asserted. “It’s an outlaw corporation that is violating American laws and then you have peaceful protestors who’re saying we just want you to obey the law. And the state, instead of coming down on the side of the peaceful protestors who are advocating law and order are instead deploying the military power, the awesome military power of the state, plastic bullets and these sound weapons against the people who are peacefully asking for law and order on behalf of the criminal.”

Tensions flared again recently as reports that law enforcement officials sprayed protestors at Standing Rock with water cannons in freezing temperatures as some attempted to cross a bridge on Highway 180 on Nov. 20.

Ms. Sandoval, who is of Purepecha and Mayan ancestry and is an activist with Harmony Keepers, said the cooperation and solidarity she’s witnessed at the camp bodes well for the future.

“It’s my birthday but I could think of no better place to be. I came wanting to assist,” she said. “People are building housing, building teepees and winterizing the camp. Cherokees delivered truckloads of wood. People are learning their similarities and differences. It’s been refreshing, invigorating and creates hope. We should reflect that and keep it going regardless of who’s in office.”

“The government should be run by the people. Accountability is important. People came in ceremony and hope. We want to spread that,” she added. Warrior Woman agreed.

“I’m glad that those at Standing Rock are standing up. I hope this is a wakeup call. Young people don’t know about Leonard Peltier,” she said. “We want young people to take over the land. Standing Rock is the same (as us) – Lakota/Dakota, Oglala, Nakota ...”

Mr. Peltier, a Native American activist with the American Indian Movement has been in prison since 1977 after being sentenced for murder and convicted to two consecutive terms of life in prison for the shooting of two FBI agents on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. His supporters and advocates have maintained his innocence. He is widely considered a political prisoner by such groups and individuals as Amnesty International, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Rev. Jesse Jackson, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and many others notes freeleonard.org.

“We’re sitting on our land and know the reservations have resources but they never talk about sharing. They want it all. It’s a continuing fight—they come, take, destroy,” said Warrior Woman.

“We’re got to fight this whole imperialistic thing. We are students of Khalid Abdul Muhammad, Kwame Ture, the Minister (Louis Farrakhan).Our struggle is tied to the struggle of Black people—Leonard Peltier, Mumia, the Black Panthers—every time we try to succeed, they pull us down. This is a struggle. We’re not weekend warriors.”

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