[News] 500 + Years of Indigenous Resistance

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500 Years of
Indigenous Resistance ©
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[]

(The San Francisco Aim Chapter's demonstration of 
October 11, 1992. Protest against 500 Years in 
San Francisco....courtesy of Bobby Castillo)

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- reprinted from Oh-Toh-Kin, Vol. 1 No. 1, Winter/Spring 1992

This article is intended as a basic history of 
the colonization of the Americas since 1492, and 
the Indigenous resistance to this colonization 
continuing into 1992. The author admits to not 
having a full understanding of the traditions of 
his own people, the Kwakiutl (Kwakwaka'wakw); as 
such the article lacks an analysis based in an 
authentic Indigenous philosophy and is instead more of a historical chronology.

Numbers in brackets indicate footnotes, fully 
documented at the end of this article.


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INTRODUCTION

Throughout the year 1992, the various states 
which have profited from the colonization of the 
Americas will be conducting lavish celebrations 
of the "Discovery of the Americas". Spain has 
spent billion of dollars for celebrations in 
conjunction with Expo `92 in Seville. In 
Columbus, Ohio, a $100 million quincentennial 
celebration plans on entertaining several million 
tourists. CELAM, the association of South 
America's Catholic bishops, has organized a 
gathering to celebrate the "fifth centenary of 
the evangelization of the Americas" to be 
presided over by the Pope. As well, there is a 
wide selection of museum exhibits, films, TV 
shows, books and many other products and 
activities focusing on Columbus and the 
"Discovery", all presenting one interpretation of 
the 500 years following 1492. The main thrust of 
this interpretation being that the colonization 
process -- a process of genocide -- has, with a 
few "bad spots", been overall a mutually 
beneficial process. The "greatness" of European 
religions and cultures was brought to the 
Indigenous peoples, who in return shared the 
lands and after "accidentally" being introduced 
to European disease, simply died off and whose 
descendants now fill the urban ghettos as 
alcoholics and welfare recipients. Of course, a 
few "remnants" of Indian cultures was retained, 
and there are even a few "professional" Indian politicians running around.

That was no "Discovery" -- it was an American Indian Holocaust!

Until recently, commonly accepted population 
levels of the indigenous peoples on the eve of 
1492 were around 10-15 million. This number 
continues to be accepted by individuals and 
groups who see 1492 as a "discovery" in which 
only a few million Indians died -- and then 
mostly from diseases. More recent demographic 
studies place the Indigenous population at 
between 70 to 100 million peoples, with some 10 
million in North America, 30 million in 
Mesoamerica, and around 50 to 70 million in South America.

Today, in spite of 500 years of a genocidal 
colonization, there is an estimated 40 million 
Indigenous peoples in the Americas. In Guatemala, 
the Mayan peoples make up 60.3 percent of the 
population, and in Bolivia Indians comprise over 
70 percent of the total population. Despite this, 
these Indigenous peoples lack any control over 
their own lands and comprise the most exploited 
and oppressed layers of the population; 
characteristics that are found also in other 
Indigenous populations in the settler states of 
the Americas (and throughout the world).



THE PRE-COLUMBIAN WORLD

Before the European colonization of the Americas, 
in that time of life scholars refer to as 
"Pre-history" or "Pre-Columbian", the Western 
hemisphere was a densely populated land. A land 
with its own peoples and ways of life, as varied 
and diverse as any of the other lands in the world.

In fact, it was not even called "America" by 
those peoples. If there was any reference to the 
land as a whole it was as Turtle Island, or Cuscatlan, or Abya-Yala.

The First Peoples inhabited every region of the 
Americas, living within the diversity of the land 
and developing cultural lifeways dependent on the 
land. Their numbers approached 70-100 million 
peoples prior to the European colonization.

Generally, the hundreds of different nations can 
be summarized within the various geographical 
regions they lived in. The commonality of 
cultures within these regions is in fact a 
natural development of people building life-ways 
dependent on the land. As well, there was 
extensive interaction and interrelation between 
the people in these regions, and they all knew each other as nations.

In the Arctic region live(d) the Inuit and Aleut, 
whose lifeways revolve(d) around the hunting of 
sea mammals (Beluga whales, walruses, etc.) and 
caribou, supplemented by fishing and trading with the people to the south.

South of the Arctic, in the Subarctic region of 
what is today Alaska, the Northwest Territories, 
and the northern regions of the Canadian 
provinces, live(d) predominantly hunting and 
fishing peoples. The variations of these lands 
range from open tundra to forests and lakes, 
rivers, and streams. The Cree, Chipewyan, Kaska, 
Chilcotin, Ingalik, Beothuk, and many other 
nations inhabit(ed) this region, hunting bear, 
goats, and deer in the west, musk oxen and 
caribou further north, or buffalo further south in the prairies.

Altogether in the Arctic and Subarctic regions 
there lived perhaps as many as 100,000 people.

On the Pacific Northwest coast, stretching from 
the coasts of Alaska and BC down to northern 
California, live(d) the Tlingit, Haida, 
Tsimshian, Kwa-Kwa-Ka'wakw, Nuu-chah-nulth, 
Nuxalk, Salish, Yurok, and many others. These 
peoples developed a lifeway revolving around 
fishing. The peoples of this region numbered as many as four million.

Between the Pacific coastal mountain range and 
the central plains in what is today southern BC, 
Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana, live(d) 
the Sahaptin (Nez Perce), Chopunnish, Shoshone, 
Siksikas (Blackfeet), and others. These peoples numbered around 200,000.

To the east were people of the plains, 
encompassing a vast region from Texas up to parts 
of southern Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba, 
eastward to North and South Dakota, Minnesota, 
Wisconsin, Missouri, and Arkansas. Here, the 
Lakota (Sioux), Cheyenne, Arapaho, plains Cree, 
Siksikas (of the Blackfeet Confederacy, including 
the Blood and Peigan), Crow, Kiowa, Shoshone, 
Mandan, and many others, numbered up to one 
million, and the buffalo as many as 80 million 
before their slaughter by the Europeans.

Further east, in the lands stretching from the 
Great Lakes to the Atlantic coast, live(d) 
hunting, fishing, and farming peoples; the 
Kanienkehake (Mohawks), Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, 
Seneca (these five nations formed the 
Haudenosaunee -- the People of the Longhouse -- 
also known as the Iroquois Confederacy), Ojibway, 
Algonkin, Micmac, Wendat (Huron), Potowatomi, 
Tuscarora, and others. In this woodland region, 
stretching from Ontario, Quebec, and New York, 
down to the Carolinas, lived up to two million peoples.

South of this area, from parts of the Virginias 
down to Florida, west of the Gulf of Mexico 
including Mississippi and Louisiana, live(d) The 
Muskogee-speaking Choctaw, Creek, and Chikasaw, 
the Cherokee, Natchez, Tonkawa, Atakapa, and 
others. One of the most fertile agricultural 
belts in the world, farming was well established 
supplemented by hunting and fishing. These 
peoples numbered between two and three million.

East of this area, in the south-western United 
States, extending down to northern Mexico and 
California, live(d) agrarian and nomadic peoples; 
the Pueblo, Hopi, Zuni, the Yumun-speaking 
Hualapai, Mojave, Yuma, and Cocopa, the 
Uto-Aztecan speaking Pimas and Papagos, and the 
Athapascans consisting of the Navajo (Dine) and 
Apache peoples. These peoples, altogether, numbered about two million.

In the Mesoamerican region, including Mexico, 
Guatemala and Belize, live(d) the numerous 
agricultural peoples, whose primary staple was 
maize; the Aztecs, Texacoco, Tlacopan, and the 
Mayans -- in the Yucatan peninsula. Here, large 
city-states with stone and brick buildings and 
pyramids, as well as extensive agrarian waterways 
consisting of dams and canals were built. Written 
languages were published in books, and the study 
of astronomy and mathematics was well 
established. A calendar system more accurate than 
any in Europe during the 15th century was 
developed. Altogether, these peoples numbered around 30-40 million.

In the Caribbean basin, including the coastal 
areas of Columbia, Venezuela, Costa Rica, 
Honduras, and the many small islands such as 
Cuba, Hispaniola, Puerto Rico etc., live(d) 
hunting, fishing, and agrarian peoples such as 
the Carib, Arawak, Warao, Yukpa, Paujanos, and 
others. These peoples numbered around five million.

In all of South America there were as many as 40-50 million peoples.

In the Andean highlands of Peru and Chile live(d) 
the Inca peoples, comprised of the Quechua and 
Aymara. In the south of Chile live(d) the 
Mapuche, and in the lowland regions -- including 
the Amazon region -- live(d) the Yanomami, 
Gavioe, Txukahame, Kreen, Akarore, and others. 
South of the Amazon region, in Argentina, 
Paraguay, and Uruguay, live(d) the Ayoreo, Ache, 
Mataco, Guarani, and many others. In the 
southernmost lands live(d) the Qawasgar, Selk'nam, Onu, and others.

With a few exceptions, the First Nations were 
classless and communitarian societies, with 
strong matrilineal features. The political sphere 
of Indigenous life was not dominated by men, but 
in many cases the responsibility of women. Elders 
held a position of importance and honour for 
their knowledge. There were no prisons, for the 
First Nations peoples had well developed methods 
of resolving community problems, and there was -- 
from the accounts of elders -- very little in 
anti-social crime. Community decisions were most 
frequently made by consensus and discussions amongst the people.

But the First Nations were not perfect, being 
humans they had, and still have, their 
inconsistencies and practises that are not positive.

Some examples can be seen as the armed conflicts 
between nations throughout the Americas, and 
practises of slavery amongst the Pacific 
Northwest coast peoples and in the Mesoamerican 
region. However, even here the forms of warfare 
reflected similar developments throughout the 
world, and in any case never approached the 
genocidal methods developed, in particular, in 
Europe. Warfare was the practise of explicitly 
warrior societies. The accounts of slavery, 
although there is no way to explain it away, 
differed sharply from the Europeans in that it 
was not based on racism, nor was it a fundamental 
characteristic which formed the economic basis of these societies.

The history of the First Nations must always be 
analyzed critically; those who tell us that 
history are rarely ever of the Indigenous peoples.



THE GENOCIDE BEGINS

"Their bodies swelled with greed, and their hunger was ravenous."
- Aztec testimonial

On October 12, 1492, sailing aboard the Santa 
Maria under finance from the Spanish crown, 
Cristoforo Colombo stumbled upon the island of 
Guanahani (believed to be San Salvador), in the 
Caribbean region. Initially charting a new trade 
route to Asian markets, the outcome of Colombo's 
voyage would quickly prove far more lucrative 
than the opening of new trade routes, as far as Europe was concerned.

It was on Guanahani that Colombo first 
encountered Taino Arawaks, whom he titled 
`Indians', believing he had in fact reached Asia. 
For this initial encounter, Colombo's own log 
stands as testimony to his own greed:
"No sooner had we concluded the formalities of 
taking possession of the island than people began 
to come to the beach... They are friendly and 
well-dispositioned people who bear no arms except for small spears.

"They ought to make good and skilled servants... 
I think they can easily be made Christians, for 
they seem to have no religion. If it pleases Our 
Lord, I will take six of them to Your Highnesses 
when I depart" (from Colombo's log, October 12, 1492) [1].

True to his word, if little else, Colombo 
kidnapped about 9 Taino during his journey 
through the Bahamas, and anticipated even more kidnappings and enslavement,
"...these people are very unskilled in arms. Your 
Highnesses will see this for yourselves when I 
bring you the seven that I have taken. After they 
learn our languages I shall return them, unless 
Your Highnesses order that the entire population 
be taken to Castille, or held captive here. With 
50 men you could subject everyone and make them 
do what you wished" (Colombo's log, October 14, 1492) [2].

Throughout Colombo's log of this first voyage, 
there is constant reference to the notion that 
the Taino believe the Europeans to be descended 
from heaven, despite the fact that [neither] 
Colombo nor any of his crew understood Arawak. 
Another consistency in Colombo's log is the 
obsession with gold, to which there are 16 
references in the first two weeks alone, 13 in 
the following month, and 46 more in the next five 
weeks, despite the fact that Colombo found very 
little gold on either Guanahani or any of the other islands he landed on.

In a final reference to Colombo's log, one can 
also find the dual mission Colombo undertook,
"...Your Highnesses must resolve to make them 
(the Taino - Oh-Toh-Kin ed.) Christians. I 
believe that if this effort commences, in a short 
time a multitude of peoples will be converted to 
our Holy Faith, and Spain will acquire great 
domains and riches and all of their villages. 
Beyond doubt there is a very great amount of gold 
in this country... Also, there are precious 
stones and pearls, and an infinite quantity of 
spices" (Colombo's log, November 11, 1492) [3].

The duality of Colombo's mission, and the 
subsequent European invasion that followed, was 
the Christianization of non-Europeans and the 
expropriation of their lands. The two goals are 
not unconnected; "Christianization" was not 
merely a program for European religious 
indoctrination, it was an attack on non-European 
culture (one barrier to colonization) and a 
legally and morally sanctioned form of war for 
conquest. "Even his name was prophetic to the 
world he encountered -- Christopher Columbus 
translates to `Christ-bearer Colonizer'" [4].

Still on his first voyage, Colombo meandered 
around the Caribbean and eventually established 
the first Spanish settlement, `Natividad', on the 
island of Hispaniola (today Haiti and the 
Dominican Republic). Leaving about 35 men on 
Hispaniola, Colombo and his crew returned to 
Spain to gather the materials and men needed for 
the coming colonization, and to report to the crown on his journey.

In September, 1493, Colombo returned to 
Hispaniola with a fleet of 17 ships and 1,200 
men. The detachment that had been left on 
Hispaniola had been destroyed following outrages 
by the Spaniards against the Taino. The resistance had already begun.

Colombo would make four voyages in all, the 
remaining two in 1498 and 1502. His voyages 
around the Caribbean brought him to what is now 
Trinidad, Panama, Jamaica, Venezuela, Dominica, 
and several other islands -- capturing Native 
peoples for slavery and extorting gold through a 
quota of a hawks bell of gold dust to be supplied 
by every Native over the age of 14 every 3 
months. Failure to fill the quota often entailed 
cutting the `violators' hands off and leaving 
them to bleed to death. Hundreds of Carib and 
Arawak were shipped to Spain as slaves under 
Colombo's governorship, 500 alone following his 
second voyage. Indeed, the absence of a "great 
amount of gold" in the Caribbean had Colombo 
devising another method of financing the 
colonization: "The savage and cannibalistic Carib 
should be exchanged as slaves against livestock 
to be provided by merchants in Spain."

Colombo died in 1506, but following his initial 
voyage to the Americas, wave upon wave of first 
Spanish, then Portuguese, Dutch, French and 
British expeditions followed, carrying with them 
conquistadors, mercenaries, merchants, and Christian missionaries.

Hispaniola served as the first beachhead, used by 
the Spanish as a staging ground for armed 
incursions and reconnaissance missions, justified 
through the `Christianization' program; one year 
after Colombo's first voyage, Pope Alexander VI 
in his inter cetera divina papal bull granted 
Spain all the world not already possessed by 
Christian states, excepting the region of Brazil, which went to Portugal.

While the Spanish laid the groundwork for their 
colonization plans, other European nations began to send their own expeditions.

In 1497, Giovanni Caboto Motecataluna (John 
Cabot), financed by England, crossed the Atlantic 
and charted the Atlantic coast of North America. 
Under the commission of Henry VII to "conquer, 
occupy, and possess" the lands of "heathens and 
infidels", Cabot reconnoitered the Newfoundland 
coast -- kidnapping three Micmacs in the process.

At around the same time, Gaspar Corte Real, 
financed by Portugal, reconnoitered the Labrador 
and Newfoundland coasts, kidnapping 57 Beothuks 
to be sold as slaves to offset the cost of the expedition.

Meanwhile, Amerigo Vespucci -- for whom the 
Americas were named after -- and Alonso de Ojedo, 
on separate missions for Spain, reconnoitered the 
west Indies and the Pacific coast of South 
America. Ojedo was actively carrying out slave 
raids, and was killed by a warrior's poisoned arrow for his efforts.

 From the papal bull of 1493 and a subsequent 
Treaty of Tordesillas (1494), Portugal had been 
given possession of Brazil. In 1500, the 
Portuguese admiral Pedro Alvares Cabral formally 
claimed the land for the Portuguese crown.

Now that the initial reconnaissance missions had 
been completed, the invasion intensified and 
expanded. In 1513, Ponce de Leon, financed by 
Spain, attempted to land in Florida, but was 
driven off by 80 Calusa war canoes.

 From 1517 to 1521, the Spanish conquistador 
Hernando Cortes laid waste to the Aztec empire in 
Mexico, capturing the capital city of 
Tenochtitlan and killing millions in a ruthless campaign for gold.

Shortly afterwards, in 1524, Pedro de Alvarado 
invaded the region of El Salvador, attacking the 
Cuscatlan, Pipeles, and Quiche peoples. In 
Guatemala Alvarado conducted eight major 
campaigns against the Mayans, and while he and 
his men were burning people alive, the Catholic 
priests accompanying him were busy destroying 
Mayan historical records (that is, while they 
weren't busy directing massacres themselves). 
Alvarado's soldiers were rewarded by being allowed to enslave the survivors.

In 1531, the Spaniard Francisco Pizarro invaded 
the region of the Incas (now Peru). Taking 
advantage of an internal struggle between two 
Inca factions led by the brothers Huascar and 
Atahualpa, Pizarro succeeded in subjugating the Incas by 1533.

Ten years later, Pedro de Valdivia claimed Chile 
for the Spanish crown, although fierce resistance 
by the Mapuche nation restricted the Spanish to 
the northern and central regions. Valdivia was 
eventually killed in battle by Mapuche warriors.

During this same period, Jacques Cartier, 
financed by France in 1534, was reconnoitering 
the eastern regions of what would become Canada, 
and Spaniards such as Hernando de Sotos, Marcos 
de Niza and others began penetrating into North 
America, claiming the lands for their respective 
countries, as was their custom.



EXPANSION, EXPLOITATION, AND EXTERMINATION

"I am Smallpox... I come from far away... where 
the great water is and then far beyond it. I am a 
friend of the Big Knives who have brought me; they are my people."
- Jamake Highwater, Anpao: an Indian Odyssey

The formulative years of the colonization process 
were directed towards exploiting the lands and 
peoples to the fullest. To the Europeans, the 
Americas was a vast, unspoiled area suitable for 
economic expansion and exploitation.

The primary activity was the accumulation of gold 
and silver, then a form of currency among the 
European nations. This accumulation was first 
accomplished through the crudest forms of theft 
and plunder (ie. Colombo's and Cortes' methods). 
Eventually, more systematic forms were developed, 
including the encomiendas -- a form of taxation 
imposed on Indigenous communities that had been 
subjugated, and the use of Indigenous slaves to 
pan the rivers and streams. By the mid-1500s, the 
expropriation of gold and silver involved 
intensive mining. Entire cities and towns 
developed around the mines. Millions of 
Indigenous peoples died working as slaves in the 
mines at Guanajuato and Zacatecas in Mexico, and 
Potosi in Bolivia. By the end of the 1500s, 
Potosi was one of the largest cities in the world 
at 350,000 inhabitants. Peru was also another 
area of intensive mining. From the time of the 
arrival of the first European colonizers until 
1650, 180-200 tons of gold -- from the Americas 
-- was added to the European treasury. In today's 
terms, that gold would be worth $2.8 billion [5]. 
During the same period, eight million slaves died in the Potosi mines alone.

Slavery was another major economic activity. Not 
only for work in the mines, but also for export 
to Europe. In Nicaragua alone, the first ten 
years of intensive slaving, beginning in 1525, 
saw an estimated 450,000 Miskitu and Sumu peoples 
shipped to Europe. Tens of thousands perished in 
the ships that transported them. Subsequently, 
the slave trade would turn to Afrika, beginning 
in the mid-1500s when Portuguese colonists 
brought Afrikan slaves to Brazil to cut cane and 
clear forest area for the construction of 
settlements and churches. An estimated 15 million 
Afrikan peoples would be brought as slaves to the 
Americas by 1800, and a further 40 million or so 
perished in the transatlantic crossing in the 
miserable conditions of the ships holds.

In areas such as the highlands of northern Chile, 
Peru, Guatemala, and Mexico, where the climate 
was more suitable, the Spanish were able to grow 
crops such as wheat, cauliflower, cabbage, 
lettuce, radish, sugar cane, and later grapes, 
bananas, and coffee. By the mid-1500s, using 
slave labour, many of these crops -- particularly 
wheat and sugar cane -- were large-scale exports for the European markets.

In other areas, sprawling herds of cattle were 
established. Herds which rarely exceeded 800 or 
1,000 in Spain reached as many as 8,000 in 
Mexico. By 1579, some ranches in northern Mexico 
had up to 150,000 head of cattle [6].

The effects of extensive land-clearing for the 
crops and ranches and intensive mining culminated 
in increasing deforestation and damage to the 
lands. More immediately for the Indigenous 
peoples in the region, particularly those who 
lived on subsistence agriculture, was the 
dismantling of destruction of agrarian ways replaced by export crops.

In order to carry out this expansion and 
exploitation, the subjugation of the First 
Nations was a necessity, and the task of 
colonizing other peoples was one in which the 
Europeans had had plenty of experience.

"In a sense, the first people colonized under the 
profit motivation by the use of labour...were the 
European and English peasantry. Ireland, Bohemia 
and Catalonia were colonized. The Moorish nation, 
as well as the Judaic Sephardic nation, were 
physically deported by the Crown of Castille from 
the Iberian peninsula...All the methods for 
relocation, deportation and expropriation, were 
already practised if not perfected" [7].

Prior to Colombo's 1492 voyage, the development 
of a capitalist mode of production emerging from 
feudalism had dispossessed European peasants of 
independent production and subsistence 
agriculture. Subsequently, they were to enter 
into a relationship of forced dependence to 
land-owners and manufacturers, leading to periods 
of intense class struggle, particularly as the 
Industrial Revolution (fueled by the 
expropriation of materials from the Americas and Afrika) loomed ever larger.

Indeed, the majority of Europeans who emigrated 
to the Americas in the 16th, 17th, and 18th 
centuries were impoverished merchants, 
petit-bourgeois traders, mercenaries, and 
Christian missionaries all hoping to build their 
fortunes in the `New World' and escape the 
deepening class stratification that was quickly 
developing. However, the first permanent 
settlements were limited, their main purpose 
being to facilitate and maintain areas of 
exploitation. During the entire 16th century, 
only an estimated 100,000 Europeans were permanent emigrants to the Americas.

Their effects, however, were overwhelming; in the 
same 100 year period, the populations of the 
Indigenous peoples declined from 70-100 million 
to around 12 million. The Aztec nation alone had 
been reduced from around 30 million to 3 million 
in one 50 year period. The only term which 
describes this depopulation is that of Genocide; an American Indian holocaust.

Apologists for the Genocide attribute the 
majority of deaths to the introduction of disease 
epidemics such as smallpox and measles by unknowing Europeans.

While attempting to diminish the scale and 
intensity of the Genocide (other forms of this 
diminishment are claiming the population of the 
Americas was a much smaller portion than 
generally accepted demographic numbers), such a 
perspective disregards the conditions in which 
these diseases were introduced. Conditions such 
as wars, massacres, slavery, scorched earth 
policies and the subsequent destruction of 
subsistence agriculture and food-stocks, and the 
accompanying starvation, malnutrition, and 
dismemberment of communally-based cultures.

These conditions were not introduced by 
"unknowing" Europeans; they were parts of a 
calculated campaign based on exploitation in 
which the extermination of Indigenous peoples was a crucial factor.

European diseases introduced into these 
conditions came as an after-effect of the initial 
attacks. And their effects were disastrous. Once 
the effects of the epidemics were realized 
however, the use of biological warfare was also 
planned in the form of infected blankets and 
other textiles supplied to Indigenous peoples.



THE PENETRATION OF NORTH AMERICA

While the Spanish were destroying the Caribbean 
and Mesoamerican region, the Portuguese were 
carrying out similar campaigns in Brazil. The 
patterns established by the Spanish would be 
repeated by the Portuguese during the 16th and 
17th centuries in Brazil, Uruguay, and Paraguay.

By the beginning of the 17th century, the Spanish 
and Portuguese had penetrated virtually every 
region in the southern hemisphere, establishing 
numerous settlements facilitated with the help of 
Jesuit and Franciscan missionaries, as well as 
mines, ranches, and plantations. Despite all 
this, there were still large areas in which 
European claims to lands remained a theoretical 
proposition; these areas remained outside of 
European control with fierce Indigenous 
resistance. This was particularly so in the southern regions.

During this period, French, Dutch, and advance 
elements of the British also established settlements in the Caribbean.

In 1604, the French occupied the island of 
Guadaloupe, followed by the island of Martinique 
and various smaller islands in the West Indies. 
In 1635 they occupied what is now French Guiana.

Meanwhile, the Dutch occupied a coastal region 
that would eventually become Surinam (Dutch 
Guiana) as well as settlements established by the 
Dutch West India Company in the area of Belize 
(which would later become a British colony).

The Dutch, French, and British were relatively 
limited in their exploits in the South Americas, 
and it would be in North America where their main efforts would be directed.

As has already been noted, French expeditions had 
penetrated the north-eastern regions of what 
would become Quebec and the Atlantic provinces, 
in the 1530s. In 1562 and 1564, the French 
attempted to establish settlements in South 
Carolina and Florida, but were driven out by the 
Spanish (who had claimed Florida in 1539 during de Soto's perilous expedition).

In 1585 the British also attempted settlements, 
on Roanoke Island in North Carolina, and again in 
1586. Both attempts failed when the settlers-to-be were unable to survive.

In the period up to 1600, more reconnaissance 
missions were conducted; in 1576 Martin Frobisher 
charted the Arctic coasts encountering Inuuk, and 
in 1578 Francis Drake charted the coast of California.

Meanwhile, the Spanish were pushing into North 
America from their bases in southern Mexico, 
encountering resistance from Pueblos and others.

In the beginning of the 1600s, as the horse 
spread throughout the southwest and into the 
plains, Samuel de Champlain expanded on Cartiers' 
earlier expedition, penetrating as far west as 
Lake Huron and Lake Ontario. his attacks on 
Onondago communities, using Wendat (Huron) 
warriors, would turn the Haudenosaunee against the French.

In 1606, the British finally succeeded in 
establishing their first permanent settlement in 
North America at Jamestown, Virginia. In 1620, 
Pilgrims (English Puritans) landed on the east 
coast also, establishing the Plymouth colony.

Meanwhile, Beothuks in Newfoundland had 
retaliated against a French attack in clashes 
that followed killed 37 French settlers. The 
French responded by arming Micmacs -- traditional 
enemies of the Beothuks -- and offering bounties 
for Beothuk scalps. This is believed to the 
origin of `scalp-taking' by Native warriors; the 
stereo-type of Native `savagery' was in fact 
introduced by the French and, later, the Dutch. 
The combined attacks by the French and Micmacs 
led to the eventual extermination of the Beothuk nation.

In 1624, the Dutch established Fort Orange (later 
to become Albany, New York) and claimed the area as New Netherland.

While the Atlantic coast area of North America 
was becoming quickly littered with British, 
French and Dutch settlements, substantial 
differences in the lands and resources forced the 
focus of exploitation to differ from the 
colonization process underway in Meso- and South America.

In the South, the large-scale expropriation of 
gold and silver financed much of the invasion. As 
well, the dense populations of the Indigenous 
peoples provided a large slave-labour force to 
work in the first mines and plantations.

In contrast, the Europeans who began colonizing 
North America found a lower population density 
and the lands, though fertile for crops and 
abundant in fur-bearing animals, contained little 
in precious metals accessible to 17th century European technology.

The exploitation of North America was to require 
long-term activities which could not rely on 
Indigenous or Afrikan slavery but in fact which 
required Indigenous participation. Maintaining 
colonies thousands of miles away from Europe and 
lacking the gold which financed the Spanish 
armada, the colonial forces in North America 
would have to rely on the gradual accumulation of 
agricultural products and the fur trade.

In this way, the initial settlements relied 
largely on the hospitality afforded them by the 
Native peoples. Earlier attempts at European 
settlements had failed for precisely this reason, 
as the Europeans found themselves almost completely ignorant of the land.

The growing European colonies quickly set about 
acquiring already cleared and cultivated land, 
and their expansionist policies led to fierce 
competition between the colonies. This bitter 
struggle for domination of land and trade 
frequently began and ended with attacks against 
Indigenous communities. One of the first of these 
`strategic attacks' occurred in 1622 when a force 
from the Plymouth colony massacred a group of 
Pequots. In retaliation, Pequote warriors 
attacked a settler village at Wessagusset, which 
was then abandoned and subsequently absorbed into 
the dominion of the Plymouth colony, which had 
coveted the trade and land enjoyed by the Wessagusset settlers.

By 1630, the Massachusetts Bay colony had been 
established, and `New England', once only a vague 
geographical expression came to apply in practise 
to the colonies of New Plymouth, Salem, 
Nantucket, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Haven and others.

The expansionist drives of the Massachusetts 
colonists consisted of massacres carried out 
against first the Pequot and eventually the 
Narragansetts between 1634 and 1648.

It was in this period that the transition between 
European dependence on Native peoples began to be 
reversed. Through the establishment and expansion 
of European colonies, increased contact with 
First Nations brought extensive trading, as well 
as disease epidemics and conflict.

Trade gradually served to break up Indigenous societies,
"Indian industry became less specialized and 
divided as it entered into closer relations of 
exchange with European industry. For the Indians, 
intersocietal commerce triumphed by subordinating 
and eliminating all crafts except those directly 
related to the European-Indian trade, while 
intertribal trading relations survived only 
insofar as they served the purposes of intersocietal trade" [9].

Thus, trade with European industry developed a 
relationship of growing dependence on the 
European colonists. The items traded to Natives 
-- metal pots, knives, and occasionally rifles -- 
were of European manufacture and supply. The 
trade also disrupted and changed traditional 
Native methods in other ways, with the 
introduction of alcohol and exterminationist 
forms of warfare -- including torture -- under 
the direction of the colonialists, as well as an 
overall escalation in warfare in the 
competition-driven fur trade and introduction of European rifles.

While disease epidemics began to spread 
throughout the Atlantic coastal area, the 
colonialists also relied to a large extent on 
exploiting and exaggerating already existing 
hostilities between First Nations, as the Spanish 
and Portuguese had also done in their campaigns,
"The grim epics of Cortes and Pizarro, not to 
speak of Columbus himself, testify to the 
military abilities of Spanish soldiery, but these 
need to be compared as well with the great 
failures of Narvaez, Coronado and de Soto... (The 
conquistadors) did not conquer Mexico and Peru 
unaided. Native allies were indispensable... 
North of New Spain, invasion started later, so 
Frenchmen, Dutchmen, and Englishmen found native 
communities...already reduced by epidemic from 
base populations that never approached the size of Mexico" [10].

It was at this time that the concept of treaty 
making began to take hold. In keeping with the 
English colonists early plans of keeping some 
level of peace with the Natives, as in 1606 when
"the Virginia Company of London instructed its 
colonists to buy a stock of corn from the 
`naturals' before the English intention to settle 
permanently should become evident. The Company's 
chiefs were sure that `you cannot carry 
yourselves so towards them but they will grow 
discontented with your habitation'" [11].

The initial English (and Dutch) settlers began 
the process of purchasing land, supplemented as 
always with armed force against vulnerable 
Indigenous nations (such as those decimated by 
disease or already engaged in wars with more powerful First Nations).

It remains unclear as to what the First Nations 
understood of the local purchasing process, but 
some points are clear; there was no practise of 
private ownership of land, nor of selling land, 
among or between the Peoples prior to the arrival 
of the colonialists; there were however 
agreements and pacts between First Nations in 
regards to access to hunting or fishing areas. 
This would indicate treaties were most likely 
understood as agreements between First Nations 
and settler communities over use of certain areas 
of land, as well as non-aggressiveness pacts. In 
either case, where First Nations remained 
powerful enough to deter initial settler outrages 
the treaties were of little effect if they turned 
out to be less than honourable, and there was 
enough duplicity, fraud, and theft contained in 
the treaties that they could not be considered 
binding. Practises such as orally translating one 
version of a treaty and signing another on paper 
were frequent, as was taking European proposals 
in negotiations and claiming that these had been 
agreed upon by all -- when in fact they were 
being negotiated. As well, violations of treaty 
agreements by settlers was commonplace, 
particularly as, for example, the Virginia colony 
discovered the profitability of growing tobacco 
(introduced to the settlers by Native peoples) 
and began expanding on their initial land base.

Gradually, First Nations along the Atlantic found 
themselves dispossessed of their lands and 
victims of settler depredations. One of the first 
conflicts that seriously threatened to drive the 
colonialist forces back into the sea broke out in 
1622, when the Powhatan Confederacy, led by 
Opechancanough, attacked the Jamestown colony. 
Clashes continued until 1644, when Opechancanough was captured and killed.

By the mid-1600s, clashes between Natives and 
settlers began to increase. Tensions grew as the 
Europeans became more obtuse and domineering in 
their relationship with the First Nations. In 
1655 for example, the so-called `Peach Wars' 
erupted between colonialists of New Netherlands 
and the Delaware Nation when a Dutchman killed a 
Delaware woman for picking a peach tree on the 
colonies `property'. The settler was subsequently 
killed and Delaware warriors attacked several 
Dutch settlements. The fighting along the Hudson 
River lasted until 1664 when the Dutch forced the 
Delaware nation into submission by kidnapping Delaware children as hostages.

In 1675 the Narragansetts, Nipmucs, and 
Wapanoags, led in part by Metacom (also known as 
King Philip by the Europeans) rebelled against 
the colonies of New England following the English 
arrest and execution of three Wapanoags for the 
alleged killing of a Christianized Native, 
believed to be a traitor. The war ended in 1676 
after the English colonialists -- making use of 
Native allies and informers -- were able to 
defeat the rebellion. Metacom was killed, and his 
family and hundreds of others sold to slavers in 
the West Indies. The military campaign carried 
out by the colonial forces decimated the 
Narragansett, Nipmuc, and Wapanoag nations.

Meanwhile in 1680, a Pueblo uprising led in part 
by the Tewa Medicine man Pope succeeded in 
driving out the Spanish from New Mexico. By 1689, 
Spanish forces were able to once again subjugate the Pueblos.

By the late 1600s, the competition between 
European states would dominate the colonization process in North America.



THE EUROPEAN STRUGGLE FOR HEGEMONY

Although colonial wars had been fought in the 
past between France, Spain, The Netherlands, and 
England, and conflicts had erupted between their 
colonies in the Americas, the late 1680s and the 
following 100 year period was to be a time of 
bitter struggle between the Europeans for 
domination. This period of European wars was to 
be played out also in the Americas, "To a great 
extent, the battle for colonies and the wealth 
they produced was the ultimate battlefield for state power in Europe" [12].

Beginning in 1689 with King William's War between 
the French and the English, which evolved into 
Queen Anne's War (1702-13), to King George's War 
(1744-48) and culminating in the so-called 
`French and Indian War' (1754-63), the battles 
for colonial possessions in the Americas mirrored 
those raging across Europe in the same period, 
except that in North American and in the 
Caribbean, the European struggle for hegemony in 
the emerging world trade market would employ 
heavy concentrations of Native warriors.

While the British emerged victorious from the 
`Great War for Empire', and the French defeated 
ceding Hudson Bay, Acadia, New France and other 
territories in a series of treaties, those who 
were most affected by the European struggles were 
the Native peoples of the Atlantic regions. The 
fallout from those wars was the virtual 
extermination of some Indigenous peoples, 
including the Apalachees in Florida, the 
establishment of colonial military garrisons and 
outposts, a general militarization of the region 
with heavier armaments and combat veterans, and 
the subsequent expansion of colonial settlements, 
extending their frontiers and pushing many First Nations further west.

During the period of the colonial wars, 
Indigenous resistance did not end, nor was it 
limited to aiding their respective `allies'.

In 1711, the Tuscaroras attacked the English in 
North Carolina and fought for two years, until 
the English counter-insurgency campaign left 
hundreds dead and some 400 sold into slavery. The 
Tuscaroras fled north, settling among the 
Haudenosaunee and becoming the Sixth Nation in 1722.

In 1715, the Yamasee nation rose up against the 
English in South Carolina, but were virtually 
exterminated in a ruthless English campaign.

In 1720, the Chickasaw nation warred against 
French occupation, until France's capitulation to 
England in 1763. Similarly, Fox resistance to 
French colonialism continued from 1920 to around 1735.

In 1729, the Natchez nation began attacking 
French settlers in Louisiana after governor Sieur 
Chepart ordered their main village cleared for 
his plantations. In the ensuing battles, Chepart 
was killed and the French counter-insurgency 
campaign left the Natchez decimated, although 
guerrilla struggle was to continue along the Mississippi River.

In 1760 the Cherokee nation began their own 
guerrilla war against their `allies' the English, 
in Virginia and Carolina. Led by Oconostota, the 
Cherokee fought for two years, eventually 
agreeing to a peace treaty which saw partitions 
of their land ceded after the English colonial 
forces had razed Cherokee villages and crops.

In 1761, Aleuts in Alaska attacked Russian 
traders following depredations on Aleut 
communities off the coast of Alaska (the Russian 
colonizers eventually moved into the Pribilof and 
Aleutian islands in 1797, relocating Aleuts and 
virtually enslaving them in the seal hunt).

Against British colonization, the Ottawa leader 
Pontiac led an alliance of Ottawas, Algonquins, 
Senecas, Mingos, and Wyandots in 1763. The 
offensive captured nine of twelve English 
garrisons and laid siege to Detroit for six 
months. Unable to expand the insurgency or draw 
in promised French assistance, Pontiac eventually 
negotiated an end to the conflict in 1766.

Added to this period of warfare was the 
continuing spread of disease epidemics. In 1746 
in Nova Scotia alone, 4,000 Micmacs had died of disease.

With the defeat of France, the British had 
acquired vast regions of formerly French 
territory, unbeknownst to the many First Nations 
who lived on those lands, and with whom the 
French never negotiated any land treaties nor 
recognized any form of Native title.

At this time,
"...the British government seized the opportunity 
to consolidate its imperial position by 
structuring formal, constitutional relations 
with...natives. In the Proclamation of 1763, it 
announced its intention of conciliating those 
disgruntled tribes by recognizing their land 
rights, by securing to them control of unceded 
land, and by entering into a nation-to-nation relationship" [13].

The Royal Proclamation of 1763 provided for a 
separate `Indian Territory' west of the 
Appalachians and the original Thirteen Colonies. 
Within this territory there was to be no 
purchasing of land other than by the crown. In 
the colonies now under British control, including 
Newfoundland, Labrador, Quebec, Nova Scotia, as 
well as the Thirteen Colonies, settlers occupying 
unceded Native lands were to be removed, and 
private purchases of lands occupied by or 
reserved for Natives was prohibited -- these 
lands could only be purchased by the crown in the 
presence of the First Nations.

As grand as these statements were, they were 
routinely violated by colonialists and rarely 
enforced. Indeed, one year following the 
proclamation, Lord Dunmore -- the governor of the 
Virginia colony -- had already breached the 
demarcation line by granting to veterans of the 
`French and Indian War' who had served under him 
lands which were part of the Shawnee nation. The 
Shawnee retaliation was not short in coming, but 
Dunmore's challenge to British control was to 
precipitate in form and substance another period 
of conflict that would see the colonization 
process expand westward. And that period of 
conflict would underline the real intent of the 
Royal Proclamation as a strategic document in the 
defense of British colonial interests in North America.



TRAGEDY: THE UNITED STATES IS CREATED

With the dominance of British power on a world 
scale, the European struggle for hegemony in the 
Americas was nearing its end. Subsequently, the 
18th and 19th centuries were to be a period of 
wars for independence that would force the 
European states out of the Americas. Foremost 
among these wars was the independence struggle 
that would lead to the birth of the United States.

Emerging from the `Great War for Empire', Britain 
found itself victorious but also heavily in debt. 
To defray the cost of maintaining and defending 
the colonies, Britain substantially changed its 
colonial policies. Large portions of the 
financial costs of the colonies were placed 
directly on the colonies themselves through a 
series of taxes. The imposition of the taxes 
incited the settlers to demand taxes be imposed 
only with their consent. In fact, the question of 
taxes was part of a wider debate; who should 
control and profit from colonialism, the colonies or the colonial centres.

By 1775, settler protests and revolts had 
culminated into a general war for independence 
that continued until 1783, when the British 
capitulated and ceded large portions of its territories along the Atlantic.

That the British colonial forces did not lose 
more territory can be attributed much to the 
participation of numerous First Nations on the 
side of the British; the Royal Proclamation was 
thus a strategy to dampen Native resistance to 
British colonialism (as in the eruption of King 
George's War in 1744 when Micmacs allied 
themselves with the French and, following the 
Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748, continued 
fighting the British, who then concluded a treaty 
of "Peace and Friendship" with the Micmacs), as 
well as a method of forming military alliances 
with First Nations, if not at least their neutrality in European conflicts.

As in previous European struggles, Indigenous 
peoples were used as expendable troops, and the 
extensive militarization further consolidated settler control,
"The end of the war saw thousands of Whites, 
United Empire Loyalists, flock to Nova Scotia. 
They came in such numbers and spread so widely 
over the Maritime region that it was considered 
necessary to divide Nova Scotia into three 
provinces to ease administrative problems; New 
Brunswick, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia...and Ile 
St.-Jean, soon to be renamed Prince Edward Island" [14].

To the south, the rebellious settlers were 
establishing their newly-created United States. 
For the First Nations in this region, the war had 
been particularly destructive; the colonial 
rebels had carried out scorched-earth campaigns 
against the Shawnee, Delaware, Cherokee, and the 
Haudenosaunee (which had suffered a split with 
the Oneidas and Tuscaroras allying themselves with the revolutionaries).

Here again the Royal Proclamation remained a 
useful tool in re-enforcing the British colonial 
frontier and retaining Native allies,
"Adherence to the principles of 
the...Proclamation...remained the basis of 
Britain's Indian policy for more than half a 
century, and explains the success of the British 
in maintaining the Indians as allies in Britain's 
wars in North America... Even when Britain lost 
much of its North American territory after 1781, 
and its Indian allies lost their traditional 
lands as a result of their British alliance, the 
Crown purchased land from the Indians living 
within British territory and gave it to their allies who moved north..." [15].

Having consolidated the Thirteen Colonies along 
the Atlantic seaboard, the independent United 
States quickly set about expanding westward, 
launching military campaigns to extend the frontiers of settlement.

One of the first of these campaigns began in 1790 
under the order of President George Washington. 
Consisting of about 1,100 Pennsylvania, Virginia, 
and Kentucky militiamen led by Brigadier General 
Josiah Harmar, the force was quickly defeated by 
a confederacy of Miami, Shawnee, Ojibway, 
Delaware, Potawatomi, and Ottawa warriors led by 
the Miami chief Michikinikwa (Little Turtle). A 
second force was dispatched and defeated in 
November, 1791. Finally, in 1794, a large force 
led by General Anthony Wayne defeated the 
confederacy, now led by Turkey Foot, near the 
shores of Lake Erie. Warriors who survived made 
their way to the British Fort Miami garrison. But 
the British -- former allies of many of the First 
Nations in the confederacy during the 
revolutionary war -- refused them shelter, and 
hundreds were slaughtered at the gates by Wayne's 
soldiers. Although the confederacy was 
essentially broken, the Miami would continue armed resistance up to 1840.

The `Indian Wars' launched by the US continued 
for the next 100 years, following an 
exterminationist policy that was aimed at 
destroying Native nations and securing those 
remnants who survived in (what was then believed) 
barren and desolate reserves. Once the People 
were contained in these Bantustans, the next step 
was the destruction of Native culture under the 
auspices of then-emerging governmental agencies.

As the US moved to a higher level of war against 
First Nations, it also began moving against 
competing European powers still present in the Americas.

In 1812, using the pretext of Native raids along 
its northern frontier from British territories, 
US forces attempted to invade British North 
America. Here again, Britain's colonial policies 
proved effective; an alliance of Native nations 
(who had their own interests in full 
implementation of the 1763 Proclamation) and 
European settlers succeeded in repulsing the US 
expansion. Among those who fought against the US 
invasion were the Native leaders Tecumseh -- a 
Shawnee chief who worked to form a Native 
confederacy against the Europeans (and who argued 
that no one individual or grouping could sell the 
lands, as it belonged to all the Native peoples); 
Black Hawk -- a leader of the Sauk who would also 
lead future Native insurgencies; and Joseph Brant 
-- a leader in the Haudenosaunee who was rewarded 
with a large territory by the British and 
promptly began selling off partitions to European 
settlers (in history, he is regarded as a "hero" 
by Euro-Americans but a traitor by his people). 
Tecumseh was killed in battle in the Battle of Moraviantown in Ontario in 1813.

In 1815, hostilities between Britain and the US 
were formally ended in the Treaty of Ghent, 
though neither the US war on Natives, or Native resistance, subsided.



REVOLUTIONS IN THE 'NEW WORLD'

Following the American Revolution, movements for 
independence began breaking out in South and Central America.

Despite the seemingly monolithic appearance of 
Spanish or Portuguese colonialism in the first 
three centuries following the European invasion, 
and despite the genocidal policies of the 
conquistadors, Native resistance continued. 
Particularly in, for example, the interior region 
of the Yucatan Peninsula, the lowland forests of 
Peru, the Amazon region, and even in the Andean 
highlands -- which had suffered such a severe 
depopulation; between 1532 and 1625, the 
population of the Andean peoples is estimated to 
have declined from 9 million to 700,000. In these 
regions, colonial domination was continually 
challenged and formed the base for resistance 
movements that began even in the 1500s.

Among the first of these revolts was the 
Vilacabamba rebellion of 1536 led by Manqu Inka. 
Although the insurgency was unable to expand and 
failed to drive the Spanish out, the rebels were 
able to establish a "liberated zone" in the 
Vilacabamba region of present-day Bolivia for the 
next three decades [16]. The ending of the 
initial revolt is recognized as the execution of 
another leader, Tupac Amaru I in 1572.

Other major insurgencies also broke out in 
Ecuador in 1578, 1599, and 1615. The Itza of 
Tayasal in the Yucatan Peninsula remained unsubjugated until 1697.

"Europeans found it particularly difficult to 
establish effective transportation and 
communication facilities in the forest lowlands 
of the Maya area... Though the Spaniards achieved 
formal sovereignty over Yucatan with relative 
ease, many local Maya groups successfully 
resisted effective domination...for centuries" [17].

Keeping pace with colonial developments in North 
America, the Spanish introduced a series of laws 
in the 17th century known as the Leyes de Indias. 
Similar to the later 1763 Proclamation introduced 
in British North America, the laws partitioned 
the Andean region into a `Republic of Spain' and 
a `Republic of Indians' -- each with its own 
separate courts, laws and rights. The Leyes de 
Indias were, "from the point of view of the 
colonial stat...a pragmatic measure to prevent 
the extermination of the (Indigenous) labour force..." [18].

Despite its seeming "liberalism", forced labour 
accompanied by tax laws remained in place, and 
the regulation was never fully enforced.

In 1742, Juan Santos Atahualpa led an Indigenous 
resistance movement in Peru comprised largely of 
Yanesha (Amuesha) and Ashaninka (Campa) peoples 
that fought off Spanish colonization for more than a century.

In the 18th century, Indigenous resistance broke 
out in a major revolt in the colony of Upper Peru 
(now Bolivia), led by Jose Gabriel Tupac Amaru.

"Much has been written about the 1780 Indian 
rebellion led by Jose Gabriel Tupaq Amaru and his 
successors; less is known about the Chayanta and 
Sikasika revolts which occurred at the same time, 
the latter led by Julian Apasa Tupaq Katari. For 
more than half a century, colonial tax laws had 
provoked a groundswell of protest... In mid-1780, 
an apparently spontaneous revolt broke out in 
Macha, in the province of Chayanta, to free an 
Indian cacique, Tomas Katari, jailed after a 
dispute with local mestizo authorities... Then in 
November 1780, Jose Gabriel Tupaq Amaru led a 
well-organized rebellion in Tungasuca, near 
Cuzco. Julian Apasa Tupaq Katari, an Indian 
commoner from Sullkaw (Sikasika) rose up and laid 
siege to La Paz from March to October 1781 during 
which one fourth of the city's population died. 
After the defeat in April 1781 of Tupaq Amaru in 
Cuzco, the rebellion shifted to Azangaro, where 
his relatives Andres and Diego Cristobal led the 
struggle. Andres successfully laid siege to 
Sorata in August of that year, but by November he 
and Diego Cristobal were forced to surrender to 
the Spanish authorities. The rebellion was 
crushed by the beginning of 1782" [19].

The leaders, perceived or real, were captured and 
executed; they were quartered, decapitated, or burned alive.

While Indigenous resistance continued and 
frequently sent shock-waves throughout the ranks 
of the colonialists -- including Spaniards and 
Creoles (descendants of Spanish settlers in the 
Americas) -- the colonies themselves began to 
experience movements for independence comprised of Creoles and Mestizos.

The backgrounds to the movements for independence 
-- like in the US -- are found in the oppressive 
taxation and monopolistic trade laws imposed by 
the colonial centers, both of which constrained 
the economic growth of the colonies. As well, 
Creoles were generally by-passed for colonial 
positions which went to agents born in Spain.

The first major settler revolt was in 1809 in the 
colony of Upper Peru (Bolivia), which succeeded 
in temporarily overthrowing Spanish authorities. 
In 1810 Colombia declared its independence, 
followed one year later by Venezuela. In 1816, 
Argentina declared its independence, and the next 
year General Jose de San Martin led troops across 
the Andes to "liberate Chile and Peru from the 
Royalist forces". Wars for independence spread 
quickly, and Spanish royalist forces lost one 
colony after another in decisive conflicts, 
culminating in the Battle of Ayacucho in 1824 in 
Peru, which effectively diminished Spain's 
domination in the Americas (which was already 
dampened by Napoleon's invasion of Spain in the same period).

Although the independence movements succeeded in 
overthrowing Spanish and Portuguese forces, they 
were led by, and in the interests of, Creole 
elites -- with the assistance of land-owners and merchants,
"...the revolutions for independent state 
formation in the Americas in the late 18th and 
early 19th centuries must be seen as being in the 
mode of European nation-state formation for the 
purpose of capitalist development. Although they 
were anti-`mother country', they were not 
anti-colonial (just as the formation of Rhodesia 
and South Africa as states were not anti-colonial events)" [20].

The present-day Confederation of Indigenous 
Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE) describes the 
independence of Ecuador, for example, as
"not mean(ing) any change in our living 
conditions; it was nothing more than the passage 
of power from the hands of the Spaniards to the hands of the Creoles" [21].

As in the US example, the newly-independent 
states quickly set about consolidating their 
positions politically and militarily and pursuing economic expansion.

The result was an eruption of wars between the 
independent states over borders, trade, and 
ultimately for resources. In 1884 the War of the 
Pacific began, involving Bolivia, Chile, and Peru 
in a dispute over access to nitrate resource. 
 From 1865-70, Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay 
allied themselves against Paraguay in the bloody 
War of the Triple Alliance -- a war in which 
Paraguay lost a large amount of its male population -- primarily Guarani.

As in North America, these and other conflicts 
most adversely affected the First Nations 
peoples. The majority of those who died in the 
War of the Triple Alliance were Native. As well, 
the militarization that occurred created large 
reserves of well-equipped, combat-experienced 
troops. In Argentina and Chile, these military 
reserves were directed against invading then 
unsubjugated regions where Mapuche resistance had 
persisted for centuries. Between 1865 and 1885, a 
militarized frontier existed from which attacks 
against the Mapuche were conducted. Tens of 
thousands of Mapuche were killed, the survivors dispersed to reservation areas.

In the 1870s, the development of vulcanization in 
Europe led to an invasion of the Upper Amazon 
regions of Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and 
Bolivia -- where rubber trees would eventually 
supply the world market. In the Putumayo river 
region of northern Peru and Colombia alone, 
40,000 Natives were killed between 1886 and 1919 
(by 1920, it's estimated that the depopulation of 
the rubber areas had reached 95% in some areas) [22].

It was in this post-independence period that -- 
arising from the complete transition from 
Feudalism to capitalism in Europe -- new forms of 
European domination were being introduced. 
Briefly, this consisted of the introduction of 
bank loans directed primarily at developing 
infrastructures for the export of raw and 
manufactured materials: roads, railways, and 
ports, particularly in the mining and 
agricultural industries. In the 1820s, English 
banks loaned over 21 million pounds to former 
Spanish colonies. Through the debts, and the 
subsequent import of European technology and 
machinery necessary for large-scale mining and 
agribusiness -- necessary to begin repayment of 
the loans -- dependence was gradually established 
(and continues today in the form of the 
International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, controlled by the G-7 [23]).

During the same period, the US was also setting 
footholds in the region. In 1853, five years 
after gold was discovered in previously unknown 
areas in Central America, US marines invaded 
Nicaragua. In 1898, following the 
Spanish-American War, Puerto Rico and Cuba were 
annexed to the US (Puerto Rico remains today as 
the last US colonial nation). As well, US forces 
occupied the Philippines -- carrying out 
massacres of men, women, and children -- and 
Hawaii came under US control in 1893. With these 
actions the US established itself as an emerging 
capitalist power, and the eventual extent of US 
imperialism was beginning to take shape.

On a global scale, the development of imperialism 
had now established itself internationally; the 
full division of the world between predominantly 
European powers and the US was complete (and 
would subsequently lead to two world wars).



MANIFEST DESTINY AND THE US 'INDIAN WARS'

While the US was in the process of establishing 
itself as an imperialist world power, it was 
still struggling to consolidate itself as a 
continental base and countering armed resistance by First Nations.

Prior to the US-British War of 1812, Louisiana 
was purchased from France, in 1803, and Spain had 
ceded Florida in 1819. By 1824, the Bureau of 
Indian Affairs was organized as part of the War 
Department. Military campaigns were launched 
against First Nations, from the Shawnee of the 
Mississippi Valley to the Seminole in Florida. At 
the same time, the legalistic instruments for 
occupation were being introduced. In 1830 the 
Indian Removal Act was implemented, and in 1834 
Congress reorganized the various departments 
dealing with Indian repression by creating the US 
Department of Indian Affairs, and the Indian 
Trade and Intercourse Act which redefined the 
`Indian Territory' and `Permanent Indian 
Frontier'. The `Indian Territory' had been 
previously defined in 1825 as lands west of the 
Mississippi. Following the formation of the 
territories of Wisconsin and Iowa, the frontier 
was extended from the Mississippi to the 95th meridian.

The Indian Removal Act was directed at forced 
relocation of Natives east of the 95th meridian 
to the west of it. In 1838, US troops forced 
thousands of Cherokee into concentration camps, 
from which they were forced westward on the Trail 
of Tears. In the midst of winter, one out of 
every four Cherokees died from cold, hunger, or 
diseases. Many other nations were forcibly 
relocated: the Choctaws, Chickasaws, Creeks, 
Shawnees, Miamis, Ottawas, Wendats and Delawares. 
The `Permanent Indian Frontier' was a militarized 
line of US garrisons, similar to that in 
Argentina and Chile during the same period.

But the `Indian Frontier' was not to hold. Like 
the British Royal Proclamation of 1763, the 
restrictions on Europeans settling or trading in 
these regions were routinely ignored. With the US 
annexation of northern Mexico in 1848, the US 
acquired the territories of Texas, California, 
New Mexico, Arizona, Utah and Colorado. The same 
year, gold was discovered in California. With 
these two events, the large-scale invasion of the 
`Indian Territory' was underway. Under the 
ideology of Manifest Destiny, the US was to 
launch a renewed period of genocidal war against 
those regions and First Nations which remained 
unsubjugated. The theatre of war extended from 
the Great Lakes region around Minnesota, south of 
the Rio Grande, and west to California, extending 
north to Washington state. It was a period of war 
which involved many First Nations: the Lakota, 
Cheyenne, Commanche, Kiowa, Yakima, Nez Perce, 
Walla Walla, Cayuse, Arapaho, Apache, Navajo, 
Shoshone, Kickapoos, and many others. It was also 
a war from which many Native leaders would leave 
a legacy of struggle that, like those struggles 
in South and Mesoamerica, would remain as symbols 
of resistance to the European colonization: Crazy 
Horse, Tatanka Yotanka (Sitting Bull), Ten Bears, 
Victorio, Geronimo, Quanah Parker, Wovoka, Black 
Kettle, Red Cloud, Chief Joseph, and so many others.

Although the `Indian Wars' of this period were by 
no means one-sided -- the US forces suffered many 
defeats -- the US colonial forces succeeded in 
gradually and ruthlessly gaining dominance. 
Various factors contributed to this, following 
the patterns of previous campaigns against Native 
peoples: the continuing spread of diseases such 
as measles, smallpox, and cholera (between 
1837-70, at least four major smallpox epidemics 
swept through the western plains, and between 
1850-60 a cholera epidemic hit the Great Basin 
and southern plains); the use of informers and 
traitors; and the overwhelming strength of US 
forces in both weaponry and numbers of soldiers. 
Combined with outright treachery and policies of 
extermination, these factors continued to erode 
the strength of once-powerful First Nations.

One of the major turning points in this period can be seen as the US Civil War.



AFRIKAN SLAVERY, AFRIKAN REBELLION, AND THE US CIVIL WAR

Ostensibly a moral crusade to "abolish slavery", 
the US Civil War of 1861-65 was in reality a 
conflict between the commercial and industrial 
development of the North against the agrarian 
stagnation based on Afrikan peoples' slave-labour of the South.

By the 19th century, 10 to 15 million Afrikan 
peoples had been relocated to the Americas by 
first Portuguese, then English, Spanish, and US 
colonialists. These peoples came from all regions 
of Afrika: Senegal, the Ivory Coast, Angola, 
Mozambique, etc. -- and from many Afrikan 
Nations: the Yoruba, Kissi, Senefu, Foulah, Fons, Adjas, and many others.

Enslaved, these peoples were forced to labour in 
the mines, textile mills, factories, and 
plantations that served first the European 
markets and, after the wars for independence, the 
newly-created nation-states of the Americas.

The slave-trade in both American and Afrikan 
Indigenous peoples was absolutely necessary for 
the European colonization of the Americas. The 
forced relocation of millions of Afrikan peoples 
also introduced new dynamics into the 
colonization process; not only in the economics 
of European occupation, but also in the 
development of Afrikan peoples' resistance.

As early as 1526, Afrikan slaves had rebelled in 
a short-lived Spanish colony in South Carolina, 
and after their escape took refuge amongst First 
Nations peoples. In the Caribbean and South 
America, where Afrikan slavery was first 
centered, large revolts frequently broke out and 
escaped Afrikan slaves took refuge amongst Caribs 
and Arawaks. In Northeast Brazil, an Afrikan 
rebellion succeeded in organizing the territory 
of Palmares -- which grew to one-third the size of Portugal.

Probably one of the most famous Afrikan and 
Native alliances was the example of the escaped 
Afrikan slaves and the Seminole in Florida. The 
escaped Afrikans had "formed liberated Afrikan 
communities as a semi-autonomous part of the 
sheltering Seminole Nation" [24]. Together, these 
two peoples would carry out one of the strongest 
resistance struggles against the US. The 
so-called Seminole Wars began in 1812 when 
Georgia vigilantes attempted to recapture 
Afrikans for enslavement, and continued for 
thirty years under the US campaign of 
relocations. The Seminole Wars, under the 
fanatical direction of President Jackson, were 
the most costly of the US `Indian Wars'; over 
1,600 US soldiers were killed and thousands 
wounded at the cost of some $30 million. Even 
after this, the Seminole-Afrikan guerrillas 
remained unsubjugated. The solidarity between the 
Afrikans and the Seminoles is most clear in the 
second Seminole War of 1835. The Seminoles, under 
Osceola, refused to accept relocation to Oklahoma 
-- one of the key disagreements also being the US 
insistence on separation of the Afrikans from 
their Seminole brothers and sisters. The US 
forces relaunched their war, and were never able to achieve a clear victory.

By the mid-1800s, slavery was viewed by some 
parts of the US ruling class as an obstacle to 
economic growth and expansion. The anti-slavery 
campaign, led by the North, was a practical 
effort to free land and labour from the 
limitations of the closed system of plantation 
agriculture based on slave labour;
"Slavery had become an obstacle to both the 
continued growth of settler society and the 
interests of the Euro-Amerikan bourgeoisie. It 
was not that slavery was unprofitable itself. It 
was, worker for worker, much more profitable than 
white wage-labour. Afrikan slaves in industry 
cost the capitalists less than one-third the 
wages of white workingmen... But the American 
capitalists needed to greatly expand their labour 
force. While the planters believed that importing 
new millions of Afrikan slaves would most 
profitably meet this need, it was clear that this 
would only add fuel to the fires of the already 
insurrectionary Afrikan colony. Profit had to be 
seen not only in the squeezing of a few more 
dollars on a short-term, individual basis, but in 
terms of the needs of an entire Empire and its 
future. And it was not just the demand for labour 
alone that outmoded the slave system. Capitalism 
needed giant armies of settlers, waves and waves 
of new European shock-troops to help conquer and 
hold new territory, to develop it for the 
bourgeoisie and garrison it against the oppressed" [25].

The "insurrectionary fires" had already dealt the 
occupation forces a shocking blow in 1791 in the 
Haitian Revolution. Afrikan slaves, led in part 
by Toussaint L'Ouverture, rebelled and defeated 
Spanish, English, and French forces, establishing 
the Haitian Republic that offered citizenship to 
any Native or Afrikan peoples who wanted it.

There were also increasing revolts within the US, 
including the 1800 revolt in Virginia led by 
Gabriel Prosser, and Nat Turner's revolt in 1831 which killed sixty settlers.

"The situation became more acute as the 
developing capitalist economy created trends of 
urbanization and industrialization. In the early 
1800s the Afrikan population of many cities was 
rising faster than that of Euro-Americans" [26].

The revolts led by Gabriel and Turner had caused 
discussions in the Virginia legislature on ending 
slavery, and public rallies had been held in 
Western Virginia demanding an all-white Virginia.

Combined, these factors led the North to agitate 
for an end to slavery as one specific form of 
exploitation. In turn, the Southern states, led 
by plantation owners and slavers, threatened to 
secede from the Union. The Civil War began.



BLACK RECONSTRUCTION AND DECONSTRUCTION

The beginning of the US Civil War in 1861 posed 
various problems for the northern Union ruling 
class. Not only was the war for the preservation 
of an expanding continental empire, but it also 
opened up a second front: that of a liberation 
struggle by enslaved Afrikan peoples. With a 
population of four million, the rising of these 
Afrikans in the South proved crucial in the 
defeat of the Confederacy. By the tens of 
thousands, Afrikan slaves escaped from the 
slavers and enlisted in the Union forces. This 
massive withdrawal of slave-labour hit the 
Southern economy hard, and the Northern forces were bolstered by the thousands.

Towards the end of the War in 1865, those 
Afrikans who did not escape began a large-scale 
strike following the defeat of the Confederacy. 
They claimed the lands that they had laboured on, 
and began arming themselves -- not only against 
the Southern planters but also against the Union 
army. Widespread concerns about this `dangerous 
position' of Afrikans in the South led to `Black 
Reconstruction'; Afrikans were promised 
"democracy, human rights, self-government and popular ownership of the land".

In reality, it was a strategy for returning Euro-American dominance involving:
"1. The military repression of the most organized 
and militant Afrikan communities.
2. Pacifying the Afrikan peoples by 
neo-colonialism, using elements of the Afrikan 
petit-bourgeoisie to led their people into 
embracing US citizenship as the answer to all 
problems. Instead of nationhood and liberation, 
the neo-colonial agents told the masses that 
their democratic demands could be met by 
following the Northern settler capitalists..." [27].

Following this strategy, Union army forces 
attacked Afrikan communities who were occupying 
land, forcing tens of thousands off collectively 
held land and arresting the "leaders". Afrikan 
troops who had fought in the Union army were 
quickly disarmed and dispersed, or sent to fight 
as colonial troops in the ongoing "Indian Wars". 
White supremacist terrorist organizations formed, 
one of the most infamous -- but not the only -- being the Ku Klux Klan.

Under the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution, 
Afrikans became US citizens, including the right 
to vote. Through the neo-colonialist strategy of 
Reconstruction, Afrikans were able to push 
through reforms including integrated juries, 
protective labour reforms, divorce and property 
rights for women, and an involvement in local government.

However, even these small reforms were too much 
for Southern Whites. Reconstruction was 
vigorously resisted -- not only by former slaves 
and planters but also by poor Whites who flocked 
to organizations such as the KKK, White Caps, 
White Cross, and the White League. Thousands of 
Afrikans were killed during state elections as 
the White supremacist groups conducted terrorist 
campaigns aimed at countering the gains of 
Reconstruction and preserving White supremacy.

"In 1876-77, the final accommodation between 
Northern capital and the Southern planters was 
reached in the `Hayes-Tilden deal'. The South 
promised to accept the dominance of the Northern 
bourgeoisie over the entire Empire, and to permit 
the Republican candidate Rutherford B. Hayes to 
succeed Grant in the US Presidency. In return, 
the Northern bourgeoisie agreed to let the 
planters have regional hegemony over the South, 
and to withdraw the last of the occupying Union 
troops so that the Klan could take care of the 
Afrikans as they wished. While the guarded 
remnants of Reconstruction held out here and 
there for some years (Afrikan Congressmen were 
elected from the South until 1895), the critical 
year of 1877 marked their conclusive defeat" [28].

Not insignificantly during this same period, 
Northern working class Whites were engaged in a 
vicious class struggle for an 8 hour work day, 
even as Afrikans were under attack by the KKK and 
other racist organizations. And, at the same 
time, little notice was made of the military 
extermination campaigns being carried out against Native peoples.

During the War, many First Nations attempted to 
remain "neutral" in the South, although some 
promises by the Confederacy for land stimulated 
some First Nations to side with the South. But 
"neutrality" is not the same as passive; Native 
peoples continued their own resistance to 
colonization. From 1861-63 the Apaches led by 
Cochise and Mangas Colorado fought occupation 
forces, a resistance that would continue until 
1886 when Geronimo was captured. The Santee also 
engaged the US military from 1862-63 led by 
Little Crow. In 1863-64, this war would shift to 
North Dakota under the Teton. In 1863, the 
Western Shoshone fought settlers and attacked 
military patrols and supply routes in Utah and 
Idaho. That same year, the Navajo rebelled in New Mexico and Arizona.

With the completion of the transcontinental 
railroad in 1869, settlement of the West 
increased rapidly. The militarization from the 
Civil War, and the ability to supply and 
facilitate large-scale military operations, 
opened up the final period in the "Indian Wars". 
In the post-Civil War period, the genocidal 
process of colonization was to enter a new phase, 
even at the price of thousands of US troops dead 
and wounded, and each dead Indian coming at the 
price of $1 million. By 1885, the last great herd 
of buffalo would be slaughtered by Euro-American 
hunters -- this also forming a part of the 
counter-insurgency strategy of depriving the 
Plains Indians of their primary food source. Five 
years later, 350 Lakotas would be massacred at 
Chankpe Opi Wakpala, the creek called Wounded Knee.



THE COLONIZATION OF CANADA

In contrast to the US campaign of extermination, 
the colonization process in Canada lacked the 
large-scale military conflicts that characterized 
the US "Indian Wars". Although many 
Euro-Canadians [29] would like to believe that 
these differences in colonization lie in 
fundamentally different values, cultures, etc., 
they are no more than the result of differences 
in colonial practises rooted in basic economic 
needs and strategies. As can be seen in the 
aftermath of the US War for Independence, there 
followed a period of rapid expansion and 
settlement. Following the consolidation of the 
"13 British colonies along the North Atlantic, 
and armed with a pre-imperialist thrust (the 
Monroe Doctrine and the ideology of `manifest 
destiny'), the entrepreneurs controlling the new 
state machinery dispatched their military forces 
rapidly across North America" [30].

Canada, on the other hand, did not fight a war 
for independence and remained firmly a part of the British Empire.

As previously discussed, the first major 
colonization of what would become eastern 
"Canada" was carried out by France. Between 1608 
and 1756, some 10,000 French settlers had arrived 
in Canada. The "French and Indian Wars" of the 
18th century resulted in the defeat of the French 
forces; the subsequent Treaty of 1763 established 
British rule over New France (now Quebec). With 
the Quebec Act of 1774, the province of Quebec 
was expanded, British criminal law established, 
and the feudal administration implemented by 
France remained largely unchanged. Conflicts 
related to civil matters and property remained 
regulated under French civil law. The seigneurial 
system, a feudal system in which the land of the 
province was given in grant from the King to 
seigneurs (usually lower nobility and from the 
Church), who, in turn, rented the land to 
peasants in return for an annual rent (called 
tithes, payable in goods of products raised on 
the land), was continued. As with the 1763 Royal 
Proclamation, the Quebec act secured the loyalty 
of the French clergy and aristocracy in the US War for Independence.

As a result of the wars of the 18th century, 
French settlement had grown to 60,000 as soldiers 
employed by France swelled the French population. 
The expansion of the province under the Quebec 
Act had seized a large portion of the "Indian 
territory" and placed it under Crown 
jurisdiction. Following the US War for 
Independence, some 40,000 loyalists fled the 
former British colonies and settled in Canada, 
occupying more Native lands -- particularly that 
of the Haudenosaunee. British colonial 
authorities went to some lengths to acquire land 
while placating the still geo-militarily important Indians [30].

While the colonialists were busy consolidating 
the administration of "British North America", 
the Pacific Northwest was coming under increased reconnaissance.

Beginning in 1774, the first recorded colonizers 
into the area of British Columbia came aboard the 
Spanish ship Santiago. Four years later, an 
expedition led by James Cook descended upon the 
area, leading to the establishment of a large and 
profitable fur trade. The dominance of the fur 
trade would last until around 1854 when European 
settlement began to increase rapidly along with 
the mining and logging industries. As a result of 
the early dominance of the fur trade, which 
relied on Native collaboration, British 
colonizers curtailed their military operations. 
Nevertheless, conflicts did erupt, primarily 
against British depredations. As more ships 
frequented the area, clashes spread with attacks 
on colonial vessels and the shelling of Native villages.

Even before European settlement in BC, the impact 
of the traders was disastrous. For example, from 
1835 when the first census was taken of the 
Kwakwaka-wakw nation, to 1885, there was between 
a 70 to 90 percent reduction in population (from 
around 10,700 to 3,000) [32]. In an all too 
familiar pattern, the intrusion of European 
traders had set into motion disease epidemics, 
even as early as the 1780s and `90s. In 1836, a 
smallpox epidemic hit the northern coast, and the 
fur trade was "depressed all that winter and the 
following spring" [33]. Following an invasion of 
gold hunters into the region in 1858, one of the 
most devastating epidemics struck in 1862, 
killing at least 20,000 Indians [34].

Meanwhile, in British North America, the 
geo-military importance of the First Nations was 
quickly being eroded. With the influx of 
loyalists after the US War for Independence, the 
European population had grown and was 
strategically garrisoned in key military areas -- 
conflicts with the US were predicted. As well as 
further increasing the European population in the 
region, the War of 1812 and US policies of moving 
Natives from the northern frontier had broken up 
confederacies and greatly diminished the power of 
the First Nations in the area. After this, 
British colonial policies changed from 
essentially forming military alliances to a 
higher level of colonization through policies of 
breaking down the collective power of First 
Nations. Christianization and an overall 
Europeanization of Native peoples was developed 
as official policy. By the 1850s, an instrument 
had been created to this end: "The Gradual Civilization Act of 1857".

"The Act was based upon the assumption that the 
full civilization of the tribes could be achieved 
only when Indians were brought into contact with 
individualized property... Any Indian...adjudged 
by a special board of examiners to be educated, 
free from debt, and of good moral character could 
on application be awarded twenty hectares of land..." [35].

Here, the "civilization of the tribes" should be 
read as the elimination of the basis of Native 
cultures and de facto the First Nations as 
nations. The twenty hectares of land was to be 
taken from the reserve land base, subsequently 
breaking up the collective and communitarian land 
practises of Native peoples and replacing these 
with individual parcels of land; all the easier, 
from the viewpoint of the colonizer, to achieve 
the long-term goal of completely eliminating 
First Nations as nations and leaving nothing but 
dispersed, acculturated, peoples to be 
assimilated into European society. The 
patriarchal dimensions of forced-assimilation 
were also clear: only males could be so 
enfranchised [36]. A Commission of Inquiry had 
further recommended that reserve lands be 
restricted to a maximum of 25 acres per family, 
and that Native organization be gradually 
replaced with a municipal form of government.

At the same time, new methods in acquiring land 
were developed. Beginning on 1850 and continuing 
into the 20th century, a series of treaties were 
"negotiated" in which Native nations ceded 
immense tracts of land in return for reserve 
land, hunting and fishing rights, education, 
medical care, and the payment of annuities. The 
first such treaties were the Robinson treaties, 
which would be renegotiated in 1871 as Treaties No. 1 and No. 2.

"The relationship between the immediate 
requirements of the internal imperialist 
expansion and the treaties is remarkable. The 
first of these treaties was sought, according to 
a 19th century historian's first-hand report, `in 
consequence of the discovery of minerals on the 
shores of Lake Huron and Superior'... The prairie 
treaties were obtained immediately in advance of 
agricultural settlement, and the treaty which 
includes parts of the Northwest Territories was 
negotiated immediately upon the discovery of oil in the Mackenzie Valley" [37].

While the colonizers knew what they wanted in 
proposing the treaties, Native peoples were 
unprepared for the duplicity and dishonour of the 
treaty-seekers. When a commission journeyed to 
the Northwest Territories to investigate 
unfulfilled provisions of Treaties 8 and 11, they found that
"At a number of meetings, Indians who claimed to 
have been present at the time when the Treaties 
were signed stated that they definitely did not 
recall hearing about the land entitlement in the 
Treaties. They explained that poor interpreters 
were used and their chiefs and head men had 
signed even though they did not know what the Treaties contained" [38].

The treaties were important aspects of the plan 
for the expansion of Canada westward and economic 
development based on resource extraction and 
agriculture. Indeed, the Confederation of Canada 
in the British North America Act of 1867 was 
aimed primarily at consolidating the 
then-existing eastern provinces and facilitating 
in this westward expansion; the primary 
instruments seen as a trans-Canada railway, 
telegraph lines, and roads. Expansion as seen not 
only as economically necessary but also 
politically urgent as the US was expanding westward at the same time.

The invasion of the prairie regions was not 
without conflict. The most significant resistance 
in this period was that of the Metis peoples -- 
descendants of primarily French and Scottish 
settlers and Cree -- in what would become 
Manitoba. The Red River Rebellion, also known as 
the First Riel rebellion after Louis Riel, a 
Metis leader, erupted following an influx of 
Euro-Canadian settlers and the purchase of the 
territory from the controlling Hudsons Bay 
Company, by the government of Canada. The 
rebellion was directed against the annexation of 
the territory over the Metis -- who numbered some 
10,000 in the region. A force of 400 armed Metis 
seized a small garrison and demanded democratic 
rights for the Metis in the Confederation. The 
following year the Manitoba Act made the 
territory a province. However, fifteen years 
later in 1885 the Metis along with hundreds of 
Cree warriors under the chiefs Big Bear and 
Opetecahanawaywin (Poundmaker) were again engaged 
in widespread armed resistance against 
colonization. For almost four months the 
resistance continued against thousands of 
government troops which, unlike in 1870, were no 
transported quickly and en masse on the new 
Canadian Pacific railway. After several clashes 
the Metis and Cree warriors were eventually 
defeated; the Cree and Metis guerrillas 
imprisoned, killed in battles or executed. 
Another Metis leader, Gabriel Dumont, escaped to the US.

The Metis and Cree resistance of 1885 was the 
final chapter of armed resistance in the 19th 
century. However, the use of military force in 
controlling Native peoples was already being 
bypassed by the Indian Act of 1876, itself a 
reaffirmation and expansion on previous 
legislation concerning Native peoples. This Act, 
with subsequent additions and changes, remains 
the basis of Native legislation in Canada today.

Under the Indian Act, the federal government 
through its Department of Indian Affairs is given 
complete control over the economic, social, and 
political affairs of Native communities. More 
than just a legislative instrument to administer 
"Indian affairs", the Indian Act was and is an 
attack on the very foundations of the First 
Nations as nations. Besides restricting hunting 
and fishing, criminalizing independent economic 
livelihood (ie. in 1881 the Act made it illegal 
for Natives to "sell, barter or traffic fish"), 
the Act also declared who was and who was not an 
Indian, it removed "Indian status" from Native 
women who married a non-Native, and criminalized 
vital aspects of Native organization and culture 
such as the potlatch, the sun-dance, and pow-wow. 
Everything that formed the political, social, and 
economic bases of Native societies was 
restricted; the culture was attacked because it 
stood as the final barrier of resistance to 
European colonization. In the area of political organization,
"The Indian Act (of 1880) created a new branch of 
the civil service that was to be called the 
Department of Indian Affairs. It once again 
empowered the superintendent general to impose 
the elective system of band government... In 
addition, this new legislation allowed the 
superintended general to deprive the traditional 
leaders of recognition by stating that the only 
spokesmen of the band were those men elected 
according to...the Indian Act" [39].

In 1894, amendments to the Act authorized the 
forced relocation of Native children to 
residential boarding schools, which were seen as 
superior to schools on the reserves because it 
removed the children from the influence of the 
Native community. Isolated children in the total 
control of Europeans were easier to break; Native 
languages were forbidden and all customs, values, 
religious traditions and even clothing were to be 
replaced by European forms. Sexual and physical 
abuse were common characteristics of these 
schools, and their effects have been 
devastatingly effective in partially 
acculturating generations of Native peoples.

The Indian Act followed earlier legislation in 
that the long-term objective was the assimilation 
of Christianized Natives, gradually removing any 
"special status" for Native peoples and 
eliminating reserves and treaty rights; all of 
which would make the complete exploitation of the 
land a simple task. As part of this strategy of 
containing and repressing Native peoples who did 
not assimilate, and who were thus an obstacle to 
the full expansion of Canada, the Indian Act also 
denied the right to vote to Native peoples and 
implemented a pass system similar if not the 
forerunner to the Pass Laws in the Bantustans of 
South Africa (it should also be noted that Asian 
peoples were denied the right to vote as well and 
were subjected to viciously racist campaigns in 
BC by both the government and the labour 
movement; only in 1950 were Native and Asian 
peoples given this "illustrious" right).



EXTERMINATION - ASSIMILATION: TWO METHODS, ONE GOAL

In the early 1900s, the population of Native 
peoples in North America had reached their lowest 
point. In the US alone this population had 
declined to some 250,000. As in Canada, Native 
peoples had been consigned to largely desolate 
land areas and the process of assimilation began 
through government agencies such as the Bureau of 
Indian Affairs. Here too, residential schools, 
criminalization of Native cultures, and control 
of political and economic systems were the 
instruments used. Native peoples, like those in 
Canada, were viewed as obstacles to be crushed in the drive for profits.

In both countries, resistance to this 
assimilation continued in various forms: 
potlatches and sun-dances were continued in 
clandestinity and the elected band councils 
opposed. As well, Native peoples began forming 
organizations to work against government polices. 
In 1912, the Alaska Native Brotherhood was formed 
by the Tlingit and Tsimshian at Sikta. That same 
year, the Nishga Land Claims Petition was 
presented to the Canadian government concerning 
the recognition of aboriginal title; no treaties 
had or have been signed with First Nations in BC 
-- with the exception of a north-eastern corner 
of BC included in Treaty No. 8 and some minor 
treaties on Vancouver Island. Yet Natives in BC 
had found themselves dispossessed of their 
territory and subjected to the Indian Act. In 
1916 the Nishga joined with the interior Salish 
and formed another inter-tribal organization, the 
Allied Tribes of BC. Funds were raised, meetings 
held, and petitions sent to Ottawa. In 1927, a 
special Joint Committee of the Senate and House 
of Commons found that Natives had "not 
established any claim to the lands of BC based on 
aboriginal or other title" [40]. That same year 
Section 141 was added to the Indian Act 
prohibiting "raising money and prosecuting claims 
to land or retaining a lawyer".

While the European nations would lead the world 
into two great wars for hegemony, political 
instability and economic depredations formed the 
general pattern in South and Central America. 
Military regimes backed by US and British 
imperialism carried out genocidal policies and 
severe repression against Indigenous peoples. As 
in North America, Indigenous peoples were 
consigned to desolate reserve lands where the 
state or missionaries retained control over 
political, economic, social and cultural systems. 
However, in contrast to the colonization of North 
America, where Native peoples were viewed as 
irrelevant to economic expansion, the Indians of 
South and Central America remained as substantial 
sources of exploited labour. With the large-scale 
investments from the imperialist centres in the 
form of loans, the export of primary resources 
took priority. The "rubber boom" was one example, 
where tens of thousands of Indians died in forced 
labour, relocations, and massacres carried out by 
large "land owners", companies, and hired death squads.

"In the wake of the rubber boom, Colombia, 
Ecuador and Peru became battlegrounds for a war 
between oil companies. Subsidiaries of Shell and 
Exxon fought for exploration rights in the 
Amazon, even to the extent of becoming involved 
in a border war between Ecuador and Peru in 
1941... In Brazil...87 Indian groups were wiped 
out in the first half of the 20th century from 
contact with expanding colonial frontiers -- 
especially rubber and mining in the northwest, 
cattle in the northeast, agriculture in the south 
and east, and from road building throughout all regions" [41].

While policies of forced assimilation were 
occasionally articulated, military and 
paramilitary forces were to remain an essential 
part of controlling Native communities and 
opening up territories to exploitation. The most 
violent manifestation of this repression came in 
El Salvador in 1932, where as many as 30,000 
people, primarily Indian peasants, were massacred 
following an uprising against the military 
dictatorship that took power the year prior. 
While the massacres were carried out under the 
guise of "anti-communism", US and Canadian naval 
vessels stood offshore, and US Marines in 
Nicaragua were put on alert. However, "It was 
found unnecessary for the US...and British forces 
to land" the US Chief of Naval Operations would 
testify before Congress, "as the Salvadoran 
government had the situation in hand" [42]. 
During the same period in Colombia, the Indian 
leader Quintin Lame helped initiate struggles for 
land and developed an Indigenous philosophy of 
resistance; in the early 1980s, his legacy would 
live on in the Indian guerrilla group "Commando 
Quintin Lame". Gonzalo Sanchez was another leader 
who helped organize the Supreme Council of 
Indians in Natagaima, Colombia, in 1920.

After World War 2, significant changes in the 
world capitalist economy would see increased 
penetration of the Amazon and other lowland 
forest regions in South America. In the post-War 
period, the US emerged in a dominant position in 
the world economy and would subsequently move to 
open up markets for economic expansion. In 
Western Europe and Japan, as part of the Marshall 
Plan, some $30 billion in loans and aid was 
pumped into the economies to rebuild these 
countries as US markets and, not insignificantly, 
as a base of containment against the USSR 
(military alliances were also created through 
NATO and SEATO, positioned against the East Bloc).

South and Central America were to be brought 
firmly under US control, a process begun during 
the early 1900s as the US moved to replace 
Britain as the dominant imperialist nation in the 
region, even paying off debts owned to Britain. 
As part of the US post-War plans, South and 
Central America would also receive billions of 
dollars in direct financial aid from the US and 
from private transnational banks. This aid 
allowed the "underdeveloped" countries to 
industrialize by importing modern technology from 
the US (in fact, as part of US financial aid, the 
loans had to be spent in the US). The enormous 
debts incurred in this process guaranteed 
dependence and opened up these countries to 
multinational corporations. As well, 
international organizations such as the World 
Bank, International Bank for Reconstruction and 
Development, and the Agency for International 
Development (AID) were formed to provide 
multilateral funding aimed largely at the 
agro-export sectors, resource extraction, 
hydro-electric projects and infrastructure 
(roads, communications, etc.) necessary for the 
development of those industries. Linked to this 
"aid" scheme is the International Monetary Fund, 
which doesn't fund specific projects but instead 
steps in with balance of payments support when a 
country is unable to pay its debts.

These projects and the overall industrialization 
opened up areas for further exploitation; 
penetration of areas such as the Amazon and 
large-scale expropriations accelerated in the 
1960s, further devastating Indigenous peoples and 
leading to renewed campaigns of extermination.

Of course, all this economic restructuring did 
not occur without growing resistance. With 
growing movements against imperialism, including 
peasant unions, students, workers, guerrillas and 
Indians, a substantial part of the "aid" included 
military training, weapons, and equipment. US 
Special Forces troopers were not only in 
Southeast Asia, they were also quite busy in 
Central America, training death squads and 
directing massacres. As part of an overall 
counter-insurgency campaign, the militarization 
alone precipitated an upward spiral of violence. 
In Guatemala alone, between 1966-68, some 8,000 
people were slaughtered by Guatemalan soldiers 
under the direction of US Green Beret advisors; 
US pilots flew US planes on bombing missions. 
Paramilitary groups/death squads hunted down 
"subversives" in collaboration with the 
government, military, multinationals, and 
land-owners [43]. The main targets of this 
campaign, dubbed "Operation Guatemala", were the Mayan peoples.

Another aspect of the counter-insurgency plans 
was that of population control. Primarily the 
focus of US state-funding, the Agency for 
International Development (AID) was established 
in 1961. Using the false pretext of an 
"over-population problem" being the cause of mass 
poverty and starvation -- instead of imperialism 
-- population control came to be championed as 
the most important dilemma facing the "modern 
world". Under the guise of "family planning", AID 
began funding for a wide-range of public and 
private organizations, foundations, and churches 
who provided training, equipment, and clinics for 
birth control programs. Between 1968 and 1972, 
"funds earmarked for population programs through 
legislation and obligated by AID amounted to more 
than $250 million" [44]. South America received 
the largest percentage of this funding. Besides 
educational material, birth control pills, IUDs, 
and other pharmaceuticals developed by a 
profitable gene and biotechnology industry in the 
imperialist centres, the main thrust of 
population control remains sterilization. Between 
1965-71, an estimated 1 million women in Brazil 
had been sterilized [45]. In Puerto Rico, 34% of 
all women of child-bearing age had been 
sterilized by 1965 [46]. Between 1963-65, more 
than 40,000 women in Colombia had been sterilized 
[47]. In contrast to these programs in the "Third 
World", the imperialist centres see restrictions 
on abortion and struggles for women's 
reproductive choice. But even here there is a 
double standard for non-European women:
"Lee Brightman, United Native Americans 
President, estimates that of the Native 
population of 800,000 (in the US), as many as 42% 
of the women of childbearing age and 10% of the 
men...have been sterilized... The first official 
inquiry into the sterilization of Native 
women...by Dr. Connie Uri...reported that 25,000 
Indian women had been permanently sterilized 
within Indian Health Services facilities alone through 1975...

"According to a 1970 fertilization study, 20% of 
married Black women had been sterilized, almost 
three times the percentage of white married 
women. There was a 180% rise in the number of 
sterilizations performed during 1972-73 in New 
York City municipal hospitals which serve 
predominantly Puerto Rican neighbourhoods" [48].

Similar results were found in Inuit communities 
in the Northwest Territories. Clearly, 
"overpopulation" is not an issue in North 
America, nor is it in South or Central America. 
Rather, it is a method for reducing specific 
portions of the population who would organize 
against their oppression and who have no place in 
the schemes of capital. In other words, "It is 
more effective to kill guerrillas in the womb".

Of all the South American countries that 
underwent massive industrialization after World 
War 2, Brazil is probably the most well known. 
Following a 1964 coup backed by the US, IMF and 
multinationals, foreign investment rose steadily. 
Between 1964-71, over $4 billion had been pumped 
into Brazil through the World Bank, AID, IDB, and others [49].

Between 1900-57, the Indigenous population of 
Brazil had declined from over 1 million to less 
than 200,000 [50], through the rubber boom, 
ranching, and mining industries. Following the 
1964 coup and the rise in foreign investment, the 
penetration of the Amazon region in particular 
was increased. As these industries invaded even 
more Indian lands, a renewed campaign of 
extermination accompanied them. Indians were 
hunted down by death squads, their communities 
bombed and massacred, and disease epidemics 
purposely spread through injections and infected blankets. In the 1960s alone,
"Of the 19,000 Monducurus believed to have 
existed in the 30s, only 1200 were left. The 
strength of the Guaranis had been reduced from 
5,000 to 300. There were 400 Carajas left out of 
4,000. Of the Cintas Largas, who had been 
attacked from the air and driven into the 
mountains, possibly 500 had survived out of 
10,000... Some like the Tapaiunas -- in this case 
from a gift of sugar laced with arsenic -- had disappeared altogether" [51].

All these atrocities were part of a 
"pacification" campaign aimed at eliminating the 
Indians, who here too were seen as obstacles to 
"development". The government agencies 
responsible for "Indian affairs" were some of the 
worst agents in this campaign, so much so that 
the poorly-named Indian Protection Service had to 
be disbanded and replaced by the National Indian 
Foundation (FUNAI). Not surprisingly, the only 
real changes were in the names. By 1970, plans 
for building an extensive road system for all the 
industries that had recently invaded the Amazon 
were announced. The following year, the president 
of FUNAI signed a decree which read "Assistance 
to the Indian will be as complete as possible, 
but cannot obstruct national development nor 
block the various axes of penetration into the 
Amazon region" [52]. The Trans-Amazonic road 
system resulted in the forced relocation of some 
25 Indian nations and thousands of deaths. The 
struggle against the roads continues today.

Brazil is only one example; similar developments 
resulted in other South American countries.

Seemingly in contrast to these extermination 
campaigns, Canada appeared to be moving towards a 
much more "liberal" epoch; why, Natives had even 
been given the "right" to vote, the pass laws had 
been scrapped, and potlatches were once again 
permitted! In fact, the Indian Act itself was 
being viewed by some as an impediment to the 
assimilation of Native peoples. The combined 
effects of the Indian Act, the residential 
schools, etc. had so debilitated Native peoples 
that they were almost no longer needed; once 
powerful cultural bases, such as the potlatch, 
were reduced to near spectacles for the enjoyment 
of Euro-Canadians similar to rodeo shows. By 
1969, the government went so far as to articulate 
its goals in the aptly-named "White Paper"; the 
intent was to end the special legal and 
constitutional status of Natives, and to deny the 
relevancy of treaty rights. Ostensibly a policy 
to "help" the Indian, the paper even suggested a 
total revision of the Indian Act and a gradual 
phasing out of the Department of Indian Affairs 
over a five year period. In the denial of treaty 
rights and land claims, the paper stated,
"These aboriginal claims to land are so general 
and undefined that it is not realistic to think 
of them as specific claims capable of remedy 
except through a policy and program that will end 
injustice to Indians as members of the Canadian community" [53].

During the same period, Canada was moving towards 
increased resource extraction. This had begun in 
the 1950s especially in the mining of uranium for 
nuclear energy and as export for the US nuclear 
energy and weapons industry. Uranium mining was 
centred primarily in Saskatchewan and in the US 
southwest. As well, there was increased oil and 
gas exploration in the North and the development 
of hydro-electric projects. What better way to 
push through these dangerous and damaging 
projects than by accelerating the government's 
long-term assimilation policy and denying Native 
land title? Clearly, extermination campaigns in 
Brazil and assimilation policies in Canada are 
two sides of the same coin: destroying Native 
nations and opening up the lands to further 
exploration. What these governments didn't count 
on was the continued resistance of Native peoples.



THE PEOPLE AIM FOR FREEDOM

Along with an explosion of international 
struggles in the 1960s, including national 
liberation movements in Afrika, Asia, and in the 
Americas, there was an upsurge in Native people's 
resistance. This upsurge found its background in 
the continued struggles of Native peoples and the 
development of the struggle against continued 
resource extraction throughout the Americas.

In South and Central America Native resistance 
grew alongside the student, worker, women's and 
guerrilla movements, which were comprised largely 
of Mestizos in the urban centres.

In Ecuador, the Shuar nation had formed a 
federation based on regional associations of 
Shuar communities in 1964, and was influential in 
the development of other Indigenous 
organizations; it would also be the focus of 
government repression as in 1969 when its main 
offices were burnt down and its leaders attacked 
and imprisoned. In 1971, the Indigenous Regional 
Council of Cauca (CRIC) was formed in Colombia by 
2,000 Indians from 10 communities. CRIC quickly 
initiated a campaign for recuperating stolen 
reserve lands. In Bolivia, two Aymaran 
organizations were formed: the Mink'a and the 
Movimiento Tupac Katari. National and 
international conferences were held in various 
countries, and by 1974 a conference in Paraguay 
drew delegates from every country in South and 
Central America from a large number of Indian nations.

A primary focus of these Indigenous movements was 
recuperating stolen lands, and widespread 
occupations, protests, and road blockades were 
organized. In Chile, Mapuches began 
"fence-running" -- moving fences which separated 
reserve lands from farm lands and extending the 
reserve territory. In Mexico, Indigenous peasants 
carried out large-scale occupations: by 1975 
there were 76 occupations in Sinaloa alone, and 
some 25,000 acres of land occupied in Sinaloa and 
Sonora. By December of 1976, tens of thousands 
occupied land in Sonora, Sinaloa, Durango, and 
Coahuila [54]. Of course, these and many other 
occupations and protests did not occur without 
severe repression. Assassinations, massacres, 
destruction of communities, and scorched earth 
policies were directed against the Indigenous movements.

Similarly, the reclaiming of traditional Indian 
lands was also a primary focus of struggle in 
North America. One of the first of these 
occupations in this period was the seizing of the 
Seaway International Bridge in Ontario by 
Mohawks, in December 1968. The action was to 
protest the Canadian state's decision to levy 
customs duties on goods carried across the 
international border by Mohawks, despite a treaty 
which stipulated this right and the fact that the 
border area was on Mohawk land. The occupation 
ended when RCMP and Ontario Provincial Police 
stormed the bridge and arrested 48 Mohawks. 
However, the struggle of the Mohawks was was to 
precipitate occupations which were to follow as a 
"Red Nationalism/Red Power" movement swept across 
both Canada and the US, alongside Black, Chicano, 
and Puerto Rican liberation movements.

In 1968, the American Indian Movement (AIM) was 
formed in Minneapolis-St. Paul. At first an 
organization modelled after Euro-American Left 
groups and inspired in part by the Civil Rights 
struggles of the 1950s and 60s, as well as the 
Black Panthers, AIM organized against police 
violence, racism, and poverty. Initially 
urban-based and predominantly centred in the 
Dakotas and Nebraska, AIM quickly spread to a 
widespread movement represented in both urban ghettos and rural reserve areas.

Although AIM members would be involved in many of 
the struggles that would develop -- partly 
because AIM was an international movement and not 
regional -- AIM itself was only one part of the 
"Red Nationalist" movement. In 1968, the National 
Alliance for Red Power had formed on the West 
Coast, and the following year Indians occupied 
Alcatraz Island in San Francisco harbour, 
claiming they had "discovered" it; the occupation 
would last 19 months and would become known as 
the first major event in the struggle for "Red 
Power". Another aspect of this period was the 
continuing local and regional daily struggles, 
independent though not totally unrelated from the 
emerging Native liberation movement, in 
communities fighting theft of land, poverty, 
pollution, etc. In 1970, for example, 200 Metis 
and Indians occupied the Alberta New Start Centre 
at Lac La Biche, protesting against the federal 
government's cancellation of the program.

That same year, AIM participated in the 
occupation of Plymouth Rock and the Mayflower 
ship replica on "Thanksgiving Day", as well as 
organizing protests and actions against the BIA 
[Bureau of Indian Affairs - SISIS ed.]. In South 
Dakota, a protest at the Custer Courthouse was 
attacked by police, leading to a riot in which 
the court and several buildings were burned down. 
In 1972, AIM organized the "Trail of Broken 
Treaties Caravan", and prepared a 20 point 
position paper concerning the general conditions 
of Native peoples in the US. The Trail ended in 
Washington, DC, where demonstrators occupied and 
destroyed the offices of the BIA.

The following year, traditionalists in the Pine 
Ridge reservation in South Dakota requested AIM 
support after a campaign of terror led by Tribal 
President Dick Wilson and BIA thugs. On February 
27, a caravan of people went to Wounded Knee for 
a council -- the site of the 1890 massacre. The 
area was almost immediately surrounded by police, 
and a one day meeting turned into a 71 day armed 
occupation in which 300 people resisted a large 
military and paramilitary force consisting of FBI 
agents, BIA police, local and state police, and 
military personnel. Two Natives were shot dead, 
two wounded, and one Federal Agent wounded. Three 
weeks into the liberation of Wounded Knee, the 
Independent Oglala Nation was established.
"The Independent Oglala Nation was more than just 
a brave gesture by a band of besieged Indians. It 
represented the gravest threat in more than a 
century to the plans of the US government to 
subdue the Native people of the US and to deprive 
them of their lands for the exploitation and profit of white interests" [55].

As supplied dwindled and the military prepared 
for a final assault, the defenders decided to 
withdraw. On May 7, about half the people 
filtered through the enemy lines, and the 
following day about 150 who remained laid down 
their arms. In the period following, the FBI, 
BIA, and Wilson's regime conducted a campaign of 
terror; by 1976 as many as 250 people in and 
around Pine Ridge were dead, including 50 members 
of AIM. Shootings, firebombings, assaults, and 
assassinations were carried out by Wilson's goons 
and in conjunction with the FBI's 
Counter-Intelligence Program (COINTELPRO). On 
June 26, 1975, an FBI raid on an AIM encampment 
resulted in a fire-fight in which two FBI agents 
and an Oglala, Joseph Stuntz, were shot dead. 
Although Stuntz' death was never investigated, 
nor were the many other killings of Oglala 
traditionalists and AIM members during this 
period, the FBI launched a campaign to imprison 
AIM members for the two dead agents. Eventually 
<http://www.unicom.net/peltier/index.html>Leonard 
Peltier would be convicted of the killings in a 
trial that showed nothing more than that the FBI 
had fabricated evidence and testimony.

In the same year as the liberation of Wounded 
Knee, AIM was also established in Canada 
following the Cache Creek highway blockade in BC. 
The blockade was against poor housing conditions 
on a nearby Native reserve. In November of that 
year, the Indian Affairs office in Kenora, 
Ontario was occupied for one day by Ojibways. The 
following year, members of the Ojibway Warrior's 
Society and AIM initiated an armed occupation of 
Anicinabe Park, near Kenora, from July 22 to 
August 8. Two months earlier, Mohawks from 
Akwesasne and Kahnawake had occupied Moss Lake in 
upper state New York, reclaiming and renaming the 
area Ganienkeh -- Land of the Flint, the 
traditional name for the Kanienkehake, People of 
the Flint. After a shooting incident between 
White vigilantes and Mohawks, police insisted on 
entering Ganienkeh to investigate but were 
refused entry. As the threat of a police raid 
increased, Natives, including some veterans from 
Wounded Knee, rushed to Ganienkeh. Bunkers were 
built and defensive lines established. In the 
end, police withdrew (in 1977, the Mohawks agreed 
to leave Moss Lake in exchange for land in 
Clinton County, which is closer to Kahnawake and Akwesasne).

On September 14, 1974, the "Native People's 
Caravan" left Vancouver, initiated by Natives who 
had participated in the Anicinabe Park 
occupation. Similar to the Trail of Broken 
Treaties, the Caravan demanded recognition and 
respect for treaty and aboriginal rights, 
settlement of Native land claims, an end to the 
Indian Act, and an investigation of the DIA by 
Natives aimed at dissolving it. By September 
30th, the Caravan had brought around 800-900 
Natives to Parliament Hill in Ottawa. Instead of 
a meeting with parliament, the protest faced riot 
police and barricades. As police attacked the 
demonstration, clashes broke out, leaving dozens 
of Natives and nine police injured.

In 1976, the "Trail of Self-Determination" left 
the west coast of the US as one of many 
anti-Bicentennial protests organized by Native 
peoples. Its purpose was to get the government's 
answer to the points raised by the 1972 caravan. 
As in that protest, government officials refused 
to meet with the people and 47 demonstrators were 
arrested at the BIA offices in Washington, DC.

It was also during this period that Native 
peoples began organizing around international 
bodies. In the US, members of AIM and numerous 
traditional leaders and elders formed the 
International Indian Treaty Conference, in 1974.

"The thrust of the Treaty Conference is for 
recognition of treaties by the US as a means of 
restoring sovereign relations between the native 
nations and that country. Then, there will be 
moves to control exploitation, return control of 
native lands to...the native nation, and a return 
of forms of government appropriate to each nation" [56].

The IITC was the first Indian organization to 
apply for and receive UN Non-Governmental status. 
Delegates from the IITC, CRIC, and other South 
and Central American Indigenous organizations 
formed the basis for developing legalistic 
frameworks based on international laws aimed at 
restoring sovereign nation status for First 
Nations. Conferences such as the 1977 
UN-sponsored NGO meeting on "problems of Western 
Hemisphere Indigenous Peoples" or the Fourth 
International Russell Tribunal in 1980 were 
organized to examine and document the 
continuation of genocidal practises, and to 
develop policies concerning these issues/ The end 
result of these conferences appears to be a forum 
for documenting genocide, and, at best, exerting 
some level of international pressure on 
particular countries. As AIM member Russell Means 
has stated, "It appears useless to appeal to the 
US or its legal system to restore its honor by 
honoring its treaties" [57]. In light of the 
recent UN role in the US-led Gulf War, and its 
recent repeal of the condemnation of Zionism as 
racism, the UN itself seems useless.



THE STRUGGLE FOR LAND

As previously discussed, the world economic 
system underwent profound changes following and 
as a result of the Second World War. In the 
post-War economic boom, plans for new energy 
policies began to be formulated in the US and 
Canada. As already noted, one aspect of these 
plans was based on uranium mining and its 
application in nuclear energy and weapons 
systems. As well, plans for diverting water 
and/or hydro-electric power from Canada to the US 
were also formulated in 1964 through the North 
American Water and Power Alliance (NAWAPA). 
Following the 1973 "Oil Crisis", plans for 
developing "internal" energy sources were 
intensified. In the US, this energy policy was dubbed "Project Independence".

"It seems clear that the US government has 
anticipated that American natives -- like those 
of other colonized areas of the world who have 
tried to resist the theft of their natural 
resources -- might put up a fight... [T]his seems 
the most logical conclusion to draw from Senate 
Bill 826, an expansion of the Federal Energy Act 
of 1974 into a US centred `comprehensive energy 
policy'. Section 616 of this Bill proposes that 
the Energy Administrator `is authorized to 
provide for participation of military personnel 
in the performance of his functions' and that 
armed forces personnel so assigned will be, in 
effect, an independent `energy-army', under the 
direct control of the Department of Energy" [58].

As well, in 1971 a group of electrical power 
generation companies and government resources 
bureaucrats issued the North Central Power Study, 
"which proposed the development of coal strip 
mining in Montana, Wyoming, and the Dakotas..." [59].

In Canada, these plans can be seen in the 
hydro-electric projects built in Manitoba and in 
James Bay, northern Quebec. There was also the 
penetration of the Canadian north with oil and 
gas exploration, the Mackenzie Valley pipeline, 
uranium mining in Saskatchewan, etc. In the US, 
the new energy policies precipitated various attacks on Native nations.

In 1974, Public Law 93-531 was passed authorizing 
the partition of joint Hopi and Navajo lands in 
northern Arizona and the forced relocation of 
some 13,000 people. The purpose of the relocation 
was ostensibly to resolve a false "Hopi-Navajo 
land dispute". In fact, there is some 19 billion 
tons of coal in this land. Another example is 
that of Wounded Knee. During World War 2, a 
north-western portion of the Pine Ridge 
reservation was "borrowed" by the federal 
government for use as an aerial gunnery range. It 
was to be returned when the war ended.
"Well, the war ended in 1945 and along about 
1970, some of the traditional people one the 
reserve started asking `Where is our land? We 
want it back'. What had happened was that a 
certain agency...NASA, had circled a satellite 
and that satellite was circled in co-operation 
with...the National Uranium Research and 
Evaluations Institute... What they discovered was 
that there was a particularly rich uranium 
deposit within...the gunnery range" [60].

Dick Wilson was put in place as Tribal Council 
President, financed, supplied and backed by the 
government, with the purpose of having him sign 
over the gunnery range lands to the US 
government. On June 26, 1975, Dick Wilson signed 
this 10 per cent of the Pine Ridge reserve land 
to the federal government; the same day that the FBI raided the AIM encampment.
"In a period barely exceeding 200 years, the 100% 
of the territory which was in Indigenous hands in 
1600, was reduced to 10% and over the next 100 
years to 3%. We retain nominal rights to about 3% 
of our original territory within the USA today. 
Native peoples were consigned to what was thought 
to be the most useless possible land... 
Ironically, from the perspective of the Predator, 
this turned out to be the land which contained 
about 2/3 of what the US considers to be its 
domestic uranium reserve. Perhaps 25% of the 
readily accessible low-sulphur coal. Perhaps 1/5 
of the oil and natural gas. Virtually all of the 
copper and bauxite... There is gold. There are 
renewable resources and water rights in the arid west" [61].

Similar comparisons can be found in Canada and 
the countries of South and Central America. With 
massive changes in industrialization and in 
energy demands, along with new technologies in 
locating and extracting resources, the 
colonization process has, since the Second World 
War, entered a new phase. Along with these 
flashpoints arising from the "Last Indian War: 
For Energy", there is the daily demands of 
capital in other industries such as forestry, 
fishing, rubber, agriculture, ranching, etc. and 
in land for military weapons testing, training, etc.

Taking these developments since World War 2, and 
the colonization process prior t this, an 
understanding of the history of Indigenous 
resistance becomes clearer. Most importantly, 
however, is understanding that this resistance continues today.



IN TOTAL RESISTANCE

"Now that war is being forced upon us, we will 
turn our hearts and minds to war and it too we 
will wage with all our might... Our Spirits are 
strong. We are together at last with ourselves 
and the world of our ancestors; we are proud 
before our children and our generations unborn... 
We are free. No yoke of white government 
oppression can contain us. We are free" - Mohawk 
Nation Office, August 27, 1990.

In March 1990, the Mohawks of Kanesatake occupied 
the Pines -- traditional lands which also contain 
the peoples cemetery and a lacrosse field -- 
against the Municipality of Oka's plans to expand 
an adjacent golf course over the Pines. The golf 
course expansion was part of Oka's plans to 
expand a lucrative tourist industry. On July 11, 
over 100 members of the Quebec Provincial Police 
(SQ) attacked the barricades, opening fire on 
mostly women and children and firing tear-gas and 
concussion grenades. Members of the Kahnawake 
Warrior's Society and warriors from Kanesatake 
returned fire. In the exchange of fire, one SQ 
officer was killed. Following the fire-fight in 
the Pines and the retreat of the police, Warriors 
from Kahnawake seized the Mercier Bridge -- a 
major commuter bridge into Montreal -- to deter a 
second SQ attack. More barricades were erected on 
roads and highways around both Kanesatake and 
Kahnawake by hundreds of Mohawk women and men -- 
setting into motion one of the longest armed 
stand-offs in North America in recent history. 
The stand-off, which saw hundreds of police and 
over 4,000 troops from the Canadian Armed Forces 
deployed, initiated widespread solidarity from 
Native peoples across Canada; road and railway 
blockades were erected, Indian Affairs offices 
occupied, demonstrations held, and sabotage 
carried out against railway bridges and 
electrical power lines. The vulnerability of such 
infrastructure was well know, and in fact this 
possibility of an escalation of Native resistance 
was a main part of why there was no massacre 
carried out against the Natives and supporters 
who held out in the Treatment Centre. On 
September 26, the last remaining defenders made 
the collective decision to disengage -- not 
surrender -- and began to move out of the area. 
They were, in theory, walking home, refusing to 
surrender for they had committed no "crimes" in 
defending sovereign Mohawk land. Needless to say, 
the colonialist occupation forces disagreed and 
captured the defenders, subjecting some of the 
Warriors to torture including beatings and mock executions.

At the same time, members of the Peigan 
Lonefighter's Society had diverted the sacred 
Oldman River away from a dam system in Alberta 
and confronted the RCMP. Milton Born With A Tooth 
would subsequently be arrested for firing two 
warning shots into the air. He has since been sentenced to 18 months.

As well, the 
<http://kafka.uvic.ca/%7Evipirg/SISIS/Lil%27Wat/main.html>Lil'wat 
nation in BC erected road blockades on their 
traditional land in an assertion of their 
sovereignty as well as part of the solidarity 
campaign with the Mohawks. Four months later the 
RCMP would raid the blockade and arrest some 50 
Lil'wat and supporters, on November 6. On 
November 24, a logging operation on 
<http://kafka.uvic.ca/%7Evipirg/Lubicon/main.html>Lubicon 
Cree land in northern Alberta was attacked and 
some $20,000 damage inflicted on vehicles and 
equipment. Thirteen Lubicon Cree including Chief 
Bernard Ominayak were subsequently charged with 
the action but have yet to be put on trial; a 
trial they have refused to recognize as having 
any jurisdiction on Lubicon Cree land.

During the same period, Indigenous peoples in 
South America were carrying forward their struggles.

In Bolivia in October , 1990, some 800 Indians 
from the Amazon region -- Moxenos, Yuracares, 
Chimanes and Guaranies -- walked 330 miles from 
the northern city of Trinidad to La Paz in a 
month-long "March for Land and Dignity". When the 
march reached the mountain pass that separates 
the highlands from the Amazon plains, thousands 
of Aymaras, Quechuas and Urus from across the 
Bolivian highlands were there to greet them. Like 
their sisters and brothers in North America, this 
march was against logging operations as well as cattle ranching on Indian land.

In Ecuador, from June 4th to 8th, 1990, a 
widespread Indigenous uprising paralyzed the 
country. Nearly all major roads and highways were 
blocked, demonstrations and festivals of up to 
50,000 spread throughout the country, despite 
massive police and military repression. 
Demonstrations were attacked, protesters beaten, 
tear-gassed and shot. Through the coordination of 
CONAIE (Confederacion de Nacionalidades del 
Ecuador) -- a national Indian organization formed 
in 1986 -- a 16 point "Mandate for the Defense, 
Life, and Rights of the Indigenous Nationalities" 
was released. The demands included control of 
Indian lands, constitutional and tax reforms, and 
the dissolution of various government-controlled 
pseudo-Indian organizations. The government 
agreed to negotiations on the demands; the 
uprising had restricted food supplies to the 
urban areas, disrupted water and electricity 
supply, closed down schools, and occupied oil 
wells, airports, and radio stations. The 
Indigenous uprising had effectively shut down the country.

In the 500 years since the Genocide first landed 
in the Caribbean, it's clear that the 
colonization process continues; the killings, 
thefts, and destruction of natural life 
continues. The original conquistadors have been 
replaced by military forces and death squads in 
the South, and by military and police forces in 
the North. European disease epidemics continue, 
now joined by deadly pesticides and industrial 
pollutants. Slavery is gone, so we are told, but 
in any case Indigenous peoples, Blacks, and poor 
Mestizos fill the prisons in disproportionate 
numbers. And some things haven't really changed 
at all: the original peoples still exist in 
conditions of poverty, suicides, and the despair 
of alcoholism -- conditions introduced 500 years 
ago. But something else has also remained: the 
spirit of resistance and the struggle against the 
colonizers. The resistance against this genocide 
has been continuous and shows that the people 
have neither been defeated nor conquered.

In this way, the Campaign for 500 Years of 
Indigenous Resistance in 1992 forms an important 
point in this history: "In our continent, history 
can be divided into 3 phases; before the arrival 
of the invaders; these five hundred years; and 
that period, beginning today, which we must 
define and build" (Campaign 500 Years of Resistance and Popular Resistance).

In the Spirit of Crazy Horse,
In the Spirit of Tupac Katari,
In Total Resistance.




FOOTNOTES

Sources for the population of Indigenous peoples prior to 1492 include:
Henry F. Dobyns, Native American Historical 
Demography: A Critical Bibliography, University 
of Indiana Press 1976; "Estimating Aboriginal 
Population: An Appraisal of Techniques with a New 
Hemispheric Estimate", Current Anthropology, no. 7, 1966.

Pierre Chanu, Conquete et Exploitation de 
Nouveaux Mondes (XVIe Siecle), Paris 1969 
(estimates population at 80-100 million).

William R. Jacobs, "The Tip of an Iceberg; 
Revisionism", in William and Mary Quarterly, No. 
31, 1974 (estimates population at 50-100 million).

Woodrow Wilson Borah, "America as Model: The 
Demographic Impact of European Expansion Upon the 
Non-European World", in Actas y Memorias XXXV 
Congreso Internacional de Americanistas, Mexico 
1962 (estimates population at 100 million). 
Source: Roxanne Dunbar Ortiz, Indians of the Americas.

1. Robert H. Fuson, The Log of Christopher 
Colombus, International Marine Publishing Co., Maine 1987, pg. 76.

2. Ibid, pg. 80. Colombo was inconsistent on the 
actual number of Taino he kidnapped.

3. Ibid, pg. 107.

4. Akwesasne Notes, Vol. 9, No. 4.

5. Jack Weatherford, Indian Givers, Ballantine Books, New York, 1988.

6. Alfred W. Crosby, "The Biological Consequences 
of 1492", Report on the Americas, Vol. XXV No. 2, 
pg. 11. 7. Roxanne Dunbar Ortiz, Indians of the 
Americas, Praeger Publishers, New York 1984.

8. Francis Jennings, The Invasion of America: 
Indians, Colonialism, and the Cant of Conquest, 
University of North Carolina Press. Jennings 
documents the activities of these first colonies, 
frequently relying on period manuscripts.

9. Ibid, pg. 85.

10. Ibid, pg. 33.

11. Ibid, pg. 76.

12. Ortiz, op. cit.

13. John S. Milloy, "The Early Indian Acts: 
Developmental Strategy and Constitutional 
Change", As Long As The Sun Shines and Water 
Flows, University of BC Press, 1983, pg. 56.

14. George F. G. Stanley, "As Long as the Sun 
Shines and the Water Flows: An Historical Comment", ibid. pg. 5-6.

15. John L. Tobias, "Protection, Civilization, 
Assimilation: An Outline History of Canada's Indian Policy", ibid. pg. 40.

16. Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui, "Aymara Past, 
Aymara Future", Report on the Americas, Vol. XXV 
No. 3, pg. 20. 17. John S. Henderson, The World 
of the Ancient Maya, Cornell University Press, 1981, pg. 32.

18. Sylvia Rivera Cusicanqui, op. cit.

19. Ibid. pg. 21.

20. Roxanne Dunbar Ortiz, op. cit.

21. Quoted in Les Field, "Ecuador's Pan-Indian 
Uprising", Report on the Americas, Vol. XXV No. 3, pg. 41.

22. Andrew Gray, The Amerindians of South 
America, Minority Rights Group Report No. 15, London 1987, pg. 8.

23. G-7: the grouping of the seven most advanced 
industrialized countries consisting of Britain, 
Canada, France, Italy, Germany, Japan, and the 
USA. The G-7 meet annually to determine world 
economic policies; together they hold dominant 
positions in the world economic order.

24. J. Sakai, Settlers: The Myth of the White 
Proletariat, Morningstar Press, 1989, pg. 27.

25. Ibid, pg. 25.

26. Ibid, pg. 31.

27. Ibid, pg. 39.

28. Ibid, pg. 41.

29. Euro-Canadian: a term used to distinguish 
between descendants of Europeans in the US and those in Canada.

30. Ortiz, op. cit.

31. Negotiations with the Mississaugas of 
southern Ontario were conducted as early as 1781, 
providing land for communities from the 
Haudenosaunee, whose lands were supplied to 
British loyalists in a strategic defensive line 
along the US border. Between 1781 and 1836, 23 
such land cessions were conducted. Not treaties 
but instead "simple real estate deals" in which 
the British paid with goods and later money. In 
1818 the practise was adopted of paying 
annuities. By 1830 these annual payments were 
directed at building houses and purchasing farm 
equipment -- in line with changing colonial 
practises. "This was then followed by the 
establishment of the band fund system", see As 
Long as the Sun Shines, op. cit., pg. 9.

32. Dara Culhane Speck, An Error in Judgement, 
Talonbooks, Vancouver 1987, pg. 72.

33. Wilson Duff, The Indian History of BC, Vol. 
1: The Impact of the White Man, Anthropology in 
BC, Memoir No. 5, 1964. BC Provincial Museum, 
Victoria 1965 (First Edition), pg. 42.

34. Ibid, pg. 42.43.

35. John S. Milloy, op. cit., pg. 58.

36. Kathleen Jamieson, Indian Women and the Law 
in Canada: Citizens Minus, Advisory Council on 
the Status of Women, Indian Rights for Indian Women, Canada 1978, pg. 27-28.

37. Donald R. Colborne, Norman Ziotkin, "Internal 
Canadian Imperialism and the Native People", 
Imperialism, Nationalism, and Canada, Marxist 
Institute of Toronto, Between the Lines and New Hogtown Press 1987, pg. 164.

38. Ibid, pg. 167. Quote from Report of the 
Commission appointed to investigate the 
unfulfilled provisions of Treaties 8 and 11 as 
they apply to the Indians of the Mackenzie District, 1959, pgs. 3-4.

39. John L. Tobias, op. cit., pg. 46.

40. Quoted in Wilson Duff, op. cit., p. 69.

41. Andrew Gray, op. cit., pg. 8.

42. Quoted in Noam Chomsky, Turning the Tide: The 
US and Latin America, Black Rose Books, Montreal 1987, pg. 44.

43. Tom Barry, Deb Preusch, and Beth Wood, 
Dollars and Dictators, Grove Press Inc., New York 1983, pg. 122.

44. Bonnie Mass, The Political Economy of 
Population Control in Latin America, Editions 
Latin America, Montreal 1972, pg. 8.

45. Ibid, pg. 19.

46. Ibid, pg. 41.

47. "Growing Fight Against Sterilization of 
Native Women", Akwesasne Notes, Vol. 11 No. 1, Winter 1979, pg. 29.

48. Ibid, pg. 29.

49. Supysaua: A Documentary Report on the 
Conditions of Indian Peoples in Brazil, Indigena 
Inc. and American Friends of Brazil, Nov. 1974, pg. 48.

50. Ibid, pg. 6.

51. Norman Lewis, "Genocide", Supysaua, op. cit., pg. 9.

52. "The Politics of Genocide Against the Indians 
of Brazil", Supysaua, op. cit., pg. 35.

53. Government of Canada, statement of the 
Government of Canada on Indian Policy, 1969, pg. 11.

54. Jane Adams, "Mexico -- The Struggle for the 
Land", Indigena, Vol. 3 No. 1, Summer 1977, pg. 28, 30.

55. "On the Road to Wounded Knee", Indian Nation, 
Vol. 3, No. 1, April 1976, pg. 15.

56. "North American Sovereign Nations", Akwesasne Notes, Vol. 8 No. 4, pg. 16.

57. Akwesasne Notes, Vol. 8 No. 6.

58. Paula Giese, "The Last Indian War: For 
Energy", Report on the Third International Indian 
Treaty Conference, June 15-19 1977.

59. Ibid.

60. Ward Churchill, "Leonard Peltier, Political 
Prisoner: A Case History of the Land Rip-Offs", 
Red Road, No. 2, June 1991, pg. 6.

61. Ibid, pg. 6.


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