[News] Fighting for Our Lives: #NoDAPL in Historical Context
Anti-Imperialist News
news at freedomarchives.org
Mon Sep 19 11:53:51 EDT 2016
https://therednation.org/2016/09/18/fighting-for-our-lives-nodapl-in-context/
Fighting for Our Lives: #NoDAPL in Historical Context
*by Nick Estes - September 18, 2016
*
img_0879
*by Nick Estes*
Little has been written about the historical relationship between the
movement against the Dakota Access Pipeline and the longer histories of
Oceti Sakowin (The Great Sioux Nation) resistance against the trespass
of settlers, dams, and pipelines across the Mni Sose, the Missouri
River. This is a short analysis of the historical and political context
of the #NoDAPL movement and the transformative possibilities of the
current struggle.
Thousands have camped along the banks of the Missouri River at Cannon
Ball in the Standing Rock Sioux Indian Reservation to halt the
construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL), which promises to
carry half a million barrels of heavy crude oil a day across four
states, under the Missouri River twice, and under the Mississippi River
toward the Gulf of Mexico for global export. Camp Oceti Sakowin, Red
Warrior Camp, and Sacred Stone Camp, the various Native-led groups
standing in unity against DAPL, have brought together the largest,
mass-gathering of Natives and allies in more than a century, all on land
and along a river the Army Corps of Engineers claims sole jurisdiction
and authority over.
How and why did this happen?
In 1803 the wasicu — the fat-takers, the settlers, the capitalists —
claimed this stretch of the river as part of what became the largest
real estate transaction in world history. The fledgling U.S. settler
state “bought” 827 million acres from the French Crown in the Louisiana
Purchase and sent two white explorers, Lewis and Clark, to claim and map
the newly acquired territory. None of the Native Nations west of the
Mississippi consented to the sale of their lands to a sovereign they
neither recognized nor viewed as superior. It was only after we rebuffed
Lewis and Clark for failing to pay tribute for their passage on our
river that they labeled the Oceti Sakowin “the vilest miscreants of the
savage race.” Thus began one of the longest and most hotly contested
struggles in the history of the world.
louisiana_purchaseThe Louisiana Purchase
For the next hundred years, the U.S. led various unsuccessful military
campaigns to suppress, annihilate, and dispossess us of our rightful
claim to the river and our lands. Despite popular belief, we were never
militarily defeated. Red Cloud’s War and the War for the Black Hills led
to the military defeat of the U.S. Calvary, most famously the
annihilation of General George Armstrong Custer’s forces at the Battle
of Greasy Grass in 1876. These wars, for our part, were entirely
defensive. The Oceti Sakowin signed peace treaties with the invading
settler government. The 1854 and 1868 Fort Laramie treaties provided
temporary reprieve and defined the vast 25-million-acre territory of
what became the Great Sioux Reservation, which stretched from the
eastern shore of the Missouri River to the Bighorn Mountains. Four
decades of intense warfare, however, took its toll. More than ten
million buffalo were slaughtered to starve us out. Settler hordes
invaded and pillaged our Black Hills for its gold. Our vast land base
diminished and the treaties were nullified when Congress passed the
Indian Appropriations Act of 1876, which abolished treaty-making with
Native Nations, and the Black Hills Act of 1877, which illegally ceded
the Black Hills and created the present-day reservation system.
The Oceti Sakowin has vigorously opposed these bald imperialistic
maneuvers to usurp our self-determining authority over our lives and
lands. Settler society entreated the Oceti Sakowin for the 1854 and 1868
agreements, not the other way around. We entered these relationships
with the understanding that both parties respected a common humanity
with the people and the lands. In our view, the settler state lost its
humanity when it violated the treaties. Every act on our part to recover
and reclaim our lives and land and to resist elimination is an attempt
to recuperate that lost humanity — humanity this settler state refuses
and denies even to its own.
1868-treaty-map-optimized1868 Fort Laramie Treaty Territory
South Dakota and North Dakota statehood also played a major role in
suppressing the Oceti Sakowin. Although we have never signed any
treaties with these states, they lay claim to the destinies of our
lands, our river, and our people. To do so, they have always used
violence and hatred. In 1890, a year after statehood, these two states
drummed up anti-Indian sentiment to further break up and open
reservation lands for settlement. As a result, they fabricated the Ghost
Dance crisis; called for federal troops to intervene to protect white
property that resulted in the assassination of our military and
political leaders such as Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull; and resulted in
the killing of over 300 mostly unarmed women, children, and elders at
Wounded Knee in the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.
Outright murder was never enough. The Dawes Allotment Act of 1887 and
the creation of five smaller reservations attempted to factionalize the
Oceti Sakowin and opened up “surplus” lands to white homesteaders. From
1907 to 1934, millions of acres of the remaining Great Sioux Reservation
were lost. In the early 1900s, Missouri River Basin states began
organizing to usurp Native water rights for large-scale irrigation
projects. These states envisioned a dam system that would create large
reservoirs that would primarily flood Native lands. But there was a
major problem. In 1908, a U.S. Supreme Court decision held that tribes
maintained access and control of water within original treaty territory,
even if that territory was diminished. This became known as the Winters
Doctrine. For the Missouri River, the Oceti Sakowin possessed the prior
claim to both the river and its shorelines as spelled out in the 1851
and 1868 Fort Laramie Treaties.
souix-reservations-mapHistoric and present day treaty lands
An opportunity for the states arose. After unseasonal mass flooding,
Congress passed the Flood Control Act in 1944 — or what became known as
the Pick-Sloan Plan authorizing the Army Corps of Engineers and the
Bureau of Reclamation to erect five dams on the mainstem of the river.
All of which targeted and disproportionately destroyed Native lands and
lives. Of the five Pick-Sloan dams, four flooded the lands of seven
nations of the Oceti Sakowin: the Santee Sioux Tribe, the Yankton Sioux
Tribe, the Sicangu Oyate, the Lower Brule Sioux Tribe, the Crow Creek
Sioux Tribe, the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, and the Standing Rock Sioux
Tribe. Of the 611,642 condemned acres through eminent domain in what was
called the “taking area,” these nations lost 309,584 acres of vital
bottomlands. Inundation also forced more than a thousand Native
families, in patent violation of treaties and without their consent, to
relocate. Entire communities were removed to marginal reservation lands,
and many were forced to leave the reservation entirely. As a result of
condemnation, the Army Corps of Engineers claims sole jurisdiction over
the river and its shoreline.
pick-sloan_planPick-Sloan Dams
The dams, which promised and delivered wholesale destruction, coincided
and worked in tandem with the federal policies of termination and
relocation. In 1953, Congress passed House Concurrent Resolution 108
(HCR 108) that inaugurated termination policy, and called for the
immediate termination or ended federal recognition of the Flathead,
Klamath, Menominee, Potawatomi, and Turtle Mountain Chippewa tribes.
That same year, Congress passed Public Law 280 (PL 280) that authorized
states to assume criminal and civil jurisdiction over Native lands. The
Bureau of Indian Affairs supported these programs and carried out the
Indian Relocation Act of 1956 that relocated thousands from the
reservation to far-off urban centers. HCR 108, PL 280, relocation, and
the Pick-Sloan dams did not just promote assimilation — they enforced
genocide and elimination.
Through termination, relocation, and massive flooding, however,
colonialism created its own gravediggers. The Oceti Sakowin unified to
thwart the state of South Dakota’s attempts to implement PL 280 to
overthrow Native governments and assume control over their lands.
Natives on relocation also began to organize. Groups such as the
National Indian Youth Council and the American Indian Movement (AIM)
formed in the urban centers to combat the wholesale destruction of
Native life on- and off-reservation. In 1973, AIM occupied Wounded Knee
in the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, which was a culmination of more
than a decade of Red Power organizing. The occupation was the catalyst
for a mass gathering of thousands at Standing Rock in 1974, which
resulted in the founding of the International Indian Treaty Council. At
Standing Rock, more than 90 Native Nations from around the world built
the foundations of what would become four decades of work at the United
Nations and the basis for the 2007 Declaration on the Rights of
Indigenous Peoples.
screen-shot-2016-09-18-at-1-06-43-amThe International Indian Treaty
Council, the international arm of the American Indian Movement, was
founded at Standing Rock in 1974.
The anti-colonial uprising taking place in Oceti Sakowin treaty
territory and spilling onto the world stage was met with violent state
repression. AIM leaders were assassinated and many were imprisoned. For
example, Native leader Leonard Peltier, who participated in this
movement for the life and dignity of his people, to this day sits behind
bars as one of the longest serving political prisoners in United States
history. From 1977 to 2012 South Dakota’s prison population increased
500 percent. One-third of its prison population is Native, although
Natives make up only nine percent of the total population.
With the advent of tarsands extraction and heavy crude pipelines
destroying water supplies and scorching the earth, Natives and the Oceti
Sakowin have once again reunited. This unification first targeted
tarsands and pipeline construction in so-called Canada in First Nations’
territory. Successful blockades have halted pipelines. In 2014, the
Oceti Sakowin began a massive organizing effort, with help from allies,
against the Keystone XL (KXL) pipeline that, too, threatened to cross
the Missouri River. Our Nation is made up of some of the poorest people
in the Western hemisphere organizing to oppose a fossil fuel industry
made up of some of the most powerful and wealthiest people on the
planet. Despite these odds KXL was defeated on November 6, 2015. After
mass protests, the Obama administration denied the pipeline’s permit.
Two important lessons were drawn from the KXL struggle that were carried
into #NoDAPL. The power of multinational unity between Natives and
non-Natives was one of the movement’s successes. The other proved the
transformative power and potential of anti-colonial resistance to
successfully mobilize poor people against the rich and powerful — and win!
img_0719The Red Nation riders at the #NoDAPL camp.
Like our ancestors’ wars of the nineteenth century, our current war is
also defensive — it is to protect water and land from inevitable
spoliation in the name of profit. The #NoDAPL movement is explicitly
nonviolent, which accounts for its mass appeal to Native and non-Native
communities. In spite of this, political violence as a tactic of state
repression has emerged against water protectors who engage in nonviolent
direct action to disrupt the construction of the pipeline /as well as
/those not engaged in direct actions. Natives at or near camp — whether
involved in direct actions or not — are also targets for surveillance
and repression. The camp and the Standing Rock reservation are under
constant surveillance. The reason: Native bodies stand between
corporations and their money. Halting the accumulation of capital, which
in this context is the exploitation of our river and lands, has piqued
settler ire and spite.
The prolonged peaceful encampment practices an unsettling
counter-sovereignty. It has drawn the support and solidarity of more
than 200 Native Nations and countless thousands of allied forces
sending a clear message to corporate interests: North Dakota cannot
manage its Indians and the “Indian Problem” is out of control. After
all, controlling the “Indian Problem” has always meant
maintaining unrestricted access to Native lands and resources and
keeping Indians silent, out of view, and factionalized. At Standing
Rock, an unarmed, nonviolent prayer camp poses such a serious threat to
settler proprietary claims that North Dakota Governor Jack Dalrymple,
who has direct ties to the oil and gas industry, has deployed the full
force of the Highway Patrol and the National Guards. These forces are
not there to service an impoverished Native community or protect the
integrity of the land and river. They are there to carry out the will of
DAPL backers Energy Transfer Partners, some of the richest and most
powerful people in the world who have used attack dogs against unarmed,
nonviolent water protectors. More than 60 have been arrested, including
journalists. Violent state repression has not ceased.
img_0915The #NoDAPL “United Nations” of Native Nation flags
The Army Corps of Engineers, who maintains jurisdiction over the river
in violation of the 1854 and 1868 Fort Laramie Treaties, claims it holds
the final say about whether the DAPL can cross the Missouri River. The
#NoDAPL encampment, in an exercise in Native sovereignty, sits atop
lands claimed by the Corps, who only recently “permitted” the camp’s
presence. On September 9, the Department of Interior, the Department of
Justice, and the Corps also issued a joint statement halting — for now
— the construction of the pipeline under the Missouri River as the
Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s case against DAPL will be considered and
reviewed. This was a victory — a temporary halt of construction at a key
site — and proof that this enemy, no matter how powerful, violent, or
spiteful, too, can be defeated if Native people refuse to back down and
continue to act in unity and cooperation. While construction halted
under the river, it continues everywhere else. So too do direct actions.
So too does the peaceful encampment. And so too must our focus and
support on #NoDAPL. The encampment will remain until the pipeline is
completely defeated.
Oceti Sakowin and Native resistance, as it has for centuries, will also
continue until our common enemy is defeated.
IMG_0861.jpgThe Red Nation delegation at the #NoDAPL camp
Early lessons from this ongoing struggle can be drawn to help strategize
future possibilities:
* The colonial state does not possess, and never has possessed, the
moral high ground. It defends corporate access to Native lands and
uses violence as a political tactic to maintain its contested
authority over the land. The North Dakota National Guard has never
in its history been deployed in force against an unarmed “domestic”
population– until now. The National Guard and the Highway Patrol
protect corporate interests and enforce the colonial state’s
monopoly on violence against the most vulnerable and marginalized
populations – Native people.
* The prayer camp has galvanized multinational unity, primarily
mobilizing everyday people in defense of Native sovereignty,
self-determination, and treaty rights.
* Treaty rights, and by default Native sovereignty, protect everyone’s
rights. In this case, they protect a vital fresh water source for
millions – the Missouri River.
* #NoDAPL anti-colonial struggle is profoundly anti-capitalist. It is
the frontline. It is the future.
* The profits that corporations like Energy Transfer Corporation reap
from colonial projects like the DAPL should be seized and used to
repair damage to the land and river. With this also comes a
long-term goal to restore the Missouri River to its rightful
protectors – the Oceti Sakowin – and its natural path. This means
the Army Corps of Engineers must relinquish its claim to the river
and begin to demolish the Pick-Sloan dams so that the river and its
people may once again live.
--
Freedom Archives 522 Valencia Street San Francisco, CA 94110 415
863.9977 www.freedomarchives.org
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