[News] Empire, Colonialism and Solidarity: A Conversation with Nick Estes

[Anti-Imperialist News]

venezuelanalysis.com
<https://venezuelanalysis.com/interviews/empire-colonialism-and-solidarity-a-conversation-with-nick-estes/>
Empire, Colonialism and Solidarity: A Conversation with Nick Estes
Cira Pascual Marquina
<https://venezuelanalysis.com/guest-author/cira-pascual-marquina/> August
23, 2025

------------------------------

*An enrolled member of the Lower Brule Sioux Tribe, well-known historian
Nick Estes co-hosts **The Red Nation podcast*
<https://www.youtube.com/@TheRedNation>*. He is the author of *Our History
Is the Future: Standing Rock Versus the Dakota Access Pipeline, and the
Long Tradition of Indigenous Resistance* (Verso, 2019), a book that
situates the struggle against the pipeline in the context of centuries of
Indigenous resistance to US colonialism and imperialism. *

*In this interview, Estes traces the continuities between US settler
colonialism and imperial projects abroad, highlighting how the so-called
Indian Wars provide the template for Washington’s forever wars. He also
discusses how the United States has targeted both Indigenous peoples within
its own territory and countries like Venezuela through dispossession, war,
and sanctions.*

*Estes’ perspective underscores both the depth of US imperialist violence
and the urgent need to forge links among Indigenous, anti-imperialist, and
Bolivarian and Latin American struggles.*

*It’s well known how US imperialism is violent and even exterminist toward
people and nations abroad, with the genocide it is carrying out in
Palestine and the unilateral coercive measures it directs at Venezuela
being clear examples. However, imperialism is also rooted in internal
colonialism, particularly the dispossession of Indigenous nations in North
America. How do the imperialist processes inside the US mirror those that
take place outside?*

In our hemisphere, two key ideologies underpin US colonialism and
imperialism: Manifest Destiny and the Monroe Doctrine. The Monroe Doctrine
<https://venezuelanalysis.com/interviews/bolivarian-diplomacy-vs-the-monroe-doctrine-a-conversation-with-carlos-ron-part-i/>
is essentially an extension of Manifest Destiny.

When the United States was founded 250 years ago, it consisted of just 13
colonies along the eastern seaboard. Within a century, it had expanded to
seize more than a billion acres of territory and overseas possessions. This
expansion advanced the project of a white supremacist nation at the expense
of Indigenous peoples. The Monroe Doctrine extended that same logic to the
entire hemisphere.

We can see this doctrine scaled up to the global stage today, with
Palestine as the most extreme example. What is the point of such violence?
It’s partly terror—sending a message to the world: *this is what happens if
you resist Empire; this is what you can expect if you try to build
sovereignty and liberation.*

Israel, a Zionist project, also serves US interests by projecting power in
West Asia, destabilizing regional sovereignty, and ultimately opening a
“back door” to China. This is closely tied to the Trump administration’s
agenda: tariff wars, targeting China’s neighbors, and controlling the
resources necessary for new technologies. None of this is hidden: it is
openly stated.

Finally, the wars in West Asia are also warnings to this hemisphere.

The Monroe Doctrine has meant coups and interventions across Latin
America.  Recently in Venezuela, it has expressed itself in devastating
sanctions and gangster-style regime change attempts, including a $50
million bounty
<https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/venezuela-decries-50m-narcoterrorism-bounty-on-maduro-as-ridiculous-smokescreen/?swcfpc=1>
on Nicolás Maduro. It’s worth noting that this “bounty” closely echoes the
bounties the US once placed on Indigenous resistance leaders. In short,
today’s attacks on Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua are continuations of the
wars once waged against Indigenous nations in what is now the United States.

When the ink on the Constitution was still wet, George Washington led a
bloody war against the Northwest Confederacy of Indigenous nations. This
marked the beginning of more than a century of so-called Indian Wars:
fourteen major conflicts marked by genocide and dispossession. The effects
are still felt today.

The US uses these wars as a precedent for its current “forever wars.” For
instance, when it bombed Iran’s nuclear facilities, Trump did so under the
same authority of the first president, George Washington, who waged war in
1790 against Indigenous nations without formally declaring war or seeking
congressional approval. Following World War II, this logic was extended to
wars in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, and beyond. In this way,
the so-called Indian Wars became a model for permanent global warfare.

*Both in North and South America, colonialism morphed into imperialism. We
share a history of dispossession. Do you see this shared past—and our
present struggles—as bringing our peoples closer together? I raise this
question because Indigenous movements in the US fight for land,
sovereignty, and self-determination, and these are also central pillars of
the Bolivarian Revolution.*

I’d like to answer with recent history. In the US, Indigenous people are
racialized through erasure. We’re often seen as historical relics rather
than as living, political communities—colonialism still shapes our daily
reality. In South Dakota, where I’m from, Indigenous life expectancy is
just 59 years, nearly two decades lower than that of white people.

So yes, we struggle for land, sovereignty, and self-determination, which
aren’t abstract ideas for us. They are tangible because they increase our
life chances.

Half a century ago, the Red Power movement went international, building
relationships with Nicaragua, the Palestine Liberation Organization, and
other revolutionary organizations around the world. More recently, in 2007,
Vernon Belcourt, a leader of the American Indian Movement, visited Chávez
to establish a Citgo program that provided heating assistance to tribal
nations. My tribe benefited from that program—that was how I first learned
about *Comandante* Chávez and the Bolivarian Revolution.

A few years later, at Standing Rock, when people asked why we were
resisting the Dakota Access Pipeline, activist Winona LaDuke explained that
our struggle against the pipeline was also a rejection of US sanctions on
Venezuela, the country with the world’s largest oil reserves. In other
words, the pipeline—designed to transport some of the dirtiest oil in the
world—was directly tied to the Empire’s goal of crushing Venezuela.
Internationalist connections were being made in the midst of the struggle.
Local media couldn’t grasp this, but Indigenous movements there knew the
struggles were linked.

Within the US, we also face an internal struggle. Tribal sovereignty can be
aligned either with imperialism—sometimes through reactionary currents tied
to Trump—or with anti-imperialism and solidarity with the struggles of
oppressed peoples around the world. History shows that aligning with
imperialism has always been disastrous for Indigenous peoples.
Hugo Chávez and a Pemón person. The Bolivarian Constitution represents a
before and an after for Indigenous people. However, there are still pending
tasks. (Prensa Latina)

*In 2019, you visited Venezuela with a delegation of young Indigenous
people from the US. You visited again in 2020 and 2021. Can you share some
of your experiences?*

When I visited Bolívar state [southern Venezuela], I was very taken by the
resilience of the Indigenous communities, specifically the Pemón community,
which identified openly and explicitly as Chavista, saying they are part of
the revolutionary project.

Some of the people I spoke with had received formal training as community
healthcare specialists, combining their Indigenous knowledge of healing and
medicine with Western science. The Constitution
<https://venezuelanalysis.com/constitution/> allows this, promoting
protection for traditional practices all the way up to the level of
political participation.

In Indigenous communities, people often vote by consensus and, in some
instances, without a secret ballot, thus maintaining their core
assembly-based practices. These are constitutional protections that we, as
Native people in the United States, simply don’t have.

Additionally, the Venezuelan Constitution not only safeguards these
practices but also guarantees Indigenous representation in the National
Assembly. By contrast, Indigenous peoples in the US have no guaranteed
representation in Congress and lack constitutional protections like those
in Venezuela. We are often told that things are better in the US, but
constitutionally and politically, Indigenous peoples in Venezuela are far
more integrated into the national project.

Of course, Venezuela’s process is not perfect: there is an ongoing struggle
and persistent demands for legal and constitutional reforms, which I
understand may be coming soon. However, sanctions
<http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/tag/sanctions> directly undermine these
efforts. If we are committed internationalists, the first step is to work
toward lifting sanctions, allowing Indigenous peoples and all Venezuelans
to pursue self-determination within the Bolivarian framework.

*We’ve seen moments of reciprocal solidarity: Chávez’s heating program for
tribal nations and Standing Rock’s recognition of the harm the US inflicts
on Venezuela are just two instances. Yet, building deeper, ongoing
connections remains an unfinished task. Since the Venezuelan communal
project draws from Indigenous traditions, and Indigenous peoples in the US
continue to struggle to advance community-building efforts, the question
becomes: How can we strengthen these ties?*

In North America, even within Indigenous movements, there’s sometimes
hesitancy to connect with international struggles. Liberal
environmentalists, for instance, often try to silence these connections.
But we have every right to build relationships with movements around the
world, just as the American Indian movement did in the late 60s and 70s.

When I visited the Kaika Shi community in Caracas, a matriarch told us,
“The first enemy is the capitalist in your head. Don’t wait for someone
else to solve your problems, you must solve them here and now!” Her words
deeply resonated with the Indigenous youth traveling with me. In the US, we
often suffer from “program-itis”—programs for everything, yet crises of
addiction, suicide, and poverty persist. Programs alone don’t dismantle
colonialism. Self-determination does.

Delegations like ours are crucial. It’s hard for Venezuelans to travel to
the US, but exchanges are necessary. Too often, Indigenous peoples in the
United States internalize chauvinism and dismiss other struggles. But when
they meet Venezuelan, Bolivian, or Cuban comrades face-to-face, they see
the connections immediately.

I remember one youth delegate telling me something that was deeply
meaningful: “Venezuela is one big reservation.” They meant two things:
first, that Venezuela is besieged by the US; second, that, like a
reservation, Venezuela has a communal spirit where everyone knows each
other and struggles together.

This is something you can only truly understand by meeting people who are
actively building the world we all want. Venezuelans never told us: “copy
our model.” Instead, they always said: “Make your revolution at home. Build
dignity among your people first, while aligning with the Bolivarian
Process.”
Kaika Shi in Caracas. Below, Indigenous youth delegation in Kaika Shi.
(Nick Estes and archives)
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