By Christian Coleman

Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz’s OG text has had more than one life. Published in 2014, An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States is the third installment of Beacon’s ReVisioning History series, created by Beacon Press director Gayatri Patnaik. Now, a decade later, there is more than one way to read and radically reframe four hundred years of US history through the lens of Native American struggle and resistance. The book has even been adapted to two other genres, too!

An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States

Dunbar-Ortiz credits fellow heavyweight activist and writer Howard Zinn as the inspiration for her book. She teased him about the disappearance of Native Americans after 1890 and their reappearance decades later during the Red Power movement in his A People’s History of the United States. Did they hibernate and come out later in the twentieth century? He told her she needed to write that history because he did not know how and would like to know what happened. An Indigenous Peoples’ History won the 2015 American Book Award and the 2015 PEN Oakland-Josephine Miles Award for Excellence in Literature. Six years later, it took its long-overdue place on the New York Times Best Sellers list. Sometimes it takes a while for the work of someone like Dunbar-Ortiz to get the widespread recognition and praise it deserves.

An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States for Young People

Educators already knew there was something special about Dunbar-Ortiz’s book. They saw how crucial it was in filling a serious gap in the US history curriculum. Their enthusiasm tipped us off to give it the YA treatment. When it came out in 2019, An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States for Young Readers racked up a triple score of starred reviews from Kirkus Reviews, Booklist, and the School Library Journal. It even caught the attention of the anti-woke bandwagon and was banned in Texas. You know you’re doing something right when your truth-telling is seen as a threat to the mythologized status quo. Although written for young adults, it pairs well with the original for those who would like maps and diagrams to visualize Indigenous history. Adapted by educators Debbie Reese and Jean Mendoza, this edition comes with several guides available to download for free from Beacon’s website.

• Teachers’ Guide
• Lesson Plan for Indigenous Peoples’ Day
• Lesson Plan for Thanksgiving
• Lesson Plan for the 400th Anniversary of the Mayflower

An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States: 10th-Anniversary Edition

Two years before the tenth-anniversary edition was published, filmmaker Raoul Peck’s docuseries Exterminate All the Brutes aired on HBO. It references An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States as source material along with another Beacon book, Michel-Rolph Trouillot’s Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History. Naturally, Peck had to write a foreword for the tenth-anniversary edition. He’s the filmmaker Dunbar-Ortiz admires most in the world. She also wrote a new introduction reflecting on the transition from the Obama years to the Trump years, which will bear much more relevance as we brace for another four years of the white supremacist in chief.

Yes, this is the half mentioned in this blog post’s title. For you audiophiles out there, the tenth-anniversary edition came out with an audiobook narrated by Shaun Taylor-Corbett. He narrated the audiobook of another installment in our ReVisioning History series, Kyle T. Mays’s An Afro-Indigenous History of the United States.

Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz’s Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States: A Graphic Interpretation

Riding on the running streak of our visual adaptations of historian Marcus Rediker’s books, we felt the need to scratch the graphic-novel itch for Dunbar-Ortiz’s book. Nonfiction graphic novel editor Paul Buhle, who worked on Rediker’s graphic novels, approached British comics artist Paul Peart-Smith about it. Peart-Smith had already established his cred in video games, animation, kids’ history with the Horrible Histories series in the UK, and his acclaimed graphic adaption of W. E. B. Du Bois’s The Souls of Black Folk. In his joint New Books Network interview with Dunbar-Ortiz, Peart-Smith talked about which readers he had in mind and one of the main challenges of the adaptation:

“I think anyone fourteen and upwards can get something from this book. . . . I tried to avoid, of course, it turning into a complete horror story and over-raking the violence. Not only because of the sensitivities involved, but also because I didn’t want to sensationalize any of that. The thing with comic books is that they have a long history of sensationalizing violence, and it’s part of the entertainment value. But this isn’t that kind of book. It was a balancing act, but I hope that I pulled it off.” 

He more than pulled it off. Condensing hundreds of pages into stunning full-color artwork was no small feat. And Dunbar-Ortiz, who is depicted as the main narrator throughout the panels, loves how it turned out. So do we!

About the Author 

Christian Coleman is the digital marketing manager at Beacon Press and editor of Beacon Broadside. Before joining Beacon, he worked in writing, copy editing, and marketing positions at Sustainable Silicon Valley and Trikone. He graduated from Boston College and the Clarion Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers’ Workshop. Follow him on Twitter at @coleman_II and on Bluesky at @colemanthe2nd.bsky.social.

By Gayatri Patnaik

University Press Week runs each year in November and was first established in 1978 by President Jimmy Carter to recognize “the impact, both here and abroad, of American university presses on culture and scholarship.” This year’s theme is #TurnItUP, which celebrates the dedication of University Presses to amplify knowledge. As a member of the Association of University Presses, Beacon Press is proud to participate in this year’s blog tour. In our contribution, we look at how our ReVisioning American History series challenges how so many of us have been taught to think about US history by offering a variety of US history books written from the perspectives of marginalized and underrepresented communities.

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A little over ten years ago, I found myself mulling over what kind of history books Beacon Press could successfully publish. With the incredible history titles published every year by both university and trade presses, what could Beacon do to distinguish our list in this competitive space? Certainly, the books would need to reflect Beacon’s progressive vision of social justice and also the inherently “cross-over” nature of our list. Cross-over in two senses—both in terms of the intellectually grounded but accessible writing, as well as our ability to find multiple audiences—trade, academic, and activist—for our titles.  

Professors at history conferences had been sharing with me that students weren’t reading longer history books, and so I was already thinking of books around 300 pages (which are short considering the length of some history titles.) Then, during a one day “editorial retreat” with colleagues, the idea for this cross-over series—ReVisioning American History—was born. The goal is that each title tells US history from the vantage point of an underrepresented community, and that the series fundamentally challenges how so many of us have been taught to think about US history.

The first title in the series, A Queer History of the United States, was published in 2011 by veteran LGBT activist and scholar Michael Bronski. A Disability History of the United States by prominent disability historian Kim Nielsen was next in 2012. Radical activist and scholar Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz’s An Indigenous History of the United States was published in 2014, won the 2015 American Book Award and has sold over 100,000 copies. In 2018, historian and activist Paul Ortiz’s An African American and Latino History of the United States was published to a strong reception in both trade and academic markets.   

In fall 2019 we are excited to publish A Black Women’s History of the United States by distinguished historians Daina R. Berry and Kali Gross. Other forthcoming titles include A Black Power History of the United States by former Harvard University W. E. B. Du Bois Institute Fellow Rhonda Y. Williams; A Mexican History of the United States by journalist historian Lorena Oropeza; and An Asian American History of the United States by award-winning historian Catherine Choy.

Soon after publishing the initial books in this series, we began receiving feedback from middle and high school teachers searching for material to help make their US history curriculum more inclusive. When the FAIR Education Act was passed in California in 2011—a state law that requires the inclusion of LGBT people and people with disabilities in textbooks and social studies curricula—our books were used as blueprints for developing lesson plans. Authors in the series began receiving invites from high school educators and public-school curriculum developers.

In response to the growing demand from school teachers, Joanna Green, a senior editor who edited a couple of the titles in the series, began working with educators and young adult authors to adapt books in the series for middle-grade and young-adult readers, as well as for professional teacher development. A Queer History of the United States for Young People will be published in June 2019, coinciding with the fiftieth anniversary of the Stonewall uprising, and An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States for Young People will be published in July 2019 ahead of the academic year. The potential impact of these YA editions could be wide reaching. As one teacher commented, “having accessible editions of these texts impacts not only the way I teach today, but the way I teach for decades to come.”

The influence of the young readers series will reach beyond the classroom. We see these books going into the home as parents gift them to their children. They will give families a way to talk about complex issues and concepts around topics like race, gender, sexuality, and colonialism. Young people will learn their own and their families’ histories. Or they will learn about other communities they are not a part of, giving them resources early on to think about their contributions to systemic injustice and actions they can take toward dismantling it.

Here’s what our authors have to say about the importance of telling these histories:

“When I began writing the book, it struck me that the more research I did, that while this project was well-intentioned, it was rather unnecessary. That in fact gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender people, African-American people, Latino people, women have always been in American history. So the very process of separating people out in order to put them back in seemed to me to be shortsighted. So the purpose of the book as I began writing it became clearer and clearer--it was simply to identify and find the LGBT people that are in American history already. The more I did this, what I discovered was that there were so many people, so many events, people's lives, people's personalities were so intertwined with what we think of as American history that there was no separation at all.”
—Michael Bronski

“Disability Studies courses enable students to better deal with the vagaries of life. All of us either are or know people who live with disability. Knowing that disability is not tragedy, and that disability is simply part of the human experience, enables all of us to better savor the human experience.”
—Kim E. Nielsen

“I think it’s a very important time to have a Native voice really making clear what’s going to happen, but also the means of survival. One thing Native people have really been about for the last 500 years is surviving an onslaught of continual genocide, warfare, suppression, near extinction of languages, of cultures, of sacred items. Survival is an active word. It’s not just passively surviving. That takes an enormous amount of resistance and cultural continuity, and that has allowed for the survival. Everyone’s going to have to learn how to survive because we’re already to the point that there’s going to be dire consequences even if we very quickly did a whole lot of things to slow it down. Things are already happening. In a way, everyone on earth has become the Indian from these five centuries of destruction of the earth through industrial, corporate profits to get more and more things out of the earth and devastate it. I think Native people have a lot to teach, and people will start listening.”
—Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz

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Head on over to these other university press blogs to read their contributions: Harvard University Press, University of Nebraska Press, University of Alabama Press, Rutgers University Press, University Press of Kansas, University of Georgia Press, University of Toronto Press, University of California Press, University of Rochester Press, and Wilfrid Laurier University Press. Visit the AUP website for a list of contributions from the rest of the week.

By Gail Forsyth-Vail

On November 3, 2016, more than 500 clergy from many faith traditions gathered at Standing Rock in support of the Sioux Nation’s protest of the Dakota Access Pipeline. As part of the day of witness, Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) President Rev. Peter Morales was one of seven denominational leaders who read statements repudiating the 1493 Doctrine of Discovery, a papal bull which offered the rationale for the colonization of the Americas and other countries by European Christian powers. By virtue of the Doctrine, Christians were given the legal right to take, colonize, settle, and extract resources from land belonging to those who were not Christian. The statement Morales read, adopted by the UUA General Assembly, called for Unitarian Universalists to learn about the doctrine and its ongoing impacts, not only on indigenous peoples, but on the political, legal, economic, and cultural systems in the United States, in local communities, and in our congregations.

In 2011, I was tasked with curating and creating study materials for congregations so that delegates might better understand why they were being asked to repudiate a 500-year-old document. Delegates were asking, “What possible relevance could the Doctrine of Discovery have to justice work today?” As I prepared materials, I read the work of a number of indigenous legal scholars, historians, and theologians. The more I learned, the more I discovered just how much the Doctrine—and the assumptions that flowed from it—have shaped the dominant story we tell about our nation. Its impacts are far-reaching and ongoing. I looked for resources to help explain this to a general audience, rather than a scholarly one.

In 2015, Beacon Press published An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States by historian Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz. Here it was: a unified telling of the story of indigenous peoples in the United States that drew a straight line from the first US Congress’ eager claim to the Discovery rights of European monarchs to the struggles for indigenous sovereignty and rights and environmental justice today.  I eagerly devoured the entire book on a long train ride. By centering the experiences of indigenous peoples in the US, it offers exactly the kind of resource that helps Unitarian Universalists and others understand what’s at stake in our nation, and how the witness and struggle of the water protectors at Standing Rock fits into a larger picture. The UUA offers an on-line discussion guide for the book.

Recently, Dunbar-Ortiz teamed with journalist and researcher Dina Gilio-Whitaker to write another book, “All the Real Indians Died Off” and 20 Other Myths about Native Americans. This book is about indigenous nations and peoples in the United States today, and is useful for teachers, teens, parents, religious professionals, and justice activists. In short, pithy chapters, it takes on one by one the myths that are part of the current mainstream discourse about Native Americans. It begins with an affirmation of the strength and resiliency of indigenous people. It explains basic questions, such as sovereignty and treaty rights, using just enough history to provide context. It addresses current questions: sports mascots, casinos, and cultural appropriation. It addresses the historical and cultural problem with the common narratives about Columbus and Thanksgiving. Most of all, it challenges readers to examine destructive stereotypes, to rethink what they’ve been taught about Native Americans and history, and to engage more fully in local and national support of the work of naming, addressing, and undoing the ongoing effects of the Doctrine of Discovery. It is critical work that Unitarian Universalists and other people of conscience, secular and religious, are called to do now.

About the Author

Gail Forsyth-Vail is Adult Programs Director in the Faith Development Office at the Unitarian Universalist Association.

By Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz

Dakota Access Pipeline Protest. Photo credit: UnicornRiot.Ninja

Members of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe have been protesting the construction of the Dakota Access pipeline since April. Slated to direct crude oil from North Dakota to Illinois, the multibillion-dollar project threatens to contaminate the Missouri River and likely destroy Native burial sites and sacred places. The protesters have received support and solidarity from representatives of other Indigenous nations from all over North America, Alaska, Hawaii, and the Andes, along with climate activists and the Black Lives Matter movement.

The history of the Sioux peoples’ fight for their homeland runs deep. To understand the background of the protest, we turn to Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz’s An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States.  In this excerpt, Dunbar-Ortiz unpacks the origin of the nineteenth-century treaties and colonial land-grabbing that have repeatedly denied the Sioux the right to their land.

(Véase abajo la traducción al español de este extracto.)

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The first international relationship between the Sioux Nation and the US government was established in 1805[i] with a treaty of peace and friendship two years after the United States acquired the Louisiana Territory, which included the Sioux Nation among many other Indigenous nations. Other such treaties followed in 1815 and 1825. These peace treaties had no immediate effect on Sioux political autonomy or territory. By 1834, competition in the fur trade, with the market dominated by the Rocky Mountain Fur Company, led the Oglala Sioux to move away from the Upper Missouri to the Upper Platte near Fort Laramie. By 1846, seven thousand Sioux had moved south. Thomas Fitzpatrick, the Indian agent in 1846, recommended that the United States purchase land to establish a fort, which became Fort Laramie. “My opinion,” Fitzpatrick wrote, “is that a post at, or in the vicinity of Laramie is much wanted, it would be nearly in the center of the buffalo range, where all the formidable Indian tribes are fast approaching, and near where there will eventually be a struggle for the ascendancy [in the fur trade].”[ii] Fitzpatrick believed that a garrison of at least three hundred soldiers would be necessary to keep the Indians under control.

Although the Sioux and the United States redefined their relationship in the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1851, this was followed by a decade of war between the two parties, ending with the Peace Treaty of Fort Laramie in 1868. Both of these treaties, though not reducing Sioux political sovereignty ceded large parts of Sioux territory by establishing mutually recognized boundaries, and the Sioux granted concessions to the United States that gave legal color to the Sioux’s increasing economic dependency on the United States and its economy. During the half century before the 1851 treaty, the Sioux had been gradually enveloped in the fur trade and had become dependent on horses and European-manufactured guns, ammunition, iron cookware, tools, textiles, and other items of trade that replaced their traditional crafts. On the plains the Sioux gradually abandoned farming and turned entirely to bison hunting for their subsistence and for trade. This increased dependency on the buffalo in turn brought deeper dependency on guns and ammunition that had to be purchased with more hides, creating the vicious circle that characterized modern colonialism. With the balance of power tipped by mid-century, US traders and the military exerted pressure on the Sioux for land cessions and rights of way as the buffalo population decreased. The hardships for the Sioux caused by constant attacks on their villages, forced movement, and resultant disease and starvation took a toll on their strength to resist domination. They entered into the 1868 treaty with the United States on strong terms from a guerrilla fighting force through the 1880s, never defeated by the US army—but their dependency on buffalo and on trade allowed for escalated federal control when buffalo were purposely exterminated by the army between 1870 and 1876. After that the Sioux were fighting for survival.

Economic dependency on buffalo and trade was replaced with survival dependency on the US government for rations and commodities guaranteed in the 1868 treaty. The agreement stipulated that “no treaty for the cession of any portion or part of the reservation herein described which may be held in common shall be of any validation or force against the said Indians, unless executed and signed by at least three fourths of all the adult male Indians.” Nevertheless, in 1876, with no such validation, and with the discovery of gold by Custer’s Seventh Cavalry, the US government seized the Black Hills—Paha Sapa—a large, resource-rich portion of the treaty-guaranteed Sioux territory, the center of the great Sioux Nation, a religious shrine and sanctuary. When the Sioux surrendered after the wars of 1876–77, they lost not only the Black Hills but also the Powder River country. The next US move was to change the western boundary of the Sioux Nation, whose territory, though atrophied from its original, was a contiguous block. By 1877, after the army drove the Sioux out of Nebraska, all that was left was a block between the 103^rd meridian and the Missouri, thirty-five thousand square miles of land the United States had designated as Dakota Territory (the next step toward statehood, in this case the states of North and South Dakota). The first of several waves of northern European immigrants now poured into eastern Dakota Terri- tory, pressing against the Missouri River boundary of the Sioux. At the Anglo-American settlement of Bismarck on the Missouri, the westward-pushing Northern Pacific Railroad was blocked by the reservation. Settlers bound for Montana and the Pacific Northwest called for trails to be blazed and defended across the reservation. Promoters who wanted cheap land to sell at high prices to immigrants schemed to break up the reservation. Except for the Sioux units that continued to fight, the Sioux people were unarmed, had no horses, and were unable even to feed and clothe themselves, dependent upon government rations.

Next came allotment. Before the Dawes Act was even implemented, a government commission arrived in Sioux territory from Washington, DC, in 1888 with a proposal to reduce the Sioux Nation to six small reservations, a scheme that would leave nine million acres open for Euro-American settlement. The commission found it impossible to obtain signatures of the required three-fourths of the nation as required under the 1868 treaty, and so returned to Washington with a recommendation that the government ignore the treaty and take the land without Sioux consent. The only means to accomplish that goal was legislation, Congress having relieved the government of the obligation to negotiate a treaty. Congress commissioned General George Crook to head a delegation to try again, this time with an offer of $1.50 per acre. In a series of manipulations and dealings with leaders whose people were now starving, the commission garnered the needed signatures. The great Sioux Nation was broken into small islands soon surrounded on all sides by European immigrants, with much of the reservation land a checkerboard with settlers on allotments or leased land.[iii] Creating these isolated reservations broke the historical relationships between clans and communities of the Sioux Nation and opened areas where Europeans settled. It also allowed the Bureau of Indian Affairs to exercise tighter control, buttressed by the bureau’s boarding school system. The Sun Dance, the annual ceremony that had brought Sioux together and reinforced national unity, was outlawed, along with other religious ceremonies. Despite the Sioux people’s weak position under late-nineteenth-century colonial domination, they managed to begin building a modest cattle-ranching business to replace their former bison-hunting economy. In 1903, the US Supreme Court ruled, in Lone Wolf v. Hitchcock, that a March 3, 1871, appropriations rider was constitutional and that Congress had “plenary” power to manage Indian property. The Office of Indian Affairs could thus dispose of Indian lands and resources regardless of the terms of previous treaty provisions. Legislation followed that opened the reservations to settlement through leasing and even sale of allotments taken out of trust. Nearly all prime grazing lands came to be occupied by non-Indian ranchers by the 1920s.

Indian land allotment under the Indian Reorganization Act, non-Indians outnumbered Indians on the Sioux reservations three to one. However, the drought of the mid- to late-1930s drove many settler ranchers off Sioux land, and the Sioux purchased some of that land, which had been theirs. However, “tribal governments” imposed in the wake of the Indian Reorganization Act proved particularly harmful and divisive for the Sioux.[iv] Concerning this measure, the late Mathew King, elder traditional historian of the Oglala Sioux (Pine Ridge), observed: “The Bureau of Indian Affairs drew up the constitution and by-laws of this organization with the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934. This was the introduction of home rule. . . . The traditional people still hang on to their Treaty, for we are a sovereign nation. We have our own government.”[v] “Home rule,” or neocolonialism, proved a short-lived policy, however, for in the early 1950s the United States developed its termination policy, with legislation ordering gradual eradication of every reservation and even the tribal governments.[vi] At the time of termination and relocation, per capita annual income on the Sioux reservations stood at $355, while that in nearby South Dakota towns was $2,500. Despite these circumstances, in pursuing its termination policy, the Bureau of Indian Affairs advocated the reduction of services and introduced its program to relocate Indians to urban industrial centers, with a high percentage of Sioux moving to San Francisco and Denver in search of jobs.[vii]

Mathew King has described the United States throughout its history as alternating between a “peace” policy and a “war” policy in its relations with Indigenous nations and communities, saying that these pendulum swings coincided with the strength and weakness of Native resistance. Between the alternatives of extermination and termination (war policies) and preservation (peace policy), King argued, were interim periods characterized by benign neglect and assimilation. With organized Indigenous resistance to war programs and policies, concessions are granted. When pressure lightens, new schemes are developed to separate Indians from their land, resources, and cultures. Scholars, politicians, policymakers, and the media rarely term US policy toward Indigenous peoples as colonialism. King, however, believed that his people’s country had been a colony of the United States since 1890.

The logical progression of modern colonialism begins with economic penetration and graduates to a sphere of influence, then to protectorate status or indirect control, military occupation, and finally annexation. This corresponds to the process experienced by the Sioux people in relation to the United States. The economic penetration of fur traders brought the Sioux within the US sphere of influence. The transformation of Fort Laramie from a trading post, the center of Sioux trade, to a US Army outpost in the mid-nineteenth century indicates the integral relationship between trade and colonial control. Growing protectorate status established through treaties culminated in the 1868 Sioux treaty, followed by military occupation achieved by extreme exemplary violence, such as at Wounded Knee in 1890, and finally dependency. Annexation by the United States is marked symbolically by the imposition of US citizenship on the Sioux (and most other Indians) in 1924. Mathew King and other traditional Sioux saw the siege of Wounded Knee in 1973 as a turning point, although the violent backlash that followed was harsh.

Two decades of collective Indigenous resistance culminating at Wounded Knee in 1973 defeated the 1950s federal termination policy. Yet proponents of the disappearance of Indigenous nations seem never to tire of trying. Another move toward termination developed in 1977 with dozens of congressional bills to abrogate all Indian treaties and terminate all Indian governments and trust territories. Indigenous resistance defeated those initiatives as well, with another caravan across the country. Like colonized peoples elsewhere in the world, the Sioux have been involved in decolonization efforts since the mid-twentieth century. Wounded Knee in 1973 was part of this struggle, as was their involvement in UN committees and international forums.[viii] However, in the early twenty-first century, free-market fundamentalist economists and politicians identified the communally owned Indigenous reservation lands as an asset to be exploited and, under the guise of helping to end Indigenous poverty on those reservations, call for doing away with them—a new extermination and termination initiative.

About the Author 

Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz grew up in rural Oklahoma, the daughter of a tenant farmer and part-Indian mother. She has been active in the international Indigenous movement for more than four decades and is known for her lifelong commitment to national and international social justice issues. After receiving her PhD in history at the University of California at Los Angeles, she taught in the newly established Native American Studies Program at California State University, Hayward, and helped found the Departments of Ethnic Studies and Women’s Studies. Her 1977 book The Great Sioux Nation was the fundamental document at the first international conference on Indigenous peoples of the Americas, held at the United Nations’ headquarters in Geneva. Dunbar-Ortiz is the author or editor of seven other books, including Roots of Resistance: A History of Land Tenure in New Mexico. She lives in San Francisco. Follow her on Twitter at @rdunbaro.

Notes

[i] UN Commission on Human Rights, Sub-commission on Prevention of Dis- 
crimination and Protection of Minorities, 51st sess., Human Rights of Indigenous Peoples: Study on Treaties, Agreements and Other Constructive Arrangements between States and Indigenous Populations: Final Report, by Miguel Alfonso Martínez, special rapporteur, June 22, 1999, UN Document E/CN.4/Sub.2/1999/20. See also Report of the Working Group on Indigenous Populations on Its Seventeenth Session, 26–30 July 1999, UN Document E/CN.4/Sub.2/1999/20, August 12, 1999.

[ii] Robert A. Trennert, Alternative to Extinction: Federal Indian Policy and 
the Beginnings of the Reservation System, 1846–51 (Philadelphia: Temple 
University Press, 1975), 166.

[iii] Testimony of Pat McLaughlin, then chairman of the Standing Rock Sioux 
government, Fort Yates, ND (May 8, 1976), at hearings of the American Indian Policy Review Commission, established by Congress in the act of January 3, 1975.

[iv] See Kenneth R. Philip, John Collier’s Crusade for Indian Reform, 1920–1954. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1977.

[v] Matthew King quoted in Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, The Great Sioux Natiom: Sitting in Judgment on America. Lincoln:University of Nebraska Press, 2013. Originally published, 1977. 156.

[vi] For a lucid discussion of neocolonialism in relation to American Indians 
and the reservation system, see Joseph Jorgensen, Sun Dance Religion: Power for the Powerless. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1977, 89–146.

[vii] There is continuous migration from reservations to cities and border towns and back to the reservations, so that half the Indian population at any time is away from the reservation. Generally, however, relocation is not permanent and resembles migratory labor more than permanent relocation. This conclusion is based on my personal observations and on unpublished studies of the Indigenous populations in the San Francisco Bay area and Los Angeles.

[viii] The American Indian Movement convened a meeting in June 1974 that founded the International Indian Treaty Council (IITC), receiving consultative status in the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) in February 1977. The IITC participated in the UN Conference on Desertification in Buenos Aires, March 1977, and made presentations to the UN Human Rights Commission in August 1977 and in February and August 1978. It also led the organizing for the Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) Conference on Indigenous Peoples of the Americas, held at UN headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, in September 1977; participated in the World Conference on Racism in Basel, Switzerland, in May 1978; and participated in establishing the UN Working Group on Indigenous Populations, the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, and the 2007 UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. See: Walter R. Echo-Hawk, In The Light of Justice: The Rise of Human Rights in Native America and the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Golden, CO: Fulcrum, 2013; Vine Deloria, Jr., Behind the Trail of Broken Treaties: An Indian Declaration of Independence. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1985. Originally published 1974: Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, Dalee Sambo Dorough, Gudmundur Alfredsson, Lee Swepston and Peter Wille, Eds., Indigenous Peoples’ Rights in International Law: Emergence and Application. Kautokeino, Norway & Copenhagen, Denmark: Gáldu and IWGIA, 2015.

La gran nación sioux y su resistencia al continuado despojo territorial

Publicado el 12 de septiembre de 2015

Por Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz

Traducido por Nancy Viviana Piñeiro

(Versión preliminar susceptible de corrección, que forma parte de la traducción del libro.)

Manifestación contra el oleoducto Dakota Access. Foto: UnicornRiot.Ninja

Desde el mes de abril, los miembros de la nación sioux de Standing Rock han estado manifestándose contra la construcción del oleoducto Dakota Access. El proyecto multimillonario tiene previsto llevar el crudo desde Dakota del Norte hasta Illinois y amenaza con contaminar el río Misuri, además de la posible destrucción de cementerios y otros lugares sagrados. Los manifestantes recibieron el apoyo y la solidaridad de representantes de otras naciones indígenas de Norteamérica, Alaska, Hawái y los Andes, y también de activistas ambientales y del movimiento Black Lives Matter.

La historia de lucha del pueblo sioux por su territorio es profunda. El libro de Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, An Indigenous People’s History of the United States, nos ayuda a comprender el contexto de la actual protesta. En este extracto la autora rastrea el origen de los tratados del siglo XIX y de la apropiación colonial de la tierra, fenómenos que han despojado a los sioux del derecho a su territorio una y otra vez.

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La primera relación internacional entre la nación sioux y el Gobierno de los Estados Unidos se estableció en 1805[i] mediante un tratado de paz y amistad firmado dos años después de que ese país adquiriera el Territorio de Luisiana, que incluía a la nación indígena, entre muchas otras. Se firmaron acuerdos similares entre 1815 y 1825. Ninguno de esos tratados de paz tuvo consecuencias inmediatas en la autonomía política ni el territorio de los sioux. Hacia 1834, la competencia en el comercio de pieles y un mercado dominado por la Rocky Mountain Fur Company obligaron a los oglala sioux a alejarse del Alto Misuri y dirigirse hacia el curso alto del río Platte, cerca del Fuerte Laramie. Para el año 1846, siete mil sioux ya se habían desplazado hacia el sur. Thomas Fitzpatrick, el agente resposable de asuntos indígenas durante ese año, recomendó a los Estados Unidos que compraran tierras para establecer un fuerte, que sería el llamado Fuerte Laramie. Fitzpatrick escribió: “Opino que es muy deseable un puesto en Laramie o sus cercanías; estaría casi en el centro del área de búfalos, hacia donde se acercan con rapidez todas las formidables tribus indias, y cerca del lugar donde tarde o temprano habrá una lucha por la supremacía [en el comercio de pieles]”. [ii] Fitzpatrick creía que sería necesaria una guarnición de al menos trescientos soldados para controlar a los indígenas.

A pesar de que los sioux y los Estados Unidos redefinieron su relación en el Tratado del Fuerte Laramie de 1851, a este le siguieron unos diez años de guerra entre ambas partes, que culminarían con el Tratado de Paz del Fuerte Laramie en 1868. Ambos tratados, si bien no redujeron la soberanía política de los sioux, cedieron porciones extensas de territorio indígena mediante el establecimiento de fronteras reconocidas por las dos partes; además, la nación indígena otorgó concesiones a los Estados Unidos que dieron carácter legal a una dependencia económica que iba en aumento. Durante el medio siglo previo al tratado de 1851, los sioux se habían visto cada vez más envueltos en el comercio de pieles y pasaron a depender de los caballos y las armas de fabricación europea, las municiones, los artículos de cocina de hierro, las herramientas, los textiles y otros productos de comercio que reemplazaron a sus objetos tradicionales. Esta creciente dependencia del búfalo significó, a su vez, una mayor dependencia de las armas y municiones que había que comprar con más pieles: un círculo vicioso que caracterizó al colonialismo moderno. Con una balanza de poder inclinada a su favor, los comerciantes y el ejército estadounidenses presionaron a los sioux para que estos cedieran tierras y derechos de vía a medida que disminuía la población de búfalos.  Las dificultades que padecieron los sioux como consecuencia de ataques constantes a sus comunidades, desplazamientos forzados, y de las enfermedades y hambrunas resultantes, hicieron mella en su capacidad de resistir la dominación. Para 1868, año de la firma del tratado con el gobierno estadounidense, eran fuertes desde el punto de vista militar ¾siguieron siendo una fuerza de combate guerrillero efectiva a lo largo de la década de 1880, sin haber perdido nunca ante el ejército de los Estados Unidos¾, pero su dependencia del búfalo y el comercio permitió el aumento del control federal cuando el búfalo fue exterminado deliberadamente por el ejército entre 1870 y 1876. De allí en adelante, la lucha de los sioux fue por la supervivencia.

Pasaron de la dependencia económica de la caza y el comercio del búfalo a la dependencia del gobierno estadounidense, que les daba raciones y productos, según se garantizaba en el tratado de 1868. El acuerdo estipulaba que “ningún tratado de cesión de cualquier porción o parte de la reservación que aquí se referencia y pueda ser de uso común tendrá validez o fuerza alguna contra los mencionados indios, a menos que sea formalizado y firmado por al menos tres cuartas partes de todos los indios adultos de sexo masculino”. Sin embargo, en 1876, sin ningún tipo de validación y tras el descubrimiento de oro por parte de la Séptima Caballería de John Armstrong Custer, el gobierno estadounidense tomó las Colinas Negras (Paha Sapa), una gran extensión del territorio sioux garantizada por el tratado, rica en recursos, y que conformaba el centro de la gran nación sioux, además de ser un sitio sagrado. Cuando los sioux se rindieron, después de las guerras de 1876 y 1877, perdieron no solo las Colinas Negras, sino también el territorio del río Powder. La siguiente movida de los Estados Unidos fue modificar la frontera oeste de la nación sioux, cuyo territorio, aunque atrofiado respecto del original, constituía un bloque continuo. Para 1877, luego de que el ejército los expulsara de Nebraska, solo quedó un bloque entre el meridiano 103 y el río Misuri: 90 649 km² de tierra que los Estados Unidos habían designado como Territorio Dakota (el siguiente paso hacia la estatalidad, en este caso, los estados de Dakota del Norte y Dakota del Sur). La primera de varias olas migratorias del norte europeo ahora ingresaba en el Territorio Dakota del este, presionando contra la frontera sioux del río Misuri. En el poblado angloamericano de Bismark sobre el Misuri, la reservación bloqueaba el avance hacia el oeste del Ferrocarril del Pacífico Norte. Los colonos que se dirigían a Montana y al Pacífico Noroeste exigían que se abrieran vías a lo largo de la reservación y se las defendiera. Los promotores que querían tierra barata para venderla a precios altos a los inmigrantes planeaban dividir la reservación. Salvo por las unidades de sioux que aún luchaban, el pueblo indígena estaba desarmado, sin caballos, y era incapaz siquiera de alimentarse y vestirse; dependían del gobierno para recibir raciones.

Luego llegó la parcelación de tierras. Incluso antes de que se implementara la Ley Dawes (o Ley General de Parcelación), una comisión del gobierno estadounidense llegó a territorio sioux desde Washington D. C. en 1888, con una propuesta para reducir la nación sioux a seis pequeñas reservaciones: un esquema que liberaría unas 3 600 000 hectáreas a la colonización euroamericana. Fue imposible para la comisión reunir las firmas de tres cuartas partes de la nación sioux, como se exigía en el tratado de 1868, y entonces regresó a Washington con la recomendación de que el gobierno ignorara el tratado y se apropiara de las tierras sin el consentimiento indígena. El único medio para lograr ese fin era la legislación, ya que el Congreso había liberado al gobierno del requisito de negociar un acuerdo. Así fue que el Congreso le encargó al general George Crook que encabezara una delegación para volver a intentarlo, esta vez con una oferta de 3 dólares por hectárea. Tras una serie de manipulaciones, y tratos con líderes de un pueblo que se moría de hambre, la comisión reunió las firmas necesarias. La gran nación sioux fue fragmentada en pequeñas islas, que pronto quedarían rodeadas de inmigrantes europeos por todos los flancos, y la mayor parte de la reservación terminaría siendo un tablero con colonos establecidos en parcelas o tierras arrendadas. [iii] La creación de estas reservaciones aisladas quebró las relaciones históricas entre clanes y comunidades de la nación sioux y abrió áreas en las que se asentaron los europeos. También le permitió a la Oficina de Asuntos Indígenas ejercer un control mayor, apuntalado por su sistema de colegios pupilos. Se prohibió, junto con otras ceremonias religiosas, La “Danza del sol”, que todos los años congregaba a los sioux y fortalecía su unidad nacional. A pesar de la débil posición de este pueblo en el contexto de la dominación colonial de fines del siglo XIX, lograron establecer una modesta actividad ganadera para reemplazar su economía previa basada en la caza del búfalo. En 1903, la Corte Suprema de los Estados Unidos dictaminó, en el caso Lone Wolf vs. Hitchcock, que una cláusula de apropiación del 3 de marzo  de 1871 era constitucional y que el Congreso tenía “pleno” poder para administrar propiedad indígena. Así es que la Oficina de Asuntos Indígenas pudo disponer de tierras y recursos haciendo caso omiso de las disposiciones de los tratados anteriores. A esto le siguió legislación que dispuso de las reservaciones para el establecimiento de colonos mediante arrendamiento e incluso se vendieron parcelas que se eliminaron de los fideicomisos.

Para la época de la era del “Nuevo trato”, también conocida como la era Collier, y la anulación de la parcelación que supuso la Ley de Reorganización, los no indígenas superaban en número a los indígenas en las reservaciones sioux por tres a uno. Sin embargo, la sequía que se extendió de mediados a fines de la década de 1930 expulsó a muchos ganaderos de las tierras sioux, y los indígenas compraron parte de esas parcelas, que habían sido de su propiedad. Sin embargo, resultó que los “gobiernos tribales” impuestos después de la Ley de Reorganización fueron especialmente perjudiciales y divisivos. [iv] Respecto de esa medida, el difunto Mathew King, viejo historiador tradicional de los sioux oglala (Pine Ridge), comentó: “La Oficina de Asuntos Indígenas redactó la constitución y los estatutos de esta organización con la Ley de Reorganización de 1934. Fue la introducción del autogobierno [...]. El pueblo tradicional todavía se aferra a su Tratado, puesto que somos una nación soberana. Tenemos nuestro propio gobierno”. [v] Sin embargo, el “autogobierno”, o neocolonialismo, demostró ser una política de corta vida, dado que a principios de los años 50 los Estados Unidos desarrollaron su política de “terminación”: nuevas leyes ordenaron la erradicación gradual de cada reservación e incluso de los gobiernos tribales. [vi] Al momento de la terminación y relocalización, el ingreso per cápita anual de las reservaciones sioux era de 355 dólares, mientras que en los pueblos cercanos de Dakota del Sur era de 2 500 dólares. A pesar de estas circunstancias, y para ejecutar su política de terminación, la Oficina de Asuntos Indígenas promovió la reducción de servicios e introdujo un programa para relocalizar a los indígenas en centros urbanos industriales; un alto porcentaje de sioux se fueron a San Francisco y Denver en búsqueda de trabajo. [vii]

Mathew King ha descrito a los Estados Unidos como un país que a lo largo de su historia fue alternando entre una política de “paz” y una de “guerra” en sus relaciones con las naciones y comunidades indígenas, y dijo que estos movimientos pendulares coincidieron con la fortaleza o debilidad de la resistencia de los nativos. King sostuvo que entre las alternativas de exterminio y terminación (políticas de guerra) y la preservación (política de paz), había periodos intermedios de abandono benévolo y asimilación. Ante la resistencia indígena organizada contra los programas y políticas de guerra, se otorgan concesiones. Cuando la presión disminuye, se diseñan nuevos esquemas para apartar a los indígenas de sus tierras, recursos y culturas. Estudiosos, políticos, formuladores de política y los medios rara vez describen la política estadounidense hacia los pueblos indígenas como colonialismo. King, sin embargo, creía que su nación había sido colonia de los Estados Unidos desde 1890.

La progresión lógica del colonialismo moderno comienza con la penetración económica y avanza gradualmente hacia una esfera de influencia, luego a un estatus de protectorado o control indirecto, ocupación militar y, por último, anexión. Esto se corresponde con el proceso que experimentó el pueblo sioux en su relación con los Estados Unidos. La penetración económica de los comerciantes de pieles hizo que los sioux ingresaran a la esfera de influencia de los Estados Unidos. La trasformación del Fuerte Laramie de puesto comercial, centro del comercio con los sioux, a puesto militar estadounidense a mediados del siglo XIX demuestra la relación esencial que existe entre el comercio y el control colonial. Un estatus de protectorado cada vez mayor, establecido mediante tratados, culminó en tratado de 1868; a este le siguió la ocupación militar, obtenida por medio de la violencia aleccionadora, como la que se vio en la masacre de Wounded Knee en 1890, y por último, la dependencia. La anexión por parte de los Estados Unidos quedó marcada simbólicamente en 1924 mediante la imposición de ciudadanía a los sioux (y a la mayoría de los pueblos indígenas). Mathew King y otros sioux tradicionales consideraron la toma de Wounded Knee en 1973 como un punto de inflexión, aunque la violenta reacción que le siguió fue severa.

Dos décadas de resistencia indígena colectiva, que culminó con Wounded Knee en 1973, derrotaron la política federal de terminación de los años 50. Aun así, los defensores de la desaparición de naciones indígenas parecen no rendirse nunca. En 1977 se tomó otra medida hacia la “terminación”: decenas de proyectos legislativos intentaron derogar todos los tratados indígenas y terminar con sus gobiernos y territorios protegidos por fideicomisos. La resistencia indígena también derrotó esas iniciativas con otra caravana a lo largo del país. Al igual que otros pueblos colonizados del mundo, los sioux han llevado adelante esfuerzos descolonizadores desde mediados del siglo XX. Wounded Knee en 1973 fue parte de esa lucha, como también lo fue la participación en comités de las Naciones Unidas y en foros internacionales. [viii] Sin embargo, a principios del siglo XXI, los economistas y políticos fundamentalistas del libre mercado identificaron a las reservaciones indígenas de propiedad comunitaria como un bien que debe ser explotado y, con el pretexto de ayudar a poner fin a la pobreza de los indígenas en esos territorios, instan a deshacerse de ellos: una nueva iniciativa de “terminación” y exterminio.

Sobre la autora

Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz es hija de un peón de campo y de una madre con ascendencia indígena y creció en la Oklahoma rural. Ha participado activamente en el movimiento indígena internacional por más de cuatro décadas, y es conocida por su incansable compromiso con la justicia social en su país y en el mundo. Después de terminar su posdoctorado en historia en la Universidad de California en Los Ángeles, dio clases en los nuevos programas de Estudios sobre los Indígenas Norteamericanos en la universidad estatal de California, Hayward, y ayudó a crear el Departamento de Estudios Étnicos y Estudios de la mujer, como se denominaban en ese momento. Su libro de 1977, The Great Sioux Nation (La gran nación sioux) fue el documento fundamental en la primera conferencia internacional sobre pueblos indígenas de las Américas, celebrada en la sede las Naciones Unidas en Ginebra. Dunbar-Ortiz es autora y editora de otros siete libros, entre ellos,  Roots of Resistance: A History of Land Tenure in New Mexico (Raíces de la resistencia: Historia de la tenencia de la tierra en Nuevo México) y uno disponible en español: La cuestión miskita en la revolución nicaragüense. Vive en San Francisco y la pueden seguir en su cuenta de Twitter @rdunbaro.

Notas

[i] Comisión de Derechos Humanos de las Naciones Unidas, Subcomisión de Prevención de Discriminaciones y Protección de las Minorías, 51° periodo de sesiones, Derechos Humanos de las Poblaciones Indígenas: Estudio sobre los tratados, convenios y otros acuerdos constructivos entre los Estados y las poblaciones indígenas: Informe final, presentado por el Sr. Miguel Alfonso Martínez, Relator Especial, 22 de junio de 1999, Documento E/CN.4/Sub.2/1999/20 (Disponible en español). Véase también Informe del Grupo de Trabajo sobre las Poblaciones Indígenas acerca de su 17º período de sesiones, 26 al 30 de julio de 1999, Documento E/CN.4/Sub.2/1999/19, 12 de agosto de 1999 (Disponible en español).

[ii] Robert A. Trennert, Alternative to Extinction: Federal Indian Policy and the Beginnings of the Reservation System, 1846–51, Filadelfia, Temple University Press, 1975, p. 166.

[iii] Testimonio de Pat McLaughlin, entonces presidente del gobierno de Standing Rock Sioux, Fort Yates, ND (8 de mayo de 1976), en las audiencias de la American Indian Policy Review Commission, establecida por el Congreso en la ley del 3 de enero de 1975.

[iv] Véase Kenneth R. Philip, John Collier’s Crusade for Indian Reform, 1920–1954, Tucson, University of Arizona Press, 1977.

[v] Matthew King, citado en Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, The Great Sioux Natiom: Sitting in Judgment on America, Lincoln, University of Nebraska Press, 2013, p. 156. Primera edición: 1977.

[vi] Puede encontrarse un análisis lúcido del neocolonialismo referido a los indígenas norteamericanos y el sistema de reservaciones en Joseph Jorgensen, Sun Dance Religion: Power for the Powerless, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1977, pp. 89–146.

[vii] Existe una migración continua desde las reservaciones hacia las ciudades y pueblos aledaños, y de vuelta a las reservaciones, de manera que la mitad de la población indígena en cualquier periodo de tiempo se encuentra fuera de las reservaciones. Sin embargo, por lo general, la relocalización no es permanente y se asemeja más a la mano de obra migrante que a la relocalización definitiva. Esta conclusión se basa en mis observaciones personales y en estudios no publicados sobre las poblaciones indígenas en el Área de la Bahía de San Francisco y Los Ángeles.

[viii] El Movimiento Indígena Estadounidense convocó a una reunión en junio de 1974 en la que se fundó el Consejo Internacional de Tratados Indios (IITC, por su sigla en inglés), y adquirió estado consultivo ante el Consejo Económico y Social de las Naciones Unidas (ECOSOC) en febrero de 1977. El IITC participó en la Conferencia de las Naciones Unidas sobre Desertificación celebrada en Buenos Aires en marzo de 1977, e hizo presentaciones ante la Comisión de Derechos Humanos de la ONU en agosto de 1977 y en febrero y agosto de 1978. También encabezó los preparativos para la Conferencia Internacional de ONG sobre los Pueblos Indígenas de las Américas, que se celebró en la sede de la ONU en Ginebra, Suiza, en septiembre de 1977; participó en la Conferencia Mundial contra el Racismo en Basilea, Suiza, en mayo de 1978; y en el establecimiento del Grupo de Trabajo de Naciones Unidas sobre Poblaciones Indígenas, el Foro Permanente para las Cuestiones Indígenas de la ONU y la Declaración de las Naciones Unidas sobre los derechos de los pueblos indígenas, de 2007. Véanse: Walter R. Echo-Hawk, In The Light of Justice: The Rise of Human Rights in Native America and the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Golden, CO, Fulcrum, 2013; Vine Deloria, Jr., Behind the Trail of Broken Treaties: An Indian Declaration of Independence, Austin, University of Texas Press, 1985. Primera edición: 1974; Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, Dalee Sambo Dorough, Gudmundur Alfredsson, Lee Swepston y Peter Wille, Eds., Indigenous Peoples’ Rights in International Law: Emergence and Application, Kautokeino, Noruega y Copenhague, Dinamarca, Gáldu y IWGIA, 2015.