Published on Portside April 20, 2002
NATIVE AMERICAN STRUGGLE: ONE CENTURY INTO ANOTHER By Hunter Gray [Hunterbear] Published in Democratic Left Spring 2002 I come out of a racially and culturally mixed background. My father was an essentially full-blooded Indian [Micmac/St. Francis Abenaki/ St. Regis Mohawk] and my mother was an Anglo from an old Western American "frontier" family. Our identity has always been on the Native side. I grew up in Northern Arizona and Northwestern New Mexico where our family was extensively involved in Southwestern social justice campaigns and has always had a very close involvement with the regional Indian nations. I state categorically that, while certainly very cognizant of the broad, multi-victim effects of racism and cultural ethnocentrism and all of the other poisonously anti-people knifing isms -- and, very much aware also of all vitally necessary human rights activism and movement on those critical fronts -- I have always seen the social class dichotomy and its interactive dynamic of struggle as the only fundamentally enduring -- long haul -- river of progress. The one area of exception in this hemisphere, both conventional and unique, are the Native tribal nations where the basically classless social structures and the essentially communalistic cultures -- generally land-based and, in the United States and Canada, usually treaty-fortified -- continue to command the primary national identification/commitment of the Native people. This deeply rooted "distinctive" situation may not always be obvious to non-Indians, but the primary identification with one's tribal nation and the continuation of the respective tribe's traditional structures and its basic culture do stand as a very enduring reality. But every Native nation, whatever the particular nature of its geographical proximity to the mainline and essentially dominant society, is directly and consistently and adversely affected by capitalism and all its works. And increasing numbers of Indian people, while always maintaining their fundamental place and bond within their respective tribe, are being drawn out and onto the rough and rocky trail of the workingclass. The interests of these consistently exploited and repressed Native nations -- with their people -- certainly fall out on the side of all of the other dispossessed. The really meaningful self-determination of Native people, genuine respect for Native cultures, the effective protection of Native land and water and other resources, and the maximum well-being of the Native people, will certainly be very strongly enhanced in a democratic and genuinely socialist context. Almost 80 million Native people have died in the Western Hemisphere as a result of the European incursion. In addition, Euro-American governments, especially that of the United States, have made every effort -- quite unsuccessfully -- to assimilate Indians in the socio-cultural sense. The U.S. census of 2000 indicates that 2.4 million people identified themselves as Native Americans: up 25% since 1990. This is a clear and unequivocal statement of basic Indian identity -- although almost all of these would be of some mixed [ Native and non-Native] ancestry, a very common situation throughout Indian country in this day and age. [In addition, slightly over four million other people indicated some Indian ancestry -- but this category is not accepted by many Native people as indicative of basic Native identity.] There are almost 600 tribal societies in the United States which are rightly perceived by their members, though not by most Anglos, as sovereign nations. About two-thirds of our people are from "Federally-recognized" tribes, covered by treaties and/or other special Federal ties, and hold about 55 million acres of reservation land. Also, 40 million acres have been set aside for Alaskan Natives under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971. If physically resident on their Indian lands, Federal Indians are eligible for Indian trust services [such as they are]: health, education, welfare, socio-economic development, criminal justice. Mostly in the East, the other one-third, through historical and social circumstances, are not Federal Indians, receive no special services from that perspective, and in most cases have no reservation land. In a few instances, they may receive minimal Indian services from the state in which they reside. "Urban Indians" -- more than half of all U.S. Native Americans -- receive virtually no Federal Indian services, even if they are from Federally-recognized tribes. Despite several centuries of physical genocide, forced removal and relocation, and attempted socio-cultural genocide [all of this designed to secure remaining Indian land and resources]; despite racism and cultural ethnocentrism; despite the pressure of the urban/industrial juggernaut, so many of whose values run counter to those of the Indians; despite mixed-blood and bi-culturalism -- Indian tribal nations, Indian cultures, and Indian people are very much around. The commitment to a cohesive family and clan, to one's tribe [essentially one big family], remain strong as do the basic values inherent in tribal cultures: strongly religious; a pervasive identification with the whole Creation; no coincidence or happen-chance in the Universe; an essentially communalistic view of land use; democracy; egalitarianism; classlessness. And, very much under- girding and pervading the ethos of all tribal cultures is the ancient and enduring principle of tribal -- or mutual -- responsibility: i.e., the tribe has an obligation to the individual and the individual has an obligation to the tribe; if these two conflict, the tribal perspective prevails; but there are always clearly defined areas of individual and family autonomy into which the tribe cannot intrude. Euro-American theft of Native land and disruption of the traditional tribal economies, coupled with consistent governmental failure to live up to solemn treaty obligations [part of the "Supreme Law of the Land"], created a perpetual economic depression for Indian people long before the Industrial Revolution. As a people, Native Americans have been consistently characterized by the highest unemployment and the worst economic deprivation, the poorest health conditions and the lowest life expectancy. The great social upheavals of the 1960s, which had numerous Indian ramifications -- Wounded Knee in 1973 and many other examples -- saw some promising legislation and hopeful policy trends. But beginning with Reagan and the cruel forces around and behind him, much of this slowed, dried up. Although there has since been spotty progress on a few fronts, the promising momentum of more than a generation ago has not -- in the context of continued minimal appropriations and budget cuts -- returned. The relatively recent development of casinos -- over three hundred of them -- in Indian country is often seen by outsiders as much more of a positive and beneficent economic phenomenon than they are; the cold reality is that, while the casinos have helped the economic picture of the tribes involved to some extent -- but not all that much -- they have also engendered no small amount of corruption, skim-offs from outsiders, and much venomous intra-tribal factionalism. In addition, since tribes are not covered by Federal labor laws, it's been very difficult for almost all tribal casino employees to unionize -- and pay and conditions are often extremely poor. And, further, however slowly, the states themselves are beginning their own legalization of non-Indian casino gambling. Whether Federally-recognized or not, reservation or urban, the Native American situation is characterized by severe economic marginality and frequently outright desperation. Unemployment on the reservations, always high, is now -- depending on the particular setting and circumstance -- between 50% and 90 %. Urban Indian unemployment stands between 50% and 60 % -- with many additional people working only part-time at odd jobs and day labor. The average life expectancy for an Indian person is, depending on whichever of the current estimates, 6 to 10 years below that of other Americans -- with the Native health situation marked by, among other things, the highest diabetes, tuberculosis, alcoholism, and suicide rates in the U.S. The death rate for Native people via alcoholism is seven times the national average. And alcohol also frequently figures into the extremely high Indian suicide rate which is almost 75% above that of all other races -- and 2-3 times higher than the national average for Native males in the 15-34 age range. To some extent, the extremely deplorable Native situation is part of the overall commission/omission campaign against Americans of "the fewest alternatives." But in the case of the tribes on some western reservations, the special motivation is obviously to force these tribes, whose land includes very substantial "energy resources," into collaboration with the thoroughly exploitative oil and mining corporations. This tactic has old roots. A half century ago, the generally Eastern-owned oil and mining corporations, utilizing their considerable influence with the ever- obliging U.S. Department of Interior [which contains the Bureau of Indian Affairs -- committed in theory and only partially in fact to the protection of the interests of the Federally-recognized Native people], began to systematically maneuver their way onto Indian lands. As the 1950s progressed, the corporations -- whose royalties to the Indians have been modest at best [even despite the more recently-secured tribal right of taxation of non-Indian, on-reservation business enterprises] -- entrenched themselves in Indian country with uranium as a major target. They mushroomed like the clouds produced by their explosive offspring at Desert Rock, Nevada, a prime nuclear site -- whose "peace-keeping" activities were officially proclaimed around the globe with as much vigor as the solemn assurances given the curious but uneasy local residents. The fall-out from Desert Rock, eventually leaving a trail of death in Northern Arizona and the southern portions of Nevada and Utah, has affected Anglo, Indian, Chicano; and has struck down rancher, farmer, soldier, herdsman, hunter, and worker. This particular situation and the great anger emanating from it has never been really publicized. Much less known nationally, always, has been the predominately Native situation on and immediately adjacent to the reservations. Many, many hundreds of Indian uranium workers -- mostly Navajo, as well as some Laguna tribesman in north central New Mexico -- have now died because of both the inherently and insidiously destructive nature of uranium and the corporations' lack of meaningful safety procedures. Given the remoteness of much of the Navajo country especially -- it is bigger than the state of West Virginia with relatively few roads -- it is likely that the death count is considerably higher than any formal records indicate. Most of these deaths have been from lung and stomach cancer -- unknown among the Indians until uranium mining began -- and now called "the sores that will not heal." Some authorities predict that virtually all of the Native [and other workers] involved in uranium mining, milling and refining will eventually die from those or closely related causes. The very air over much reservation land has been poisoned by uranium and other energy industries. The random dumping of uranium wastes has produced dangerously high radioactivity levels in Indian water supplies -- killing people, livestock, and wildlife. The life-span of uranium's "ghost dance spirit" ensures that this multi-faceted ghoulish legacy will last for several thousand years. In related catastrophes, coal mining carves the earth and erodes most lungs; hard-rock metal mining gnaws all lungs and vitals and its smelters and refineries destroy any vegetation. Meanwhile, despite the profound contradictions and spasms within the capitalist economic system, the expansion efforts of the mining and other resource corporations continue. Increasing Native opposition to this deadlyincursion has mounted steadily with some people feeling that resource development should be very carefully done under the communalistic auspices of the tribes themselves and others being against any mining whatsoever. And, in the waning days of the already blood-dimmed 20th Century, a new front opened: The Federal government began pressing many tribes -- with great intensity -- to serve as dumping grounds for deadly nuclear waste. This is being resisted by Native people and their allies with rapidly mounting and sharply increasing vigor and militancy. >From Native American perspectives, these basic issues stand very much to the fore -- issue/goals which warrant the full support of every person of good will and certainly every person of the Left: Federal adherence to treaty and related obligations. Treaties between the United States and the Indian nations are, however occasionally mangled by the Federal government, part of "the Supreme Law of the Land" -- completely in the context of Article 6, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution. Although Congress ended treaty making with the tribal nations in 1871, the hundreds of treaties then in existence continue with full legal validity. Federal protection of Native land, water, and other natural resources - - and substantial Federal funding to build back the badly shrunken reservation land base. Federal recognition of the non-Federal tribes. This was supposed to have been effected by the 1921 Snyder Act which guaranteed Federal Indian services to all Native Americans in the U.S. -- but the Act's coverage and Indian services were restricted immediately to only those Federally-recognized Indian people resident on reservations. Removal of the Bureau of Indian Affairs from the Department of Interior [perennially dominated by the corporations] and its elevation to cabinet status. The B.I.A. is presently under very heavy fire from the tribes and their advocates for massive mismanagement of Native trust funds and the mishandling of other trust responsibilities. Substantial Federal funds for Indian-controlled and Indian-directed programs -- in the areas of health, welfare and education, among others -- on reservations, in non-reservation rural settings, and in urban areas. The 1975 Indian Self-Determination Act involving Federal reservations is a promising first step. Substantial Federal funding for tribally-owned and tribally-controlled development of natural resources and other economic programs. Correction and reinterpretation of the 1988 Indian Gaming Act in such a fashion as to allow tribes to operate their casinos without non-tribal - - e.g., state -- interference. As it stands, the Act and a subsequent 1996 Supreme Court decision [Seminole], force tribes to reach agreements with states, thus undercutting Worcester v. Georgia [1832], the key [Cherokee Nation] case blocking state jurisdiction over Indian tribes. Establishment of full tribal civil and criminal jurisdiction on Indian lands. Most of this is now held by the Federal government. Cessation of Federal and state attacks on Native activists and immediate freedom for persons such as Leonard Peltier. Elimination of racism and cultural ethnocentrism wherever they may exist. These are critical issues for Native people in any setting but are frequently -- and often brutally -- to the fore in police, employment, housing, and education situations involving urban Indians. None of these, and other necessary measures, will come into existence easily. The enemies of the Native American people are many indeed: the corporations, much of the national government regardless of administration, state governments almost totally, and a plethora of Anglo "back-lash" organizations. These latter are essentially racist groups [mostly but not exclusively in the West] which seek to end the Federal obligation to the Indian tribes and, as examples, prevent anything which would be, from an Indian standpoint, relatively successful land-claims settlements -- as welln as ending the protection of treaty-based Native hunting and fishing rights. And, in the final analysis, the basic goals of all of the enemies of the Indian people are -- as always through the bloody, genocidal centuries - - Native land, Native water, Native natural resources. Like all humankind, Native Americans have resisted tyranny and exploitation. Crushed militarily, resistance has continued to the present moment -- and will certainly continue all the way through: Pan-Indian [inter-tribal efforts] which began in the very early 20th Century; mounting and increasingly creative litigation thrusts; militant grassroots protests - - e.g., anti-river dam campaigns in the '40s and '50s, fishing rights campaigns from the '60s onward, Wounded Knee in '73, continuing anti-uranium and anti-nuclear movements, and much more. Although most Native Americans were not granted citizenship until 1924, the right to actually register and vote remained generally very much inhibited -- via terror and fear, literacy tests and related devices, and even some state laws explicitly preventing Native voting in state and local elections -- until the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965. This opened the door to widespread Native voter registration and political action. However, there is still much Indian wariness of voting in the "white man's elections" and, other than a few geographical areas -- most notably parts of Alaska, Arizona, New Mexico, and South Dakota -- the Indian vote in state and Federal elections is often relatively small. And it is generally hard for any Indian candidate to draw much Anglo support. The Democratic party has more Native support than the Republican -- but most Indians are not especially enthusiastic about either. What about socialism and related radicalisms? Both the Industrial Workers of the World in the 1910s and 1920s [its martyred Cherokee executive board member and organizer, Frank H. Little, lynched at Butte in 1917, should always be well remembered]; and its radical relative, the International Union of Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers [Mine-Mill] in the Rocky Mountains following World War II did have very substantial grassroots Indian involvement. Significantly, each of these visionary organizations was characterized by minimally rigid ideology, a vigorously democratic ethos, and an extremely strong and tangible commitment to full rights for all minorities. But, frankly, there really hasn't been much effort on the part of American radical organizations to do more than pay lip service to Indian rights. Too often when they've tried to do more, they've failed to understand [or even try to understand] the uniqueness of the Native aboriginal/legal situation as well as the primary commitment to tribe and tribal culture and overall Indian identity. Some non-Indian radicals and reformers [not all by any means] impress Native people as being too similar to the wrong kind of Christian missionaries: ethnocentric and dogmatic, self-righteous, and sweetly conniving. Indians need dependable and supportive non-Indian allies. In fairness, it has to be conceded that Indian people are sometimes too reluctant to listen to worthwhile ideas if they come from non-Indians and are frequently too wary of entering into association with them. Many fear that alien ideas and associations could somehow threaten one's aboriginal identity. Growing numbers of Native people, however, are becoming aware that that essential of tribalism -- "an injury to one is an injury to all" -- has to be extended to the dispossessed of all humanity and that loss of socio-cultural identity will not occur in the framework of healthy political association and coalition. The multi-ethnic anti-nuclear direct action groups, involving many Indians especially in the West, represent a significant step -- as does the consistently on-going inter-tribal and multi-racial international effort to secure freedom and life for Leonard Peltier. The Nader/LaDuke 2000 campaign did stimulate significant Indian interest and support since it conveyed clear empathy with the Native situation and Winona LaDuke is, of course, a Minnesota Ojibway. Non-Indians certainly need Indian allies. Whether radicals or reformers, the non-Indians ought to be aware by now that it takes much more than mechanical arrangements and presumably altruistic politicians to build and maintain bona fide humanistic socio-economic democracy -- especially in a predominately urban/industrial context. They can learn much from the First People about faithful commitment to economic communalism, to equalitarian democracy and classless societies, to a practical recognition of the spiritual foundations and interdependence of every component of the Creation -- and to a very fundamental ethos which, despite all of the surrounding temptations and vicissitudes, continues to produce far more Native people whose primary commitment is that of serving their communities rather than simply serving themselves. All of this should be of considerable help in steering through the political, social and technological storms now sweeping across our country and the world from the Four Directions. ______________________________________________________________ Hunter Gray [Hunterbear], who presently lives and works in Idaho, has been active in Native rights, radical unionism, and civil rights since the mid-1950s: full-time organizing and part-time teaching and full-time organizing and full-time teaching. He is the author of Jackson, Mississippi: An American Chronicle of Struggle and Schism [under the name John R. Salter, Jr.] and numerous articles on social justice. E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Website: www.hunterbear.org __________________________________________________________________ Hunter Gray [ Hunterbear ] www.hunterbear.org ( social justice ) Protected by NaŽshdoŽiŽbaŽiŽ _______________________________________________ Leninist-International mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international
